Subjects by Archbishop Ussher, Mr. Hooker, Bishop Andrewes, and Dr. Hadrian Saravia, with a preface by the Bishop of Lincoln. Published by Nicholas Bernard, 1661.'
He died on 15 Oct. 1661, and his 'buryal' entry is thus made in the parish register of his church of Whitchurch: 'Nickolas Bernard, rector of Whitchurch, dyed the 15 of Octob. and was buryed Novemb. 7 [1661].' Philip Henry calls him 'a worthy and moderate man.' One of William Marshall's best engravings is a portrait of Dr. Bernard.
[Cotton's Fasti Ecclesiae Hibernicae (1851), i. and vii. iii. pp. 163, 172, 187, 302, v. pp. 229-30; Ware's Writers of Ireland (Works, iii. 342, &c.); Williams's Life of Philip Henry, p. 269; communications from Rev. Thomas Hamilton, M.A., Belfast, and Rev. W. H. Egerton, M.A., rector of Whitchurch.]
BERNARD, RICHARD (1567?–1641), puritan divine, is described in a portrait (before his 'Threefold Treatise on the Sabbath,' 1641) as then aged 74. This gives us 1566-7 as the date of his birth. An incidental phrase in one of his Latin 'Epistles Dedicatory' designates Nottinghamshire as his native soil. This seems decisive; but he must have been in some way related to Lincolnshire. Most of his earlier patrons addressed in his dedications and epistles belonged to that county. He was fortunate enough as a boy to fall under the notice of two daughters of Sir Christopher Wray, lord chief-justice of England. One of these was the wife successively of Godfrey Foljambe, Sir William Bowes of Walton, near Chesterfield, and of John, the good Lord Darcy of Aston. The other married Sir George Saint Paul (spelled oddly Saintpoll) of Lincolnshire, and afterwards the Earl of Warwick, and as Countess of Warwick appears in many of Bernard's and contemporary dedicatory epistles. These two joined in sending Richard to the university, and he is never weary of acknowledging their kindnesses to him. A Richard Bernard appears in the registers of Christ's College, Cambridge, as proceeding B.A. 1567-8. He has been taken for the father of our Richard Bernard. This is improbable; but the later Richard was also at Christ's College, where he probably proceeded B.A. 1594-5, and certainly passed M.A. in 1598.
He is found parson at Epworth in 1598. He dated thence his 'Terence.' He was presented to the vicarage of Worksop, in Nottinghamshire, by Richard Whalley, and he received institution on 19 June 1601 (Hunter's Collections, p. 37). He sent out several of his books from Worksop, as the dates 1605 to 1612-13 show. One of the most distinctive is the following: 'Christian-Advertisements and Counsels of Peace. Also Disuasions from the Separatists schisme, commonly called Brownisme, which is set apart from such truths as they take from us and other Reformed Churches, and is nakedly discovred, that so the falsitie thereof may better be discerned, and so iustly condemned and wisely avoided. Published for the benefit of the humble and godlie louer of the truthe. By Richard Bernard, preacher of God's Word. Reade (my friend) considerately; expound charitably; and judge, I pray thee, without partialitie; doe as thou wouldest bee done vnto. At London, imprinted by Felix Kyngston. 1608.'
Bernard was brought into union and communion with the separatists, but treacherously and basely as they alleged, conscientiously as he himself affirmed, withdrew from them. Thereupon commenced his invectives and their replies. His 'Christian Advertisements' was followed by his 'Plaine Evidences the Church of England is Apostolicall, the Separation Schismaticall. Directed against Mr. Ainsworth, the Separatist, and Mr. Smith, the Se-Baptist; both of them severally opposing the book called the Separatist's Schisme. By Richard Bernard, preacher of the Word of God at Worksop. For truth and peace to any indifferent iudgment, 1610.' It gives the real state of the case as between Bernard and his former friends and associates. Many of them had been his regular hearers; while equally with them he was a puritan in doctrine, and in practice a nonconformist in well-nigh everything they objected to, 'carrying to an extreme length the puritan scruples, going to the very verge of separation, and joining himself even to those of his puritan brethren who thought themselves qualified to go through the work of exorcism' (Hunter). Not only so, but he was silenced by the archbishop. On the whole, it must be conceded that Bernard sought, according to John Robinson, 'rather to oppress the person of his adversary with false and proud reproaches, than to convince (i.e. confute) his tenets by sound arguments' (People's Plea for the Exercise of Prophecy, 1618, p. vi).
A singular incident in which Bernard played a prominent part also belongs to his Worksop incumbency, viz. the exorcising of a (cataleptic) 'possessed person,' John Fox, of Nottingham. A contemporary tractate gives full details.
Notwithstanding his conflicts with many adversaries, Bernard wrote at Worksop one of his finest books, 'The Faithful Shepherd' (1607). He ceded Worksop in 1612-13
