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Untitled Article
which they refer . In that case I trust this attempt will only be the precursor of some fuller and more satisfactory account than my limited reading enables me to compile . In England , in the earlier stages of the Reformation , convocations sat regularl y with each new parliament that was assembled ; but it was a considerable time before any were summoned to meet in Ireland . When the Irish Parliament met in 1536 , there were not in the kingdom Protestant clergymen
sufficient to constitute an ecclesiastical assembly , and the statesmen accordingly legislated for the infant church with a severity and intolerance that would not have disgraced the most zealous convocation . During the reign of Edward VI . the Lord Deputy was averse to calling a parliament , and the Reformation was pressed forwards by royal proclamations alone ; and the parliaments that met in the reigns of Mary and Elizabeth were deemed fully sufficient to regulate all religious matters . The reformed doctrines had , indeed , acquired such a limited ascendancy by reason of the injudicious
measures employed in their propagation , that there existed no necessity for the expedient of a convocation where there were few to govern , and still fewer to assemble . At length , in 1615 , the Reformation had advanced so far , and the Church acquired so much stability , that a convocation was directed by James I . to be held at Dublin . This assembly , the first of the kind in Ireland , was called principally with the view that the Church might be furnished with that necessary and inseparable appendage of an establishment—a confession of faith ! The Irish clergy would not adopt that of the ^ Jv ___ ^
_ _ _ _ _ _ English church , lest this might imply a subserviency to its authority , or compromise their honour and independence . But a new confession was proposed to be drawn up , and this task was assigned to Dr . James Usher , afterwards the celebrated Archbishop of Armagh . When completed , it consisted of no less than one hundred and four articles ; it was unanimously adopted , and is singular from its comprising many of those tenets that were then characteristic of Puritanism . I refer the reader to the observations made on these articles
by Neal in the second volume of his History of Dissenters ; and to the confession itself as given at large in the appendix to the same work . Leland , in his History of Ireland , seems to reflect on Usher for introducing his Calvinistic principles into the confession , and makes this characteristic remark" And without any condescension to the sentiments of King James , he ( Usher ) declared in one article , that the Lord's-day was to be wholly
dedicated to the service of God . " Weak and presumptuous man ! To dare to think differently from the Head of the Church , even on a point of such inferior importance ! This certainly is high-church doctrine . This convocation , however , left its legitimate work very imperfect . For it enacted no canons , those clerical expedients for persecution ; and its only penal clause was the last , which declared , " that if any minister should publicly teach any doctrine contrary to the articles agreed upon , he should be
silenced and deprived of his promotions . " What was defective , however , in the proceedings of this assembly , was not long after amply supplied . In 1633 , Wentworth , Earl of Strafford , was made Lord Deputy of Ireland ; a promotion which he owed as much to the patronage of Laud as to his own abilities . One of the first objects of his administration , according to the suggestion of his patron , whose abhorrence of Calvinism and Puritanism is well known , was to obtain the abolition of the obnoxious confession of Usher , and bring the Church of Ireland to adopt the articles and discipline of that of England . A convocation , the second in Ireland , was therefore
Untitled Article
IrUh Convocations . 237
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1827, page 237, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1795/page/5/
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