folly, to dedicate to the son aspersions and slanders But generally the exorbitances of the Papists were at the time such as to constrain the government to act towards them with greater strictness. Two measures were accordingly adopted for their more effectual restraint: one was the banishing of all their regular clergy, who swarmed in vast multitudes through almost every part of the kingdom; the other was to permit no magistrates or other officers to discharge their functions, unless they had qualified themselves by taking the oath of supremacy according to law. In pursuance of these resolutions a proclamation was issued against the Popish clergy, in October, 1617. And, on the 5th of March following, the government seized on the liberties of Waterford, with all their rent-rolls, ensigns of authority, and publick revenues; for that city had rendered itself particularly obnoxious to punishment for its magisterial delinquencies. Three mayors in three successive years had refused to take the oath of supremacy, when tendered by the Lord President of the province, acting under a special commission; one of them, in the mean time, without the assistance of the Recorder, had presided at a gaol-delivery, and tried and condemned a person accused of felony, 7 Cox, ii. 33. Measures of counteraction by the government. Proclamation Popish clergy, against the 1617. Illegal conduct of the Mayor of Waterford. and by his own order caused him to be executed. It appeared also on an investigation taken in September, 1617, that the statute of Queen Elizabeth for uniformity had not been given in charge at their sessions for two years preceding". Mountgomery, 1620. SECTION IV. Elevation of James Ussher to the Bishoprick of Meath. His Efforts for the Conversion of Papists. King's Commission for inquiring into the State of the Province of Armagh. Reports from Seven Dioceses in that Province. Presumption of the Popish Clergy exemplified. Bishop Ussher's Sermon on the Swearing-in of Lord Deputy Viscount Falkland. Primate Hampton's Letter on the occasion. Proceedings concerning the Papists. Death of Primate Hampton. Bishop of Meath appointed to succeed him. Death of the King. State of the Church. Death of Bishop IN 1620 died George Mountgomery, bishop of Clogher, during whose incumbency King James annexed many other grants, and especially the abbey of Clogher, with its revenues, to the bishoprick, which thus became one of the richest in the kingdom. His death caused a vacancy at the same time in the see of Meath, which for ten years had been possessed by him together with that of Clogher'. Contest of the new Bishop of Primate. In the see of Clogher he was succeeded by James Clogher with the Spottiswood, brother of the celebrated John Spottiswood, archbishop of St. Andrew's, in Scotland, and chancellor of that kingdom; but before his consecration he had a contest with Primate Hampton, concerning the exercise of episcopal jurisdiction by a bishop before his solemn ordination to that office. The Primate was disposed to bring the matter to a pub1 WARE'S Bishops, p. 188. 8 Cox, ii. 34. Ussher. lick trial; but from this he was dissuaded by Ussher, Mediation of who had on the same occasion been elected to succeed Mountgomery in the see of Meath; and who, whilst he censured the unadvised contestation of the Bishop of Clogher with his metropolitan, and professed his own determination not to act to the derogation of the archiepiscopal authority, nevertheless doubted the result of a publick trial in the King's Court, however the question might be otherwise decided at a disputation in the schools. The Primate, however, maintained, in answer, his original opinion and pur pose. Whether he afterwards saw cause to alter his Adjustment of views, or whether the bishop-elect became sensible the dispute. of the scandal of such a question, between the first and an inferior member of the hierarchy, being discussed in a temporal court, and in consequence withdrew from prosecuting the contest: the dispute was not carried to that extremity, but, after some expostulation, was peaceably composed. Meanwhile Ussher, whose election to the see of Meath has been already noticed, was indebted for his elevation to the good opinion entertained by the king of his piety, wisdom, and exquisite learning. The appointment is attributed to the king's own motion; and it is said that he used often to boast that Ussher was a bishop of his own making. congé d'élire being sent over, "he was elected by the dean and chapter there," says Dr. Parr, without naming the cathedral. And the following extract from a letter from Oliver St. John, Viscount Grandi His son, then Lord Deputy of Ireland, testifies the good will entertained towards him in that kingdom: "I thank God for your preferment to the bishoprick of Meath. His majesty therein hath done a gracious 2 WARE'S Bishop3, p. 103, Ussher appointed by the king to the see of Meath. Letter of con gratulation from Viscount Grandison. "De Society favour to his poor Church here. There is none here but are exceeding glad that you are called thereunto; even some papists themselves have largely testified their gladness of it"." The erection of the society, "De Propagandâ Fide" instituted. Fide," at Rome, which has jurisdiction over missions and foreign Churches, and the influence of which has been sensibly felt by the Churches of England and Ireland, was nearly coincident with the elevation of Bishop Ussher to the episcopal order. Meanwhile his high promotion rather increased than abated his desire to advance the religious reformation of Ireland, by spreading abroad, both publickly and privately, the verities of the Christian faith. Bishop Ussher's exertions for the conversion of Papists. 1621. Effects of his preaching. On his return to his own country, in 1621, having been consecrated at Drogheda by Primate Hampton, he directed his mind and efforts especially to the conversion of the members of the Romish communion, who abounded in great numbers in his diocese, and whom he endeavoured to reclaim, by private conversation and gentle methods of reasoning. He was desirous, also, of preaching to them in publick, to which they objected, from their disinclination to take part in the Church service; but at last they consented to hear him preach, provided it were not in a church. He condescended to their exceptions; and regarding himself, we must suppose, as exempt from that local restriction which in common cases is fitly imposed on the publick ministrations of the clergy, preached to them in the sessionshouse; and his sermon is said to have had such effect upon the hearers, that their priests prohibited them for the future to hear him in any place. The religious ignorance and prejudices of these 4 Cox, ii, 35. 3 Parr's Life, p. 17, prejudices of the Their plea that they followed the religion of their forefathers. poor people were indeed deeply to be deplored. A Ignorance and general obstinacy in clinging to their prepossessions, Papists. and a fond devotion to the reading of idle legends of the lives of their saints, were combined with utter destitution of all true knowledge of the Holy Scriptures; and, blinded as they were by the strong and prevailing influence of these superstitions, the most powerful arguments could draw from them only this answer, "That they followed the religion of their forefathers, and would never depart from it." What, indeed, the religion of their forefathers had been they little knew; and it was to confute this error of the Papists, and to give convincing proofs that Popery was not the old religion of the kingdom, that Bishop Ussher about this time composed his " Discourse on the Religion anciently professed by the Irish and British ;" and showed that ignorance of the Holy Scriptures, and purgatory, and image-worship, and the sacrifice of the mass, and half-communion, and transubstantiation, and clerical celibacy, and Papal supremacy, and the Bishop of Rome's spiritual jurisdiction in the Christian Church, did not constitute parts of that ancient religion. In the early part of the year 1622, the king issued a commission, in obedience to which the several diocesans in the province of Ulster, or speaking ecclesiastically, of Armagh, made a report of the true state of their respective bishopricks and dioceses. These reports, with the exception of that of the Bishop of Dromore, the absence of which is not accounted for, have been preserved in a manuscript in the library of Trinity College, Dublin; and contain much curious information upon the usual topicks of visitatorial inquiries, rendered, however, Ussher's Dis- course on the ancient Irish. Royal visitation of Armagh, of the province 1622. |