Robert Taylor. The use actually made of one at least was such as might have been expected. The ministration of the pulpit was profaned to the office of undermining Christianity.

It would occasion no surprise to any who should hear, now, for the first time, that an inhibition was issued against such a preacher; and yet, we can remember well, when the whole force of Archbishop Magee's high cha

racter was demanded to sustain him

against the storm of calumny and invective which the conscientious discharge of an imperative duty brought down upon him. We remember well the placarded walls-the corners of every street occupied by the busy and brawling agents who upheld standards testifying against episcopal intolerance, and the shrill clamours of importunate urchins still ring in our ears, "Mr. Taylor's letter, sir, to Magee;" "Mr. Taylor, sir, giving it to the Archbishop of Dublin." We remember, too, how the liberal press greedily seized upon the opportunity of assailing dignity with what unmitigated rancour it poured forth slanders against the illustrious guardian of the churches of this diocese, and how pathetically it ap pealed to the sympathies which distress awakens, to enlist the compassion of men against their sense of justice, and to beguile them into a notion that because Robert Taylor was a suffering, he was an injured, man, and that Archbishop Magee, because he exercised authority to restrain him, was a tyrant.

After an interval of fourteen years, an Archiepiscopal Inhibition has again created some excitement in the public mind. The circumstances under which it has issued are not similar to those in which the former was called forthe subject of it is a man of zeal and piety; his discourses are of a character to procure many attestations in their favour, and to provoke no complaint or censure he has been inhibited from preaching in the diocese of Dublin, and the same press which left no species of vituperative eloquence unattempted in the generous endeavour to expose and bear down the despotism of Archbishop Magee, has aggravated" its most gentle voice, and speaks smooth and small to justify and eulogise the inhibition of the more enterprising Archbishop Whately. Does this change in the "spirit of the journals" admit of explanation? Is it to be accounted for by the circumstances

under which it has been manifested? We shall see.

Robert Taylor was an Englishman, having no clerical appointment either in his own country or in this. L. J. Nolan is curate in a very ostensible position in the diocese of Meath, within less than thirty miles of this metropolis. Mr. Taylor, it is said, was pursued into his retreat in this country by rumours that in England he had acted in such

a manner as to have incurred the

penalty of suspension. Mr. Nolan entered upon the duties of his cure amidst unsuspicious testimonials that he had, to the utmost of his abilities, promoted the good of the reformed religion, and without any evil report, except from those who hated him because he had entered the Protestant Church, zealous minister. Mr. Taylor preached and was likely to prove an active and against the fundamental doctrines of discourses, the authority of Scripture. revealed religion, and impugned, in his him crucified, and strenuously conMr. Nolan has preached Christ and tended for the great principle that the Bible contains all truths necessary to salvation. Mr. Taylor was represented to Archbishop Magee as one who sought privily to bring in dam

nable doctrine.

Mr. Nolan, it is said, has been represented to Archbishop Whately as one whose discourses, and whose life have taught and exemplified These are not genuine Christianity. discrepancies which would seem to call for eulogies on the silencer of Nolan, from the same class of persons by whom the inhibition issued against Taylor was stigmatised as an unpardonable crime. Where then shall we find the essential difference? What is it which recommended Taylor and Archbishop Whately to the favour of the "liberal press" which provoked against Archbishop Magee and Nolan its rancorous hostility? Can it be this.Taylor preached against Christianity; Nolan against the errors of the Church of Rome? We bid Mr. Nolan be of good cheer. The press which calumniates him is that which "so persecuted also" William Magee. We do not think it matter of congratulation to any party, to add, that the champions of Robert Taylor in times past are now the apologists of Dr. Whately.

Our course begins to emerge into the light. The motives for eulogy and vituperation are becoming intelligible, and the consistency of the liberal press begins to be apparent. No man will

admit of a doubt, that the individual, against whom the inhibition of Archbishop Magee was issued, was the decided enemy of revealed religion, and, consequently, of the Protestant Church. The illustrious Prelate, therefore, who displaced him rendered the Church a service. The opinions of dispassionate men appear made up that Mr. Nolan is one whose exertions, Roman Catholics think, would be beneficial to Protestantism-the act of silencing him therefore was, in their judgment, the depriving the reformed religion of an efficient minister. To complain that Mr. Taylor was silenced and to panegyrise the offering an indignity to Mr. Nolan, are, therefore, acts ascribable to the same consistent policy.

Let it be, here, clearly understood, that we confine our observations within the letter of their meaning. We insinuate nothing-we suggest nothing. We affirm, and we contend, on sufficient grounds, that Archbishop Whately is eulogised and encouraged by the partizans of Popery, because they think he has done injury to the Protestant Church; but we do not say, nor have we formed a judgment on the subject, that it was with a design to injure Protestantism, or to purchase the praise of any party, Dr. Whately performed the act in which the enemies of his church are exulting. We shall consider impartially what the Most Rev. Prelate, in the administration of his high office, has thought it becoming of him to do; we shall consider such reasons as have been officially given to justify his extreme exercise of authority; we feel it within our province to advert also to the consequences likely to wait upon it; but into the motives from which it proceeded, we feel our inability to penetrate, nor do we think ourselves at liberty evento speculate concerning them. Premising, therefore, that wherever we are constrained to complain of the conduct of the Archbishop of Dublin, we shall do so openly; that when we do not directly complain, we hold it unworthy of us to insinuate, we proceed fearlessly with our review. The eulogies of the liberal press we have regarded as lights which served to shew the tendency of the Most Rev. Prelate's act, not the motives from which it proceeded. A very brief consideration of the difficulties besetting the Church of Rome will show that they gave correct intelligence.

It is well known, that doubts which threaten the demolition of their system,

have been widely disseminated, and have been deposited in the minds of many of the Roman Catholic clergy of Ireland. We do not believe that the "healing measure" of 1829, which has made the country sore, had the power to blast the good fruits for which we were taught to look immediately before that year, although it certainly had the effect of checking their growth, and of defacing those manifestations of promise which encouraged even the superficial and the distrustful to expect them. The Roman Catholic clergy had been engaged in controversial discussions. In the endeavour to defend their church, they had been frequently constrained to abandon and deny her principles; their assaults upon the Church of England had provoked replies which taught them for the first time that antiquity bore testimony in favour of that pure faith which was approved by Scripture and right reason; and although boldness of assertion and denial often secured to them a temporary triumph or a happy escape, it could not protect them against a recurrence of thoughts which disturbed the trust with which they relied on their church, and increased their reverence for the great rule of faith and morals with which they had become habituated to compare it. The consequence was beginning to be apparent in the conduct of priests and people, when the political measures of 1829, interrupted the progress of religious discussion by giving a new direction to the public mind, and by causing the interest of argument and reasoning to fade in the more commanding splendor of what the great mass of the Roman Catholic people were taught to acknowledge as their miraculous deliverance.

An interruption of what had become a popular pursuit, thus produced, could not be permanently effectual. The excitement to which sober enquiry had been distasteful, subsided, and the interrupted studies would have been resumed, had not new topics of agitation been discovered and adopted. Instead of meeting the advocates of Protestantism, to discuss points of faith, the priests entered into associations to discuss and advance political interests, instead of defending the doctrines of their own church, they assailed the temporalities of the Protestant establishment, and instead of appealing to truth, and Scripture, and righteousness for the justice of their cause, they ad

dressed themselves to the passions of a misguided people, to men's discontent, and envy, and uncharitableness, and strove, by such auxiliaries, to maintain themselves in the station of power to which they had been raised, and to overthrow all obstacles which impeded them in their efforts to obtain still higher dominion, or menaced them with insecurity in the positions they already occupied. But reflection comes to all men. Such a policy was desperate. It was impossible that at times it must not have appeared to many who were guided by it, dishonest as well as uncertain. Many a priest must have thought the cause bad which was driven to the adoption of such modes of defence. Many a laic must have felt that the boasted characteristic of sanctity had been effaced from the aspect of a church whose ministers were engaged in so unholy practices; and the natural result has followed, in the well-known disposition of many to renounce the errors of Rome, in the actual withdrawal of many laics and ecclesiastics from her communion, and in the doubts which it is ascertained, have been awakened in the minds of multitudes by the exertions of Protes tant instructors, and, still more, by the confessions which their own clergy have made, or the methods of counteracting the efforts of their antagonists, to which they have resorted.

Of all the incidents which, at the same time, betray the unsoundness of the Church of Rome, and increase the evil of her condition, the most remarkable and the most dreaded is the frequent withdrawal of priests from her communion. The injury is two-fold the affections of some go after the ecelesiastics who have departed-the reliance of others is shaken in the ecclesiastics who remain. The reformed priest is a witness against the church from which he has separated; and, in proportion to the frequency of such separations, will be the facility with which the minds of men may be drawn into conjectures and presages of new conversions, and the degree in which the stability of their dependance will be weakened on the priests who have not yet avowed a change. When a congregation has learned that a vehement asserter of the superiority of their church has joined the ranks of those who testify against it, some among them will be led to believe in the possibility that his successor may also change; and, gradually, something like distrust

will spread, whether the confessional or the sacrifice of the altar may not have been invaded by uncertainties and doubts, such as disturb the intention of the officiating priest and mar the sacrament. We do not set this down as in itself a severe injury to the Church of Rome, but we regard it as one of the approaches by which doubt may enter into her citadel. It will furnish an occasion for thought and enquiry and speculation, and will, to many minds, suggest consequences arising out of Romish doctrine, by which their unsoundness will be rendered more apprehensible than by the scriptural testimonies which condemn them.

It requires little sagacity to determine what should, and what must be the policy of the Church of Rome in this emergency. Whatever can disparage the testimony of reformed priests who bear witness against her; whatever is likely to deter waverers from renouncing her authority, and attaching themselves to those who have gone out from her, she must naturally hold desirable. The inhibition of the Archbishop of Dublin, and the reasons assigned for it serves to both uses.To all who respect the authority or judgment of the Most Rev. Prelate, it damages the authority of Mr. Nolan's teaching-to those who, within the Church of Rome in profession, and estranged from it in belief, meditate upon the course they will pursue, it utters a dissuasive from the making a good confession. They are wise in their generation, therefore, who ap plaud the conduct of the Archbishop of Dublin, and pour their invectives on the reformed priest, Mr. Nolan.

There might have been one unavoidable drawback on the satisfaction with which the radical press lent itself to the defence of a Protestant Archbishop. It might have done so under circumstances which involved a defence of the church in which he was a ruler. To vindicate episcopal authority from calumnious aspersions, to assert the duty of submission to canonical government, might have become a necessary part of the duty undertaken by the men who discontinued their assaults on Mr. Nolan, only while they panegyrised the judge who had exposed him to their fury. This would have been a distressing necessity. It would not perhaps have released the sufferer from his tormentors, but it would, to some little extent have abated the gratification with which they dealt their blows, and

The

hurled their foul missiles at him. manner in which the Archbishop thought proper to proceed-the ground on which he justifies his proceeding---has enabled the adversaries of the Church to enjoy their freedom without alloy. There is no necessary connection between the vindication of Dr. Whately, and a defence of the episcopal order. There is no difficulty in pronouncing a eulogy on his Archiepiscopal judgment, without ascribing authority to the canons by which his decisions should be governed. In short, a Roman Catholic may praise the late inhibition with its accompanying commentary, because it not only restrained a preacher whom he dreaded, but cast disparagement also on the heads of the Protestant Church; because, in his judgment, the Prelate who proclaimed the ignorance, and censured the presumption, and punished the disobedience of the convert from Popery, betrayed in his own acts, unacquaintance with the canons according to which it behoved him to rule, disregard for the judgment of those whose authority he was bound to respect, and a fixed determination to take his own will and wisdom, as more trust-worthy guides, that the spirit of those laws by which church government is edifyingly conducted. The Roman Catholic may be lavish of encomium, because, as it seems to him, the blow aimed at the reputation of the convert was so awkwardly levelled, that Protestant discipline must take hurt from it. We shall see whether such an anticipation is groundless.

Although the terms of the inhibition against Mr. Nolan may be familiar to our reader's memory, we think it not unsuitable, for many reasons to give it a place in our pages :

"INHIBITION.

"Richard, by Divine Providence, Archbishop of Dublin, Primate and Metropolitan of Ireland, and Bishop of Glandelagh, to all and singular clerks and literate persons within our dioceses of Dublin and Glandelagh, greeting.Whereas the Rev. L. J. Nolan hath taken upon himself to officiate in performing divine offices in the parish churches of Lucan and Saint John, within our said diocess and jurisdiction, without our license or authority, contrary to the laws and canons of the Church of Ireland, in that case made and provided: We, therefore by these presents, strictly charge and command you, that you inhibit peremptorily the said L. J. Nolan, whom we

also, by the tenor of these presents, inhibit that he presume not to preach, or perform any other clerical office within our said dioceses and jurisdiction, without our special license and authority first had and obtained, under pain of the law and contempt thereof; and that you certify to us, or our Vicar-General, or some other judge competent in this behalf, what you shall do in the premises, together with these presents. Dated under our Archiepiscopal Seal, the eighteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and thirty

six.

Before we offer any observations on the substantial matter of this document, we think it right to enter our protest against what we conceive to be a very objectionable form of expression. Mr. Nolan's alleged offence is declared to be "contrary to the laws and canons of the Church of Ireland." We would ask respectfully, what is the " Church of Ireland?" Is it a Church, in its constitution, character, doctrine, or discipline, different from the established church of these realms ? As we read the 5th article of Union, it runs thus

"That the Churches of England and Ireland, as now by law established, "be united into one Protestant Episcopal Church, to be called the United Church of England and Ireland, and the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the said United Church shall be, and shall remain in full force for ever, as the same are now by law established for the Church of England, &c. &c. &c.”

Such is the article of Union. We ask-are the laws and canons which Mr. Nolan has transgressed, different from those of this United Church ?tion-was it right that he should be If they are, we propose another quesjudged by them? Are they the same? Are the times such as justify an aban donment of the appellation to which the Church in Ireland has become entitled? Is it right to familiarize the public mind to the idea of a separation between churches which have been, so far as laws have power, indissolubly united? We know that something may be said respecting adherence to form. We have no opportunity of comparing the form of inhibition issued against Mr. Taylor with that of which we now complain. We can, however, imagine, that an inadvertence