Chapter. On this occasion he received the following letter from the Lord Deputy, addressed to Dr. James Usher, Bishop Elect of Meath.

My Lord, I thank God for your preferment to the Bishoprick of Meath: His Majesty therein bath done a gracious favour to his poor Church here : There is none but are exceeding glad that you are called thereunto; even some Papists themselves have largely testified their gladness of it. Your grant is, and other necessary things shall be sealed this day, or to-morrow: I pray God bless you, and whatever you undertake, so I rest

Your Lordship's most affectionate friend,

OL. GRANDISONE.

While he was yet delayed in England, and before he was yet consecrated, a Parliament was convened at Westminster, on the first day of February, 1620. The following passage, extracted by Dr. Parr from his diary, relates some circumstances which occurred at this time. "I was appointed by the House of Parliament, to Preach at St. Margaret's, Westminster, Feb. 7. The Prebends claimed the privilege of the Church, and their exemption from Episcopal Jurisdiction for many hundred years, and offered their own service: whereupon the House being displeased, appointed the place to be at the temple. I was chosen a second time; and Secretary Calvert, by the appointment of the House, spoke to the King that the appointment of the House might stand: The King said, it was very well done. February 13, being Shrove Tuesday, I dined at Court; and betwixt four and five I kissed the King's hand, and had conference with him touching my Sermon. He said, I had charge of an unruly flock, to look unto the next Sunday. He asked me how I thought it could stand with true divinity, that so many hundred should be tied, upon so short warning, to receive the Communion upon a day, all could not be in charity, after so late contentions in the House: many must needs come without preparation, and eat their own condemnation: That himself required all his Household to receive the communion, but not all the same day, unless at Easter, when the whole Lent was a time of preparation. He bade me tell them, I hoped they were all prepared, but wished they might be better. To exhort them to unity, and concord: To love God first, and then their King and Country: To look to the urgent necessities of the times, and the miserable state of Christendom, with Bis dat, qui cito dat, (He doubly gives, who gives with speed.) Feb. 18, the first Sunday in Lent, I preached at St. Margaret's, Westminster, to them; and February 27, the House sent Sir James Perrot, and Mr. Drake to give me thanks, and to desire me to print the Sermon, which was done accordingly; the Text being upon the first of the Cor. x. 17. "For wa being many, are one Bread, and one body; for we are all partakers of that

ne Bread." The communion of Saints here spoken of, he considered in two points of view, the fellowship they have with the Body laid down in the beginning, and the fellowship which they have with the Head laid down in the end of the verse. In explanation he quotes the following passage of 1 John i. 3, "That which we have seen and heard, declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and his Son Jesus Christ." Let them therefore, he adds, that walk in darkness, brag as much as they list of their good fellowship: this blessed Apostle assures us, that such only as do walk in the light, have fellowship one with another; even as they have fellowship with God, and his Son Jesus Christ, whose blood shall cleanse them from all sin, and to what better company can a man come, than "to the general assembly and Church of the first born, &c. Heb. xii. 25, 14." No fellowship, doubtless, is comparable to this Communion of Saints. After these observations he enlarges on believers partaking of one Bread, as a proof of their being one Body in Christ, and every one members one of another, and declares the use which we are to make of this wonderful conjunction, to be two fold: 1, "That there should be no scism in the body. 2, That the members should have the same care one for another." Having considered the union of the Members of the Body with each other, he next considers their union “with the Head, even Christ, who is the main foundation of this heavenly union. Out of him," says he," there is nothing but confusion; without him we are nothing but disordered heaps of rubbish, by him it is that we being many are one Bread and one Body, being all partakers of that bread spoken of in the preceding verse; the Bread which we break is it not the Communion of the Body of Christ?" He next examines the meaning of the word Bread, as comprehending not only the Bread of the Lord, but also the Lord himself, the living Bread which came down from Heaven; and then regards the Sacrament in the first place, as symbolical and relative. Under which head he considers it as having a twofold relation to the thing signified, the one of a sign, the other of a seal. When speaking of it as a seal he makes the following admirable observations: "He that hath in his chamber the picture of the French King, hath but a bare sign, which may possibly make him think of that King when he looketh on it; but showeth not that he hath any manner of interest in him. It is otherwise with him, that hath the King's great seal for the confirmation of the title, that he hath unto all the lands and livelihood, which he doth enjoy. And as here the wax that is affixed to those letters patent, however for substance it be the very same with that which is to be found every where, yet being applied to this use, is of more worth to the Patentee, than all the wax in the country beside: so standeth it with the outward element in the matter of the Sacrament. He proceeds next to consider the inward thing signified: first, what it is we receive; not only the benefits which flow from Christ, but Christ himself; we ar partakers of Christ, and members of his body; secondly hew, and in what manner we receive it, it is spiritually,

# the quickening spirit descending downward from the Head, to be in us a fountain of supernatural life; and a lively faith wrought by the same spirit, ascending from us upward, to lay fast hold upon him, who having by himself purged onr sins, sitteth on the right hand of the Majesty on high." Having insisted on the union of the Members in the Body and to the Head, he next very copiously enlarges on the members being disunited from those who were not of the same body, the necessity of their being dissevered, especially from Idolators, which he proves the Papists to be, and enters minutely into the idolatry of the Romish Church; after which he concludes.

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The Lord Bishop Elect returning the succeeding year into Ireland, was then consecrated there, by the Lord Primate Hampton; and entered on the execution of the episcopal office, with the justest conception of its importance, a conscientious resolve to fulfil its duties, and a determination never to relinquish that constancy of preaching, with which the conrse of his ministry had previously been marked. He knew no reason why a plant, which grew, flourished, and exhaled its odours in the gardens of humble life, should wither, withhold its fragrancy, and die, when transplanted to the parteres of the great. He saw no cause why a person, who endeavoured to be faithful in a situation of minor trust, should consider himself absolved from all obligation, when advanced to one of more responsibility. Accordingly being conscious that his duty as a Bishop did not merely consist in the appointment of Pastors over the several congregations within his jurisdiction, or the decision of ecclesiastical causes, he still bound himself, to the faithful discharge of his ministerial functions, by the motto to his Episcopal seal, “ Væ mihi, si non evangelizero,”woc be unto me if I preach pot the Gospel. Being thus advanced,” says Dr. Parr, “his province and employment might be altered, but not his mind, nor humble tem. per of spirit: neither did he cease to turn as many as he could from darkness to light; from sin, and Satan to Christ; by his preaching, writing, and exemplary life." Would to God that such characters more abounded, and that more were to be found, who with Usher adopted for their model that character, which Angustine gave of the admirable Ambrose," that he heard him every Lord's Day rightly dividing the word of truth unto the people," Et eum quidem in populo verbum veritatis recte tractantem omni die Dominica audiebum! Man may preach Sunday after Sunday, but if the word of truth be not faithfully taught, and rightly divided, such preaching will not only be in vain, but will redound to the eternal confusion of such preachers. It may truly be observed by Ministers, with him, in the words he used at Wanstead when preaching before the King, "let us preach never so many Sermons unto the people, our labour is lost, as long as the foundation is unlaid, and the first principles untaught, upon which all other doctrines must be builded."

In October, 1622, our Prelate preached a sermon before Lord Falkland, on is arrival in Ireland, as Lord Deputy, which excited considerable offence

among the Romanists, as they represented it to be an exhortation to the new Governor, to draw the sword against the enemies of the established Church, It must be granted he was "too good and peaceable a man" to desire" sanguinary measures," but he was also too wise not to know, that a free and unguarded tolera tion of Popery would be alike dangerous to religion, and the state. While he ab horred persecution, he knew restraint to be imperative. He was persuaded of what Dean Milner has since observed, that “* the Government has a right to restrain men, and oblige them to keep their idolatry to themselves, the same right as to oblige vessels to perform quarantine, when there is reason to suspect the plague." Had this mode been ever since continued, the Idols, and pernicious superstitions of Papal invention would have long since ex. pired in Ireland, as they did in England, and the feuds of this poor distracted Country, would with them, have long since been buried in their common grave. The account of this matter is thus related by himself in a letter to Lord Grandison:

My very good Lord,

I had purposed with myself long ère now to have seen your Honor in England; which was one reason, among others, why I did forbear to trouble you hitherto with any letters. But seeing I think it will now fall out, that I shall remain here this winter, I thought it my duty, both to tender my thankfulness unto your Lordship for all the honourable favours which I have received at your hands, and withal to acquaint you with a certain particular, which partly doth concern myself, and in some sort also the state of the Church in this poor nation. The day that my Lord of Falkland received the sword, I preached at Christ Church: and fitting myself to the present occasion, took for my Text those words in the 13th of Romans, "He beareth not the sword in vain." It here showed, 1. what was meant by this sword. 2. The subject wherein that power rested. 3. The matters wherein it was exercised, 4. Thereupon what it was to bear the sword in vain. Whereupon falling upon the duty of the Magistrate in seeing those laws executed that were made for the furtherance of God's service, I first declared,} that no more was to be expected herein for the subordinate Magistrate than he had received in commission from the stipreme; in whose power it lay to limit the other at his pleasure. Secondly, I wished, that if his Majesty (who is, under God, our Supreme Governor) were pleased to extend his clemency toward his subjects that were recusants, some order notwithstanding might be taken with them, that they should not

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Milner's History of the Church of Christ, 2 Edition, Vol. 2. p, 21A

give us public affronts, and take possession of our Churches before our faces. And that it might appear, that it was not without cause that I made this motion, I instanced in two particulars that had lately fallen out in mine own Diocese: The one certified unto me by Mr. John Ankers, Preacher of Athlone, (a man well known unto your Lordship) wiro wrote unto me, that going to read prayers at Kilkenny, in Westmeath, he found an old Priest, (and about forty with him,) in the Church; who was so bold as to require him (the said Ankers) to depart, until he had done his business. The other concerning the Friars, was not content to possess the house of Multiferna alone (whence your Lordship had dislodged their) but went about to make collections for the re-edifying of another Abbey Molengarre, for the entertaining of another swarm of Locusts. These things I touched only in general, not mentioning any circumstances of persons or places. Thirdly, I did entreat, that whatsoever connivance were used unto others, the laws might be strictly executed against such as revolted from us, that we might at leastwise keep our own, and not suffer them without all fear to fall away from us. Lastly I made a public protestation, that it was far from my mind, to excite the Magistrates unto any violent courses against them, as one that that did naturally abhor all cruel dealings, and wished that effusion of blood might be held rather the badge of the Whore of Babylon, than of the Church of God. These points, however they were delivered by me with such limitations, as in moderate men's judgments might seem rather to intimate an allowance of a Toleration in respect of the general, than to exasperate the state unto any extraordinary severity: yet did the Popish Priests persuade their followers, that I had said, the sword had rusted too long in the sheath, whereas in my whole Sermon, I never made mention either of rust or sheath; yea some also did not stick to give out, that I did thereby closely tax yourself for being too remiss in prosecuting of the Papists in the time of your Government. I have not such diffidence in your Lordrhip's good opinion of me, neither will I wrong myself so much, as to spend time in refelling so lewd a calumniation. Only I thought good to mention these things unto your Lordship, that if any occasion should be offered hereafter to speak of them, you might be informed in the truth of matters: Wherein, if I have been too troublesome unto yon, I humbly crave pardon, and rest,

Your honor's in all duty,

Ever ready to be commanded,

JAC. MIDENSIS.

Dublin, Oct. 16,

1622.

About this time some Magistrates who were violent Romanists, obstinately refused to take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance. It was resolved to pass the sentence of premunirc against them, but before this dernier resort