Essays on the Irish Church Author:William Anderson Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: ESSAY III, The Difficulties of the Irish Church. I. Anomalies in the early Irish Church.—1. Foreigners did not recognise the early Bishops. 2. Late introdu... more »ction of Diocesan Episcopacy. II. Inferiority of the Irish exposed them to contempt.—1. The relative positions of the two races unfavourable to the civilization of Ireland. 2. Weakness of the English Government in Ireland. III. 1. Penal laws against degeneracy of Anglo-Irish Colonists. 2. Evils resulting from weakness of the Parochial System. IV. English and Irish Church before the Reformation contrasted. Summary of difficulties transmitted from pre-Reformation times. V. 1. Weakness of Irish Bishops at the Reformation. 2. Native Clergy opposed to the Reformation. 3. Difficulty in obtaining fit persons for Irish Sees. 4. Irish Church distinctively Protestant. VI. Political motives prevent the employment of the Irish language by the Church.—Disastrous effects on both races of difference of language. VII. 1. Difficulty of the Church increased by political changes effected at the time of the Eeformation. 2. These changes favoured the designs of the Eoman Catholic Church. 3. The employment of the Irish language being discouraged, the ministrations of the Irish Church were, of necessity, confined to the Colonists and their descendants. VIII. The condition and character of the Colonists, and their relation to the Natives. IX. 1. Irish prejudice against improvement, 2. turned against the- Irish Church and taken advantage of by the Eoman Catholic Church. 3. . Difficulties of Protestant Colonists in Ireland. 4. Tendency to degeneracy still existing, and weakening the Irish Church. X. Penal laws perpetuated this tendency. The writer of the following pages believes that the difficulties with which the ...« less