Without designing to take part in the question at issue regarding archbishop Ussher, I may be permitted to record the evidence of one of the earliest and best-informed witnesses on it—Nicholas Bernard, doctor of divinity, and preacher to the honourable society of Grayes-Inne, London.
"Anno 1641. The great businesse of the Earle of Strafford came in agitation, in which there is one thing he gave me a charge, as I had occasion, to clear him, viz. of a scandall raised on him, by a rash, I will not say malicious pen, in his Vocall forrest, as if he had made use of a pretended distinction of a Personall and politicall conscience, to satisfy the late King, that he might consent to the beheading of the said Earle; that though the first resisted, he might do it by the second; which, I wonder men of prudence, or that had any esteem of him, could be so credulous of: but there is a presumptuous Observator of late, hath more ridiculously and maliciously abused him in it, as if the root of it was in revenge, for the Earles suppressing the Articles of Ireland; both are of the like falshood, as hath been already made apparent, in an answer to him.
"And I have lately seen it under the hand of a person of quality, affirming, that some yeers agone, a rumour being spread of the death of this Reverend Primate (who was much lamented at Oxford) and this concerning the Earle being by one then objected against him. He was an ear-witnesse, that the late King, answered that person in very great Passion, and with an oath protested his innocency therein."
Bernard received ordination from the hands of Ussher; was his librarian at the period in question; and was honoured with his confidence for thirty years. His Life of Ussher is a work of authority, and deserves to be held in remembrance.
BOLTON CORNEY.
ANGLO-CATHOLIC LIBRARY—BISHOP OVERALL'S CONVOCATION BOOK.
The volume which is known under the title of Bishop Overall's Convocation Book, is a document possessing no ordinary degree of interest. It consists of a series of arguments and canons, in which are discussed and decided several questions of great moment relative to the authority of princes, the divine right of episcopacy, and the differences between the Church of England and the see of Rome. Though this document never obtained the sanction of the Crown, yet its intrinsic value is considerable; and its claim to be regarded as an authentic exposition of the doctrine of the Church of England, in the beginning of the seventeenth century, is unquestionable. Drawn up by the eminent divines who constituted the lower house of the Convocation of 1603, the signature of Bishop Overall at the end attests that the whole had been read three times in the hearing of the house, and unanimously approved.[5]
[5] "Hæc omnia suprascripta ter lecta sunt in domo inferiori convocationis in frequenti synodo cleri, et unanimi consensu comprobata. Ita testor,
"JOHANNES OVERALL, Prolocutor.
"April 16. 1606."