it would not be ungratefull to you, what I writ thereof in relation to the Bishop, as followeth: "Dr. Stillingfleet makes it a matter of hyperbolical flourish, as a pretence to very great antiquity, that a late Irish writter (P. W. [Peter Walsh] in his Preface to the Prospect of Ireland), should compare the antiquities of Ireland with those of the Chineses for exactness of Chronology. Indeed whatever the opinion of a privat writter might be in such a case, is not of that moment as to extenuat the credit of our Antiquaries, who never knew what the Chineses were in the furthest part of the world from the climat. But since the learned Doctor so highly magnifyes the accuracy of the Chinesian calculation of time beyond the Irish, I hold it not impertinent to examin it. "And first of all, I find himself acknowledge a different account of the two best witnesses he produces to that purpose, vz. John Gonsales Mendoza and Martinius; as appeares, he sayes (p. xxxii. of his Preface), by comparing Gonsales Mendoza and Martinius together, which shewes their computation of time is not so plausible as the Doctor would have us believe. I adde another different witness, M. Paulus Venetus, 300 years precedent to Mendoza. 0093 0200 4497 4497 1796 "The account that Mendoza, for certain years resident in China, gathers out of their own calculation and succession of kings, justly computed, extends itself 2357 624 years beyond the gratt floud. Ffor from their first king Vitey, he 1847 finds 2357 years to the end of the 117th king of his posterity, by name Tzintzon; from Tzintzon, 1847 years during the reign of 142 kings, and 40 years interreign to the end of Tepy, conquered by Vzou, the Tartarian emperour: from Vzou 93 years of his and his 8 successours reigns, till Hombu, of the ancient race of China kings, recovered the kingdom from the Tartars; ffrom which time himself and 11 more of his posterity reigned for 6293 200 years to the year of Christ 1580, wherein Boneg the last of 'em reigned. At which time Mendoza was writing, being the year of the Julian period 6293, out of which the 4 periods of this computation, amounting to 4497 years substracted, there remaines 1796, the year of the Julian Period wherein Vitey is said to have begun his reign: 624 added thereunto makes 2420, the year of the Julian period, in the latter end whereof the gratt floud begun, by Scaliger's account, 2293 years before the first year of our Christian com- 0624 2293 putation. So 624 years from the beginning of Vitey to the ffloud: 2293 years 1580 from thence to Christ; and 1580 years of Christ added together, make up the same sum of 4497. But this is a manifest absurdity to us, that are enlightened by the rayes of divine faith, and instructed by sacred text, whereof the Chineses were ignorant; ffor there must be time allowed for the propagation of man3 K 2 kind 624 2420 4497 kind from the breed of 3 couples after the floud: another allowance of time to the Babylonian confusion, and dispersion of nations: and another to the establishment of several kingdoms; among which it is known that China was not the first monarchy in the world. Neither is this absurdity excusable by a pretence, that even the Chineses had a dark and fabulous time, as well as the Greekes; as the Doctor would have, p. xxxii. ffor those dark and fabulous remote antiquities are so termed, inasmuch as they are a confused intermixtur of poetical fables and true history, and without any continued series and connection, remote from that part of history which begins with a certainty of perpetuated succession. But the Chinesian account is so particular and exact, in a formal series of time not interrupted, and succession of 280 kings from their first Vitey to Boneg, not so much as the interreign of 40 years unobserved, that there is nothing of . . . . . . therein wanting, but onely that incredible spacious length of time, reaching not onely beyond the foundation of established kingdoms, but also beyond the restauration of mankind. Which onely point argues all that tradition fabulous and vain: and leaves it uncertain where to fix the beginning of their more unquestionable series of succession, unless we fix it on their restauration after the Tartarian conquest som 300 years agoe: by reason of the dissonancy between Mendoza and Paulus Venetus, about the verie time that the Tartars reduced them under their own subjection; which Mendoza alleages out of their own publick records (trusted onely to persons of great reputation, as the Doctor tells us, p. xxxiii.), to haue fallen out in the year of our Christian account, 1287. But Paulus Venetus, an eye-witness, living that verie time in the Tartarian emperour's court, ascertaines it to haue been in the year of the same account 1268. That I may omitt how they both differ, in the names of the then conquering Tartar, and conquered Chinesse king. "It remaines now that we enquire into the Chinesses their way of preserving antiquities peculiar to themselves, which cannot verie well (in the learned D judicious opinion) be made parallel for the Scotish or Irish Antiquities. Which last are the same without difference, if you exempt the modern Scotish Romances. I have not seen the Information, which the world hath since (as the D' sayes) in great measure received by Martinius; onely what I gather by the D' legend; and that is no les absurd and incredible than that of Mendoza's 4497 years. ffor Martinius, his very plausible account of the remote Antiquities of China, may well be termed a dark and fabulous time, as transcending the verie first ofspring of times: and his account of the Chineses, their use of letters after their remote antiquities, whereby the succession of their kings was delivered down to them with great fidelity, must haue begun in a time before the use of speaking. ffor after the invention, and great benefit of letters with them, the D' tells us of their great accuracy in computing time by Cycles, saying they were verie earely given to the finding out the best methods for calculation, and they used a cycle of 2670 1656 4326 4000 326 4714 of 60 years, 2670 years before Christ's nativity. That was verie early indeed, before the sun shined on their faces in China, ffor our most exquisit chronographers of Christendom in latter ages, unanimously conclud the time of our redemption about 4000 years, a little more or les, from the creation: but the 2670 years since their use of a 60 years' cycle till Christ's coming (besids as many ages before, as they had or had not the use of letters, and since the ffloud to their first becoming a nation set aside without reckning), and 1656 years from the creation to the floud, added together, amount to 326 years aboue 4000. Or if you will have it more exactly cast, take 2670 out of 4714, the Julian period year concurring with the first year of our common Christian account, the remainder 2044 is the year of the Julian period that preceded the floud, 376 year to begin with the Chinesian 60 years peculiar cycle, after so many ages of their remote antiquities without the use of letters, and after the invention of them long before that rare sexagint cycle. Thus far of the Chronological exactness of the Chineses; in comparison of which the D' flouts our antiquities. 2670 2044 376 2420 "This I write to you, while I am waiting on the paper to discharge the task in order to my good Lord Bishop of Meath's pleasure; having writ to you in answer of your last of Dec. the 1s, by 2 posts since; but received none from you by this day post. Thursday next I expect Mr. Lewin's answer. "I am, Sir, "TO WILLIAM MOLYNEUX, Esq., one of the Masters of his Majesties high Court of Chancery, Dublin." III. "R. O'FLAHERTY." Animadversions on Dr. Chamberlain's Subjection of the Bishops of Ireland to the Archbishop of Canterbury, &c. [From the Author's autograph, in the possession of the Right Honorable the Earl of Leitrim]. "I happ❜ned cursoriely to run over D' Chamberlain's complete work of Notitia Angliæ; a rare Epitome of singular antient and modern observations. Where I lighted on a mistake in relation to the old Irish Nation, of whom but few of late Writters have a right understanding, since the publishing of Giraldus Cambrensis A° 1602, by Mr. Camden; being the onely Notitia Hib" they follow, tho there are several authentick Irish Antiquities as yet extant, more exact than elsewhere can be produc'd, "The quotations here are markt with a parenthesis every where."-Author's note. produc'd, upon which a designed entire treatise against his, and such as followed his steps, their manifold errours and calumnies was set forth in Latin, under the title of Cambrensis Eversus, at St. Malos A° 1662, and having considered the Author's judicious care and sincerity in the rest of his work, I presum it would not be ungratefull to 'im to be undeceived in a passage of unbyassed design, wherein he was unaware misled by the tradition of others, in the ensuing words out of the first part, chap. 18. pag. 224 of his Book. “Viz. The Archbishop of Canterbury anciently had Primacy as well over all Ireland, as England; and the Irish Bishops received consecration from him: for Ireland had no other Archbishop until the year 1152, and therefore in the time of the two first Norman KK. it was declared that Canterbury was the Metropolitan Church of England, Scotland, and Ireland. "I omitt here to take exception of Archbishop of Canterbury, and Bishops of Ireland, onely mind him, that S. Augustin was never termed Archbishop by S. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, who ordeined 'im Bishop; nor Archbishop and Bishops distinguished by such termes in the Western church before the 9th Christian age, as Mabillon (Mabillon de Re Diplomat. lib. 2. cap. 2. n. 12.) and others observe. Such as had jurisdiction over other Bishops in ancient times, were only called Bishops, so the first Primats of Canterbury and York, the first Patriarks of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria, and the ffathers of the first General Councils were indifferently called Bishops. Nay the Pope of Rome is still called Bishop of Rome. So that Archbishop in latter ages, and Bishop over other Bishops in former ages differ not: and where such Bishops are very often in latter ages called Archbishops, tis only to appropriate to them the term of what really they were, tho not in their time such a term practised. Moreover even since the name of Archbishop is com in use, three suffragan Bishops can consecrate a Bishop without the presence of a Metropolitan necessarie. "S. Patr: for whose birth we are more obliged to G. Britain than for the Primacy of Canterbury, coming on his Mission into Ireland, A° 432: next year erected the Bishop see of Trim in Meath: 25 years after having completed his work of the Conversion of the Kingdom, he founded the Metropolitan See of Ardmagh in Vlster, A°458 (& not A° 445 as others have). Soon after he took a journey to Rome, where without peradventure he obtained all the authority and privileges (if any before not granted) that were necessary for erecting the Hierarchy of church government in the Nation by him newly brought to the light of the Gospell, and endowed with eminent guifts of renown'd piety and sanctity. By vertue whereof he dedicated churches, called Synods, erected cathedrals, as custom then did allow. He instituted four Metropolitan Sees, one in each province, with superintendency of the Metropolitan politan of Ardmagh over the three others; as in the politick government, the Monarch was over the provincial KK. But it cannot be denyed, that there were no Bishops of Canterbury for to ordein Irish Bishops for above 8 score years after S. Patrick's arrival in Ireland to S. Augustin's mission from Rome, A° 597, and his foundation of Canterbury. "S. Augustin's successours, and the British, Irish, and Pictish churches were at great odds and debate for several centuries of years, about the time of holding Easter, and other ceremonies, tho' not repugnant to the salvation of soules (Bed. Histor. passim), but as we now in like case differ som years by weekes from the new Gregorian Easter time; the English Saxons, of S. Augustin's conversion, holding Easter according to the reformed Dionysian paschal cycle of 532 years, practis'd in the church at their becoming christians, and the 3 other Nations together with the Northern English Saxons converted by Irish Scots, obstinately adhering to the old cycle of lxxxiv years, prescribed to them by their first Doct" of christianity, as at their first conversion practised by the church. (Usser: de Brit. Eccl. Primord: pag. 925. Fleming, in vita S. Columbani.) During which controversy the Northern English, and Walsh, or British Bishops were often consecrated by Irish-Scot Bishops, and IrishScots by them, (Vard: Rumold: pag. 386. vita S. Kentigerni apud Capgravium) without dependency of Canterbury, made decrees against such as were ordein'd by Bishops observant of the old Paschal manner of Eastertime. (v. Bed: Histor. passim.) This national controversy was so vehement, that it was but by degrees the dissenting Nations conformed themselves at last to the canonical Roman observance. So highly they were concerned in this, and other ceremonial points, whereof this of Easter was the greatest difference (Bed. Histor. lib. 2. cap. 2.), that of three successive Irish Bishops of Lindisfarn in Northumb: (and Metropolitans of the North of England, the see of York then vacant) the last Bishop Colman, in a Synod at Whitby in the North riding of York, about the same controversy, A° 664, abdicated his Bishoprick sooner than he would swarve from the ancient rites of his predecessors, and coming to Ireland his native soile, founded an Abbey at Bofinn Island in the West Ocean of Connaght, and another at Mayo for the English Saxons com along with him (Bed. Ibd. lib. 3. cap. 25. & 26.) The abbey of the holy Island of Hy, (where the said three successive Bishops of Lindisfarn first profess'd), one of the Hebrid Isles of modern Scotland, chief head of all the Abbeyes of S. Columb's order in Ireland, Scotland, and England, planted by S. Columb with a seminary of monks, supplyed out of Ireland for many ages after, was induc'd to conform, A° 716, by the procurement of S. Egbert, a holy English Priest of religious austerity, among many more of his countrymen brought up in Ireland, where he liv'd at least 52 years till his going thither (Bed. |