the pay of Spain "); while Peter Lombard of Armagh, and Florence Omelcontrius of Tuam, who for many reasons cannot remain safely in Ireland, on account of the English, have delegated their provinces to vicars".

On the other hand, the church maintained a continual succession of bishops in all the sees of Ireland. We have seen that the prelates consented almost unanimously to remove the papal jurisdiction in Ireland in 1560. In the Irish parliament under sir John Perrott's administration, A. D. 1585, four archbishops and twenty bishops were actually present, and as we know that at this time three of the twenty-nine sees existing at the accession of Elizabeth, were held in commendam with others, and one at least was vacant, we see that at this time all the dioceses of Ireland must have been possessed by the church. Sir John Davis seems to have erred in saying that there were three northern dioceses to which the queen never presented, as we find Magrath made bishop of Clogher (one of them) in 1570, but at all events the bishops of those dioceses must have been in communion with the church of Ireland in 1585. Thus the regular and ancient succession of bishops from St. Patrick through a long

line of venerable prelates, has descended continually in the church of Ireland to the present day. The Romish society, on the other hand, derived its mission and succession from the pope of Rome in the reign of Elizabeth and James the First, and cannot in any degree derive itself from the ancient church of Ireland from which it separated.

We may conclude from these facts, that the community of Romanists in Ireland thus formed, was no part of the church of Christ; for I have before proved that voluntary separation from a Christian church, and the establishment of a rival communion, is a separation from Jesus Christ, and altogether inexcusable. The only defence which can be offered is, that the church of Ireland had herself become heretical and apostate. Were this manifestly true, there would indeed have been a positive obligation to forsake her communion: but I contend that there was no evidence of her heresy

in any point whatever. The removal of the papal jurisdiction in Ireland was merely a restoration of an ancient discipline, which had never been changed by any law of the universal church. In short, whatever was done, had the assent of the bishops, the ordinary pastors of the church, and successors of the apostles, whose judgment ought to have been a sufficient warrant to the ignorant and undisciplined people, that the catholic faith and discipline were preserved in their integrity. Their first and most solemn duty was to hear and obey their immediate bishops and pastors in those questions which they were incompetent to decide them'selves; but they permitted themselves to be deceived by the foreign monks and priests who came to sow

See Part I. Chapter IV.

massacre.

dissension in the church. The sect which was thus created arose in separation from an older Christian society; it was founded by unholy men, who encouraged schism, practised on the ignorant by false miracles, were involved in treason, and excited sedition, war, and It was not apostolical, because it separated from the successors of the apostles in Ireland, and adhered to the intruding bishops, whom the Roman pontiffs sent over to excite sedition. And as its first ministers were mere usurpers, so in latter times it has become questionable whether any of their ordinations are valid a. Consequently we cannot admit this sect to constitute any part of the catholic church, and the whole history of Ireland from the period of the Reformation to the present time, affords a terrible example of the retribution which grievous sins draw down upon the descendants of the guilty.

d See Part VI. Chapter on Romish Ordinations.

CHAPTER X.

ON THE REFORMATION AND SCHISMS IN SCOTLAND.

THOSE Who contemplate without prejudice the conduct of religious parties in Scotland during the sixteenth century, will find none of them exempt from serious faults, which gave rise to evils almost unprecedented. The gross corruptions and abuses of all sorts long prevalent in the Scottish church, were maintained against the spirit of reformation with a severity which was at last fatal to those who exercised it. The burning of Hamilton, Forrest, Gourlay, Straiton, Russell, Kennedy, Wishart, Wallace, Mill, &c. for supposed heresy, together with innumerable imprisonments and banishments for the same offence, disgusted the majority of the nation; and the want of energy and zeal which the prelates of the Romish party evinced when their opponents gained the ascendancy, and which, together with their immoral lives, is fully admitted by Lesley, bishop

of Ross, threw almost the whole nation at once into the cause of the Reformation. In 1560 the reforming party having petitioned for relief from persecution until a lawful general council might determine the pending controversies, were powerful enough to obtain from a convention of estates a sanction of their confession of faith, the suppression of the spiritual courts which had aggrieved them for thirty years, and a proscription of the office of the mass". The "congregation" or reforming party had been treated as heretics by their opponents, and separated from their communion; but this division did not last very long, for the whole nation soon became unanimous. Four of the bishops united themselves with the promoters of the Reformation, a larger number were either actively or passively opposed to it but the latter either forsook their sees and went abroad, or died before long, and were succeeded by others more favourable to the Reformation. The papal party dwindled to nothing: it was without bishops, had no organized churches, and about 1580 several foreign jesuits and missionary priests began to resort to Scotland and endeavour to make converts ".