were made, he must have had the principal share in their formation from his high character and from the situation he held as Professor of Divinity in the University. There is not any thing contained in the Articles, which is not in strict conformity with the opinions he entertained at that period of his life. The Articles were 104 in number, drawn up under nineteen heads; of these some are of a character unsuited to articles of faith, and approach that of a homily, such are the tenth and twelfth, of the service of God, and of our duty towards our neighbour. Others with rigid precision determine questions which had hitherto never been introduced into articles of faith: thus there is a particular explanation of what in Scripture is only revealed in general terms concerning the generation of the Son, which in conformity with the notions of Calvin the Article pronounces to be from the person, not the essence of the Father. Thus the Pope is pronounced to be Antichrist. Thus also decisions are given about the primeval state, and the fall of the angels, and the state of the souls of men after deaths. But

'Bishop Mant in his History of the Church of Ireland remarks, that in a notice prefixed it was stated that they comprehended the Nine Articles agreed on at Lambeth, but that they omitted to state that these Articles were suppressed by Queen Elizabeth. I must beg to say that the Bishop has been deceived by referring either to an edition of the Articles published in London in 1629 or to the copy of them printed at the end of Neal's History of the Puritans. In those editions there is the notice mentioned by the Bishop, and also the index in the margin pointing out the particular words in the Lambeth Articles, but in the original edition published in Dublin in 1615 there is no allusion whatever to the Lambeth Articles, no notice prefixed, no index in the margin. In order to obviate any mistakes of the kind I have printed in the Appendix the Articles taken verbatim from the original edition, a copy of which is in the library of Trinity College. See App. IV. p. xxxi.

Dr. Heylin objects to the Articles that they support the Sabbatarian doctrine of a Judaical rest on the Lord's day, but this objection cannot be maintained. The passage in the Article is as follows: "The first day of the week, which is the Lord's day, is wholly to be dedicated to the service of God, and therefore we are bound therein to rest from our common and daily business, and to bestow that leisure upon holy exercises both public and private." It may be doubted whether this passage ought to form part of an article of faith, but the doctrine put forward is unexceptionable. Heylin also states that the Irish Articles contain Calvin's doctrine of Christ's descent into Hell. There does not appear any such

the most important ground of objection to the Irish Articles is the introduction of the Lambeth Articles, which had been so recently rejected by the Church of England. By this unfortunate proceeding a serious impediment was interposed to prevent any agreement between the Churches of England and Ireland. It is impossible but Ussher and those who acted with him must have been aware of this evil, and great must they have thought the necessity of introducing the Lambeth Articles, when they chose such an alternative they must have considered that the English Articles expressed imperfectly, if at all, their views of Christian doctrine. It has indeed been confidently put forward by the advocates of Calvinistic opinions in the English Church, that the Thirty-nine Articles are exclusively Calvinistic, and that they cannot admit an interpretation at variance with those particular views. In vain has the history of the introduction of the Articles claimed as exclusively favorable, in vain have the known opinions of the framers been brought forward to oppose such an assertion, yet still arguments and facts are alike disregarded, and still the assertion is confidently repeated. Another line of argument is suggested by the conduct of the predestinarian party. They never had, nor ever thought they had, the

agreement. Calvin says, "Nihil actum erat si corporea tantum morte defunctus fuisset Christus, sed operæ simul pretium erat, ut divinæ ultionis severitatem sentire: quo et iræ ipsius intercederet, et satisfaceret justo judicio. Unde etiam eum oportuit cum inferorum copiis æternæque mortis honore, quasi consertis manibus luctari."—Inst. lib. 2, cap. 16. Calvin asserted that the pains Christ endured in his soul before his death were so great, that in them he suffered the pains of the damned; in this way making the grievous tortures of his soul equivalent or the same as the descent into Hell, thus displacing the words of the Creed, and making that which the Creed supposes to have taken place after his death, to precede that event. An objection which he treated with contempt: "Nimis frivola adeoque ridicula est eorum exceptio, qui dicunt hoc modo perverti ordinem: quia absurdum est sepulturæ subjici quod præcedit." Now the Irish Articles strictly adhere to the order, "He endured most grievous torments immediately in his soul and most painful sufferings in his body. He was buried and descended into Hell and the third day arose from the dead."

b See more particularly the late Archbishop Laurence's Bampton Lectures, a model of theological reasoning.

power of making a change in the Articles without exerting it, of which the Lambeth Articles, the alterations proposed by the Assembly of Divines and the Irish Articles are decisive proofs. Their opponents never proposed any such measure; satisfied with the guarded forms of expression in these Articles, they shrunk from incurring the danger of unsettling the established profession of faith. And it cannot be said they had not the power-to omit other periods, at the Convocation of 1661 they would not have had any difficulty in raising a hostile cry against them, and excluding every thing which could favor the opinions of their bitterest enemies, who had trampled under foot the Church of their Fathers, and had persecuted the individual members of it with the most relentless severity.

Dr. Parr has endeavoured to defend Dr. Ussher from the charge of having proposed any thing different from the Articles of the Church of England, on the ground that in such a case James would not have given his Deputy authority to sign them. But an argument founded upon James' consistency cannot be considered as deserving of much attention. The facts are still open, and it is as easy to form an opinion upon the subject now, as when the Lord Deputy gave his approbation. Dr. Heylin may have gone too far in saying what has given so much offence, "that the passing the Irish Articles was an absolute plot of the Calvinians and Sabbatarians in England to make themselves so strong a party in Ireland as to obtain what they pleased in this Convocation:" but certainly they were framed with a strong desire to conciliate the Non-conformists' and an utter

Mosheim says very truly of this extraordinary character: "Puritanæ et disciplinæ et doctrinæ, quam juvenis totam imbiberat, capitalis hostis ; Arminianorum, quorum condemnationem valde promoverat, fautor et patronus certissimus; episcopalis denique gubernationis vindex acerrimus."-Instit. Hist. Eccles. p. 856.

JDr. Reid in his History of the Presbyterians has asserted this strongly, but he has carried his proofs far beyond what he is justified in doing. He asserts that the validity of ordination by presbyters is clearly implied. I cannot find any words which can be so interpreted. Again he says, the doctrine of absolution is condemned and the forgiveness of sins taught to be only declaratory. Though this has also been stated by Dr. Heylin

disregard of the proceedings in England, which must have been fresh in the recollection of the compilers. The effect of them upon Ireland was most injurious to the progress of true religion. "Several of them gave great offence to the Roman Catholics and hindered their conversion; and others of them gave as much encouragement to the Puritans brought out of Scotland into Ulster; and both made their advantage of them to the prejudice of the Church of Ireland."

It is a matter of no small difficulty to account for the consent of James to these Articles. The Article on the observance of the Lord's day must at that time have been considered at direct variance with the Book of Sports, and this opposition might justly be considered as sufficient to rouse his notions of prerogative into open hostility against such doctrines. Wood probably gives a solution for many of the anomalies connected with these Articles: he says that Dr. James Montague, Dean of the Royal Chapel and succes

I cannot find authority for it. The condemnation seems to be confined to the Popish doctrine of absolution, and the words of the prayer in the Morning and Evening Service are copied exactly. Again he says, Lent is disclaimed as a religious fast, I cannot find the word in the Articles. Still further he maintains, that no authority is claimed for enforcing ecclesiastical canons or decreeing rites and ceremonies. This is certainly a very bold assertion, for the seventy-seventh Article gives the power as fully as it is claimed by the English Church. He is correct in stating that no allusion is made to the mode of consecrating the higher orders of the ministry, but he should have added that the ordination of presbyters and deacons was equally omitted, and while the Liturgy remained in force neither was necessary. It is certainly true that the Pope is unhesitatingly called Antichrist, an assertion carefully kept out of the English Articles though firmly believed by many, if not all, the compilers, because they thought it might lead to divisions upon a point, which was not of vital importance. Many a true member of the Church of England and determined opponent of the See of Rome does not believe, that the Pope is Antichrist. Amid this applause of the ultra-Protestant party it is curious to find an eminent Roman Catholic writer maintaining that Ussher in these Articles supported the doctrine of the real presence, yet such is the statement of Dr. O'Conor. Hib. MS. Stow. vol. ii. p. 57. A real presence in Dr. O'Conor's sense of the word is certainly not maintained in the Article, which most clearly states: "Being no otherwise present with the visible elements than things signified and sealed are present with the signs and seals, that is to say, symbolically and relatively."

* Carte's Life of Ormond, vol. i. p. 78.

sively Bishop of Bath and Wells, and of Winchester, "being a great stickler in the quarrels at Cambridge, and a great master in the art of insinuation, had cunningly fashioned King James unto certain Calvinian opinions, to which the King's education in the Kirk of Scotland had before inclined him. So that it was no very hard matter for him (having an Archbishop also of his own persuasion) to make use of the King's authority for recommending the Nine Articles to the Church of Ireland, which he found would not be admitted in the Church of England." Another powerful assistant to Archbishop Abbot and Bishop Montague was no doubt to be found in the Lord Deputy Chichester, who had been a pupil of the notorious Puritan Cartwright. It might also have been part of the crooked policym, for which James was remarkable. Aware that the greater part of the Irish people were addicted to Popery, he might have been anxious to drive them into the other extreme as a means of their discovering the errors of their ways and choosing the true doctrine which lay between the opposite errors. Another reason may be found in the state of the North of Ireland. There was no part of his policy towards Ireland upon which James prided himself more than upon the settlement of Ulster. This was carried on most vigorously by settlers from Scotland, who poured into the country tempted by the superior richness of the soil. Upon these adventurers James relied principally for the maintenance of his power against the Roman Catholic natives, and they were so considerable in number as to extort almost any concession they thought fit to demand. It requires not much inquiry to ascertain what their views were: "They brought with them hither such a stock of Puritanism, such a contempt of bishops, such a neglect of the public Liturgy and other divine offices of the Church, that there was nothing less to be found among them than

I Wood's Athenæ, vol. ii. pag. 854.

His policy will not however appear in this instance to have been at all different from that which he pursued almost immediately after in sending deputies to the Synod of Dort.