"some of the grievances in it, had been presented by parliament to the deputy, in June preceding, as found real and enormous, after many debates." And as for those lately added, viz. the "tremendous powers" of the high-commission court, the denial of the promised graces, &c. it is notorious, that they had been long before complained of, as intolerable, both in and out of parliament. It appears by the journals, "that a grand committee was appointed to sit upon the grievances of the country, on the twelfth of October, 1640; and that, on the seventh of the following month, an order was passed, that the particular matters expressed in the remonstrance in question, being thrice read, required present redress, and should be forthwith represented to the right honourable the lord deputy, by Mr. Speaker and the whole house." Another order was passed on the ninth, "that Mr. Speaker, for the greater solemnity, should read the remonstrance twice, and that it should be afterwards presented to the lord deputy." On the eleventh, "a committee was appointed, consisting, among others, of the vicetreasurer, the master of the rolls, and the chancellor of the exchequer, to wait upon the deputy, to know when he would give his answer to the remonstrance." And on the twelfth, "a committee was again appointed, to attend his lordship for his answer;" which appears then to have been," that the commons should confer with some of the lords of the privy-council, (not, as has been supposed, with the house of lords) concerning the nature of the grievances complained

of." But to this conference, as being contrary to their privileges, the commons refused to consent;

in regard that the contents of their remonstrance had been already voted in their house for grievances;" for which refusal, the deputy prorogued them on the same twelfth of November. And thus it evidently appears, that this remonstrance, instead of being abruptly presented to the house, not suffered to be spoken to, and passed in the midst of tumult and disorder, was agitated, for several days, with due deliberation and regularity, and at length agreed to, after many readings and debates."*

The catholic nobility and gentry of Ulster, in their address to his majesty, (Charles I.) "with much grief express their sense of their general sufferings and pressures since the beginning of his late majesty's, his royal father's reign, being almost forty years, and the only time of continued peace they enjoyed these latter ages, in all which time, through the corruption of the governors, and state of the realm, though for redress of their grievances frequent suit had been made by them, yet that therein they could never obtain any part of their desires, but rather had endured a continual servitude than the freedom of subjects, being not permitted in all that space to enjoy their birthright, or the benefit of the fundamental laws of the realm, nor admitted to have property in their goods or lands, for that a tyrannical government had been continually

* Currie. Hist. Rev.

exercised over them all that time, in a more strict and cruel manner than in Turkey or any other infidel country, though by the antient fundamental laws of the kingdom, no subjects in Europe can challenge more freedom or liberty."

In order, therefore, to understand the beginnings and progress of the civil war of 1641, we must, after reviewing the predisposing irritations, occasioned by the long-continued oppression, plunder and persecution of James and Charles, take a view, likewise, of the causes, origin and progress of the combined rebellions of England and Scotland, whose preparatory means unquestionably forced these two kings to illegal extortions, and influenced them to plunder the Irish, and whose collateral impulse kindled and fanned the flame.

The innovations of religion were, as every where else, accompanied in the neighbouring island with a spirit of resistance to all established authorities, that would discountenance or oppose them. Mary of England experienced some of this, and Mary of Scotland became its victim. Their successors having embraced the reformed doctrines, the catholic church, enfeebled by power and wealth, enervated by long ease, luxury and indolence, fell an easy prey to the joint assaults of power, persecution, corruption and fanaticism, managed. with matchless fraud and consummate address, under the guidance of artful Bess, the life and directress of the innovators in both kingdoms. The reformers, on their rupture with Rome, appealed to scripture, private judgment, and the

spirit, spurning the authority of the church, the precedents of antiquity, and its prescriptive title, venerable by its descent from the apostles, the consent of the great majority of christians, and sanctioned by the promises of its founder, taken in their obvious meaning. Extremes naturally beget each other. As the exceeding wealth and temporal power of the church, with the abuses engendered therefrom, gave the necessity of a real reform, and pretence for the pretended one, so the usurpation of spiritual authority, on the faculties, in the departments of science, beyond the sphere of its jurisdiction, produced an opposition to its authority, even within its legitimate boundaries. The reformers were more consistent in embracing the extreme of freethinking; since, rejecting all established authorities and precedents, save what might be deduced from the catalogue of heresies, unable to claim divine mission from miracle or prophecy, they had no expedient left, but to invite every one to judge for himself, as freely as he pleased, on religious

matters.

The temporal powers, who admitted or encouraged these innovations, sensible of the danger of leaving the wild gas of enthusiastic imaginations, heated by controversial contagion, and bible speculations on mysterious doctrines, conveyed in language almost as mysterious, to rove at large, attempted to restrain the freedom of airy speculations within some limits. They saw, that, without the restraint of some association, confined to the profession of some common form

of prayer and ceremonies, society, on the fundamental principles of the reform, would be dissolved into numberless conventicles, differing from each other in faith and practice, untill, by a necessary progression, it ended in individuality, indifference, and infidelity. It was necessary, therefore, to establish a church, with some officiating, teaching ministry; with some form of discipline, and ecclesiastical constitution, under the control of the civil power. The influence they acquired by the magistrate over the public mind, must be repaid to the ministry in livings and protection. Conscious of its human institution, like a ricketty child, it will cry out, its life is in danger. It must be supported by exclusive privileges, and guarded by pains and penalties, against the horrible dilemma in which it is placed, between opposite adversaries. When it appeals to authority, against dissenters, they repel the insolent usurpation, by an appeal to its own fundamental principle, the bible, the spirit, private judgment. When they argue against the authority of the catholic church, they are asked, why then assume authority? Wherefore a particular creed, to which all must subscribe; and particular forms of prayer, sacraments, and ceremonies, to which all must conform? Above all, why punish non-conformity to your fallible opinions? May it not be error punishing truth; or do you claim, contrary to your own principles, that guidance of the Holy Ghost, which you deny the mother church, to which alone the characters, expressed in your creeds, belong?