ordered English, when his glorious patron was taken from his head, and he was disrobed of his great defences; when petitions were invited and accusations furnished, and calumny was rewarded and managed with art and power, when there were above two hundred petitions put in against him, and himself denied leave to answer by word of mouth; when he was long imprisoned, and treated so that a guilty man would have been broken into affrightment and pitiful and low considerations; yet then he himself, standing almost alone, like Callimachus at Marathon, invested with enemies and covered with arrows, defended himself beyond all the powers of guiltiness, even with the defences of truth and the bravery of innocence, and answered the petitions in writing, sometimes twenty in a day, with so much clearness, evidence of truth, reality of fact, and testimony of law, that his very enemies were ashamed and convinced; they found they had done like Æsop's viper, they licked the file till their tongues bled; but himself was wholly invulnerable. They were therefore forced to leave their muster-rolls and decline the particulars, and fall to their ev uya, to accuse him for going about to subvert the fundamental laws; the way by which great Strafford and Canterbury fell; which was a device, when all reasons failed, to oppress the enemy by the bold affirmation of a conclusion they could not prove: they did like those 'gladiatores' whom the Romans called 'retiarii,' when they could not stab their enemy with their daggers, they threw nets over him, and covered him with a general mischief. But the martyr king Charles the first, of most glorious and eternal memory, seeing so great a champion likely to be oppressed with numbers and despair, sent what rescue he could, his royal letter for his bail, which was hardly granted to him; and when it was, it was upon such hard terms, that his very delivery was a persecution. So necessary it was for them, who intended to do mischief to the public, to take away the strongest pillars of the house. This thing I remark to acquit this great man from the tongue of slander, which had so boldly spoken, that it was certain something would stick; yet was so impotent and unarmed, that it could not kill that great fame, which his greater worthiness had procured him. It was said of Hippasus the Pythagorean, that being asked how and what he had done, he answered, "Nondum nihil;

neque enim adhuc mihi invidetur;" "I have done nothing yet, for no man envies me." He that does great things, cannot avoid the tongues and teeth of envy; but if calumnies must pass for evidences, the bravest heroes must always be the most reproached persons in the world.

Nascitur Ætolicus, pravum ingeniosus ad omne ;

Qui facere assuerat, patriæ non degener artis,
Candida de nigris, et de candentibus atra.

Every thing can have an ill name and an ill sense put upon it; but God, who takes care of reputations as he does of lives, by the orders of his Providence confutes the slander, 'ut memoria justorum sit in benedictionibus,' that the memory of the righteous man might be embalmed with honour' and so it happened to this great man; for by a public warranty, by the concurrent consent of both houses of parliament, the libellous petitions against him, the false records and public monuments of injurious shame, were cancelled, and he was restored,' in integrum,' to that fame where his great labours and just procedures had first estated him; which though it was but justice, yet it was also such honour, that it is greater than the virulence of tongues, which his worthiness and their envy had armed against him.

'

But yet the great scene of the troubles was but newly opened. I shall not refuse to speak yet more of his troubles, as remembering that St. Paul, when he discourses of the glories of the saints departed, he tells more of their sufferings than of their prosperities, as being that laboratory and crucible, in which God makes his servants vessels of honour to his glory. The storm quickly grew high; et transitum est à linguis ad gladios;' and that was indeed adınía ëxovσa λa, Iniquity had put on arms;' when it is armata nequitia,' then a man is hard put to it. The rebellion breaking out, the bishop went to his charge at Derry; and because he was within the defence of walls, the execrable traitor Sir Phelim O'Neale, laid a snare to bring him to a dishonourable death; for he wrote a letter to the bishop, pretended intelligence between them, desired that according to their former agreement such a gate might be delivered to him. The messenger was not advised to be cautious, nor at all instructed in the art of secrecy; for it was intended that he should be searched, intercepted, and hanged for aught

they cared: but the arrow was shot against the bishop, that he might be accused for base conspiracy, and die with shame and sad dishonour. But here God manifested his mighty care of his servants; he was pleased to send into the heart of the messenger such an affrightment, that he directly ran away with the letter, and never durst come near the town to deliver it. This story was published by Sir Phelim himself, who added, that if he could have thus ensnared the bishop, he had good assurance the town should have been his own: "Sed bonitas Dei prævalitura est super omnem malitiam hominis;" "The goodness of God is greater than all the malice of men;" and nothing could so prove how dear that sacred life was to God, as his rescue from the dangers. "Stantia non poterant tecta probare Deos:"To have kept him in a warm house had been nothing, unless the roof had fallen upon his head; that rescue was a remark of Divine favour and Providence.' But it seems Sir Phelim's treason against the life of this worthy man had a correspondent in the town; and it broke out speedily; for what they could not effect by malicious stratagem, they did in part by open force; they turned the bishop out of the town, and upon trifling and unjust pretences searched his carriages, and took what they pleased, till they were ashamed to take more: they did worse than divorce him from his church; for in all the Roman divorces they said, "Tuas tibi res habeto,” “ Take 'your goods and be gone;" but plunder was religion then. However, though the usage was sad, yet it was recompensed to him by his taking sanctuary in Oxford, where he was graciously received by that most incomparable and divine prince; but having served the king in Yorkshire, by his pen, and by his counsels, and by his interests, he returned back to Ireland, where, under the excellent conduct of his grace the now lord lieutenant, he ran the risk and fortune of oppressed virtue.

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But God having still resolved to afflict us, the good man 'was forced into the fortune of the patriarchs, to leave his country and his charges, and seek for safety and bread in a strange land; for so the prophets were used to do, wandering up and down in sheep's clothing; but poor as they were,

• Mart. i. 15. 12.

the world was not worthy of them: and this worthy man, despising the shame, took up his cross and followed his Master.

Exilium causa ipsa jubet sibi dulce videri,

Et desiderium dulce levat patriæ.

He was not ashamed to suffer, where the cause was honourable and glorious; but so God provided for the needs of his banished, and sent a man who could minister comfort to the afflicted, and courage to the persecuted, and resolutions to the tempted, and strength to that religion for which they all suffered.

And here this great man was indeed triumphant; this was one of the last and best scenes of his life: ἡμέραι γὰρ ἐπίλογοι μάρτυρες σοφώτατοι, “ The last days are the best witnesses of a man." But so it was, that he stood up in public and brave defence for the doctrine and discipline of the church of England; first, by his sufferings and great example; for, Verbis tantùm philosophari, non est doctoris, sed histrionis;" "To talk well and not to do bravely, is for a comedian, not a divine:" but this great man did both; he suffered his own calamity with great courage, and by his wise discourses, strengthened the hearts of others.

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For there wanted no diligent tempters in the church of Rome, who taking advantage of the afflictions of his sacred majesty, in which state men commonly suspect every thing, and like men in sickness are willing to change from side to side, hoping for ease and finding none, flew at royal game, and hoped to draw away the king from that religion which his most royal father, the best man and the wisest prince in the world, had sealed with the best blood in Christendom, and which himself sucked in with his education, and had confirmed by choice and reason, and confessed publicly and bravely, and hath since restored prosperously. Millitiere was the man, witty and bold enough to attempt a zealous and a foolish undertaking, who addressed himself with ignoble, indeed, but witty arts, to persuade the king to leave what was dearer to him than his eyes. It is true, it was a wave dashed against a rock, and an arrow shot against the sun, it could not reach him; but the bishop of Derry turned it also, and made it fall upon the shooter's head; for he made so ingenious, so learned, and so acute reply to that book; he so discovered the errors of the

Roman church, retorted the arguments, stated the questions, demonstrated the truth, and shamed their procedures, that nothing could be a greater argument of the bishop's learning, great parts, deep judgment, quickness of apprehension, and sincerity in the catholic and apostolic faith; or of the follies and prevarications of the church of Rome. He wrote no apologies for himself, though it were much to be wished that, as Junius wrote his own life, or Moses his own story, so we might have understood from himself how great things God had done for him and by him: but all that he permitted to God, and was silent in his own defences; "Gloriosius enim est injuriam tacendo fugere, quàm respondendo superare:" but when the honour and conscience of his king, and the interest of a true religion was at stake, the fire burned within him, and at last he spake with his tongue; he cried out like the son of Crasus, "Ωνθρωπε, μὴ κτεῖνε Kpołσov", Take heed and meddle not with the king: his person is too sacred, and religion too dear to him to be assaulted by vulgar hands. In short, he acquitted himself in this affair with so much truth and piety, learning and judgment, that in those papers his memory will last unto very late succeeding generations.

But this most reverend prelate found a nobler adversary, and a braver scene for his contention: he found that the Roman priests, being wearied and baffled by the wise discourses and pungent arguments of the English divines, had studiously declined any more to dispute the particular questions against us, but fell at last upon a general charge, imputing to the church of England the great crime of schism; and by this they thought they might with most probability deceive unwary and unskilful readers; for they saw the schism, and they saw we had left them; and because they considered not the causes, they resolved to out-face us in the charge but now it was that dignum nactus argumentum,'' having an argument fit' to employ his great abilities,

Consecrat hic præsul calamum calamique labores,

Ante aras Domino læta tropæa suo;

'the bishop now dedicates his labours to the service of God' and of his church, undertook the question, and in a full dis

"Herod. i. 85. 16. Schweig.