Bilson, Thomas

, a learned writer, and bishop, in the end of the sixteenth and beginning of the seventeenth century, was born in the city of Winchester, being the son of Harman Bilson, the same probably who was fellow of | Merton-college in 1536, and derived his descent by his grandmother, or great-grandmother, from the duke of t>avaria. He was educated in Winchester school and in 1565 admitted perpetual fellow of New-college, after he had served two years of probation. October 10, 1566, he took his degree of bachelor, and April 25, 1570, that of master of arts; that of bachelor of divinity, June 24, 1579; and the degree of doctor of divinity on the 24th of January 1580. In his younger years, he was a great lover of, and extremely studious in, poetry, philosophy, and physic. But when he entered into holy orders, and applied himself to the study of divinity, which his genius chiefly led him to, he became a most solid and constant preacher, and one of the most accomplished scholars of his time. The first preferment he had was that of master of Winchester-school he was then made prebendary of Winchester, and afterwards warden of the college there. To this college he did a very important service, about the year 1584, by preserving the revenues of it when they were in danger of being swallowed up by a notorious forgery, of which, however, we have only an obscure account. In 1585, he published his book of “The true difference betweene Christian Subjection and unchristian Rebellion,” and dedicated it to queen Elizabeth a work, which, although it might answer her immediate purpose, was of fatal tendency to Charles I. few books being more frequently quoted by the mal-contents to justify their resistance to that prince. In 1593, he published a very able defence of episcopacy, entitled, “The perpetuall Government of Christes Church: wherein are handled, the fatherly superioritie which God first established in the patriarkes for the guiding of his Church, and after continued in the tribe of Levi and the Prophetes and lastlie confirmed in the New Testament to the apostles and their successors: as also the points in question at this day, touching the Jewish Synedrion: the true kingdome of Christ: the Apostles’ commission: the laie presbyterie: the distinction of bishops from presbyters, and their succession from the apostles times and hands: the calling and moderating of provinciall synods by primates and metropolitanes the allotting of dioceses, and the popular electing of such as must feede and watch the flock and divers other points concerning the pastoral regiment of the house of God.” On the 20th of April, 15y6, he was elected v | confirmed June the llth, and the 13th of the same month consecrated bishop of Worcester and translated in May following to the bishopric of Winchester, and made a privy-counsellor. In 1599, he published “The effect of certaine Sermons touching the full Redemption of Mankind by the death and bloud of Christ Jesus wherein, besides the merite of Christ’s suffering, the manner of his offering, the power of his death, the comfort of his crosse, the glorie of his resurrection, are handled, what paines Christ suffered in his soule on the crosse together with the place and purpose of his descent to hel after death” &c. Lond. 4to. These sermons being preached at Paul’s Cross in Lent 1597, by the encouragement of archbishop Whitgift, greatly alarmed most of the Puritans, because they contradicted some of their tenets, but they are not now thought consonant to the articles of the church of England. The Puritans, however, uniting their forces, and making their observations, sent them to Henry Jacob, a learned puritan, who published them under his own name. The queen being at Farnham-castle, and, to use the bishop’s words, “taking knowledge of the things questioned between him and his opponents, directly commanded him neither to desert the doctrine, nor to let the calling which he bore in the church of God, to be trampled under foot by such unquiet refusers of trueth and authoritie.” Upon this royal command, he wrote a learned treatise, chiefly delivered in sermons, which was published in 1604, under the title of “The survey^of Christ’s sufferings for Man’s Redemption and of his descent to hades or hel for our deliverance,” Lond. fol. He also preached the sermon at Westminster before king James I. and his queen, at their coronation on St. James’s day, July 28, 1603, from Rom. xiii. L. London, 1603, 8vo. In January 1603-4, he was one of the speakers and managers at the Hampton-Court conference, in which he spoke much, and, according to Mr. Fuller, most learnedly, and, in general, was one of the chief maintainers and supports of the church of England. The care of revising, and putting the last hand to, the new translation of the English Bible in king James Ist’s reign, was committed to our author, and to Dr. Miles Smith, afterwards bishop of Gloucester. His last public act, recorded in history, was the being one of the delegates that pronounced and signed the sentence of divorce between Robert Devereux, earl of Essex, and the lady | Frances Howard, in the year 1613 and his son being knighted soon after upon this very account, as was imagined, the world was so malicious as to give him the title of sir Nullity Bilson. This learned bishop, after having gone through many employments, departed this life on the 18th of June, 1616, and was buried in Westminsterabbey, near the entrance into St. Edmund’s chapel, on the south side of the monument of king Richard II. His character is represented to the utmost advantage by several persons. Sir Anthony Weldon calls him “an excellent civilian, and a very great scholler” Fuller, “a deep and profound scholar, excellently well read in the fathersBishop Godwin, “a very grave iman and how great a divine (adds he), if any one knows not, let him consult his learned writings” Sir John Harrington, “I find but foure lines (in bishop Godwin’s book) concerning him and if I should give him his due, in proportion to the rest, I should spend foure leaves. Not that I need make him better known, being one of the most eminent of his ranck, and a man that carried prelature in his very aspect. His rising was meerly by his learning, as true prelates should rise. Sint non modo labe mali sed suspicione carentes, not onely free from the spot, but from the speech of corruption.” He wrote in a more elegant style, and in fuller and betterturned periods, than was usual in the times wherein he lived. It is related of our prelate, that once, when he was preaching a sermon* at St. Paul’s Cross, a sudden panic, occasioned by the folly or caprice of one of the audience, seized the multitude there assembled, who thought that the church was falling on their heads. The good bishop, who sympathized with the people more from pity than from fear, after a sufficient pause, reassumed and went through his sermon with great composure. 1

1

Gen. Dict. Biog. Brit. Atb. Ox. vol. I. Harrington’s Brief View, p. 71. Granger.