cian and Macedonian months with the Julian, and with those of other nations, and, having given the entire arrangement of the Macedonian and Asiatic year, he added the rules for the cycles of the sun and moon, and for finding Easter for ever. There are also added several curious accounts of the celestial motions, according to Meton, Calippus, Eudoxus, and others; and finally an Ephemeris, being a complete Greek and Roman calendar for the whole year, with the rising and setting of the stars, as laid down by the ancient Grecian astronomers. When the news of the King being kept prisoner at Carisbrook Castle in the Isle of Wight came to London, the Primate preached at Lincoln's Inn on the text, "Say ye not, A confederacy to all them to whom this people shall say, A confederacy: neither fear ye their fear nor be afraid. Sanctify the Lord of Hosts himself: and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread." In this sermon he expressed strongly his disapprobation of the proceedings taken by the two Houses of Parliament against their lawful Prince; he condemned covenants and confederacies entered into contrary to the former oath of allegiance, and clearly pointed out the obligation of all to fear God rather than man, in discharging their duty to their King and their country. Not long after, the Presbyterian party having recovered their former preponderance by the absence of the army, and fearing the return of the Independents to power, annulled their former vote for non-addresses, and determined to open a personal treaty with the King. As one of the principal subjects of debate was to be church government, the King required the assistance of some of the episcopal clergy, and sition of Archbishop Ussher by a variety of arguments, and proved almost to demonstration that Polycarp suffered martyrdom on the 26th of March, A. D. 147. Isaiah, chap. viii. ver. 12. 13. • There is great diversity in the lists given of the clergy who attended. Fuller says, Archbishop Ussher, Duppa Bishop of Salisbury, Doctors Sheldon, Sanderson, Ferne, were in attendance; and that Prideaux Bishop of Worcester, and Brownrigg Bishop of Exeter, were summoned, but did not attend, the first from poverty, not having money to travel so far, the other having been imprisoned by the Parliament. Whitelock names Archbishop Ussher, Doctors Bainbridge, Prideaux, Warner, Ferne, and Mor permission was granted. Archbishop Ussher was not sent for, or certainly did not reach Newport, till the conference had been going on for a considerable time. He arrived in the month of November, and immediately preached before the King, on his birth-day. The text was, "Remembert thou art my first-born, my might and the beginning of my strength." The sermon was publishedu immediately after, not by the Archbishop, but by some persons who took notes, and, as Dr. Parr, who was present, states, very imperfectly. The sermon conveys the same ideas of prerogative and divine right, that are contained in the treatise of the Power of the Prince, which had been written some years before. Dr. Parr observes: "This sermon together with the Archbishops steady carriage in the point of Episcopacy did so much enrage both the Presbyterian and Independent factions, that in their news-books and pamphlets at London they reproached the Lord Primate for flattering the King, as also for his persuading him not to abolish Bishops; and that he had very much prejudiced the treaty; and that none among the Kings chaplains had been so mischievous (meaning to them) as he." The presence of the Primate was of little avail to settling the differences. He proposed again the plan he had drawn up in 1641, and obtained the consent of the Presbyterian clergy, who approved of it as being, though not all they wished for, yet as much as they could expect to obtain. The King not only consented to the Primate's plan, but offered, in addition, to suspend the exercise of episcopal government for three years; that after that time ley. Neal gives a much longer list: at the beginning of the conference, Juxon Bishop of London, Duppa Bishop of Salisbury, Dr. Sheldon, Dr. Hammond, Dr. Oldsworth, Dr. Sanderson, Dr. Turner, Dr. Haywood, and, towards the end, Ussher Archbishop of Armagh, Dr. Bramhall, Dr. Prideaux, Dr. Warner, Dr. Ferne, and Dr. Morley. This account is undoubtedly wrong: Drs. Sheldon and Hammond were sent for, but were kept in confinement at Oxford; Bishops Bramhall and Prideaux were also absent. It is strange that so simple a fact cannot be ascertained; there is however no doubt that the Archbishop of Armagh, the Bishop of Salisbury, Drs. Sanderson, Ferne, and Morley, were in attendance. 'Genesis, chap. xlix. ver. 3. "The sermon is printed in the Archbishop's works, vol. xiii. pag. 353. See Baxter's Life, pag. 62. the power of ordination should not be exercised by Bishops, except with the consent of Presbyters, and that no other episcopal jurisdiction should be exercised, except such as should be agreed upon by His Majesty and the two Houses of Parliament. The Parliamentary Commissioners were however determined to abolish episcopacy, and would not consent to any compromise. I have already offered some remarks upon the plan* proposed by the Primate, which was entirely founded upon his principle, that a Bishop differed from a Presbyter in degree, not in order, a principle utterly, as it would seem, irreconcileable with the preface to the forms of ordination, which declares, that the Church receives the orders of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons. However, the Primate, in maintaining that the Bishop only differed from the Presbyter in degree, did not mean to assert what has been pleaded on his authority. His opinion was, as stated by Dr. Bernard, "that the degree which the Bishop hath above a Presbyter is not to be understood as an arbitrary matter at the pleasure of men but that he held it to be of Apostolical institution and that this gradus is both derived ▼ Charles gave a happy illustration of the nature of this treaty, in which not one of his propositions was conceded: "Consider Mr. Buckley, if you call this a treaty, whether it be not like the fray in the comedy, where the man comes out and says, there has been a fray and no fray, and being asked how that could be? Why, says he, there hath been three blows given and I had them all." Similar was the description of the satyrist: "Si rixa est ubi tu pulsas, ego vapulo tantum." The extraordinary license which the dissenting ministers assumed is sufficiently proved by two of them daring to tell His Majesty, "that if he would not consent to the utter abolition of Episcopacy, he would be damned." * Dr. Aikin's view of this subject is strange; he says: "The good pastor is to be applauded for an attempt to unite in the bonds of Christian communion two hostile parties by an expedient which he thought need not shock the prejudices of either." This is, at least, an assumption that prejudices alone interfered in the question, whether the expedient was consistent with the true doctrines of Christianity. Dr. Aikin has, indeed, been correct in using the word expedient, and like other schemes of expediency, it weakened the cause it was intended to uphold, without effecting the imagined good. Bernard on Ordination by Presbyters, pag. 128. from the pattern prescribed by God in the old Testament (where that distinction is found in the title of the Chief Priest, who had the rule of the rest, called by the LXX. ἐπίσκοπος) and from the imitation thereof brought in by the Apostles and confirmed by Christ in the time of the New." This explanation of the opinion held by the Primate, and it is given by an unexceptionable witness, will not tend much to support the doctrine held by the Presbyterians, and must cause deep regret, that the learned Prelate used expressions capable of being wrested to a sense totally different from what was intended. Baxter relates a story of the Primate, which is scarcely credible; he says: " Ia asked him also his judgment about the validity of presbyters' ordination; which he asserted, and told me, that the King asked him in the isle of Wight, wherever he found in antiquity, that Presbyters alone ordained any? and that he answered, I can shew your Majesty more, even where Presbyters alone successively ordained Bishops: and instanced in Hierom's words of the presbyters of Alexandria chusing and making their own Bishops from the days of Mark till Heraclius and Dionysius." This story is not only inconsistent with the opinions at other times put forward by the Primate, but rests upon so extraordinary a mistake as to the meaning of Jerome, that it is difficult to admit its veracity, however respectable the authority. Jerome does not speak of the ordination of bishops, but of their election; he states that each new bishop was elected by the presbyters out of their own body, and placed by them on the episcopal throne in token of his election, an act which was not unfrequently, in those days, performed by the people. The consecration followed, and was always per 2 The distinction between order and degree was wholly unknown to the ancient Church, and was invented by the schoolmen, for the purpose of supporting their extravagant notions of the priesthood. a Baxter's Life, pag. 206. b" Alexandriæ a Marco Evangelista usque ad Heraclium et Dionysium Episcopos, Presbyteri semper unum ex se electum in excelsiore gradu collocatum Episcopum nominabant: quomodo si Exercitus Imperatorem faciat." Hieron. Epist. ad Evang. Op. tom. iv. p. 2, pag. 802. VOL. I. S formed by the provincial bishops. In the very next sentence Jerome states that none but a Bishop can ordain. Dr. Bernard relates a correspondence with the Archbishop, which gives a much more correct statement of his views, and proves that the difficulty, which embarrassed him, was the validity of the orders in the Continental churches. The Primate was most determined in upholding their validity, and hence was led to lower his doctrine of episcopacy as far as was possible, and perhaps farther than was consistent with his upholding its apostolical origin. Dr. Bernard states, that a report was circulated of the Primate having given an unfavorable judgment of the ordination beyond the sea, founded on the following statement: "Mr. asked the Archbishop of Armagh on occasion of an ordination, what he thought of them that were ordained by Presbyters; he said he judged their ordination to be null, and looked on them as laymen. He asked him what he conceived of the Churches beyond the sea. The Bishop answered he had charitable thoughts of them in France: but as for Holland he questioned if there was a church amongst them or not; or words to that purpose: this Dr. confidently reports." The paper containing this statement was forwarded to the Primate by Dr. Bernard, who gives the following extracts from his Grace's answer; it is unfortunate and rather extraordinary that he did not give the whole letter : "Touching Mr. I cannot call to mind that he ever proposed to me the question in your letter enclosed, neither do I know the Dr. who hath spread the report; but for the matter itself, I have ever declared my opinion to be that Episcopus et Presbyter gradu tantum differunt, non ordine, and consequently that in places where Bishops cannot be had, the ordination of Presbyters standeth validd: yet on the other side holding as I do, that a • Bernard of Ordination, pag. 125. d Dr. Bernard remarks, that "if the ordination of Presbyters in such places where Bishops cannot be had, were not valid, the late Bishops of Scotland had a hard task to maintain themselves to be Bishops, who were not Priests, for their ordination was no other. And for this a passage in the Historie of Scotland wrote by the Archbishop of St. Andrews |