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The Presbyterians in Ireland
a Powerful Body - Their Hopes from Charles's Dunfermline Declaration
dashed to the Ground - A Meeting of Presbyterians held at Ballymena -
They send a Deputation to Dublin - Orrery's Account of their Visit -
Adair's Account of Interview granted to Presbyterian Ministers by Jeremy
Taylor, the Bishop of Down and Connor - The Covenant ordered to be burnt
by the Public Executioner as "schismatical, seditious, and treasonable".
During the Protectorate,
when dissent was encouraged,
the Presbyterians in Ireland had become a powerful body,
and although their stronghold was in Ulster, where the Scots
were numerous, they had spread over a considerable portion
of the country. At the Restoration they were bitterly disappointed at
the sudden and absolute re-establishment of the
Episcopal Church, and all the more so in that they had relied
on Charles's declaration at Dunfermline in favour of the
Covenant, and the services they had rendered him in conjunction with the
Cavaliers. In January, 1661, a consecration of twelve Bishops had been
conducted in St. Patrick's
Cathedral, Dublin, with such pomp that it was looked upon
as a public triumph of the Episcopal over the Presbyterian
party; and this, added to the expressions of "the unspeakable
joy " of the Commons at their first meeting, over the revival
of "the true worship of God" among them, nettled the Presbyterians, and
once more made the unhappy land a shuttlecock for creeds.
A proclamation was issued
forbidding all unlawful assemblies, and directing sheriffs and other
officers to prevent or
disperse them. The congregation of Presbyterians, as disallowed by the
new church establishment, was understood to
be included amongst those proscribed by proclamation, and
in alarm the Presbyterians summoned a meeting to be held
in the month of March at Ballymena to consult on the course
which, as a body, they should take. At the meeting they
resolved to send to Dublin four of their number as representatives of
the several Presbyteries in Ulster to expostulate
with the Lords Justices on the Proclamation which forbade
them to assemble, and. to petition that in their several parishes
they might be "free from the yoke of Prelacy". They based
their demands on the King's promises, and referred to their
constant loyalty, their sufferings, and their resolution to live
as peaceful and law-abiding subjects. Information having
been conveyed to the Government that such a meeting was
about to be held, a troop of horse was sent to disperse those
attending it; but the troopers arrived long after the meeting
had been held and those present had departed.
The representatives of
Presbyterian ism were but coldly
received by the Government in Dublin, and the Episcopal
party in general seem to have treated them much in the same
spirit as that which Milton was wont to exhibit towards
"shallow Edwards and Scotch what d'ye call". In dealing
with such individuals the ex-Latin Secretary did not spare
invective, calling them '* new apostate scarecrows, who, under
shew of giving counsel, send out their barking monitories
and mementoes, empty of aught else but the spleen of a
frustrated faction".
The Earl of Orrery, then
a Lord Justice, has left us an
account of the interview with the four Presbyterian agents,
enclosed in a letter to the Duke of Ormonde, which is
interesting as an expression of the private sentiments of the
ruler of Ireland at the time: "We have had", he writes,
"these two days four ministers before us, which were sent
from the several Presbyteries in Ulster to the Lords Justices
and Council, desiring liberty to exercise their ministry in
their respective parishes, according to the way they have
hitherto exercised it in; and expressing their great sorrow
to find themselves numbered with Papists and fanatics in our
late Proclamation, which prohibited unlawful assemblies.
"After many debates upon
several proposals how to
answer them, we resolved on this answer That we neither
could nor would allow any discipline to be exercised in church
affairs but what was warranted and commanded by the laws
of the land. That they were punishable for having exercised
any other. That we would not take any advantage against
them for what was past, if they would comport themselves
conformably for the time to come. That if they were dispensed withal, by
pleading a submission thereunto was
against their consciences, Papists and fanatics would expect
the like indulgence from the like plea, which we knew their
own practice as well as judgments led them to disallow of.
That we took it very ill, divers of those which had sent them
had not observed the time set apart for humbling themselves
for the barbarous murder of his late Majesty, a sin which no
honest man could avoid being sorry for. That some of their
number had preached seditiously, in crying up the Covenant,
(the seeds of all our miseries), in lamenting His Majesty's
breach of it, as getting up Episcopacy as introductory to
Popery, which they had not punished in exercising any of
their pretended discipline over such notorious offenders. And,
lastly, that if they conformed themselves to the discipline of
this church, they should want no fitting countenance and encouragement
in carrying on their ministry; so if they continued refractory, they
must expect the penalties the law did
prescribe.
"To all which they
answered: That as far as their consciences would permit them, they would
comply, and what
it would not, they would patiently suffer. That it was their
religion to obey a lawful authority, (and such they owned His
Majesty was), either actively or passively. That if any of
their judgment had preached sedition, they left them to themselves and
disowned them; and if they had the exercising of
their discipline, they would punish severely all such. That
many of them had according to the Proclamation, kept the
fast for the King's murder, which they heartily detested, and
for the doing thereof in the usurper's government many of
them had been imprisoned and sequestered; and that to the
last of their lives they would continue loyal to His Majesty.
"And lest they might
offend against our Proclamation,
they desired to know what was meant by unlawful assemblies,
because some were so severe as to interpret their meetings to
pray and preach on the Lord's day to come under that head.
To which we told them, that by unlawful meetings was only
meant such assemblies as were to exercise any ecclesiastical
jurisdictions, which were not warranted by the laws of the
kingdom, and not to hinder their meetings in performing
parochial duties in those benefices of which they were possessed legally
or illegally.
"They seemed much
comforted with the last assurance; so
that having again exhorted them to conformity, and promised
them therein all encouragement, we dismissed them to try
what this usage and the admonition will produce. I have had
several private discourses with them, and I leave no honest
means unessayed to gain them."
To the modern sceptic the
object for which this journey
was undertaken by these four worthy ministers to the life
spiritual may possibly appear to be "much ado about nothing", but the
honest endeavours of Orrery to get these, in
his eyes, benighted Presbyterians, to see the error of their
ways, proves how vital a thing religion was in a day when
the greatest writer of his time deemed he could not employ his
pen in worthier work than in an endeavour to " justify the
ways of God to men ". Englishmen had not yet begun to
believe that forms of faith were unimportant, and that "his
can't be wrong whose life is in the right", and so these nameless
representatives of -
Gordon,
Colkitto, or Macdonald,
or Galasp,
wended their way
homeward, "much comforted" in the belief
that they had done something to win freedom of thought and
liberty of speech for those who like themselves
The faith and morals
[held] which Milton held.
The Presbyterians were
now left entirely to the mercy of the
Bishops in their several dioceses, and were treated with more
or less rigour according to the degree of liberality of those
spiritual superiors. Among the foremost in persecution was
the celebrated Jeremy Taylor, who had been appointed to the
Bishopric of Down. Patrick Adair, one of seven Presbyterian
ministers in the district, has left us an account of these transactions.
It was proposed in 1650 to transplant the Presbyterians of Antrim and
Down. Parties of soldiers were sent by
the Commissioners, and one of these seized all Adair's papers
indiscriminately, "there being none among sixteen soldiers
and a sergeant who could read". The more important papers
were restored to Adair by a maid-servant, who stole them
while the sergeant was asleep. None of the seven clergymen
would take the engagement of 1650, which bound men to
support a Government without King or House of Lords, and
they had much support among the people. As already stated,
the orders for this transplantation were given, but not carried
into effect.
"The Bishop of Down",
writes Adair, "coming to his
diocese at the time when the brethren were in Dublin, had
intelligence of them and their errand, and so had an envious
eye upon them. However, he forbeared his first visitation
till they returned, and, finding they had obtained no encouragement, he
immediately summoned them all to his
visitation. They could not then have a general meeting to
consult; but Providence so ordered it that, a few days before
the summons came which they were expecting, most of them
were called to the burial of a honourable and truly religious
lady, the lady Clotworthy, the mother of the now Lord Massarene. There
they had occasion to advise together, and
were not all of one mind as to their going to Lisnegarvy
[Lisburn]. However most part met in Belfast a day before
the visitation, and from thence went to Lisnegarvy.
"The Bishop being then at
his house in Hillsborough, the
brethren sent three of their number to the Bishop the day
before the appointed visitation. Their errand was to tell him
that whereas they had received summonses to appear before
his visitation, they could not appear in answer to that summons, neither
as submitting themselves to episcopal jurisdiction, nor at all in the
public visitation. Yet they were
willing to confer with him in private, that he might know they
were men that walked by principle, and held not groundless
opinions; and that though they were dissenters from the
present church-government and modes of worship, yet they
were the King's true subjects. He desired they would give
him in on paper what they had to say. This they declined,
on consideration that many of their brethren were not present.
He told them he would receive nothing from them as a body,
nor look on them in that light They told him, whatever they
were, or whatever way he looked on them, they behoved to
advise with one another in matters of that concernment; as
their relations as ministers, their former correspondence in
all such matters, and their Christian prudence called for.
"Seeing they would give
him no paper, he questioned
them whether they held Presbyterial government to be jure
DivinO) and desired they would give him a positive answer.
They readily answered they did. To this the Bishop replied,
that they needed no farther discourse of the matter of accommodation, if
they held to that. They said it was a truth whereof they were persuaded
in their conscience, and could
not relinquish it, but must profess it as they were called;
therefore if answers of that nature would but irritate at the
public visitation, they judged it better not to appear, but to
confer with him freely in private. He answered, if they
should make profession contrary to law in the visitation,
they would smart for it. Therefore seeing our foot in a
snare, he desired them rather not to appear, and that as their
friend. They thanked him, and withal said, they conceived
they might hold Presbyterial government to be jure Divino
and yet not transgress the law of the land, since they were not
exercising that government, for they knew that affirmative
precepts bound not ad semper. He answered that was true,
yet that they were not subject to another government was
contrary to law; and he said though the King's late declaration in
matters of religion were extended to Ireland, it would
do them no good. They returned, that there were many in
England who held Presbyterial government to be jure Divino,
yet at present enjoyed the benefit of the King's declaration.
He replied, he saw not how that could consist."
The author of Holy Living
then questioned the ministers
regarding the oath of supremacy, and offended them much by
comparing them to Papists; on which they returned to their
brethren at Lisburn, and the latter "saw themselves in a
hard taking, yet encouraged one another to fidelity and
steadfastness".
"The next day", continues
Adair, "was the Bishop's
visitation in Lisnegarvy, where he himself preached, but none
of the brethren except two went to hear him. Thereafter in
his visitation all were called and none appeared; yet he did
nothing farther that day." Later "two of the former four
and another brother were sent to him to see if he would call
all the brethren together to his chamber to confer with him,
which they apprehended he had proposed at Hillsborough;
especially from his saying it was not fit for them to appear in
public. When accordingly they went, and proposed this to
him, he wholly waived to answer their question, and fell
angrily on reflections on Presbyterial government; having
nothing to reflect on any particular brother, or on the particular
actings of the Presbytery in this country, though fain
he would if he could; and withal proposing arguments for
conformity, which engaged the brethren in some discourse
of that nature.
"Notwithstanding his own
expressions the day before
respecting their not appearing at the visitation, yet he now
alleged it was contempt made the brethren not appear on that
occasion. One said it was the awe of God and conscience
that made them not appear. He replied a Jew or a Quaker
would say so much for their opinions, and everybody would
use that argument for the vindication of their erroneous
courses. There were also some few of the brethren whom
he called to him to engage them to conformity, and gave
them great offers of kindness and preferment; but he obtained not his
purpose."
Adair's narrative has
been thus long dwelt upon because
it proves the spirit which the Bishops, now restored, carried
with them into Ireland. As far as is shown in the accounts
of both parties, the behaviour of the Presbyterians was moderate and
forbearing, and they showed no inclination to resist
the will of the civil government. The visitation at Lisburn
was followed by the simultaneous expulsion of all the Presbyterian
ministers in Jeremy Taylor's diocese of Down of
Connor, from their pulpits and livings, the example of the
English Chrysostom being followed in other dioceses.
The expelled ministers
were at once deprived of all support which they had derived from their
parishes, turned
upon the world to seek a living on their own resources, and,
what to them was the greatest punishment of all, forbidden
to preach or exercise their calling in public.
On the 27th of May an
order of Parliament was passed
condemning the Covenant as "schismatical, seditious, and
treasonable", ordering it to be burnt in all cities and towns
by the common executioner, and requiring the chief magistrate
of the place to be present and see the order executed on the
next market-day after its receipt. It was further declared
that "whosoever shall, by word or deed, by sign or writing,
go about to defend or justify the said treasonable covenant,
shall be accounted and esteemed as an enemy to His Sacred
Majesty and to the public peace and tranquility of His church
and kingdom". |
