retirement in Wales, "I was exposed to the mercy of the sea, and the gentleness of an element that could neither distinguish things nor persons. And but that He who stilleth the raging of the sea and the noise of his waves, and the madness of his people, had provided a plank for me, I had been lost to all the opportunities of content or study. But I know not whether I have been more preserved by the courtesies of my friends, or the gentleness and mercies of a noble enemy." In the Epistle Dedicatory addressed to Bishop Warner, he states as his reason for publishing, "I thought there was a present necessity of it, because the emissaries of the Church of Rome are busy now to disturb the peace of consciences by troubling the persecuted, and ejecting scruples into the unfortunate, who suspect every thing, and being weary of all, are most ready to change from the present. They have got a trick to ask, where is our Church now? What is become of your Articles of your Religion? We cannot answer them as they can be answered; for nothing satisfies them but being prosperous, and that we cannot pretend to, but upon the accounts of the cross and so we may indeed rejoice and be exceeding glad, because we hope that great is our reward in heaven." The "Dissuasive from Popery" was written under happier circumstances. In the meantime the kingly government had been restored, and Taylor had been consecrated Bishop of Down and Connor. But the religion of Ireland was so corrupted by error and superstition, that it was thought proper to publish a work, to which the members of the Established Church might refer as their guide, on the points disputed between Protestants and Romanists; and eminent as were many of the b The Epistle is not included in this edition. Irish prelates of that period, there was no one among them, to whom a task requiring the combination of so many rare endowments could more properly be entrusted than Bishop Taylor. At the united request therefore of his brethren, he consented to engage in the controversy, though he does not seem to have expected that he could produce any immediate effect upon the prevailing superstition. "There is nothing remaining," says he in his Preface to the first part, "but that we humbly desire of God to accept and to bless this well-meant labour of love; and that by some admirable ways of his Providence, he will be pleased to convey to the poor Irish the notices of their danger and their sin, and to deobstruct the passages of necessary truth to them." The first part was published in the year 1663, and was followed in the year 1667 by a second part, written in reply to two publications which had appeared in the meanwhile, one from a Jesuit of the name of Worseley, and the other entitled "Sure Footing in Christianity," by John Sergeant, a Romish priest, and well-known controversialist of those times. But the Bishop was not living when the second part issued from the press. He died at Lisburn on the 13th of August, 1667, in the 55th year of his age. There are two points of caution which ought to be kept clearly in view in reading the following Tracts; the one, that they were written many years since, and under circumstances of general opinion and knowledge very different from those of the present day; the other, that they were intended to be employed against Romanists, and not against modern Dissenters. In the one case, care will be taken that the understanding of the writer shall not be called into question, although his obser "The present edition does not include either the Preface" to the first part, or the "Introduction" to the second. vations may sometimes appear to be distasteful or inapplicable; in the other case, statements which were directed against one class of opponents, and are perfectly just when applied solely to them, will not be interpreted to the advantage of a contrary class of opponents, who were not within the contemplation of the writer, and whose opinions possibly had not even obtained a separate existence. EDWARD CARDWELL. ST. ALBAN'S HALL, |