SOME ACCOUNT

OF

JOHN BALE

WITH EXTRACTS FROM HIS VOCATION TO THE BISHOPRIC OF OSSORY IN IRELAND, AND HIS PERSECUTIONS

IN THE SAME.

ALSO EXTRACTS FROM

THE IMAGE OF BOTH CHURCHES, AFTER THE MOST WONDERFUL AND HEAVENLY REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE

EVANGELIST.

SOME ACCOUNT

OF

JOHN BALE,.

Bishop of Ossory.

JOHN BALE was born in 1495, at Cove, a small village near Dunwich, in Suffolk. At twelve years of age he was entered in the monastery of Carmelites at Norwich, and from thence went to Jesus College, in Cambridge. While a papist he was very zealous for that way of religion. He says, "I wandered in utter ignorance of mind both at Norwich and Cambridge, having no tutor or patron, till the word of God showing forth, the churches began to return to the true fountain of true divinity. In which bright rising of the New Jerusalem, being not called by any monk or priest, but seriously stirred up by the illustrious the lord Wentworth, as by that centurion who declared Christ to be the Son of God, I presently saw and acknowledged my own deformity; and immediately, through the divine goodness, I was removed from a barren mountain, to the flowery and fertile valley of the gospel, where I found all things built, not on the sand, but on a solid rock."

Bale openly showed his renunciation of the errors of popery by marrying. He soon became an object of hatred to the Romish clergy, but was protected by lord Cromwell. The confession of William Broman, accused of heresy in 1536, states, that "one Bale, a white (or Carmelite) friar, sometime prior of Doncaster, taught him about three years ago, that Christ would dwell in no church that was made of lime and stones by men's hands, but only in heaven above, and in men's hearts in earth." Strype also relates that Bale was a zealous decrier of the papal supremacy and worship between 1530 and 1540; adding, "Sometimes we find him in the north, where Lee, the archbishop, imprisoned him, and sometimes in the south, where Stokesly, bishop of London, met with him. At Cromwell's death he thought it not safe for him to abide any longer in England, especially as persecution grew so hot upon the six articles; so he, with his wife and family, went beyond sea, and tarried in Germany eight years." During Bale's abode on the continent he wrote several of his works, particularly his elucidation of the martyrdom of Anne Askew. He says, "I have expelled myself for ever from mine own native country, kindred, friends, and acquaintance, which are the great delights of this life, and am well contented, for Jesus Christ's sake, and for the comfort of my brethren there, to suffer poverty, penury, abjection, reproof, and all that comes besides."

After Edward VI. had succeeded to the throne, Bale was recalled to England, and presented to the living of Bishop's Stoke, in Hampshire. In 1552 he was nominated to the bishopric of Ossory, in Ireland. The circumstances attending this appointment are related by himself as follows:

Upon the 15th day of August, A. D. 1552, being the first day of my deliverance, as God would, from a dangerous ague, which had holden me Ìong afore; in rejoicing that his majesty was come in progress to Southampton, which was five miles from my parsonage of Bishop's Stoke, within the same county, I took my horse about ten of the clock, for very weakness scarce able to sit on him, and so came thither. Betwixt two and three of the clock the same day, I drew towards the place where his majesty was, and stood in the open street right against the gallery. Anon my friend, John Philpot, a gentleman, and one of the king's privy-chamber, called unto him two more of his companions, who, in moving their heads towards me, showed me most friendly countenances. By one of these the king having information that I was there in the street, he marvelled thereof, for it had been told him a little afore that I was both dead and-buried. With that his grace came to the window, and earnestly beheld me, a poor weak creature, as though he had had upon me, so simple a subject, an earnest regard, or rather a very fatherly care.

"In the very same instant, as I have been since that time credibly informed, his grace called unto him the lords of his most honourable council, so many as were then present, willing them to appoint me to the bishopric of Ossory, in Ireland. Whereunto they all agreeably consenting, commanded the letters of my first calling thereunto to be written and sent me. The next day, the 16th of August, they very favourably subscribed the same.

، Thus was I called, in a manner from death, to this office, without my expectation, or yet knowledge thereof. And thus have ye my vocation to the bishopric of Ossory, in Ireland. I pass over my earnest refusal thereof, a month after that, on the king's majesty's return to Winchester; where, as I alleged (as I then thought) my lawful impediments, of poverty, age, and sickness, within the bishop's house there; but they were not accepted. Then resorted I to the court at London, within six weeks after, according to the tenour of the aforesaid letter; and within six days had all things performed pertaining to my election and full confirmation, freely without any manner of charges or expenses, whereof I much marvelled."

"On the 19th day of December I took my journey from Bishop's Stoke with my books and stuff towards Bristol, where I tarried twenty-six days for passage, and divers times preached in that worshipful city, at the instant desire of the citizens. Upon the 21st day of January we entered into the ship; I, my wife, and one servant: and, being but two nights and two days upon the sea, so merciful was the Lord unto us, we arrived most prosperously at Waterford, in the coldest time of the year. 37*

397

"In beholding the face and order of that city, I saw many abominable idolatries maintained by the priests for their worldly interests. The communion or supper of the Lord was there altogether used like a popish mass with the old apish toys of antichrist, in bowings and beckonings, kneelings and knockings, the Lord's death, after St. Paul's doctrine, neither preached nor yet spoken of. There wailed they over the dead with prodigious howlings and patterings, as though their souls had not been quieted in Christ and redeemed by his passion, but that they must come after and help at a pinch with requiem eternam, to deliver them out of hell by their sorrowful sorceries. When I had beholden these heathenish behaviours, I said to a senator of that city, that I well perceived that Christ had there no bishop, neither yet the king's majesty of England any faithful officer of the mayor, in suffering such horrible blasphemies. The next day after, I rode towards Dublin, and rested the night following in a town called Knocktover, in the house of master Adam Walshe, my general commissary for the whole diocese of Ossory.

"At supper the parish priest, called Sir Philip, was very serviceable, and, in familiar talk, described unto me the house of the white friars, which sometime was in that town; concluding in the end, that the last prior thereof, called William, was his natural father. I asked him, if that were in marriage? He made me answer, No. For that was, he said, against his profession. Then counselled I him, that he never should boast of it more. Why, saith he, it is an honour in this land to have a spiritual man, as a bishop, an abbot, a monk, a friar, or a priest, to father. With that I greatly marvelled, not so much of his unshamefaced talk, as I did that adultery, forbidden of God, and of all honest men detested, should there have both praise and preferment, thinking in process, for my part, to reform it. I came at the last to Dublin, where I found my companion Hugh Goodacre, archbishop of Armagh elect, and my old friend, David Cooper, parson of Calan. Much people greatly rejoiced at our coming thither, thinking, by our preachings, the pope's superstitions would diminish, and true christian religion increase."

Some difficulties were thrown in the way of the bishop's consecration, by the papists, who wished that it should have been according to the Romish ritual; but Bale firmly opposing this, the ceremonial as lately directed by king Edward, was used.

Bishop Bale endeavoured earnestly to fulfil the duties of his new charge, but met with much opposition from the papists. It is described by himself in his work entitled, "The Vocation of John Baie to the bishopric of Ossory, in Ireland; his persecutions in the same, and his final deliverance," which presents a painful delineation of the state of Ireland at that period.

Bale proceeds: "Within two days after my consecration was I sick again, so that no man thought I should live; which malady held me till after Easter. Yet, in the meantime, I found a way to be brought to Kilkenny, where I preached every Sunday and

holyday in Lent, till theSunday after Easter was fully past, never feeling any manner of grief of my sickness for the time I was in the pulpit; whereat many men, and myself also, greatly marvelled. Neither had I, for all that time space, any mind to call for any temporal profits, which was afterwards to my no small hinderance. From that day of my consecration I traded with myself, by all posibility, to set forth that doctrine which God charged his church with ever since the beginning; and thought therewith in my mind also that I had rather that Etna should swallow me up, than to maintain those ways in religion which might corrupt the same. For my daily desire is, in that everlasting school to behold the eternal Son of God, both here and after this life; and not only to see the fathers, prophets, and apostles therein, but also, for love of that doctrine, to enjoy their blessed fellowship hereafter, And so much the rather I acted thus with myself, that I saw then the king's majesty, the archbishop of Canterbury, and the honourable lords of the council, so fervently bent that way, as to seek the people's health in the same. I thought it thereupon no less than my bound duty to show myself faithful, studious, and diligent in that so chargeful a function.

"My first proceedings in that doing were these: I earnestly exhorted the people to repentance for sin, and required them to give credit to the gospel of salvation. To acknowledge and believe that there is but one God; and him alone, without any other, sincerely to worship. To confess one Christ for an only Saviour and Redeemer, and to trust in none other men's prayers, merits, nor yet deservings, but in his alone, for salvation. I treated at large both of the heavenly and political state of the Christian church; and helpers I found none among my. prebendaries and clergy, but adversaries a great number.

I preached the gospel of the knowledge and right invocation of God; I maintained the political order by doctrine, and moved the commons always to obey their magistrates. But when I once sought to destroy the idolatries, and dissolve the hypocrites' yokes, then followed angers, slanders, conspiracies, and, in the end, the slaughter of men. Much ado I had with the priests; for that I had said among other, that the white gods of their making, such as they offered to the people to be worshiped,* were no gods, but idols; and that their prayers for the dead procured no redemption to the souls departed, redemption of souls being only in Christ, of Christ, and by Christ. I added, that their office, by Christ's strait commandment, was chiefly to preach and instruct the people in the doctrine and ways of God, and not to occupy so much of the time in chanting, piping, and singing. Much were the priests offended also for that I, in my preachings, willed them to have wives of their own, and to leave their unshamefaced doings. But hear what answer they made me always, yea, the most vicious men among them: 'What! should we marry,' said they, for half a year, and so lose our

* The consecrated wafers used in the communion.