upon some points, wherien I appeared to your gracious Sovereign to have spoken to the prejudice of the Episcopal order. If you have received that letter, I doubt not but you consider me as one who thinks and speaks respectfully of you Orrder. I assure you I am not so presumptuously arrogant, as to wish to set myself in opposition to all antiquity; and to contemn, as faulty or wrong, that which has been received in the Church ever since the age immediately subsequent to the Apostles. I have always thought that Churches might subsist under dif ferent forms of Ecclesiastical polity, without any infringement of the integrity of their union; provided that Christ be preached, as He is set forth in the Gospel, and the Christian faith remain entire and uncorrupted. As for yourself, as a member of your Order, I have always' most highly valued you, for many reasons, which I would rather express to others than to you. And in proof of this my esteem, I send you a new work, which, the desire of the Church which I serve, and the insolence of a Jesuit of the Court, have extorted from me. I entreat your friendly offices in appeasing the King, that he may reflect with himself, and impartially weigh, that no Pastor could possibly hold a station in the French Churches, who should teach, that the pre-emi

God was so great an action, that they reckoned there could be no office higher, than that which qualified a man to so mighty a performance, therefore, as they changed the form of ordination from what it was anciently believed to consist in to a delivering of the sacred vessels, and held that the Priest had his orders by that rite, and not by the imposition of hands; so they raised their order or office so high as to make it equal with the order of a Bishop. But as they designed to extol the order of priesthood, so the Canonists had as great a mind to depress the Episcopal order. They generally wrote for preferment, and the way to it was to exalt the Papacy. Nothing could do that so effectually, as to bring down the power of Bishops. This only could justify the exemptions of the Monks and Friars, the Popes setting up Legantine Courts, and receiving at first appeals, and then original causes before them, together with many other encroachments on their jurisdiction; all which were unlawful, if the Bishops had, by Divine Right, jurisdiction in their dioceses. Therefore it was necessary to lower them as low as could be, and to make them think that the power they held, was rather as delegates of the Apostolic See, than by a commission from Christ or his Apostles: so that they looked on the declaring Episcopal authority to be of Divine right, as a blow that would be fatal to the Court of Rome; and therefore they did after this at Trent use all possible endeavours to hinder any such decision. It having been then the common style of that age to reckon Bishops and Priests as the same office, it is no wonder if at this time (1538) the Clergy of this Church, the greatest part of them being still leavened with the old superstition, and the rest of them not having enough of spare time to examine lesser matters, retained still the former phrases in this particular.

On this I have insisted the more, that it may appear how little they have considered things, who are so far carried with their zeal against the established government of this Church, as to make much use of some passages of the Schoolmen and Canonists that deny them to be distinct offices, for these are the very dregs of Popery, the one raising the Priests higher for the sake of transubstantiation, the other pulling the Bishops lower for the sake of the Pope's supremacy, and by such means bringing them almost to an equality. So partial are sonie men to their particular conceits, that they make use of the most mischievous topics when they can serve their turn, not considering how much further these arguments will run if they ever admit them."-Burnet's Hist. Reform. Vol. I. p. 366. Folio Edit.

THE

CHRISTIAN

REMEMBRANCER.

APRIL, 1825.

THE LIFE OF BISHOP_BEDELL*,

LORD BISHOP OF KILMORE, 1629.

A TIME like the present, in which our attention is anxiously directed to the welfare of the Protestant Church of Ireland, cannot be deemed an unfavourable opportunity for exhibiting to our readers "the life of Bishop Bedell," a prelate whose name is endeared to that Church not less by his sufferings in the cause of religion, than by his labours to promote her spiritual and temporal interests.

The life of Bishop Bedell was written by Gilbert Burnett, and printed in the year 1685-a year memorable for the accession of a Roman Catholic Prince to the throne of England, and for the revocation of the edict of Nantes. It was published anonymously, probably after Burnett had left England and sought in foreign travel a shelter from the storm with which he foresaw the Protestants of England were threatened. Our author had experienced, in his dismissal from the preachership of the Rolls Chapel, the persecuting spirit of the English Court, and the tenor of his account of Bishop Bedell, would hardly render him more a favourite with James II. than he had hitherto been. The veil, however, which is thrown over the name of the author, is of the thinnest texture; any person who had the slightest acquaintance with Burnett's history, would instantly detect the author by the account given of himself in the preface, and the style of the language so entirely correspond with those of his later writings, as not to leave a doubt that the work came from the pen of the author of "the History of his Own Time."

Burnett opens his preface to this work with some observations upon the effect which the lives of good bishops have in strengthening the arguments adduced in favour of the apostolical origin of episcopacy. "There is nothing," says he, " that can have a stronger operation to overcome all prejudices against episcopacy than the proposing eminent patterns, whose lives continue to speak still, though they are dead;" an opinion in which every one must heartily concur, who venerates the

Born A. D. 1570; head of Trinity College, Dublin, 1626; Bishop of Kilmore, 1629; died 1642. Some interesting notices of Bedell are to be met with in Isaac Walton's Life of Sir Henry Wotton. We shall feel obliged by receiving any further particulars respecting him from our Correspondents.

courage of the martyr Bishops of our Reformation-and who feels how much he is indebted for his own personal improvement in knowledge and piety to the writings of a Jewel and an Andrewes, a Sanderson and a Taylor, a Tillotson and a Butler. He observes also, that the distance at which we live from the apostolic and primitive ages, and the difficulties under which we labour when we attempt to place things so remote in their true light, render it prudent in defending the utility and honour of the episcopal order, to appeal rather to such instances of piety and talent as are near to our own time, than to those which are the glory of the earlier ages of the Church. In reading the memoirs of men who have lived at no great distance from us, we become, as it were, personally acquainted with them, we consider them as men placed under circumstances nearly similar to our own, and can set the right value upon their conduct; their counsels are as forcible as the advice of living friends, and their examples are even more powerful, for death conceals from view those slight imperfections, those pardonable weaknesses, which so frequently render ineffectual the example of men who in all other points are worthy our perfect admiration. Burnett had lived abroad, and had witnessed the piety and munificence of many of the Roman Catholic Prelates of the French Church-his testimony in their favour is thus powerfully and charitably expressed, in terms with which we conceive the most zealous Papist would be amply satisfied : -" I love not," says Burnett, "to point at their blind sides, it is their fair one that I would set out and if we can bear the highest commendations that can be given to the virtues of heathen philosophers, even when they do eclipse the reputation of the greater part of Christians; it will be unjust for any to be uneasy at the praises given to Prelates of another communion, who are to be so much the more admired, if notwithstanding all the corruptions that lie so thick about them, that they could hardly break through them, they have set the world such examples as ought indeed to make others ashamed that have much greater advantages. But since the giving of orders is almost the only part of their function, that is yet entirely in their hands; they have indeed brought a regulation into that which was so grossly abused in former times, that cannot be enough commended, nor too much imitated; they have built and endowed seminaries for their dioceses, in which a competent number of young ecclesiastics are bred at studies and exercises suitable to that profession to which they are to be dedicated; and as they find them well prepared, they are, by the several steps and degrees of the Pontifical, led up to the altar, and kept there till benefices fall, and so they are removed from thence, as from a nursery, into the several parts of the dioceses. By this means the secular Clergy of France have in a great measure recovered their reputation, and begin now to bear down the regulars, whose credit and wealth had risen chiefly by the ignorance and scandals of the curates. In this the present Archbishop of Rheims has set a pattern to the rest, suitable to the high rank he holds in that Church, for he has raised a seminary that cost him fifty thousand crowns a building, and above five thousand crowns a year in supporting the expence of it: in which there are about one hundred ecclesiastics maintained; and out of these he ordains every year such a

SIR,

To the Editor of the Christian Remembrancer.

Ir has been suggested to me, that the publication of the following outline of a "Clerical Society," in the pages of the Remembrancer, might be acceptable to some of your readers.

In consequence of an opinion which apppeared to prevail among the Clergy, that much benefit, both of a public and private nature, would arise from their more frequent personal communication with each other, a meeting was convened at a neighbouring town, and (the Incumbent of the parish having been called to the chair) a Society was formed of the Clergy residing in its vicinity, for the discussion of professional subjects, and for the purpose of promoting friendly intercourse among its members. The Society having been honoured with the approbation of the Archdeacon, who accepted the office of President, and having elected three Vice-Presidents, (to take the chair in rotation in the absence of the President) with a Secretary and Treasurer, agreed to meet about the time of the full moon in the alternate summer months, beginning with March and ending with September. An ordinary, at 2s. 6d. a head, is provided at an inn in the neighbouring market-town, at three o'clock precisely, and at seven the Secretary calls for the bill. A fine of 2s. 6d. is exacted for absence, except it be of an official nature. Any member of the Society is allowed to introduce a friend, provided he is in holy orders, and not resident within ten miles of the central town. The election of new members, nominated at a previous meeting, takes place immediately after dinner by ballot, two negatives precluding admission: then follows the remaining business of the day. Upon a requisition, signed by four members, a special meeting may be called by the Secretary, between the hours of one and three, for the purpose of deliberating upon any important subject, of which notice must be given, by letter, at least a fortnight before. No alteration of the Rules can be proposed without due notice at a previous meeting; and no new Resolution can be made, unless a majority of the members be present, and two-thirds of those present agree thereto. Soon after the formation of the Clerical Society, it was thought that its object would be further promoted by the circulation of books and pamphlets, on ecclesiastical subjects, among its members. But, as the Regulations of the Book-Club annexed to it, differ little from those of other Societies of a similar description, I shall not trespass upon your time by detailing them. The annual subscription is half-a-guinea, in addition to the fund raised by the sale of books and pamphlets (which have passed through the Society) at the second meeting in each year.

Such is the general outline of our Clerical Society, the advantages of which may be briefly stated in the increased intercourse and personal acquaintance of the parochial Clergy, a body of men, whose habits of life are for the most part retired and confined, and who are thus assembled to discuss subjects of common interest, to collect opinions upon local occurrences of a professional nature, to concert measures for the public good, to declare occasionally (after due deliberation) their sentiments upon any important question, and to make arrangements for general co-operation and support. By means of the

Edmunds, where he discharged faithfully his duty as a Minister of the Gospel, being particularly successful in his labours in the pulpit, where the clearness of his style and aptness of his knowledge was heightened in appearance by the contrast presented to it, in the obscurities of his colleague for it was said of his colleague, that whilst he made the plainest places of Scripture appear difficult, Bedell made the most difficult passages plain. After a few years residence at Bury, Mr. Bedell was invited to accompany Sir Henry Wotton, the Ambassador to Venice, in quality of his Chaplain. The embassy arrived at Venice in 1604, and here Mr. Bedell passed eight years, chiefly in the society of that eminent and worthy man P. Paulo, the historian of the Council of Trent, from whom he acquired a most perfect knowledge of the Italian language, and in return he translated into Italian the Book of Common Prayer, the whole structure and composition of which was so highly approved by P. Paulo, and those divines who, during the interdict, were appointed to preach against the Pope's authority, that they determined to have made it their pattern, had the disputes between the Pope and the Senate gone to the length which they secretly desired. Upon the critical interpretation of the Greek New Testament, Mr. Bedell and P. Paulo had frequent discussions, and the value of Bedell's accurate knowlenge of the sacred volume was not lost upon P. Paulo, who used to express with transports of joy his pleasure, when the critical suggestions of Bedell threw light upon passages which he had before imperfectly comprehended. Mr. Bedell availed himself also of the assistance of R. Leo, Chief of the Jewish synagogue at Venice, to acquire that very considerable knowledge in the Hebrew language which afterwards proved so useful to him in his translation of the Bible into the Irish language. By Leo's means he purchased a beautiful manuscript of the Old Testament, which was given to Emmanuel College, and which is said to have cost its weight in silver. The disputes between the Venetians and the Pope being settled, the embassy returned to England; P. Paulo would willingly have accompanied his friend, for he saw that the opportunity of Reformation was lost by the reconciliation with Rome, and yet the respect in which he was held by the Senate made it impossible for him to leave Venice, and therefore he complied as far as he could with the established worship, though he rather quieted than satisfied his conscience. When one pressed him upon this matter, and objected to him that by his apparent compliance he sanctioned an idolatrous worship, he is related to have replied -"God has not given me the spirit of a Luther." He expressed great concern at parting with Mr. Bedell he gave him his picture, an Hebrew Bible, and Psalter, and with them the invaluable manuscript of the "History of the Council of Trent," together with the "History of the Interdict and of the Inquisition," a part of which was translated into Latin by Bedell, and presented to King James.

On his return to England he re-commenced his duties at Bury St. Edmunds, but no notice was taken of him by the Court-his friend, Sir Henry Wotton, had fallen into disgrace, and Bedell had too high a spirit to court preferment by any mean compliances. His courageous and upright temper may be clearly seen in two circumstances which