Certain Discourses, Title page – To the reader
CERTAIN DISCOURSES, Viz.
Of BABYLON (Rev. 18. 4.) being the present See of Rome. (With a Sermon of Bishop BEDELS upon the same words.)
Of laying on of hands (Heb. 6. 2.) to be an ordained Ministery.
Of the old Form of words in Ordination.
Of a Set Form of PRAYER.
Each being the JUDGMENT of the late Arch-Bishop of ARMAGH, and Primate of IRELAND.
Published and enlarged by Nicholas Bernard D. D. and Preacher to the Honourable Society of Grayes-Inne, London.
Unto which is added a Character of Bishop BEDEL, And an Answer to Mr. Pierces Fifth Letter concerning the late PRIMATE.
London, Printed for Iohn Crook, at the Signe of the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1659.
TO THE Right Worshipfull Sir WILLIAM ELLIS BARONET, His HIGHNES Sollicitor GENERALL, The Readers, and Benchers, With the Ancients, Barresters, and Students, Of the Honourable Society of Graies-Inne.
YEe are thus intituled to these Treatises. The occasion of publishing the First, was a Sermon preached by the late Arch-Bishop of ARMAGH in your Chappell of the same subject, Nov. 5. 1654. who (out of his old love to this society, whereof he was a member) intended it as his last: the request then made to him for the permission of printing that, he did satisfy in his consent to the publishing of this For the other, some parts of them have been long agone preached before you by the Authour, though now in another manner enlarged; which as a testimony of his due observance and respect to this Honourable Society, he desires may be accepted from him, who is
Yours in the service of Christ, N. BERNARD. Grayes-Inne, Octob. 27. 1658.
To the Reader
HOw Popery andaThough of late it hath had that latitude as to comprehend Episcopacy, yet, in Ancient Records (which I have seen) it was limited to the Deans and Chapters; For this was then the form of the Arch-Bishops Provinciall visitation, declaring that he would visit, Episcopum, Praelatos, clerum & populum. Prelacy came first to be contracted, is not my enquiry; but sure I am, they are here very far a sunder, such as do apply that of Babylon (Rev. 17.) and the Man of sin (2 Thes. 2.) to the Pope can hardly be accounted Popish, which you find affirmed by the late Archbishop of Armagh, and Bishop Bedell, in their discussing of the same words, And who are supported in if by the most Eminent Bishops of England and Ireland, since the Reformation. Archbishop Whitgift, Bishop Jewell; Abbot, Bilson, Andrews, Downham, Morton, Hall, Davenant, Prideaux, with others, who have unanimously given their votes the same way, as is hereafter shewn, And indeed it could not be otherwise expected from some of them who had been taught to put him into theirbCommon Prayer in Edw. 6. Letany, From the Tyranny of the Bishop of Rome, and all his detestable enormities, Good Lord deliver us. So that if any of later years professing themselves to be the sons of those old Prophets, have so far favoured the See of Rome, as to divert the stream of that application some other way, it appears they have in it degenerated from their Ancestors.
The first Treatise, being the Primates three positions concerning Babylon, was wrot above 40 years agone, (which appears by the places of Scripture, rendred according to the old Translation) and sent to an Irish Jesuit in Dublin, (as I take itcThe first that broached that figment of the Nagges head conscration in England, after 45 yeares silence of any other Author, which in Bishop Bedells Letters to Wadesworth, p. 142. is confuted. Christophorus à sacro bosco, there called F. Halywood, the summe of which having been delivered by the Primate in a Sermon which he preached at Grays-Inne, Nov. 5. 1654. and being much desired by some of the Auditours to be published, he did condescend, to permit this, with that other Letter following, in their satisfaction.
The learned Sermon of Bishop Bedels (being of the same subject) I heard him preach it in Christ-Church, Dublin, 1634. before the Lord Deputy and Parliament. The occasion of his giving a copy of it, was at the request of a Papist, to have shewen it to some learned men of his own Religion, and my opportunity to have it, was the near relation I had to him for divers years in that See; which after these 22 yeares lying latent with me) I have taken this fit occasion to publish it.
That which I have added, is by way of confirmation from some grounds out of Ancient Fathers, the successive votes both of the learned Writers in those ages, who lived under the Tyranny of the See of Rome, as of our eminent Bishops and Writers, since that yoke was cast off in England; with the concurrence of our book of Homilies, severall Synods of our own, and other reformed Churches, the determination of the *Synops. Theol. disp 41. de Christo & Antichristo conclus. Ex quibus apparet Pontificem & Papam Romanum, revera An…ich…if…um & filium perditionis esse, &c.Dutch and French Divines. It being very observable, that whatsoever differences there are in the reformed Churches in other matters, yet there is a marvellous unity in this. To which is added the like judgement of Arminius, and some of the Church of Rome, (continuing at least in that communion) who professe it out-right; others by way of consequence: Their chief Writers, who meet us halfe way, granting the place, only disputing the time, contending as much as we, that Babylon (Rev. 17.) must be meant Rome, the difference between us, whether Ethnick, or Papall.
For that of the Primates judgement (seconded by some eminent Writers) what is meant, Heb, 6. 2. by laying on of hands, and of the sense of the old form of words in Ordination; viz. Receive the holy Ghost, whose sins thou forgivest, &c. and the use of them to be continued. I had leave from himself for the manifesting and enlarging of it. And I suppose the last subject concerning a Set Form of Prayer, will passe with the lesse opposition, by the concurring of divers eminent and worthy Persons, whom the contrary-minded cannot but highly esteem of. Having both in the former and this, taken up Saint Pauls manner of arguing with the Athenians, as certain also of your own have said, &c. or as elsewhere, one of themselves, even a Prophet of their own, &c. And surely, the Primates appearing so much against the See of Rome in the first, cannot but be a preparative to the hearkning unto him the rather, in the two later.
For my self, I have no other design in the whole, but the peace and unity of the Church, which we are all bound to seek, (and without which end and aim, all gifts whatsoever coveted by us, are of no value) and I hope to have that interpretation from such as are so affected.
Two things which have been enlarged by way of Vindication of the Eminent Primate, from the injuries of Doctor Heylene, came so in my way, that I could not passe them, which else (by his being in the esteem of men so far above his reach) there had been no need of. He having in those and divers other aspersions which he hath cast upon him in his late book (which may hereafter be fully cleared) done himselfe the chiefest wrong.
I commend the whole to the Readers charitable and impartiall censure, that no prejudicate opinion doe obstruct his right apprehension.