their autho 1635. Referring the reader, as before, to an Appendix for the Amount of Articles themselves, it is desirable to investigate their rit before claims on the acceptance of the Irish clergy; and the rather, since this question has been more than once reopened, and selected as the ground of resolute assaults on both the Irish and the English Churches. Now the document itself (as we have seen) professes to have been originally sanctioned by the Convocation of Dublin, and a paragraph appended to the first edition, comprises the following decree: 'If any minister, of what degree or qualitie soeuer he be, shall publikely teach any doctrine contrary to these Articles agreed upon,-if, after due admonition, he doe not conforme himselfe and cease to disturbe the peace of the Church, let him bee silenced and depriued of all spirituall promotions he doth enjoy.' this subject. On the other hand, the novelty apparent in the consti- Doubts on tution of the Synod of 1615, and various minor informalities in its proceedings', had excited doubts respecting the ecclesiastical authority of the Dublin Articles at the very time of their publication: for we find Bernard, the oldest biographer of Ussher, and himself a uniform admirer of the Irish Articles, attempting to repel this prevalent objection, and asserting, on the verbal testimony of his patron, that the Formulary was actually signed by archbishop Jones, the president of Convocation, by the prolocutor of the lower House, in the name of the whole clergy, and also by the Lord Deputy, by order of James I.2' But while it was a plot of the Calvinians and Sabbatarians of England to make themselves a strong party in Ireland:' see Mant, 1. 387. 1 Elrington's Ussher, pp. 39, 40. 2 Bernard's Life of Ussher, p. 50. Collier endeavours to explain the motives of the English monarch in confirming so many Articles at variance with his own opinions, II. 708. Cf. Heylin, Hist. Quinqu-Artic. Part III. ch. xxii. § 5: but the solution of Wood, (in Dr Elrington's Ussher, pp. 47, 48,) is far more pro bable. Archdeacon Stopford discre Were the bishops em powered to scription? may be granted that a portion of this evidence has been discredited, it cannot be entirely set aside; and, therefore, while we are entitled to argue that the Irish Articles were destitute of parliamentary sanction, and as such could not have been enforced by temporal penalties, we, notwithstanding, must admit, that there is no sufficient ground1 for questioning their formal recognition in some kind of convocational meeting. Whether or no they were originally offered to the demand sub- clergy for subscription, like the English series, after the Convocation of 1571, and whether the Church at that, or any future time, had authorized the prelates to exact subscription from the candidates for holy orders,-are distinct questions, and questions which it is not easy to determine either one way or the other. The reply, which seems to be most satisfactory2, proceeds upon the supposition, that where any individual bishops used the Irish Articles as a positive test of doctrine, they were overstretching the authority conceded to them by the Synod; for in the decree appended to the document itself no wish is manifested to impose those Articles absolutely on the Church of Ireland, either by the agency of subscription or by any other apparatus. It declares, indeed, that whoever shall teach what is antagonistic to them shall be silenced and deposed,-in imitation, it would seem, of the stern order which accompanied the Lambeth propositions; yet, unlike determinations of the English Church in 1563, the Irish series claimed no more unto the doctrine of the Articles of the Church of Ireland, which fitly may here be inserted, as both looking to king James, under whose authority and protection it came forth and was maintained, and looking to the doctrine of the Church of England, since it were an intollerable and impudent iniury to the wisdome and religious knowledge of these times, to say that betweene them there was not a harmonie,' pp. 29, 30. The pamphlet, however, it should be remarked, is full of special-pleading. 1 All the evidence against the legitimate adoption of the Articles was ably stated in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal, No. 118, pp. 66,67. In this way only can we give a satisfactory explanation of the language employed in 1634 by Strafford, Laud, and Bramhall. They all speak as if the Irish Articles needed confirmation, and imply that the Puritan party were fully aware of the defect. See Archdeacon Stopford, ubi sup. pp. lxiii. lxiv. than negative virtue, and must therefore have been serving rather as so many Articles of discipline and self-defence, than as a public Formulary of Faith. in 1634 and 1635. But on whatever footing they were placed in the short Proceedings interval from 1615 to 1635, those Articles were virtually, if not in form, abolished by the Convocation of this latter date. The leanings of the Irish Church in the direction of Geneva had been now considerably adjusted, and with men like Strafford and Bramhall regulating her affairs, it was most natural to expect that efforts would be made to clear away all obstacles that hindered her more cordial union with the Church of England. As early indeed as 1634, Strafford, in his character of Deputy, devised a plan for this complete assimilation; and Laud', with the concurrence of his royal master, instantly adopted the proposal, and commended its immediate execution. The project was accordingly submitted to the Irish Convocation in the ensuing year, and by the powerful advocacy of Bramhall, a new Canon was accepted, with but one dissentient voice2. It ran as follows: For the manifestation of our agreement English with the Church of England in the confession of the same accepted. Christian faith, and the doctrine of the Sacraments, we do receive and approve the Book of Articles of Religion, agreed upon by the archbishops and bishops and the whole clergy in the Convocation holden at London, in the year of our Lord, 1562, &c. And therefore if any hereafter shall affirm that any of these Articles are in any part superstitious or erroneous, or such as he may not with a good conscience subscribe unto, let him be excommunicated, and 1 In writing to Strafford, Oct. 20, 1634, he says, 'I knew how you would find my Lord Primate [i. e. Ussher] affected to the Articles of Ireland; but I am glad the trouble that hath been in it will end there, without advertising of it over to us. And whereas you propose to have the Articles of England received in ipsissimis verbis, and leave the other as no way concerned, neither affirm- 2 Mant, I. 491. Articles Were the Dublin Articles repealed by this act? not absolved before he make a public recantation of his error.' There is thus no doubt whatever as to the regular adoption of the English Articles of 1563, by the authorities of the sister-Church; but it still disputed whether the fact of such approbation had the power of absolutely repealing the Dublin Articles. In answer to this question, we may fairly urge that the original promoters of the scheme regarded the Canon of 1635 from different points of view. Archbishop Ussher, who was still unweaned from the more rigorous of his Calvinistic tenets, though the intimate friend of Laud, has left us his opinion of the case in a contemporary letter addressed to Dr Ward: "The Articles of Religion agreed upon in our former synod, anno 1615, we let stand as we did before. But for the manifesting of our agreement with the Church of England, we have received and approved your Articles also, concluded in the year 1562, as you may see in the first of our Canons'.' On the other hand, it is indisputable that Strafford and Bramhall were alike anticipating the abrogation of the Irish Articles as one result of their proposal to adopt the English code. The former hinted that it had been always his intention to silence them without noise2:' the latter hoped to take away that Shibboleth which made the Irish Church lisp too undecently, or rather, in some little degree, to speak the speech of Ashdod, and not the language of Canaan.' Heylin has, indeed, asserted that the Dublin Articles were actually 'called in1;' but there is no sufficient proof that any order was given prohibiting the use of them by individual bishops, and the practice of Ussher himself in requiring subscription to both series leads to the conclusion that they both were still in some degree accepted 1 Elrington's Life, p. 176. 2 Strafford, Letters, Dec. 16, 1634, I. 342: cf. Neal, Puritans, II. 107, ed. 1733. 3 Mant, I. 493, and Bp Taylor's Sermon upon the Lord Primate' [Bramhall]: Works, VIII. 411, 412, ed. Eden. 4 Life of Laud, Part II. 271274: Hist. of the Sabbath, Part II. c. VIII. § 9. Elrington's Life, p. 176: cf. a letter of Laud to Ussher, May 10, 1635; Ussher's Works, XVI. 7, 8. the attempt both series with autho rity. or permitted. An attempt, however, of the Primate, to Failure of procure a formal vote of Convocation, which might rank to circulate them as a second or co-ordinate1 rule of doctrine in the Irish Church, was strongly discountenanced by Strafford, and was ultimately abandoned; so that while considerable forbearance had been exercised in reference to all positive and direct repudiation of those Articles, they had in truth been tacitly withdrawn, together with a Canon, which distinctly aimed at placing them upon a level with the English Articles. Articles rir drawn. It follows, therefore, that whatever may have been the The Irish nature of their claims throughout the interval between the tually withtwo Convocations of 1615 and 1635, they were in future placed in the condition of a will, in which the latest declaration has the force of absolutely overruling all the earlier provisions,-in so far as these had worn a different aspect, or were held to be susceptible of a contrary meaning2. Hence it is that, after the Rebellion, in the course of which the Puritanism of Ireland had been moderated or exploded3, we discover no fresh instance of a wish among the Irish prelates to enforce subscription to the Dublin 1 This appears from the draft of the following canon proposed in the Convocation, but withdrawn through the influence of Strafford: 'Those which shall affirm any of the Articles agreed on by the clergy of Ireland at Dublin, 1615, or any of the 39 concluded of in the Convocation at London, 1562, and received by the Convocation at Dublin, 1634, to be in any part superstitious, or such as may not with a good conscience be received and allowed, shall be excommunicated and not restored but only by the Archbishop.' 'Introd.' to Vol. III. of MS. Book of Common Prayer for Ireland, E. H. S. p. cxviii. The note of Strafford is remarkable as indicating some defect in the authority of the Articles of 1615: 'It would be considered here whether these Articles of Dublin, 2 See Collier's observation to this 3 It is well observed by a writer in the Irish Ecclesiastical Journal for June, 1850, that notwithstanding the strength of feeling at this period, in Ireland as elsewhere, against every thing 'Genevan,' the Dublin Articles of 1615 were unnoticed by the Convocation (from 1661 to 1665); which is a strong proof that they were considered as no longer possessed of the slightest authority or obligation. |