this, that it tended to make Papists Puritans, and Puritans Papists.

Such being the feeling of the party to which Heylin was attached, it is no wonder that he should scornfully call the Irish Convocation, Sabbatarians: but the present sense of propriety and decorum (supposing even that it were not a question of morality) has done justice to their memories; and no Protestant of any denomination will, we are persuaded, be inclined to blame their doctrine. It is no longer a debated question; and the rancour of parties having subsided, concession on each side has produced its usual good effects in securing charity and good will. Heylin's words are worthy of being quoted at length: "The Puritans by raising the Sabbath, took occasion to depress the festivals, and introduced, by little and little, a general neglect of the weekly fasts, and the holy time of Lent, and the Embering days, reducing all acts of humiliation to solemn and occasional fasts. But this was not all the mischief that ensued; for several preachers and justices of the peace, took occasion from hence, to forbid all lawful sports on the Lord's day; by means whereof the Priests and Jesuits persuaded the people in the northern counties, that the Reformed Religion was incompatible with that Christian liberty which God and nature had indulged to the sons of men : so that to preserve the people from Popery, his Majesty was under a necessity to publish the Book of Sports." The reader will observe, that passages from the Homilies are frequently incorporated into these articles.

In the year 1621, the College de Propaganda Fide, was established at Rome ; it was founded with a particular reference to the state of the Roman Catholic religion in Ireland; and, indeed, it has fully accomplished its purpose of keeping the members of that communion in spiritual darkness. In November, 1622, Ussher made his celebrated speech in the Castle chamber, before the Lord Lieutenant and Privy Council, who had summoned several recusants who refused the oath of supre

macy, for the purpose of censuring them. His arguments were so powerful, that many consented to take the oath they had before objected to, through ignorance. For this speech the King wrote him a letter of thanks. Ussher now passed over into England, for the purpose of consulting the manuscripts in the various libraries which would assist him in his great work on the Antiquities of the British Churches, undertaken under King James's special patronage. While he was in London, he published his Answer to a Challenge made by a Jesuit in Ireland, a book too well known for us to say any thing on its merits.

At this time Hampton, the Primate, died, and James, a few days before his own death, appointed Ussher as his successor, to the great satisfaction of all parties in Ireland. Before he left England, he obtained a signal victory over one Beaumont, alias Rookwood, a Jesuit. The occasion was as follows: Lord Mordaunt, afterwards Earl of Peterborough, being a Roman Catholic, wished to bring his wife over to his religion. She agreed that a conference

should be held before them, by some learned divines on each side, and promised to embrace that religion which should appear supported by truth. The lord chose his confessor, Beaumont, and his lady applied to Ussher, who, though just recovered from a serious illness, immediately complied with her request. He arrived at Drayton, Lord Mordaunt's seat in Northamptonshire, where he found an excellent library to which they could immediately refer. The points discussed were transubstantiation, the invocation of saints, images, the visibility of the church, and, in general, whether the Romish religion or that of the Church of England agreed best with the primitive faith. The Primate was opponent for three days, and on the fourth, when it came to the Jesuit's turn to impugn the principles of the Reformation, he declined the combat, and gave his excuse in these words:"That by the just judgment of God, he had forgotten all the arguments he had framed, because he had of himself dared, without the licence of his superiors, to undertake a disputation with a man of that profound and consummate learning." This caused the conversion of the peer to the Protestant faith, in which he persevered to his death.

James was so well pleased with what he had effected in the Settlement of Ulster, that with an ill-judged and unjust policy he occupied himself in the latter years of his reign in inquiring into the titles under which property was held in various parts of Ireland. In many places there were technical defects, which originated in the ignorance or fraud of the law officers in the reign of his predecessors, to whom the task, of making out the grants and patents naturally belonged; and upon these quibbles, he proceeded to confiscate large tracts of country. For such conduct he is justly censured by many writers of that day; but notwithstanding all this, his example was followed to an awful extent in the reign of Charles I. under the administration of Strafford.

We have now continued our brief sketches of the ecclesiastical history of Ireland in the seven successive numbers of our Magazine, and have brought the narrative down to the death of James I. Much more remains, particularly in the eventful reigns of his son and grand-sons, deserving of consideration; but we think it better to suspend our labours for a few months, that we may find room for many interesting articles which are lying on our table, and that our readers may not blame us for too great a sameness in our pages. We shall certainly return to the subject as we have promised.

THE BEATITUDES.

TO THE Editor of thE CHRISTIAN EXAMINER.

SIR-The following Remarks on the Beatitudes, were suggested by an exposition of that passage of Scripture, by a Clergyman,

some years since, in family worship; if you think they would be acceptable, or edifying to your readers, they are at your service. Your Friend,

for they shall be called the Children of God. for their's is the Kingdom of Heaven.

The above is the description of the progressive state of the Christian soul; and the dispositions mentioned, are only the several features, which, united, constitute the Christian Character. These dispositions, and the Blessings promised, severally correspond-while taken separately, they advance in excellence and in value-the poor in spirit advance to holy mourning for sin; this subsides into meekness and lowliness of heart-this, with God's grace, produces hunger and thirst after righteousness; the sense of our own wants and weakness, makes us merciful towards others; purity of heart is the result of the preceding process-an endeavour to produce peace, and the ways of peace, follows-and persecution is the reward which follows these endeavours. The Blessings are suited to their corresponding characters-the Kingdom of Heaven (the Kingdom of Grace) is prepared for the poor in spirit; to the poor the Gospel is preached-comfort to those who mourn the meek, delivered from those contentions, and broils, and heartburnings, which afflict the worldly-minded, inherit the earth, and only enjoy it. They have "the promise of the life which now is ;" "all things are your's" says the Apostle. The hungry and thirsty are filled" they shall be satisfied with the fulness of thy house, and thou shalt give them to drink of thy pleasures, as out of a river." The merciful obtain mercy; the pure in heart (the mists and exhalations of the soul being dispelled) see God; the peacemakers are called the children of God; the persecuted have a home of peace, and a crown of glory in the kingdom of heaven. We may now consider the Blessings as a series in themselvesthey begin and end with the kingdom of heaven; the same kingdom is begun on earth, growing here, and perfected hereafter: the intermediate Blessings are the charters which the subjects of the kingdom of grace possess; comfort, inheriting the earth, being filled with all things needful for life and godliness. So far, the scene is laid on earth, and here these blessings are possessed; but man is under a preparation for the second kingdom of heaven, and its features now begin to be stamped upon the soul: mercy, indeed, is enjoyed by him here, but its perfection is, when it opens the gate of heaven, and gives the title to the regenerate soul

to enter. The sight of God is begun here, but it grows with the Christian, and then is perfect, when it qualifies him for the enjoyment of Him, as he is, and for the happiness of his everlasting courts. The Christian begins to be the child of God here, but the privilege is there perfected, when his title and qualification being fully admitted and completed, he is made" like the angels," and obtains the blessed inheritance of the sons of God. The Blessings of the kingdom of grace exhausted, the next Beatitude announces the possession of the kingdom of glory, the portion of those "persecuted for righteousness sake."

These characters may also be considered in the light of each qualifying and guarding those near it, thus:

Men are willing enough to confess themselves sinners, to speak humbly of themselves and their attainments, and then to lay claim to the blessedness of being poor in spirit: poverty of spirit is, indeed, a blessed frame of mind; but it is that poverty of spirit which does not rest in words, but produces humiliation and sorrow of heart; for it immediately follows, "blessed are they that

mourn."

Mourning is blessed, not as arising from worldly affliction, but thatpoverty of spirit from which it must proceed, to be the character to which comfort is promised. Again: mourning may produce different tempers of mind; either an humble, chastened, contrite spirit, or an exasperated, fretful, discontented frame; the former alone is intended here, and they only are blessed; for it immediately follows, "blessed are the meek."

Meekness is sometimes counterfeited by very amiable, gentle, natural dispositions: that here intended is connected and grows out of the preceding character-holy mourning for sin. Againmeekness is a patient, not an active, grace of the soul; and, possessed of the comfort which she derived as a mourner, and of the external peace which she now inherits, the meek soul is in danger of subsiding into a species of quietism, and sinking into indolence, did not "Blessed are they who hunger and thirst after righteousness" teach her to stretch forth all her powers, and expand all her faculties, that she may fully enjoy the good things which God hath prepared for those who love him.

Hunger and thirst are impetuous, impatient appetites; and those who thus desire righteousness, may preserve it with violence, and with contempt of worldly things, and worldly men; and may mar the good cause by unseemly conduct: the blessing, therefore, is to the meek, who hunger and thirst after righteousness. Again: when filled, they may be tempted to despise those less highly favoured; this is corrected by the following Beatitude, "Blessed are the merciful."

There is, however, a spurious kind of mercy, fashionably ycleped liberality, which, in its candid allowance of the faults of others, lays claim to similar allowance for its own, which confounds the boundaries of right and wrong, calling evil good, and good evil, &c. This is far different from the mercy here recommended; for

those merciful persons alone are blessed, who have hungered and thirsted after righteousness, and who also make progress in holiness, for it immediately follows, "blessed are the pure in heart."

But surely the pure in heart need no corrective warning. Alas! while in the body, we are in danger, from the right hand and from the left; and may not the pure in heart, possessing the exalted privilege of a faith, which opens to them the view of the spiritual and eternal world, be so absorpt and wrapt in the contemplation of heavenly things, as to forget earth and its paltry concerns, and to retire to their studies, or to the deep solitude of some lone retreat that their devotion may be uninterrupted by intercourse with their fellow-men. The next beatitude recalls them from their error, by pronouncing those blessed, who promote peace among men, according to the direction of our Blessed Lord; Lovest thou me ? Feed my sheep, feed my lambs.',

It seems somewhat extraordinary, that the peacemakers should occupy so high a post in the scale of excellence, or rather that this feature should be so late unfolded; but the arrangement carries instruction with it: men, in their zeal to do good to others, frequently neglect themselves; they engage in charitable and benevolent pursuits, to the neglect, comparatively, of reading and meditation; they thus endanger their own safety, and from their dwindled and imperfect character, prevent or impede their influence on others. The arrangement of the Beatitudes suggests a different course; it represents man as comforted, filled, and lastly, as pure in heart, before he becomes a peacemaker: it thus provides for his individual excellence, and for his due performance of the duty of doing good to others; for his sight, improved by purity of heart, enables him more tenderly, as well as more effectually, to remove the mote from his brother's eye.

But the peacemaker may seek, by sinful compliances and conformities with the tempers and pursuits of those whom he meets, and he may trust to his own skilful and prudent management, to remain in friendship with the world, and in the favour of God. The next Beatitude destroys the vain and dangerous illusion, and pronounces those blessed, who are persecuted for righteousness sake; and, lest any of this desire for the praise of man should survive, our Lord declares his followers to be " the salt of the earth, and the light of the world;" the one worthless, unless exerting its salutary influence; the latter possessing properties which cannot be hid.

Thus, while our Blessed Lord graciously condescends to encourage the growth of every Christian grace, by severally pronouncing on each an appropriate blessing, He exhibits to us in this passage, a beautiful and harmonious whole, in which the Man of God is perfect, thoroughly furnished to every good work.