sith you required a full Answer and the delay it self had need to bring you some interest for the forbearance And because you mention the vehemency of discreet Lawyers although methinks we are rather the Clients themselves that contend since our Faith is our own and our best Freehold let me entreat of you this ingenuity which I protest in the sight of God I bring my self Let us not make head against evident Reason for our own credit or fashion and factions sake as Lawyers sometimes are wont Neither let us think we lose the Victory when Truth overcomes We shall have part of it rather and the better part since errour the common enemy to us both is to us more dangerous For Truth is secure and impregnable we if our Errour be not conquered must remain Servants to corruption It is the first Praise saith S. Augustine to hold the true Opinion the next to forsake the false And surely that is no hard mastery to do when both are set before us if we will not be either retchless or obstinate From both which our Lord of his mercy evermore help us and bring us to his everlasting Kingdom Amen Your very loving Brother W. Bedell Horningshearth Octob. 22. 1620. THE COPIES OF Certain Letters c. Salutem in Christo Iesu. CHAP. I. Of the Preamble The Titles Catholick Papist Traytor Idolater SIR I Do first return you hearty thanks for the truth and constancy of your love and those best effects of it your wishing me as well as to your self and rejoycing in my safe return out of Italy For indeed further I was not though reported to have been both at Constantinople and Ierusalem by reason of the nearness of my name to one Mr. William Bidulph the Minister of our Merchants at Aleppo who visited both those places I thank you also that your ancient love towards me hath to use that Word of the Apostle now flourished again in that after so many Years you have found opportunity to accomplish your promise of writing to me though not as ye undertook of the state of Religion there yet which I confess I no less desired the Motives of the forsaking that you had professed here Whereof since it hath pleased you as ye write now to give me an account and by me to Mr. Dr. Hall with some expectation also as it appears of reply from one of us I will use the liberty which you give me and as directly as I can for the matter and in Christian terms for the manner shew you mine opinion of them wherein I shall endeavour to observe that Precept of the Apostle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whether it be to be interpreted loving sincerely or seeking truth lovingly Neither soothing untruth for the dearness of your person nor breaking charity for diversity of Opinion With this entrance my loving Friend and if you refuse not that old Catholick name my dear Brother I come to your Letter Wherein though I might well let pass that part which concerns your quarrel with Mr. Dr. Hall with aetatem habet yet thus much out of the common presumption of charity which thinks not evil give me leave to say for him I am verily perswaded he never meant to charge you with Apostasie in so horrible a sense as you count viz. A total falling from Christian Religion like that of Julian an obstinate pertinacy in denying the Principles of the Faith necessary to salvation or a renouncing your Baptism The term Apostasie as you know doth not always sound so hainously A Monk forsaking his Order or a Clerk his Habit is in the Decretals stiled an Apostata Granatensis saith not untruly That every deadly sin is a kind of Apostasie The Apostle S. Paul speaking of Antichrists time saith There must come an Apostasie before Christs second coming and how this shall be he shews elsewhere Men shall give heed to spirits of Error and Doctrines of Devils and such as speak falshood in hypocrisie Whereby it seems that Antichrist himself shall not professedly renounce Christ and his Baptism His Kingdom is a mystery of iniquity a revolt therefore not from the outward profession but inward sincerity and power of the Gospel This kind of Apostasie might be that which Mr. Hall was sorry to find in you whom he thought fallen from the Truth though not in the Principles of Christian Doctrine yet in sundry Conclusions which the reformed Churches truly out of them maintain He remembred our common education in the same Colledge our common Oath against Popery our common Calling to the same sacred Function of the Ministery he could not imagine upon what reasons you should reverse these beginnings And certainly how weighty and sufficient soever they be we are not taught by our Catholick Religion to revenge our selves and render reproach for reproach with personal terms much less to debase and avile the excellent Gifts of God as is Poesie the honour of David and Solomon by the Testimony of the Holy Ghost himself These courses are forbidden us when we are railed upon and calumniated how much more when as S. Peter speaks We are beaten for our faults as it falls out in your case if these Motives of yours be weak and insufficient which we shall anon consider You say you are become Catholick Were you not then so before The Creed whereinto you were baptized is it not the Catholick Faith The conclusion certes of Athanasius's Creed which is but a declaration thereof saith Haec est Fides Catholica Or is not he a Catholick that holds the Catholick Faith That which was once answered touching the present Church of England to one in a Stationers Shop in Venice that would needs know what was the difference betwixt us and the Catholicks It was told him none for we accounted our selves good Catholicks When he unwilling to be put off in his answer for lack of due form in his Question pressed to know what was the difference betwixt us and them there He was answered This That we believed the Catholick Faith contained in the Creed but did not believe the Thirteenth Article which the Pope had put to it When he knew not of any such Article the Extravagance of Pope Boniface was brought where he defines it to be altogether of necessity to salvaâ—â—on to every humane creature to be under the Bishop of Rome This thirteenth Article of the thirteenth Apostle good Mr. Waddesworth it seems you have learned and so are become as some now speak and write Catholick Roman That is in true interpretation Vniversal-particular which because they cannot be equalled the one restraining and cutting off from the other take heed that by straitning your Faith to Rome you have not altered it and by becoming Roman left off to be Catholick Thus if you say our Ancestors were all till of late Years Excuse me Sir whether you call our Ancestors the first Christian Inhabitants of this Isle or the ancient Christians of the Primitive Church neither those
will persist in them And yet further if there be any doubt he must manifest unto me which is the Catholick Church Thirdly to make it full Apostasie he should have convinced me to have swarved and backslidden as you know the Greek Word signifies like Iulian renouncing his Baptism and forsaken totally all Christian Religion a horrible imputation though false nor so easily proved as declaimed But I thank God daily that I am become Catholick as all our Ancestors were till of late years and as the most of Christendome still be at this present day with whom I had rather be miscalled a Papist a Traytor an Apostata or Idolater or what he will than to remain a Protestant with him still For in Protestant Religion I could never find Uniformity of a settled Faith and so no quietness of Conscience especially for three or four years before my coming away although by reading studying praying and conferring I did most carefully and diligently labour to find it among them But your contrariety of Sects and Opinions of Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists â—rotestants Puritans Cartwrightists and Brownists some of them damning each other many of them avouching their Positions to be matters of Faith for if they made them but School Questions of Opinion only they should not so much have disquieted me and all these being so contrary yet every one pretending Scriptures and arrogating the Holy Ghost in his favour And above all which did most of all trouble me about the deciding of these and all other Controversies which might arise I could not find among all these Sects any certain humane external Iudge so infallibly to interpret Scriptures and by them and by the assistance of the Holy Ghost so undoubtedly to define questions of Faith that I could assure my self and my Soul This Iudge is infallible and to him thou oughtest in Conscience to obey and yield thy understanding in all his determinations of Faith for he cannot erre in those Points And note that I speak now of an external humane infallible Iudge For I know the Holy Ghost is the Divine internal and principal Iudge and the Scriptures be the Law or Rule by which that humane external Judge must proceed But the Holy Scriptures being often the Matter of Controversie and sometime questioned which be Scriptures and which be not they alone of themselves cannot be Judges And for the Holy Ghost likewise every one pretending him to be his Patron how should I certainly know by whom he speaketh or not For to Men we must go to learn and not to Angels nor to God himself immediately The Head of your Church was the Queen an excellent notable Prince but a Woman not to speak much less to be Iudge in the Church and since a learned King like King Henry the Eighth who was the first temporal Prince that ever made himself Ex Regio jure Head of the Church in Spiritual matters a new strange Doctrine and therefore justly condemned by Calvin for monstrous But suppose he were such a Head yet you all confess that he may erre in matters of Faith And so you acknowledge may your Archbishops and Bishops and your whole Clergy in their Convocation-House even making Articles and Decrees yea though a Council of all your Lutherans Calvinists Protestants c. of Germany France England c. were all joyned together and should agree all which they never will do to compound and determine the differences among themselves yet by the ordinary Doctrine of most Protestants they might in such a Council err and it were possible in their Decrees to be deceived But if they may err how should I know and be sure when and wherein they did or did not err for though on the one side Aposse ad esse non valet semper consequentia yet aliquanâ—o valet and on the other side frustra dicitur potentia quae nunquam ducitur in actum So that if neither in general nor in particular in publick nor private in Head nor Members joyntly nor severally you have no visible external humane infallible Iudge who cannot err and to whom I might have recourse for decision of doubts in matters of Faith I pray let Mr. Hall tell me Where should I have fixed my foot for God is my Witness my Soul was like Noah's Dove a long time hovering and desirous to discover Land but seeing nothing but moveable and troublesome deceivable Water I could find no quiet center for my Conscience nor any firm Foundation for my Faith in Protestant Religion Wherefore hearing a sound of Harmony and Consent That the Catholick Church could not err and that only in the Catholick Church as in Noah's Ark was infallibility and possibility of salvation I was so occasioned and I think had important reason like Noah's Dove to seek out and to enter into this Ark of Noah Hereupon I was occasioned to doubt Whether the Church of England were the true Church or not For by consent of all the true Church cannot err but the Church of England Head and Members King Clergy and People as before is said yea a whole Council of Protestants by their own grant may err ergo no true Church If no true Church no salvation in it therefore come out of it but that I was loth to do Rather I laboured mightily to defend it both against the Puritans and against the Catholicks But the best Arguments I could use against the Puritans from the Authority of the Church and of the ancient Doctors interpreting Scriptures against them when they could not answer them they would reject them for Popish and flye to their own arrogant spirit by which forsooth they must control others This I found on the one side most absurd and to breed an Anarchy of confusion and yet when I came to answer the Catholick Arguments on the other side against Protestants urging the like Authority and Vniformity of the Church I perceived the most Protestants did frame evasions in effect like those of the Puritans inclining to their private Spirit and other uncertainties Next therefore I applyed my self to follow their Opinion who would make the Church of England and the Church of Rome still to be all one in essental Points and the differences to be accidential confessing the Church of Rome to be a true Church though sick or corrupted and the Protestants to be derived from it and reformed and to this end I laboured much to reconcile most of our particular controversies But in truth I found such contrarieties not only between Catholicks and Protestants but even among Protestants themselves that I could never settle my self fully in this Opinion of some reconciliation which I know many great Scholars in England did favour For considering so many opposite great Points for which they did excommunicate and put to death each other and making the Pope to be Antichrist proper or improper it could never sink into my Brain how these two could be descendent or Members sound nor unsound
was in Scotland in the Year one thousand six hundred thirty and three to the Bishoprick of Edenburgh that was then founded by him so that that glorious King said on good grounds that he had found out a Bishop that deserved that a See should be made for him he was a grave and eminent Divine my Father that knew him long and being of Council for him in his Law-matters had occasion to know him well has often told me That he never saw him but he thought his Heart was in Heaven and he was never alone with him but he felt within himself a Commentary on these Words of the Apostles Did not our Hearts burn within us while he yet talked with us and opened to us the Scriptures He preached with a zeal and vehemence that made him often forget all the measures of time two or three Hours was no extraordinary thing for him those Sermons wasted his Strength so fast and his ascetical course of life was such that he supplyed it so scantly that he dyed within a Year after his Promotion so he only appeared there long enough to be known but not long enough to do what might have been otherwise expected from so great a Prelate That little remnant of his that is in Print shews how Learned he was I do not deny but his earnest desire of a general Peace and Union among all Christians has made him too favourable to many of the Corruptions in the Church of Rome but tho' a Charity that is not well ballanced may carry one to very indiscreet things yet the Principle from whence they flowed in him was so truly good that the errors to which it carried him ought to be either excused or at least to be very gently censured Another of our late Bishops was the noblest born of all the Order being Brother to the Lord Boid that is one of the best Families of Scotland but was provided to the poorest Bishoprick which was Argile yet he did great things in it He found his Diocess overrun with ignorance and barbarity so that in many places the name of Christ was not known but he went about that Apostolical Work of planting the Gospel with a particular industry and almost with equal success He got Churches and Schools to be raised and endowed every where and lived to see a great blessing on his endeavours so that he is not so much as named in that Country to this day but with a particular veneration even by those who are otherwise no way equitable to that Order The only answer that our angry people in Scotland used to make when they were pressed with such Instances was that there were too few of them But some of the severest of them have owned to me that if there were many such Bishops they would all be Episcopal I shall not add much of the Bishops that have been in that Church since the last re-establishing of the Order but that I have observed among the few of them to whom I had the honour to be known particularly as great and as exemplary things as ever I met with in all Ecclesiastical History Not only the practice of the strictest of all the Antient Canons but a pitch of Vertue and Piety beyond what can fall under common imitation or be made the measure of even the most Angelical rank of Men and saw things in them that would look liker fair Ideas than what Men cloathed with Flesh and Blood could grow up to But of this I will say no more since those that are concerned are yet alive and their Character is too singular not to make them to be as easily known if I enlarged upon it as if I named them But of one that is dead I may be allowed to say somewhat with whom the See of Aberdeen was as happy in this Age as it was in his worthy Predecessor Forbes in the last both in the number of the Years for he sat seventeen Years in that Chair and in the rare qualities that dignified them both almost equally He also saw his Son fill the Divinity Chair as the other had done but here was the fatal difference that he only lived long enough to raise the greatest expectation that I ever knew upon any of that Nation of his standing for when all hoped to se in him a second Dr. Forbes or to bring it nearer home another Bishop Scougall for that was his Fathers name he dyed very young The endearing gentleness of the Father to all that differed from him his great strictness in giving Orders his most unaffected humility and contempt of the World were things so singular in him that they deserved to be much more admired than his other Talents which were also extraordinary a wonderful strength of Judgment a dexterity in the conduct of Affairs which he imployed chiefly in the making up of Differences and a Discretion in his whole deportment For he had a way of Familiarity by which he gave every body all sort of freedom with him and in which at the same time he inspired them with a veneration for him and by that he gained so much on their affections that he was considered as the common Father of his whole Diocess and the Dissenters themselves seemed to esteem him no less than the Conformists did He took great pleasure in discoursing often with young Divines and set himself to frame in them right and generous Notions of the Christian Religion and of the Pastoral Care so that a Set of Men grew up under his Labors that carry still on them clear Characters of his spirit and temper One thing more I will add which may afford a more general Instruction Several years ago he observ'd a great heat in some young Minds that as he believed had very good intentions but were too forward and complained much of abuses calling loudly and not very decently for a Reformation of them upon which he told them the noise made about reforming abuses was the likeliest way to keep them up for that would raise Heats and Disputes and would be ascribed to envy and faction in them and ill-minded Men that loved the abuses for the advantages they made by them would blast and misrepresent those that went about to correct them by which they would fall under the jealousie of being ill affected to the Church and they being once loaded with this prejudice would be disabled from doing the good of which they might otherwise be the Instruments Therefore he thought a Reformation of Abuses ought to be carried on by every one in his station with no other noise than what the things themselves must necessarily produce and then the silent way of conviction that is raised by great Patterns would speak louder and would recommend such Practices more strongly as well as more modestly Discourses work but upon speculative people and it has been so long the method of factious and ill designing Men to accuse publick Errors that he wished those to
Estate which has now descended to his Son his elder Brother dying without Issue After he had past through the common education at Schools he was sent to Emmanuel Colledge in Cambridge and put under Dr. Chadderton's care the famous and long-liv'd Head of that House and here all those extraordinary things that rendred him afterwards so conspicuous began to shew themselves in such a manner that he came to have a very eminent Character both for Learning and Piety so that Appeals were oft made to him as Differences or Controversies arose in the University He was put in Holy Orders by the Bishop Suffragan of Colchester THâ— I met with this passage I did not think these Suffragans had been continued so long in England How they came to be put down I do not knâ—w it is probable they did ordain all that desired Orders so promiscuously that the Bishops found it necessary to let them fall For complaints were made of this Sâ—ffragan upon which he was threatned with the taking his Commission from him for though they could do nothing but by a Delegation from the Bishop yet the Orders they gave were still valid even when they transgressed in conferring them Upon that the Suffragan said a thing that was as insolent in him as it was honourable for Mr. Bedell That he had ordained a better Man than any the Bishop had ever ordained naming Bedell He was chosen Fellow of the Colledge in 1593. and took his Degree of Batchelour of Divinity in the year 1599. From the University he was removed to the Town of S. Edmondsbury in Suffolk where he served long in the Gospel and with great success he and his Colleague being of such different characters that whereas it was said of him that he made the difficultest places of Scripture appear plain it was said That his Colleague made the plainest places appear difficult the opening of dark passages and the comparing of many Texts of Scripture together with a serious and practical application of them being the chief subject of His Sermons Which method several other great Men at that time followed such as Bishop Vsher Dr. Iackson and Mr. Mede He had an occasion given him not long after his settlement in this charge to shew his courage and how little he either courted preferment or was afraid of falling under the displeasure of great Men For when the Bishop of Norwich proposed some things to a meeting of his Clergy with which they were generally dissatisfied though they had not resolution enough to oppose them He took that hard Province upon himself and did it with so much strength of reason as well as discretion that many of those things were let fall upon which when his Brethren came and magnified him for it he checkt them and said He desired not the praises of Men. His reputation was so great and so well established both in the University and in Suffolk that when King Iames sent Sir Henry Wotton to be his Ambassadour at Venice at the time of the Interdict he was recommended as the fittest Man to go Chaplain in so critical a conjuncture This Imployment proved much happier and more honourable for him than that of his fellow Student and Chamber-fellow Mr. Wadsworth who was at that time beneficed in the same Diocese with him and was about that time sent into Spain and was afterwards appointed to teach the Infanta the English Tongue when the match between the late King and her was believed concluded for Wadsworth was prevailed on to change his Religion and abandon his Countrey as if in them those Words of our Saviour had been to be verified There shall be two in one Bed the one shall be taken and the other shall be left For as the one of these was wrought on to forsake his Religion the other was very near the being an Instrument of a great and happy change in thâ— Republick of Venice I need not say much of a thing so well known as were the quarrels of Pope Paul the V. and that Republick especially since the History of them is written so particularly by him that knew the matter best P. Paulo Some Laws made by the Senate not unlike our Statutes of Mortmain restraining the excessive Donations extorted from superstitious Men and the imprisoning two lewd Fryers in order to the executing Justice on them were the grounds of the quarrel and upon those pretences the Ecclesiastical Immunity from the Secular Tribunals was asserted to such a degree that after that high spirited Pope had tryed what the spiritual Sword could do but without success his Interdict not being observed by any but the Iesuites the Capucins and Theatines who were upon that banished the State for the age of the Anselms and the Beckets could not be now recalled he resolved to try the Temporal Sword next according to the advice Cardinal Baronius gave him who told him in the Consistory That there were two things said to S. Peter the first was Feed my Sheep the other was Arise and kill and therefore since he had aâ—â—eady executed the first part of S. Peter's duty in feeding the Flock by Exhortations Admonitions and Censures without the desired effect he had nothing left but to arise and kill and that not being an Age in which Croisades could pass upon the World and the Pope not finding any other Prince that would execute his Bulls he resolved to make War upon them himself hoping to find assistance from the Crown of Spain who he believed would be willing to enlarge their Dominions on that side but when all help failed him and he saw that his Censures had not created any distractions in the Republick and found their Treasure and Fâ—rce like to prove a match too hard to the Apostolical Chamber and to such Forces as he could levy and pay he was at last willing to accept of a mediation in which the Senate though they were content to deliver up the two profligate Fryers yet asserted their Right and maintained their Laws notwithstanding all his threatnings nor would they so much as ask pardon or crave absolution But without going further into matters so generally known I shall only mention those things in which Mr. Bedell had some share P. Paulo was then the Divine of the State a man equally eminent for vast learning and a most consummated prudence and was at once one of the greatest Divines and of the wisest Men of his Age. But to commend the celebrated Historian of the Council of Trent is a thing so needless that I may well stop yet it must needs raise the Character of Bedell much that an Italian who besides the caution that is natural to the Countrey and the prudence that obliged one in his circumstances to a more than ordinary distrust of all the World was tyed up by the strictness of that Government to a very great reservedness with all people yet took Bedell into his very Soul and as Sir Henry Wotton assured the
and so he removed to that place where he stayed Twelve Years during which time he was a great honour to the Church as well as a pattern to all Churchmen His habit and way of living was very plain and becoming the simplicity of his Profession He was very tender of those that were truly poor but was so strict in examining all Vagabonds and so dexterous in discovering counterfeit Passes and took such care of punishing those that went about with them that they came no more to him nor to his Town In all that time no notice was ever taken of him though he gave a very singular evidence of his great capacity For being provoked by his old acquaintance Wadsworth's Letters he writ upon the points in controversie with the Church of Rome with so much learning and judgment and in so mild a strain that no wonder if his Book had a good effect on him for whom it was intended It is true he never returned and changed his Religion himself but his Son came from Spain into Ireland when Bedell was promoted to the Bishoprick of Kilmore there and told him That his Father commanded him to thank him for the pains he was at in writing it he said It was almost alwayes lying open before him and that he had heard him say He was resolved to save one And it seems he instructed his Son in the true Religion for he declared himself a Protestant on his coming over This Book was printed and dedicated to the late King while he was Prince of Wales in the Year 1624. The true Reasons that obstructed Bedell's preferment seem to be these He was a Calvinist in the matter of Decrees and Grace and Preferments went generally at that time to those that held the other Opinions He had also another Principle which was not very acceptable to some in power he thought Conformity was an exact adhereing to the Rubrick and that the adding any new Rite or Ceremony was as much Nonconformity as the passing over those that were prescribed So that he would not use those Bowings or Gesticulations that grew so much in fashion that Mens affections were measured by them He had too good an understanding not to conclude That these things were not unlawful in themselves but he had observed that when once the humour of adding new Rites and Ceremonies got into the Church it went on by a fatal increase till it had grown up to that bulk to which we find it swelled in the Church of Rome And this began so early and grew so fast that S. Austin complained of it in his time saying That the condition of Christians was then more uneasie by that Yoke of Observances than that of the Jews had been And therefore Bedell thought the adhering to established Laws and Rules was a certain and fixed thing whereas Superstition was infinite So he was against all Innovations or arbitrary and assumed Practices and so much the more when Men were distinguished and markt out for Preferment by that which in strictness of Law was a thing that deserved punishment For in the Act of Vniformity made in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth's Reign it was made highly penal to use any other Rite or Ceremony Order or Form either in the Sacraments or in Morning or Evening Prayers than what was mentioned and set forth in that Book And this was particularly intended to restrain some that were leavened with the former Superstition and yet for saving their Benefices might conform to the New Service but retain still with it many of the old Rites in sacred Offices And it seems our Legislators were of the same mind when the last Act of Vniformity was past for there is a special Proviso in it That no Rites or Ceremonies should be openly used in any Church other than what was prescribed and appointed to be used in and by the said Book Therefore he continued to make the Rubrick the measure of his Conformity as well before his promotion as after it But he was well satisfied with that which the Providence of God laid in his way and went on in the duties of his pastoral care and in his own private Studies and was as great a Pattern in Suffolk of the pastoral care in the lower degree as he proved afterwards in Ireland in the higher Order He laboured not as an Hireling that only raised a Revenue out of his Parish and abandoned his Flock trusting them to the cheapest Mercenary that he could find nor did he satisfie himself with a slight performance of his duty only for fashions sake but he watched over his Flock like one that knew he was to answer to God for those Souls committed to his charge so he preached to the understandings and Consciences of his Parish and Catechised constantly And as the whole course of his own most exemplary behaviour was a continued Sermon so he was very exact in the more private parts of his Function visiting the Sick and dealing in secret with his people to excite or preserve in them a deep sense of Religion This he made his work and he followed it so close and lived so much at home that he was so little known or so much forgot that when Diodati came over to England many years after this he could hear of him from no person that he met with though he was acquainted with many of the Clergy He was much amazed at this to find that so extraordinary a Man that was so much admired at Venice by so good Judges was not so much as known in his own Countrey and so he was out of all hope of finding him out but by a meer accident he met him on the Streets of Londen at which there was a great deal of joy on both sides And upon that Diodati presented him to Morton the learned and antient Bishop of Duresme and told how great a value P. Paulo set on him upon which that Bishop treated him in a very particular manner It is true Sir Henry Wotton was alwayes his firm and faithful Friend but his Credit at Court had sunk for he fell under necessities having lived at Venice in an expence above his appointments And as necessitous Courtiers must grow to forget all concerns but their own so their interest abates and the favour they are in lessens when they come to need it too much Sir Thomas Iermyn was in more credit though he was alwayes suspected of being too favourable to the Puritans so that his inclinations being known the characteâ— he could give of him did not serve to raise him in England While he was thus neglected at home his fame was spread into Ireland and though he was not known either to the famous Bishop Vsher or to any of the Fellows of Trinity Colledge in Dublin yet he was chosen by their unanimous consent to be the Head of their Colledge in the Year 1627. and as that worthy Primate of Ireland together with the Fellows of the Colledge
writ so kind a Letter to him that as it made him lay down those thoughts so it drew from him the following Words in the Answer that he writ to him Touching my return I do thankfully accept your Graces exhortation advising me to have Faith in God and not to consult with Flesh and Blood nor have mind of this Countrey Now I would to God that your Grace could look into my Heart and see how little I fear lack of Provision or pass upon any outward thing in this World My chief fear in truth was and is lest I should be unfit and unprofitable in the place in which case if I might have a lawful and honest retreat I think no wise Man could blame me to retain it Especially having understood that your Grace whose authority I chiefly followed at the first did from your own Iudgment and that of other wise Men so truly pronounce of me That I was a weak Man Now that I have received your Letters so full of life and encouragement it puts some more life in me For sure it cannot agree with that goodness and ingenuity of yours praised among all Gods Graces in you by those that know you to write one thing to me and to speak another thing to others of me or to go about to beguile my simplicity with fair Words laying in the mean while a Net for my Feet especially sith my weakness shall in truth redound to the blaming of your own discretion in bringing me thither Thus was he prevailed on to resign his Benefice and carry his Family to Ireland and then he applyed himself with that vigour of Mind that was peculiar to him to the government of the Colledge He corrected such abuses as he found among them he set such rules to them and saw these so well executed that it quickly appeared how happy a choice they had made And as he was a great promoter of learning among them so he thought his particular Province was to instruct the House aright in the Principles of Religion In order to this he catechised the Youth in the Colledge once a Week and preached once a Sunday though he was not obliged to it And that he might acquaint them with a plain and particular body of Divinity he divided the Church Catechism into Two and Fifty Parts one for every Sunday and did explain it in a way so mixed with Speculative and Practical Matters that his Sermons were both learned Lectures of Divinity and excellent exhortations to Vertue and Piety Many took notes of them and Copies of them were much enquired after for as they were fitted to the capacity of his Hearers so they contained much matter in them for entertaining the most learned He had not stayed there above two Years when by his Friend Sir Iermyn's means a Patent was sent him to be Bishop of Kilmore and Ardagh two contiguous Sees in the Province of Vlster And in the Letters by which the King signified his pleasure for his Promotion he likewise expressed his acceptance of the service he had done in the Colledge in very honourable terms as follows And as we were pleased by our former gracious Letters to establish the said William Bedell by our Royal Authority in the Provostship of the said Colledge of the Blessed Trinity near Dublin where we are informed that by his care and good Government there hath been wrought great Reformation to our singular contentment so we purpose to continue our care of that Society being the principal Nursery of Religion and Learning in that our Realm and to recommend unto the Colledge some such person from whom we may expect the like worthy effects for their good as we and they have found from Mr. Bedell And now in the 59 th Year of his Age he entered upon a different course of Life and Employment when it might have been thought that the vigour of his Spirits was much broken and spent But by his administration of his Diocess it appeared that their remained yet a vast heat and force of Spirit to carry him through those difficult undertakings to which he found himself obliged by this new Character which if it makes a Man but a little lower than the Angels so that the term Angel is applyed to that Office in Scripture he thought it did oblige him to an angelical course of life and to divide his time as much as could consist with the frailties and necessities of a Body made of Flesh and Blood as those glorious Spirits do between the beholding the Face of their Father which is in Heaven and the ministring to the Heirs of Salvation he considered the Bishops office made him the Shepherd of the inferiour Shepherds if not of the whole Diocess and therefore he resolved to spare himself in nothing by which he might advance the interest of Religion among them and he thought it a disingenuous thing to vouch Antiquity for the Authority and Dignity of that Function and not at the same time to express those Virtues and Practices that made it so Venerable among them Since the Forms of Church Government must appear amiable and valuable to the Word not so much for the reasonings and arguments that learned Men use concerning them as for the real advantages that mankind find from them So that he determined with the great Nazianzen To give Wings to his Soul to rescue it wholly from the World and to dedicate it to God And not to think it enough to perform his duty in such a manner as to pass through the rest of his life without reproach for according to that Father This was to weigh out Vertue by small weights but in the Language of that Father he resolved to live As one that had got above his Senses and all sensible things that was recollected within himself and had attained to a familiarity with divine matters that so his mind might be as an unsullied Mirrour upon which he might receive and represent the impresses of God and divine things unallyed with the Characters of lower objects He saw he would fall under some envy and meet with great oppositions but he considered that as a sort of martyrdome for God and resolved cheerfully to undergo whatsoever uneasie things he might be forced to suffer in the discharge of his Conscience and Duty In laying open his designs and performances in this last and greatest period of his life I have fuller materials than in the former parts For my Author was particularly known to him during a large part of it and spent several Years in his Family so that his opportunities of knowing him were as great as could be desired and the Bishop was of so gentle a temper and of so communicative a nature that he easily opened himself to one that was taken into his alliance as well as into his heart he being indeed a Man of primitive simplicity He found his Diocess under so many disorders that there was scarce a sound part remaining The Revenue
English Translators had failed He thought the use of the Scriptures was the only way to let the knowledge of Religion in among the Irish as it had first let the Reformation into the other parts of Europe And he used to tell a passage of a Sermon that he heard Fulgentio preach at Venice with which he was much pleased It was on these Words of Christ Have ye not read and so he took occasion to tell the Auditory That if Christ were now to ask this Question Have ye not read all the Answer they could make to it was No for they were not suffered to do it Upon which he taxed with great zeal the restraint put on the use of the Scriptures by the See of Rome This was not unlike what the same person delivered in another Sermon preaching upon Pilate's Question What is Truth he told them that at last after many searches he had found it out and held out a New Testament and said There it was in his Hand but then he put it in his Pocket and said coldly But the Book is prohibited which was so suited to the Italian genius that it took mightily with the Auditory The Bishop had observed that in the Primitive times as soon Nations how barbarous soever they were began to receive the Christian Religion they had the Scriptures translated into their vulgar Tongues And that all people were exhorted to study them therefore he not only undertook and began this Work but followed it with so much industry that in a very few years he finished the Translation and resolved to set about the printing of it for the bargain was made with one that engaged to perform it And as he had been at the great trouble of examining the Translation so he resolved to run the venture of the Impression and took that expence upon himself It is scarce to be imagined what could have obstructed so great and so good a Work The Priests of the Church of Rome had reason to oppose the printing of a Book that has been always so fatal to them but it was a deep fetch to possess reformed Divines with a jealousie of this work and with hard thoughts concerning it Yet that was done but by a very well disguised method For it was said that the Translator was a weak and contemptible Man and that it would expose such a work as this was to the scorn of the Nation when it was known who was the Author of it And this was infused both into the Earl of Strafford and into the Archbishop of Canterbury And a bold young Man pretended a lapse of the Benefice that the Bishop had given to the Translator and so obtained a Broad Seal for it though it was in the Bishop's Gift This was an abuse too common at that time for licentious Clerks to pretend either that an Incumbent was dead or that he had no good right to his Benefice or that he had forfeited it and upon that to procure a Grant of it from the King and then to turn the Incumbent out of Possession and to vex him with a Suit till they forced him to compound for his peace So upon this occasion it was pretended that the Translator had forfeited his Living and one Baily that had informed against him came down with a Grant of it under the great Seal and violently thrust him out of it The Bishop was much touched with this and cited Baily to appear before him He had given him a Vicarage and had taken an Oath of him never to hold another so he objected to him both his violent and unjust intrusion into another man's right and his Perjury Baily to cover himself from the last procured a Dispensation from the Prerogative Court notwithstanding his Oath to hold more Benefices The Bishop lookt on this as one of the worst and most scandalous parts of Popery to dissolve the most sacred of all Bonds and it grieved his Soul to see so vile a thing acted in the name of Archbishop Vsher though it was done by his Surrogates So without any regard to this he served this obstinate Clerk with several Canonical admonitions but finding him still hardned in his wickedness he deprived him of the Benefice he had given him and also excommunicat'd him and gave orders that the Sentence should be published through the whole Deanry upon which Baily's Clerk appealed to the Prerogative Court and the Bishop was cited to answer for what he had done He went and appeared before them but declined their Authority and would not answer to them He thought it below the Office and Dignity of a Bishop to give an account of a spiritual Censure that he had inflicted on one of his Clergy before two Laymen that pretended to be the Primate's Surrogates and he put his Declinator in 24 Articles all written with his own Hand which will be found at the end of this Narrative he excepted to the incompetency of the Court both because the Primate was not there in person and because they that sate there had given clear Evidences of their partiality which he had offered to prove to the Primate himself He said the appeal from his Sentence lay only to the Provincial Synod or to the Archbishop's Consistory and since the ground of Bailys Appeal was the dispensation that they had given him from his Oath they could not be the competent Judges of that for they were Parties And the Appeal from abusive faculties lay only to a Court of Delegates by the express words of the Law And by many Indications it appeared that they had prejudged the matter in Baily's favours and had expressed great resentments against the Bishop and notwithstanding the dignity of his Office they had made him wait among the croud an hour and an half and had given directions in the management of the Cause as Parties against him they had also manifestly abused their power in granting Dispensations contrary to the Laws of God and now they presumed to interpose in the just and legal Jurisdiction that a Bishop exercised over his Clergy both by the Laws of God and by the Kings Authority Upon these grounds he excepted to their Authority he was served with several Citations to answer and appeared upon every one of them but notwithstanding the highest contempts they put upon him he shewed no indecent passion but kept his ground still In conclusion he was declared Contumax and the perjured Intruder was absolved from the Sentence and confirmed in the possession of his ill-acquired Benefice It may be easily imagined how much these Proceedings were censured by all fair and equitable Men The constancy the firmness and the courage that the Bishop expressed being as much commended as the injustice and violence of his Enemies was cryed out upon The strangest part of this transaction was that which the Primate acted who though he loved the Bishop beyond all the rest of the Order and valued him highly for the zealous discharge of
answers and the same in Consultations which Themistocles was in Action as will appear unto you in a Passage between him and the Prince of Conde The said Prince in a voluntary journey toward Rome came to Venice where to give some vent to his own humours he would often devest himself of his greatness and after other less laudable curiosities not long before his departure a desire took him to visit the famous obscure Servite to whose Cloyster coming twice he was the first time denied to be within at the second it was intimated That by reason of his daily admission to their deliberatives in the place he could not receive the visit of so illustrious a personage without leave from the Senate which he would seek to procure This set a great edge on the Prince when he saw he should confer with one participant of more than Monkish Speculations So after leave gotten he came the third time and there besides other voluntary discourse which it were a tyranny over you to repeat he assailed with a question enough to have troubled any Man but himself and him too if a precedent accident had not eased him The question was this He desired to be told by him before his going away who was the true unmasked Author of the late Tridentine History You must know that but newly advertisement was come from Rome That the Archbishop of Spalato being there arrived from England in an interview between him and the Cardinal Ludovisio Nephew to Gregory XV. the said Cardinal after a complemental welcoming of him into the Lap of the Church told him by order from the Pope That his Holiness would expect from him some Recantation in Print as an antidote against certain Books and Pamphlets which he had published whilst he stood in revolt namely his first Manifesto Item Two Sermons preached at the Italian Church in London Again a little Treatise intituled Scogli And lastly His great Volumes about Church Regiment and Controversies These were all named for as touching the Tridentine History his Holiness saith the Cardinal will not press you to any disavowment thereof though you have an Epistle before the Original Edition because we know well enough that Fryer Paulo is the Father of that Brat Vpon this last Piece of the aforesaid Advertisement the good Father came fairly off for on a sudden laying all together that to disavow the Work was an untruth to assume it a danger and to say nothing an Incivility he took a middle Evasion telling the Prince That he understood he was going to Rome where he might learn at ease who was the Author of that Work as they were freshly intelligenced from thence Thus without any mercy of your time I have been led along from one thing to another while I have taken pleasure to remember that Man whom God appointed and furnished for a proper Instrument to anatomize that Pack of reverend Cheaters Among whom I speak of the greater part Exceptis senioribus Religion was shuffled like a Pair of Cards and the Dice so many Years were set upon us And so wishing you very heartily many good years I will let you breath till you have opened these inclosed ERRATA PAg. 79. Margent for 1. read 2. p. 105. l. 29. after Correction del p. 115. l. 13. for Vnderstanding r. an undertaking p. 122. l. 16. after Oath r. not l. ult for Baily's Clerk r. Baily p. 129. l. 18. for 1630 r. 1638. p. 132. l. 18. before as r. such p. 142. l. 12. for those Articles r. these Articles p. 150. l. 15. for ther r. their p. 206. l. 10. after carried r. themselves l. 25. for Forker r. Forbes THE COPIES OF CERTAIN LETTERS Which have passed between SPAIN ENGLAND In matter of RELIGION CONCERNING The general Motives to the ROMAN OBEDIENCE BETWEEN Mr. Iames Waddesworth a late Pensioner of the holy Inquisition in Sevil and W. Bedell a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Suffolk LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLXXXV To the most HIGH EXCELLENT PRINCE Prince CHARLES I Should labour much in my excuse even to my own Judgment of the highest boldness in daring to present these Papers to your Highness if there were not some relieving Circumstances that give me hope it shall not be disagreeable to your higher Goodness There is nothing can see the light which hath the name of Spain in it which seems not now properly yours ever since it pleased you to honour that Country with your presence And those very Motives to the Roman obedience which had been represented unto you there in case you had given way to the propounding them are in these Letters charitably and calmly examined Between a couple of Friends bred in the same Colledge that of the foundation of Sir Walter Mildway of blessed Memory whom with Honour and Thankfulness I name chosen his Scholars at the same Election lodged in the same Chamber after Ministers in the same Diocess And that they might be matchable abroad as well as at home Attendants in the same rank as Chaplains on two honourable Ambassadours of the Majesty of the King your Father in Foreign parts the one in Italy the other in Spain Where one of them having changed his Profession and received a Pension out of the Holy Inquisition House and drawn his Wife and Children thither was lately often in the Eyes of your Highness Very joyful I suppose to see you there not more I am sure than the other was solicitous to miss you here These passages between us I have hitherto forborn to divulge out of the hope of further answer from Mr. Waddesworth according to his Promise though since the receipt of my last being silent to my self he excused him in sundry his Letters to others by his lack of Health Nor should I have changed my resolution but that I understand that presently after your Highnesses departure from Spain he departed this Life Which News though it grieve me as it ought in respect of the loss of my Friend yet it somewhat contenteth me not to have been lacking in my endeavour to the undeceiving a well-meaning man touching the state of our differences in Religion nor as I hope to have scandalized him in the manner of handling them And conceiving these Copies may be of some publick use the more being lifted up above their own meanness by so high Patronage I have adventured to prefix your Highnesses name before them Humbly beseeching the same that if these Reasons be too weak to bear up the presumption of this Dedication it may be charged upon the strong desire some way to express the unspeakable joy for your Highnesses happy return into England of one amongst many thousands Of your Highnesses most humble and devoted Servants W. Bedell THE CONTENTS 1. A Letter of Mr. Waddesworth containing his Motives to the Roman Obedience Dated at Sevil in Spain April 1. 1615. printed as all the rest out of his own Hand-writing p. 265. 2. Another
Lords of their due obedience and antient inheritance When as the Bishop and Clergy of Geneva upon the throwing down Images there by popular tumult departed in an anger seven years ere ever Calvin set Foot within the Gates of that City A thing not only clear in Story by the Writers of that time and since Sleidan Bodine Calvins Epistles and Life but set down by those whom ye cite Mr. Hooker in his Preface speaking of Calvin He fell at length upon Geneva which City the Bishop and Clergy thereof had a little before as some do affirm forsaken being of likelihood frighted with the peoples sudden attempt for the abolishment of Popish Religion And a little after At the coming of Calvin thither the form of their Regiment was popular as it continueth at this day c. Dr. Bancroft The same year that Geneva was assaulted viz. by the Duke of Savoy and the Bishop as he had said before pag. 13 which was Anno 1536. Mr. Calvin came thither If Calvin at his coming found the Form of the Government Popular If he came thither the same Year that the Bishop made war upon Geneva to recover his Authority being indeed either affrighted or having forsaken the Town before how could Calvin expel him And in truth Bodine in his second Book De Repub. Chap. 6. affirmeth That the same Year Genoa was established in a State Aristocratical which was he saith Anno 1528. Geneva was changed from a Monarchy Pontifical into an Estate Popular governed Aristocratically although that long before the Town pretended to be free against the Earl and against the Bishop c. What Saravia hath written touching this point I cannot tell as not having his Book But in Beza his answer to him there is no touch upon any such thing He joyns with his complaint of the sacrilegious usurping Ecclesiastical goods in answer to his Proëme He dissents in that Saravia accounts the Seniors of the reformed Churches like to that kind which Saint Ambrose speaks of brought in out of wisdom only to rule the disorderly Beza saith they were not introducti but reducti Cap. 12. For the rest in all that answer there is nothing of Calvin or any such revolving of the state as you accuse him of Which makes me think that herein your memory deceived you It may be that in your younger time falling upon these Authors by occasion of the question of Discipline which was then much tossed ere ever your judgement were ripened you formed in your mind a false impression of that which they say of Calvin You conceited them out of your zeal in the cause to say more than they do and thus possible unawares received the seeds of dislike of the doctrine of Calvin as well as his discipline which have since taken root in you But you shall do well to remember the difference you put a little before of these two Christian doctrine is uniform and ever the same government is changeable in many circumstances according to the exigence of times and persons And even the same men that write somewhat eagerly against Master Calvin yet give him the praise of wisdom to see what for that time and state was necessary Master Hooker saith of him That he thinks him incomparably the wisest man that ever the French Church did enjoy since the hour it enjoyed him and of his platform of discipline after he hath laid down the summ of it This device I see not how the wisest at that time living could have bettered if we duely consider what the present state of Geneva did then require But be it and for my part I think no less that herein he was mistaken to account this to be the true form of Church policy by which all other Churches and at all times ought to be governed let his error rest with him yea let him answer it unto his Judge but to accuse him of ambition and sedition and that falsly and from thence to set that brand upon the Reformation whereof he was a worthy instrument though not the first either there or any where else as if it could not be from God being so founded for my part I am afraid you can never be able to answer it at the same Barr no nor even that of your own Conscience or of reasonable and equal men For the stirrs broils seditions and murthers in Scotland which you impute to Knox and the Geneva Gospellers they might be occasioned perhaps by the Reformers there as the broils which our Lord Jesus Christ saith he came to set in the world by the Gospel Possible also that good men out of inconsiderate zeal should do some things rashly And like enough the multitude which followed them as being fore prepared with just hatred of the tyranny of their Prelates and provoked by the opposition of the adverse Faction and emboldened by success ran a great deal further than either wise Men could foresee or tell how to restrain them Which was applauded and fomented by some politick Men who took advantage of those motions to their own ends And as it happens in natural Bodies that all ill humors run to the part affected so in civil all discontented people when there is any Sorance run to one or other side and under the shew of common Griefs pursue their own Of all which distempers there is no reason to lay the blame upon the seekers of Reformation more than upon the Physicians of such accidents as happen to the corrupted Bodies which they have in Cure The particulars of those affairs are as I believe alike unknown to us both and since you name none I can answer to none For as for the pursuing our King even before his birth that which his Majesty speaks of some Puritans is over-boldly by you referred to Master Knox and the Ministers that were Authors of Reformation in Scotland Briefly consider and survey your own thoughts and see if you have not come by these degrees First from the inconsiderate courses of some to plant the pretended Discipline in Scotland to conceive amiss of the Doctrine also Then to draw to the encreasing of your ill conceit thereof what you find reported of any of the Puritans a Faction no less opposed by his Majesty in Scotland than with us in England So when we speak of Religion though that indeed be all one you divide us into Lutherans Zwinglians Calvinists Protestants Brownists Puritans and Cartwrightists whensoever any disorder of all this number can be accused then lo are we all one and the fault of any Faction is the slander of all yea of the Gospel it self and of Reformation Judge now uprightly if this be indifferent dealing From Scotland you come to England Where because you could find nothing done by popular tumult nothing but by the whole State in Parliament and Clergy in Convocation you fall upon King Henry's Passions you will not insist upon them you say and yet you do as long as upon any one member