leaving it as it has been used ever since, with the exception of some small particulars, made in Parliament, while the Act of Uniformity was under consideration in the following year, and referred by both houses to a committee of three bishops. In the service-book, thus finally arranged, the non-conformists were considered, in taking the sentences, the epistles and gospels, and other extracts from the last version of Scripture, in several alterations of the Communion-service, in the addition of a general thanksgiving, and in various verbal alterations". § 11. In Ireland, Presbyterian divines were established both in Ulster, which contained numerous families from Scot land, and in Dublin with its neighbourhood. Immediately on the Restoration, these clergymen made exertions for a continuance in their benefices, and entertained hopes of success. But the government quickly undeceived them. Eight of the prelacy survived, and of these, Bramhall, bishop of Derry, the most able man of the party, was nominated to Armagh n the August immediately following Charles's return; to the general satisfaction of all who valued the ecclesiastical system which late troubles had overthrown. His formal appointment was deferred until the following January. Before the end of that month, twelve prelates were consecrated by him at the same time. The see of Kildare continued unsupplied, its revenues having been alienated a century before. But a prebend in St. Patrick's cathedral was annexed to it almost immediately afterwards, and by the consecration of a prelate to it in March of the same year, 1661, the episcopate of Ireland received a complement of four archbishops and seventeen bishops. Eventually the latter were eighteen, and thus they continued until the act of 1833 came into operaton. In restoring the church to her temporalities, Charles I. placed the bishops in full possession of all those estates which they or their predecessors had enjoyed in the year 1641, the tine when the Irish massacre laid their order in the dust, and exposed its endowments to pillage from various quarters. It may be hastily supposed, that such a mass of property once more vested in the church ought to have produced a general 8 Short's Sketch, 547. sion is retained in the The old ver- Decalogue. See Cardwell's His. of enlightenment of the people, and thus have drawn them extensively away from a religion like Romanism, which pretends to no sufficient scriptural authority, and labours under the disadvantage of enjoining or encouraging many things that appear forbidden in Scripture to every reader of it who has neither a bias in his mind, nor a gloss in his hand. But when Ireland regained the religious advantages wrested from her in 1641, she was by no means in a condition to profit adequately by them. The Romish priesthood retained its hold upon the country, and the national establishment had to struggle with such difficulties as paralysed its efforts. Its churches were generally in ruins, the revenues to support the clergy had been, by various means, so enormously alienated, that two or more contiguous benefices, sometimes even eight or nine, were put together, for the sake of supplying the incumbent with a respectable maintenance, Romish hostility hemmed it every where, and in Ulster, Presbyterian hostility was little less formidable, especially after the act of uniformity passed, which in Ireland was not until 1665. In the face of all these discouragements, however, some progress was made in reconciling the nation to the Church of England, and the Irish were upon the point of receiving the benefit of religious instruction extensively through the press, in their own language, when Charles II. died, and the succession of a violent Romanist revived all the hopes, however sanguine, of the papal party. It is true 9 Mant, 671. Before the settlement of religion in Ireland is dismissed, it may be useful to mention a judicious expedient by which Abp. Bramhall evaded the inconvenience of insisting upon re-ordination, which was found in both islands a most formidable obstacle to the conformity of Presbyterian incumbents. "When the benefices were called at the visitation, several appeared, and exhibited only such titles as they had received from the late powers. He told them they were no legal titles; but in regard he heard well of them, he was willing to make such to them by institution and induction; which they humbly acknowledged, and intreated his lordship to do. But desiring to see their letters of orders, some had no other but their certifi cates of ordination by some Presbyterian classes, which he told them, did not qualify them for any preferment in the church. Whereupon the question immediately arose, Are we not ministers of the Gospel? To which his grace answered, that that was not the question at least, he desired, for peace sake, of which he hoped they were ministers too, that that might not be the question for that time. I dispute not, said he, the value of your ordination; nor those acts you have exercised by virtue of it: what you are, or might do, here when there was no law, or in other churches abroad. But we are now to consider ourselves as a national church, limited by law, which, among other things, takes chief care to prescribe about ordination: and I do not know how you could recover the that these hopes were dashed, within a very short interval, to the ground, but this disappointment was embittered by new confiscations which again linked Protestant opinions with a galling sense of pecuniary pillage. § 12. Early in the reign of Charles II. the English clergy receded from the exercise of their constitutional right of taxing themselves. This they had done in convocation, from time immemorial, until the late days of the commonwealth. They had then been included in money bills, like all other inhabitants of the country. On the Restoration, the ancient practice was revived, but it gave no pleasure to the clerical body. While taxed in common with their neighbours, clergymen underwent no higher burdens: when taxed apart, they found the court expect more of them than of other men, and that influential persons of their own order were quite willing to force or cajole them into the fulfilment of such expectations. As usual with mankind under any disagreeable pressure, the clergy attributed this court-subserviency of their leaders to interested motives, feeling sure that their money would not be so freely bestowed, if the parties thus ready with it, had not reason to reckon upon more than an equivalent in their own particular cases, by means of royal patronage. The prevalence of these feelings led Archbishop Sheldon and the Lord Chancellor Clarendon, in 1664, to propose that separate taxation of the clergy should henceforward cease. In order to render this abandonment of an ancient right more palatable to the body chiefly affected by means of the church, if any should refuse to pay you your tythes, if you are not ordained as the law of this church requireth. And I am desirous that she may have your labours, and you such portions of her revenue, as shall be allotted you in a legal way. By this means he gained such as were learned and sober; and for the rest it was not much matter. Just as I was about to close up this particular, I received full assurance of all that I offered in it, which, for the reader's sake, I thought fit to add, being the very words which his Grace caused to be inserted into the letters of one Mr. Edward Parkinson, whom he ordained at that time, and from whom I had them by my reverend brother and neighbour, the Lord Bishop of Killaloe. Non annihilantes priores ordines, (si quos habuit,) nec caliditatem aut incaliditatem eorum determinantes, multo minus omnes ordines sacros ecclesiarum forensicarum condemnantes, quos proprio judici relinquimus: sed solummodo supplentes, quicquid prius defuit per canones Ecclesia Anglicana requisitum; et providentes paci Ecclesiæ, ut schismatis tollatur occasio, et conscientiis fidelium satisfiat, nec ullo modo dubitent de ejus ordinatione, aut actus suos Presbyterales tanquam invalidos aversentur: in cujus rei testimonium, &c." Bp. Vesey's Life of Primate Bramhall, cited by Bishop Mant, 624. it, two out of four subsidies, previously granted, were remitted. It had, however, been the practice ever since the Reformation, to confirm the grant of clerical subsidies by act of Parliament, and as the four last granted were so confirmed, it became necessary to obtain parliamentary authority for remitting two of them. The act for doing this contains a saving clause, in which the constitutional rights of the clergy are expressly reserved 1. Their power of taxing themselves is therefore dormant, not abolished. So long, however, as they are placed upon a footing of perfect equality with other men, they have no reason even to wish it revived; and its revival must necessarily be attended with a loss of the privilege of voting for members of parliament, which clergymen had never exercised before they gave up the practice of taxing themselves 2. § 13. The reign of Charles II. is remarkable for three penal enactments against separation from the national church, which were long conspicuous in English politics, and of which the last remained in active operation until the year 1829. These are the Corporation and Test Acts, and the Act by which Romanists were disabled from sitting in either house of parliament. The Corporation Act was passed in 1661, as it is averred by dissenting authorities, in consequence of rumours of revolu 1 "Provided always, that nothing herein contained shall be drawn into example to the prejudice of the ancient rights belonging unto the lords spiritual and temporal, or clergy of this realm, or unto either of the universities, or unto any colleges, schools, alms-houses, hospitals, or cinque ports." Kennet's Complete Hist. Engl. iii. 255. 2" Whether this great change in the manner of taxing, now introduced, and likely to continue, be more to the interest, or to the prejudice of the church and clergy of England, is not so easy to determine: though excepting the former independence of the state of the clergy, and the danger of being oppressed when they shall hereafter fall under the displeasure of a House of Commons, we must confess that they have hitherto been better dealt with than while they taxed themselves, and they seem only to have lost the benefit of presenting their articles of grievances, and obtaining the more easy redress of them as a reward of their liberality to the crown. Nay, the clergy have gained one privilege, that of all rectors and vicars voting for members of Parliament, which they never did till their money was now given by the lay commons; and therefore they ought to be now represented by them, and ought, for the same reason, to lose their votes in all parliamentary elections, if ever they could reassume the practice of taxing themselves. There is a clause that does sufficiently reserve that right but supposing the clergy should think fit to claim it, it is a great question whether the House of Commons will allow it: who, being now in possession of the custom of taxing the clergy, may not be willing to relinquish that custom." Ibid. : tionary movements among the non-conforming Protestants, which were either grossly exaggerated, or altogether invented by the church party, for the purpose of oppressing its capital enemy. The real origin of this Act appears to have been the obvious policy of following a precedent supplied by the late republican times. It had then been the practice to expel from corporations all magistrates who were suspected of disaffection. to the ruling powers, and refused to subscribe the covenant. The new government, while dubious of stability, naturally thought functionaries who owed office to this purgative process, highly dangerous to itself, and not unreasonably sought protection against them by tests of its own. It accordingly provided by the Corporation Act, that the king might appoint commissioners to regulate corporations, and expel members of them either improperly admitted, or holding obnoxious principles. All such as remained, or should hereafter be elected, were to take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, to make a declaration against taking arms against the king on any pretence whatever, and to renounce the covenant as an unlawful oath. Hereafter none were to be eligible to corporate offices who should not have received the sacrament in the established church within the year previous to election. In virtue of this Act, commissioners were immediately appointed, who, within two years, effectually turned the tables upon the church's enemies, weeding all of them out of corporations with as much industry as they themselves had employed in the same way against the other party a few years before. The Test Act, as it is commonly called, was passed in 1673, and Protestant dissenters fell under its lash, although they concurred in its enactment, and it was introduced merely as a security against Romanism. It is entitled, An Act to prevent dangers which happen from Popish Recusants. The Duke of York and the Romish influence about the throne were the objects to which it really referred, and Protestant non-conformists were so much disquieted by the dangers threatening a scriptural faith from this cause, that they generously submitted to exclusion themselves, (if very stiff in their opinions,) for the sake of excluding 5 Neal, iii. 84. 3 Neal, iii. 83. 4 Hume, xi. 206. |