a request that he might be allowed to proceed on his voyage unmolested. The Vice-Admiral returned a rude and threatening answer, declaring his intention of bringing the Primate prisoner to the Parliament.

At this distressing moment a kind invitation was brought to him from the Countess Dowager of Peterborough, requesting him to take up his abode at her house in London. This offer the Primate immediately accepted, but was considerably embarrassed as to the means of procuring money for prosecuting his journey. Some of the neighbouring gentry, suspecting his distress, sent without any concert, or suffering their names to be known, considerable sums to the venerable prelate, and enabled him to discharge the debts contracted by his long illness, and also to commence his journey to London, which he did in the month of June, 1646. The Countess of Peterborough had hoped that, by her interest with some of the influential members of Parliament, she would be able to secure the Primate from all molestation, and had given him an assurance to that effect; but no sooner had he arrived in London, than he found it was necessary he should notify his arrival to the Committee then sitting at Goldsmiths' Hall. The Primate immediately sent Dr. Parr to give them notice that he was in town, and resident at the house of the Countess of Peterborough ; but the insolent Commissioners refused to receive this communication, and insisted upon the Archbishop appearing before them in person. His Grace complied, and appeared before the Court of Examiners, who examined him with great strictness, whether he had any permission to leave London for Oxford, and where he had been since he left Oxford. The Commissioners not being able to found any accusations

i Wood relates that the Archbishop, passing through Gloucester on his journey to London, having heard of John Biddle, "spake to and used him with all fairness and pity as well as with strength of argument to convince him of his dangerous error, telling him that either he was in a damnable error, or else that the whole Church of Christ, who had in all ages worshipped the Holy Ghost, had been guilty of idolatry: But Biddle, who had little to say, was no whit moved either by the learning, gravity, piety or zeal of that good Archbishop, but continued, as 'tis said, obstinate."Bliss. Ed. of Wood, vol. iii. pag. 594.

against him upon these points, as he was able to produce the permission granted by Parliament for his removal to Oxford, next proceeded to interrogate him about his communications with Sir Charles Coote, and his having been requested to influence the King to grant a toleration of religion in Ireland. The Primate replied, that he had never been applied to by Sir Charles Cootek, or any other person, on the subject; that as soon as he heard of the Irish agents having arrived at Oxford, he went to the King, and besought His Majesty not to make any concessions to the Irish on the subject of religion without consulting him; that when the point of toleration was discussed at the Council, the King and all the Lords refused to grant it, and that he, for his part, was ever opposed' to it, as a thing most dangerous to the Protestant religion. The Committee being satisfied on these points, the Chairman called upon him to take the negative oath, which was required from all those, who came to London from any of the King's garrisons. The Primate requested time for consideration, which was granted, and, through the influence of Selden and some other friends, members of the House of Commons, was never called upon for his decision. He soon afterwards retired, with the Countess of Peterborough, to her house at Ryegate, where he constantly preached in the parish church to a large congregation of the neighbouring gentry.

During the Primate's residence in Wales, a book was published under his name by Mr. Downham, entitled: "A Body of Divinity, or the Sum and Substance of the Christian religion." The Archbishop lost no time in writing to the editor, and sent him the following letter, disavowing the work :

k Yet it was after this solemn declaration, of which he must have been aware, that Prynne dared to publish the story about the Archbishop which has been related before, pag. 236.

I Dr. Aikin says, that Ussher "might probably deny this with a safe conscience, for it appears as if he only submitted to what others had determined." The compliment to the Archbishop that he was probably telling truth is only to be equalled by the fairness with which the narrative is given.

"SIR,-You may be pleased to take notice, that the Catechisme you write of is none of mine, but transcribed out of Mr. Cartwright's catechisme and Mr. Crook's and some other English Divines, but drawn together in one method as a kinde of common place book, where other mens judgments and reasons are strongly laid down, though not approved in all places by the collector; besides that the collection (such as it is) being lent abroad to divers in scattered sheets, hath for a great part of it miscarried; the one half of it as I suppose (well nigh) being no way to be recovered, so that so imperfect a thing copied verbatim out of others, and in divers places dissonant from my own judgement, may not by any means be owned by me; But if it shall seem good of any industrious person to cut of what is weak and superfluous therein, and supply the wants thereof, and cast it into a new mould of his own framing, I shall be very well content that he make what use he pleaseth of any the materials therein, and set out the whole in his own name: and this is the resolution of

When the Primate thus positively declared that the book was in divers places dissonant from his own judgement, and that it could not by any means be owned by him, it might have been supposed that it would never have been republished with his name, or quoted as his workm; yet the fact is far otherwise. Many editions have been published by those who were aware of this letter, and yet affixed the Primate's name; and every advocate of supralapsarian doctrines quotes in his support the opinions of Archbishop Ussher, as put

" Dr. Bernard, who could not have been offended by the extreme doctrines contained in the work, says of it, "being so unpolished, defective and full of mistakes he was much displeased at the publishing it in his name." An edition was published in London so lately as the year 1841, and the attention of the editors was drawn to the letter of Archbishop Ussher. They promised to prefix the letter to the work, but they never fulfilled the promise.

forth in his "Body of Divinity." I understand that several persons have expressed their disappointment at my not having published" The Body of Divinity" among the works of the Archbishop. Had the authorship been a matter of doubtful evidence, there might be a plausible ground for such complaint, but there can be none for not publishing among the works of Archbishop Ussher what Archbishop Ussher declared was not his work.

In the commencement of the year 1647 the Benchers of Lincoln's Inn appointed the Archbishop their preacher. There was some difficulty in prevailing upon the Primate to accept the office, and still more in obtaining the consent of the Parliament; but at length the appointment was completed, which he held for nearly eight years, until the increasing infirmities of age, weakness of sight, and loss of teeth, obliged him to resign it about a year and a half before his death. Mr. Hale, afterwards the celebrated Chief Justice, was then a Bencher, and a particular friend of the Archbishop. By his kind interference, the Benchers appropriated to the use of the Primate extensive apartments, to which he was able to remove as much of his library as had escaped the plunder of the Irish rebels and the English Parliament, and which was, in fact, the only property he now possessed. In this year he published the Appendix Ignatiana, of which an account has already been given, and also Diatriba de Romanæ Ecclesiæ Symbolo Apostolico vetere aliisque fidei formulis, tum ab Occidentalibus tum ab Orientalibus, in prima Catechesi et Baptismo proponi solitis. This learned work was dedicated to Gerard John Vossius, who had anticipated him by a treatise on the three Creeds. However this treatise contains much that had not been treated of by Vossius or any other writer, and has brought to light many facts, which had lain concealed in the most obscure and unknown writers. One of the most remarkable positions established by the Primate in this tract is, that the latter clauses of the Nicene Creed, which were generally considered to have been added at the Council of Constantinople on account of the Macedonian heresy, had formed part of the Creed long before the meeting of that.

Council, which only made some slight variations in the Creed submitted to its consideration.

There has been considerable doubt expressed, whether the Primate enjoyed any pension from the Parliament after he was deprived of the revenues of Carlisle. Whitelock, in his Memorials, states, that about the year 1646 there was an order from Parliament to pay the Primate £400 per annum, and there certainly appears in the Parliamentary Journals an order, dated July 1649, for its continuance to the next October. Dr. Bernard mentions the pension, but not its amount, and adds, that it was suspended during the last two years of the Parliament, but that, after their dissolving, "the" care of him was renewed by his Highness the Lord Protector; by whose order a constant competent allowance was given for him for his subsistence, which contented him and which I received from him to the last with other very considerable summes extraordinary. All that knew him found him very communicative not onely of his studies, but of what he had out of his stipend to persons in want, wherein he needed rather a bridle than a spur." Yet Dr. Parr seems to think the pension was not paid; he says: "I cannot hear that he received it above once or twice at most, for the independent faction getting uppermost soon put an end to the payment." The following document proves that a pension had been granted at an earlier period than has been generally supposed, but had not been paid for four years, as this warrant bears internal evidence of being the first order for payment :

"By vertue of an Ordinance of both Howses of Parliament of the xxjth daie of Septemb: 1643. And in pursuance of an Order of the Commons Howse of the fifth of October 1647. these are to will & require you, Out of such Threasure as shall be in your hands to paye vnto James Usher Doctor in Divinitie the Sume of One hundred pownds, in part of his Allowance of Fower hundred, to be paied quar

n Bernard's Life, pag. 103, 104.

• This warrant was found in the Rolls' Office in London by W. H. Black, Esq., and kindly communicated to me. He states that no other such document exists among the series of warrants in the time of the Commonwealth, which is extremely scanty and defective.