knew of) but charity: but this was so far from satisfying them, that still the importunity increased, which made him diligently inquire into the secret of it. The first cause he found was, that a dying person in the parish desired to have it rung before him to church, and pretended he could not die in peace if it were denied him; and that the keeping of that bell did anciently belong to that family from father to son: but because this seemed nothing but a fond and unreasonable superstition, he enquired farther, and at last found that they believed this bell came from heaven, that it used to be carried from place to place, to end controversies by oath, which the worst man durst not violate if they swore upon that bell, and the best men amongst them durst not but believe them; that if this bell was rung before the corpse to the grave, it would help him out of purga. tory, and that therefore when any one died, the friends of the deceased did, whilst the bell was in their possession, hire it for the behoof of the dead, and that by this means that family was in part maintained. Seeing under what spirit of delusion those poor souls lay, how infinitely their credulity was abused, how certainly they believed in trifles, and

perfectly relied on vanity, and how little they regarded the truths of God, and how they drank not at all of the waters of salvation, gave him much trouble. For the numerous companies of priests and friers amongst them, took care they should know nothing of religion but what they designed for them, they used all means to keep them to the use of the Irish tongue, lest if they learnt English, they might be supplied with persons fitter to instruct them.

This and many other evils were made greater and more irremediable by the affrightment which their priests put upon them by the issues of ecclesiastical jurisdiction, by which they gave them laws, not only for religion, but even for temporal things, and turned their proselytes from the mass, if they became farmers of the tythes from the mi nister or proprietary without their leave. He declares he spoke that which he knew to be true by their own confession and unconstrained and uninvited narratives; so that as it was certain that the Roman religion, as it stood in distinction and separation from the Established church, was a body of strange propositions, having but little relish of true

primitive and pure Christianity, so it was there amongst the Irish a faction and a state party and design to recover their old laws and barbarous manner of living, a device to enable them to dwell alone, and to be populus unius labii, a people of one language, and unmingled with others. And if this be religion, it is such a one as ought to be reproved by all the severities of reason and religion, lest the people perish, and their souls be cheaply given away to them that make merchandize of souls, who were the purchase and price of Christ's blood. Such were the reasons which induced the bishops to take the part they adopted, and himself to be engaged in this controversy.

The temper and spirit which pervade the "Dissuasive from Popery," are of the kind that might be expected from a character of the most uniform piety, and one who had his subject at command. He expresses himself in language adapted to the various ranks in society for which the work was intended, and produces deep and extensive knowledge of the councils, the fathers, and historians of the church.

• Preface to the "Dissuasive."

The subject is divided into three chapters, and subdivided into sections. In the first chapter he shews that the church of Rome " has propositions of its own, which are new "and unheard of in the first ages of the "Christian church: whereas the religion of "the church of England is certainly primi"tive and apostolical." Then he proceeds to prove that the church of Rome, as it "was at that day disordered, teaches doctrines, and uses practices, which are in "themselves, or in their true and immediate consequences, direct impieties, and give

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warranty to a wicked life." And lastly, "that the church of Rome teaches doctrines, "which in many things are destructive "of Christian society in general; and of

monarchy in particular: both which the "church of England and Ireland greatly and "christianly supports."

The work was received with such general approbation, that it went through several impressions. But the adverse party did not suffer it to remain long unnoticed; and a volume in quarto appeared in the year 1665,

d Ant. Wood.

written by Edward Worseley, a jesuit, of the family of Worseley, in Lancashire, entitled "Truth will out; or, a Discovery of some "Untruths smoothly told by Dr. Jer. Taylor, " in his Dissuasive from Popery." Other animadversions were made upon it, by John Sergeant, a secular priest, in one of his appendices to "Sure Footing in Christianity."

These only urged him to enter more thoroughly into the subject, and produced "the "second part of the Dissuasive from Popery, "in vindication of the first part and further Reproof and Conviction of the Roman

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errors;" published in the year 1667, with an introduction: being "an answer to the fourth Appendix to J. S. his Sure Footing; intended against the general way of procedure in the "Dissuasive from Popery." This did not appear publicly till after his death, being in

e Edw. Worslæus, diu inter Protestantes, doctrinâ et beneficio ecclesiastico eminuit et pravorum dogmatum detectâ falsitate, ad ea refutanda animum adjecit (Je suita e Collegio Leodiensi) vide Florum Anglo-Bavaricum Leodii 1685, 4to. p. 53, 54- vide MSS. Baker, p. 285, Athen. Oxon. edit. Univ. Lib. Camb.

f John Sergeant.

Rust's Sermon another work appeared after Bp. Taylor's death entitled "Contemplations of the State of

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