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Sir , I beg to offer to your correspondent Clericus Analicus , the following solution of his questions respecting tne articles of the Church of Ireland , derived from Dr . Aikin ' s " Lives of John Selden > Esq ., and Archbishop Usher . " 8 vo . London , 1812 .
" In 1615 , a convocation of the prelates and clergy of the Irish Est&blisb . - riient being held at Dublin , it was determined that they should assert their independence on the Church of England , of which they had hitherto been regarded as a kind of colony , by drawing up a set of articles of religion for their own Church . Dr . Usher was the person chiefly employed on this occasion ; and in these articles , which were 104 in numbed , the doctrines of
predestination and reprobation , according to the system of Calvin , were stated h * the most explicit terms . And as the Keeping of the Sabbath-day holy was enjoined in one of the articles , and Usher was moreover known to maintain the opinion that bishops were not a distinct order in the church , but onl y superior in degree to presbyters , some officious persons took occasion to represent him to King James as a favourer of Puritanism , " &c . —P . 221 ,
. The fate which awaited the Irish articles in after times is thus recorded : - ^ 5 Laud , now become Archbishop of Canterbury , was induced , not only by lib personal love of power and his notions of the necessity of uniformity in religion , but by his attachment to the Arminian tenets , in opposition to the Calvinistic , to wish for the abrogation of the Irish articles of faith At tKe opening of the convocation , therefore , ( in 1634 , ) Bramhall , Bishop of Derry , was instructed to move , that the whole body of the English canons
should be adopted by the Irish Church . This proposition , however , was opposed by the primate and others as too derogatory to the independence of the Irish Church ; and at length , after much discussion , the compromise was agreed upon of admitting a certain number of the English canons , and retaining such of the Irish as had a particular reference to the circumstances of that church and kingdom . With this modification , Laud , in a letter to Usher , declares himself satisfied , though he would have preferred the adoption of the entire English canons .
" But his triumph with respect to the articles was more complete ; for although the convocation , in the same spirit which influenced them in the case of the canons , would not absolutel abrogate their own , yet they decidedly accepted those of-the English Church , as was declared in the first of the new canons , drawn up by the primate himself . It runs thus : ' For the manifestation of our agreement with the English Church in the confession of the same
Christian feith and in the doctrine of the sacraments , we receive and approve the book of Articles of Reli g ion agreed upon between the archbishops , bishops and body of the clergy in the synod of London of 1562 , for the removal of difference in opinion and the establishment of consent in true religion . If , therefore , any one shall hereafter affirm that any of the said articles are in any respect superstitious or erroneous , or such as cannot be subscribed witb fr
good conscience , let him be excommunicated , and not absolved till he pb&U publicly have retracted his error . ' It was impossible to frame a more explicit , indeed a more submissive , adherence to the rule of faith adopted in the sister island : and the expedient employed to save the authority of the Irish Church , that of obliging the candidates for ordination to subscribe both sets of articles , was only requiring an inconsistency , provided the doctrines of the two were
in any respect contradictory ; which the p rimate , however , who understood the articles in a Calvinistic sense , probably did not suppose . But this double subscription at length appeared 30 iireconcileaWe to good sense &nd propriety that it ps ( Uaueed , and a petition was presented to the JUord Peputy , Wiftt fa
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ARTICLES OF THE CHURCH OP IRELANP , To the Editor .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1827, page 183, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1794/page/23/
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