ganization will lie deeply buried, and may burst into luxuriance at a moment; and before order is restored, there may be pillage, incendiarism, and massacre to a fearful extent. Mr. O'Connell says, and perhaps truly, that it is only his precarious life that prevents such scenes. Added to all this, selfish men and political partizans are ever on the watch for party strifes to promote their own purposes; and even in England the conspirators will find allies of this sort to fall in with their designs. Under these circumstances we cannot confidently hope that the worst is past. Ireland has doubtless some grievances, which ought to be redressed; but speaking politically as well as religiously, the master-grievance is Popery; for the people are under the dominion of their priests; and the priests are under allegiance to the Bishop of Rome; and hence the union with Protestant Britain is hollow; added to which, the Romanist population of the lower classes is turbulent and reckless; and life and property are so little respected among them that capitalists are reluctant to embark upon useful enterprises. Far, however, from thinking that this unhappy state of things would be mended either by severance from England, or by abolishing the Protestant Church and setting up Popery in its place, both theory and facts prove the reverse; and this even if we were to put out of sight, what ought never to be forgotten, that Popery is a system not to be countenanced, but to be opposed, as contrary to the word of God, and fraught with mischiefs to mankind. Popery is the chief cause of that bane of Ireland, absenteeism; for a bigotted persecuting hierarchy and a priest-rid den people, tend to make many parts of it untenantable; especially to Protestant families of the middle stations of life. It may be difficult for statesmen to deal with these matters; but they ought at least to consider them in their calculations; and above all not to make bad worse, by intentionally discouraging Protestantism and strengthening Popery. We are unwilling to say much of the Free-church riots in Scotland. The leaders of the secession have exerted themselves to prevent a recurrence of such scenes; but their speeches and proclamations, while inculcating peace, breathe the spirit of war; for the burden of them is that the Established Church is an ungodly confederacy opposed to Christ and his Gospel; that it may, and must, and shall be overturned; that it is the duty of every servant of Jesus to do all he can, legally and without violence, to effect this object; and that those of its members who have refused to appropriate land for building secession chapels for inculcating these doctrines, are traitors to God and persecutors of his saints. What can be expected but that excited multitudes, thus addressed, should forget the parenthetical monitions respecting law and order, and, like their Cameronian predecessors, endeavour, with pike and claymore, to carry their exterminating projects into effect? We lament these things the more because of the deep sympathy and unfeigned respect with which we regard the devoted men who have made overwhelming sacrifices for conscience sake. As sufferers they are honoured; but as vengeful aggressors they are to be opposed, not encouraged. ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS. M. K.; T. A.; W. T. B.; Old Path; I. A.; Incognitus; Christophilus; Wayfarer; W. S.; An Inquirer; and N.; are under consideration. A reverend Correspondent wishes to remind our readers that the "Form of Prayer with Thanksgiving to be used yearly upon the fifth of November," falls this year on a Sunday; that the Rubric to the proper office directs that in this case that office is to be used, and "only the Collect proper for that Sunday shall be added;" and that the minister, "after morning prayer, or preaching, upon the said fifth of November, shall read publicly, distinctly, and plainly, the Act of Parliament made in the third year of King James the First, for the consecration of it." The Thanksgivings for the deliverance from the Gunpowder Plot, are interwoven with those for the "happy arrival of his Majesty King William on this day, for the deliverance of our Church and Nation." This portion of the office was added in the second year of King William; and our modern Tractarians follow the Non-jurors in rejecting it; but as it is blended with the Gunpowder-plot service, which was in the authorised Prayer-book, and is recognised in the Act of Uniformity, they must omit the whole service (which they allow they have no right to do) if they omit anything; for it is not practicable to disentangle the parts without mutilating the whole; nor, if it were, have they any warrant for such a proceeding. We are not, however, sure that the additions were introduced with perfect regularity. IN AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF BISHOP PATRICK. (Continued from page 649.) For the Christian Observer. N our last Number we attempted a sketch of the life and character of Bishop Patrick, and of the theological and ecclesiastical school to which he belonged, as a prefix to some extracts from his auto-biographical notices, which, after lying in oblivion for more than a century, have been lately given to the world. In speaking of the school to which Bishop Patrick belonged, we had occasion to allude to some of its chief ornaments; as Archbishops Tillotson, Tenison, and Wake; and Bishops Stillingfleet, Burnet, and Patrick; and we mentioned that they dissented from the school of the Reformers in regard to the doctrines of grace; and from the Laudeans and Non-jurors in regard to sacramental justification, the power of the keys, and episcopal succession as essential to the being of a true church. We speak generally, for there was much blending and shading off of opinion among the members of opposing schools. Thus, the Tillotsonians did not profess to differ from the Reformers as to the essence of the doctrine of justification by faith; but they explained it differently,—that is, they explained it away. They said that it had been carried to an excess of rigour which needed moderating; in fact, they mixed works with faith as aiding justification. Again, there was no necessary connexion between non-jurism and the doctrine of sacramental justification; yet in point of fact they travelled very much together. Thus also the terms HighChurch and Low-Church currently obtained an extended signification; as well as the corresponding epithets, Altitudinarian and Latitudinarian. All questions, political, ecclesiastical, and theological, were arranged as it were into two sets; and though some individuals broke the sets, and took some from each, the majority of clergymen and laymen took the one or the other of them together. There seems to be in every human mind a sort of elective affinity, by which it attracts upon all subjects that which is most congenial to itself. Ken, Hickes, Dodwell, and Kettlewell, were men of very different habits and tempers; yet they had that in common which bound them together; and we should never expect to find them acting cordially with Burnet, Patrick, Tillotson, and Wake. There were two great schools (we are sorry to repeat that the school of the Reformers was nearly extinct till revived by the clergy CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 72. 4 X called "Evangelical"), and though many individuals held opinions not in "the set," in the public eye, and to a wide extent in fact, certain doctrines were classed together. Thus-to select a name not now so popularly known as those above-mentioned,-if we were told that Bishop Trinnell was nick-named "Low-Church," we should shrewdly guess what were his opinions in regard to various religious as well as ecclesiastical and political questions. We have selected Bishop Trimnell as an illustration, because he strikingly exhibited the characteristics of the school to which we have been alluding; the dominant school of the days of William and Mary, and their royal successor. He was born in 1663; passed with much distinction through Winchester College; and took his M. A. degree at New College, Oxford, in 1688, the year of the Revolution. In 1707 he was elected Bishop of Norwich; and in 1721 was translated to Winchester; and died at Farnham Castle, about two years afterwards. His life and writings exhibit, in the main, the same struggles in the Church as are now rife in consequence of the recent revival of what are called by their abettors "Catholic" opinions; but with several important differences. For, first, we are not now hampered, as the two parties alluded to were, by a momentous and pressing political question, that of the Revolution, which, from its bearing upon matters involving conscientious feeling, was so prominent a point in their controversies as to give rise to a distinction of the two parties into Jurors and Non-jurors. Secondly, we are not now brought into collision in Convocation; the two Houses of which were for the most part at variance, the Bishops inclining to moderate measures, and the Lower House wishing to carry everything upon full-blown Tractarian principles; nay, the very prerogatives and proceedings of Convocation being for many years a subject of bitter controversy; the party being called Low-Church and Erastian which stood up for what they considered the rights of the temporal ruler; and the other party, called High-Church, or Altitudinarian, vindicating the opposite doctrine. Thirdly, there was not then, as now, a numerous body of divines and laics attached to the genuine doctrines of the Anglican Church, as gathered from Holy Writ, and handed down by our venerable Reformers; so that there was no alternative but the frigidity of the one school, or the fanaticism of the other; and High-Church or Low-Church was the watch-word of the day; while the real doctrines of the Church were lapsing into oblivion. The instance of Bishop Trimnell (and we could mention many such) shews how incorrect is the assertion of some Tractarians, that the opposition to their opinions was generated by Puritanism, or Evangelicalism; for that the great body of the clergy always held their notions, at least in substance. But no man will class such divines as Trimnell among Puritans or Evangelicals; and yet they were as hostile to the theological and ecclesiastical, as to the political, opinions of the Nonjurors. With all their defects, they did not wish to unprotestantize the land, and to bring back religious as well as civil despotism. Accordingly, they were virulently assailed by those who regarded Laud and Hickes, Dodwell and Sacheverell, as the true expositors, and most faithful defenders, of Anglicanism, in its theological, ecclesiastical, and political relations. Tillotson and Burnet were among the special objects of their displeasure; and to this hour the memory of those prelates labours under much transmitted calumny. As we do not belong to their school, we can afford to defend them from unfair charges. We indeed mourn over their frigid rationalism; their disproportionate descants upon morals, to the neglect of the due inculcation of the peculiarities of the Christian revelation, which sets forth the Redeemer as 66 a sacrifice for sin," as well as "an ensample of godly life;" their ill-founded jealousy lest the doctrines of grace, as fully and scripturally revived at the Reformation, should prejudice the cause of virtue; and their wish to make Christianity acceptable to infidels and sceptics, by divesting it of what they considered enthusiastic or Puritanical. Alas! what mischiefs did this style of preaching inflict during more than a century! mischiefs from which we have not yet escaped. But these were not the causes of the bitterness with which Tillotson and his school were assailed by the Altitudinarian divines. "The greater part of the Non-juring party,' says Dr. Birch, the Archbishop's biographer, "from the moment of his accepting the Archbishoprick, pursued him with an unrelenting rage, which lasted during his life, and was by no means appeased after his death." Dodwell accused him of "erecting altar against altar," and pronounced his consecration to be " null, invalid, and schismatical." Another writer, whom Dr. Hickes vouched for as a person of great candour and integrity," declared to Hickes that "he thought the Archbishop an Atheist, as much as a man could be, though the gravest certainly that ever was." Another, in a panegyric upon Archbishop Sancroft, contrasted him with Tillotson, saying, "While he sat in the chair there was no under-hand truckling with Socinians, or others out of the communion of the Church of England; there was never any project to give up the Liturgy, the rites, and ceremonies of the Church; he had not that latitude of principle to sacrifice the Church out of secular intrigues and politics; he did not make use of his interest to advance a sort of men who are equally principled for Geneva as for England, or for any constitution besides; when he was possessed of the revenues belonging to his Church, he never made it his business to destroy and plunder it, by cutting down the timber upon little pretences, and then putting the money into his own pockets." Another pamphlet, written by "A True Friend of the Church," asserted that "His Grace's sermons are all the genuine effects of Hobbism, which loosens the notions of religion, takes from it all that is spiritual, ridicules whatever is called supernatural, reduces God to matter, and religion to nature. His politics are Leviathan (those of Hobbes), and his religion is Latitudinarian, which is none. He is owned by the atheistical wits of all England as their true primate and apostle. He leads them not only the length of Socinianism, they are but slender beaux who have got no farther than that— but to call in question all revelation." This "True Friend of the Church" kept back his name; but he was afterwards discovered to be the Nonjuror Charles Leslie; though he had the modesty to omit this "short and easy method" of dealing with an Archbishop, in his collected theological works. He adopted an equally "short and easy method" in his scurrilous attacks upon Bishop Burnet. We presume that Leslie's publication was included among the bundle of books and papers found in Tillotson's cabinet after his death, endorsed, "These are libels; I pray God forgive the authors; -I do." Tillotson mentions in one of his letters to Lady Russel, that he had notice from the Attorney General, and other officers of State, that several persons were to be prosecuted for libels upon him; but, he says, I went to wait upon them severally, and earnestly desired of them that nobody might be punished upon my account; that this was not the first time I had experienced this kind of malice, which, how unpleasant soever to me, I thought it the wisest way to neglect, and the best to forgive it. -- We have in justice to Tillotson written thus, as the Non-juring bitterness against him has been re-distilled by our modern Tractarians; who can as little forgive as answer his "Rule of Faith," and his other antiTractarian publications. We have not mentioned other Bishops cotemporary with Tillotson, Tenison, and Wake, and of their school, and who, with them, were objects of special detraction upon the part of the so-called High-Church. The learned ecclesiastical antiquary, Kennet, was of that number. He wrote, among his numerous publications, two upon Convocation, against the Altitudinarians, and also a "True Answer to Dr. Sacheverell's Sermon before the Lord Mayor." To spite him, Dr. Welton, Rector of Whitechapel, caused a portrait of him to be introduced in an altar-piece for that church in the character of Judas. The Saviour was represented surrounded by his Apostles at the last Supper; and Kennet was Iscariot, the traitor, sitting in an elbow-chair, dressed in a black garment, between a gown and a cloak, with a black scarf, a white band, a short wig, and a mark in his forehead, the countenance strikingly saying, “I am Dean Kennet." It was currently believed that Welton had directed that the portrait of Bishop Burnet should be introduced as Judas; but that the painter, fearing an action of Scandalum Magnatum, the Bishop was exchanged for the Dean. Fleetwood was another of these Tillotsonian Bishops, who gave great offence to the Sacheverellites by his publications; among others, his "Judgment of the Church of England in the case of Lay-baptism and Dissenters' Baptism;" his "Letter to an Inhabitant of St. Andrew's, Holborn, [of which parish Sacheverell was Rector, and in which Fleetwood resided as Bishop of Ely at Ely House,] about New Ceremonies in the Church;" and his "The Thirteenth Chapter to the Romans vindicated from the Abuses [relative to civil government] put upon it; written by a Curate of Salop, and directed to the clergy of that county, and the neighbouring ones of North Wales; to whom the writer wisheth patience, moderation, and a good understanding, for half an hour." But we must not go on with these cursory recollections. We are not defending either the theology or the politics of these prelates; whose names we have introduced chiefly to shew how strenuously Tractarian principles were opposed, when revived by the Non-jurors from the embers of Laudism; and before that "infection of Evangelicalism," which, we are told, began to pervert the Church from the days of Whitfield and Wesley; though it was only stepping back, over Laudites and Tillotsonians, to the days of the Anglican Reformers; as they had stepped back over Popes and Councils, to the days of the Apostles. The Tillotsonians, with all their faults, did good service in keeping out Popery; for if the Non-jurors had been able to bring back James II., or to enthrone his son, their own Laudean principles would have afforded Popery its best vantage-ground; as similar principles are doing at this moment ;witness, for instance, the late perversions at Oxford. The following are characteristic notices in the life of Trimnell. In 1701, during the controversy in the Lower House of Convocation, he wrote several pieces in vindication of the rights of the Crown and the Archbishop. In 1709, in his Primary Charge, he spoke with much zeal against Altitudinarian opinions. He considered the doctrine of "the independence of the Church upon the State" as not tenable, and as very prejudicial to the true interests of the Church of England. We do not sympathise with the Erastianism of this class of divines. The Church of Christ is not the creature of the State; it is not to be regulated by human authority, but by Divine; and much evil has been inflicted upon it, by giving Dissenters any pretext for saying that our Established Com |