used a kind of phraseology derived probably from the times with which we are now concerned, and still not uncommon in a country, many of the inhabitants of which are taught to assign a very undue value to the office of preaching, in comparison of the principal duty to be performed in God's "House of Prayer:" where the people, amongst whom a clergyman exercises his ministry, are frequently wont to be termed his "hearers;" and the avowed motive, which brings a congregation together, is frequently nothing more than a desire to "hear" such and such a preacher. In the church, whither he resorted, Bishop Taylor may have preached to his little flock of loyalists; but he also, no doubt, accustomed his congregation to the duty of publick prayer: and of prayer, I would fain believe, according to that Liturgy, of which both he and his biographer were so capable of estimating the value, and of enjoying the beauty.

Declaration of

the loyalists in London.

April 24, 1660.

Church restored
Satisfaction at

Restoration and Proclamation of the King.
to her station. Surviving Bishops.
Bishop Bramhall's elevation to the Primacy. Opposition
to the Church. King determined to support it. Appoint-
ments to Vacant Bishopricks. Solemnity of the Conse-
cration of the new Bishops. New Arrangements of
certain Sees. Hostility of Church of Rome in Ireland.
Bishop Taylor's Sketch of Popery as then existing. Pro-
testant Sectarists. The Law concerning them. How
treated by the Primate; and by Bishop Taylor, and the
other Northern Bishops.

THE honoured name of Jeremy Taylor may not
unaptly connect the narrative of the depression of
the Church with that of her resuscitation and resti-
tution, of which he was a conspicuous part. He had
in the last year visited England, apparently for some
private or domestick purposes; and had thus an
opportunity of annexing his name to a Declaration of
the loyalists of London and its neighbourhood, on
the 24th of April, 1660; an occurrence which may

have been useful in bringing him under the immediate notice of the restored sovereign; and so far have contributed with his former office of chaplain to the martyred king, and his long-tried attachment to the royal person, with his losses and sufferings, with his profound learning and his exuberant eloquence, and with his well-known principles of devotion to the monarchy and filial veneration for the Church, in recommending him for promotion on the event of their ensuing Restoration.

The king was proclaimed in Dublin, on the 14th of May, 1660, and, as soon as the order was received, in all the great towns of the kingdom, with wonderful acclamations of joy. The Marquis of Ormonde, being made lord steward of the household, and having received other substantial marks of favour, as one whom the king delighted to honour, the bishops and episcopal clergy yet left in Ireland now applied to him for that patronage and protection, which he had ever, and on all occasions, been ready to afford them, to the utmost of his power; and, considering the present to be a very favourable opportunity to provide for their comfortable maintenance, and to establish the Church on a foundation better than it had ever enjoyed before, he resolved to stand forward in her defence.

Presbyterians in

Besides the Scotch ministers in the northern Efforts of the counties of Ireland, there were others of the Presby- Ireland. terian party, who, under the patronage of the usurping government, had latterly gotten possession of the churches in Dublin and its neighbourhood; and, without any regard to the ecclesiastical constitution of the kingdom, diligently laboured to bring the people into subjection to the rules of the Covenant,

Exertions in behalf of Episco

расу.

and regulated their conduct of divine worship by the Directory; but these were not numerous, the benefices of the country at that time being not of sufficient value to tempt any considerable number to come thither from England. Few as they were in number, and too feeble to prevail by their own influence, they made application to the king, immediately on his landing in England, in the hope of getting their model of Church government established by the credit and interests of their English friends. Endeavours were likewise made for promoting in the army of Ireland a similar petition about Church government, in opposition to the episcopal form.

These movements caused alarm in the episcopal divines; and they accordingly came forward with a protestation against the proceedings of their opponents, and an earnest desire that the order of bishops and the use of the Litugy might be preserved. This, too, was in full accordance with the wishes and opinions of the Peers, and of the most respectable of the Commons, who possessed the far greater part of the wealth and importance of the nation, and who took delight in that ancient form of ecclesiastical polity. Episcopacy, moreover, and the Liturgy, were Which was still still part of the legal establishment of the kingdom; for, notwithstanding the violent courses which had been lawlessly pursued for the overthrow of each, no law had at any time been regularly enacted, which might give a colour for the annulling of either. It followed, of course, that, when the king resumed his throne, the Church resumed her station. The best method, accordingly, was judged to be to fill up all vacant ecclesiastical preferments with men of worth, character, abilities, and learning, zealously affected to the constitution of the Church, and well

the legal esta

blishment.

qualified to maintain their possession. And thus, on the recommendation and persuasion of the Marquis of Ormonde, the king was induced, in the first week of August, to nominate for the occupation of the vacant sees the most eminent men that could be found among the clergy of Ireland'.

bishops.

At this period the Church of Ireland had pre- Eight surviving served only eight of her former bishops: Bramhall, of Derry; John Lesley, of Raphoe; Henry Lesley, of Down and Connor; Maxwell, of Kilmore; Baily, of Clonfert; Williams, of Ossory; Jones, of Clogher; and Fulwar, of Ardfert. Of these, the Bishop of Derry in particular was well known and highly esteemed for his previous ecclesiastical services: so that the general sense of the Church and of the kingdom concurred with the judgment of the government, which made an early selection of him Bishop Bramhall for the archbishoprick of Armagh, and the primacy Primacy, and metropolitical dignity of all Ireland, to which he was nominated in August, 1660, and formally appointed on the 18th of January, 1661.

nominated to the

August, 1660.

acceptable to the

Church.

How acceptable this nomination of Bishop is nomination Bramhall was to the friends of the Church, appears friends of the from the following letter of congratulation, which was addressed by Lord Caulfield, afterwards known by the honourable epithet of the good Lord Charlemont, to the new Primate, on the 22nd of October, 1660.

tulation from

"As the news of your lordship's safe arrival is most Letter of congrawelcome to me, so is it likewise occasion of great rejoicing Lord Caulfield, to all those in the kingdom who truly fear God and pray for Oct. 22, 1660. the welfare of his Church: it being yet fresh in the memories of us all, how eminent an instrument your lordship hath been long since in the propagating the true ancient Protestant religion in this kingdom.

'CARTE'S Life of Ormonde, ii, 207.