a power would be a reftraint upon their conduct, and fecure their quiet and peaceable deportment; whereas deprivation, and even the apprehenfion of it, would create refentment, and irritate their minds, in a fit of defperation, to undermine the government. It was argued, that no oaths could bring them under more ferious engagements than did the acts of religious worship officially performed by them in the church, which were a folemn avowal of their allegiance to God in the face of the people; that if they should neglect those offices, or perform them in a manner different from what the law prescribed; they were amenable to the Act of Uniformity. Oaths, it was urged, when a government came to need ftrength from them, had proved an inefficient fecurity; and the obligation of them had been evaded by nice diftinctions and fubtle interpretations. It was pleaded on the other hand, that the proposed expedient would put a hardship upon the king, a measure to be carefully avoided: That no man, especially in fo facred a concern as religion, who would not give the fecurity of an oath, expreffed in fuch low and general terms, ought to be trusted by a government: That the distance of fix months allowed fufficient time to study the point; and they who could not in that space fatisfy themfelves on the lawfulness of acknowledging the government, were not fit to be continued in the highest posts in the church. It further was proposed to allow an exception of twelve clergymen, who should be fubject to the law on refufing the oaths, at the requifition of the king. But

the only mitigation that could be obtained, was a power to the king to reserve a third part of the profits of any twelve benefices which he should name, to the incumbents deprived under this Act.* Thus the Bill paffed.

By the operation of this Act, the clergy were thrown into two divifions; one, which included a great majority, took the oaths; the other, the minority, who refused them. Among the latter were Henry Dodwell, diftinguished by his learning and great zeal to exalt the powers and dignity of the priesthood; and who, in confequence of his refufal, was deprived of the Camdenian profefforship of hiftory in the University of Oxford: Dr. George Hicks, eminent for his extenfive erudition and knowledge in antiquities, who loft the deanery of Worcef ter, and the rectory of All-Church in that city and Dr. William Sherlock, to whofe name various controverfial and practical writings have given a cele brity; and whose refufal, as he afterwards fubmitted to the requifition of the Act, fubjected him to a temporary fufpenfion only from his preferments, and the mastership of the Temple; afterwards, when King James fled from Ireland, on the principle that this ftep gave the new government a thorough fettlement, he thought it lawful to take the oaths; and followed up the change of his opinion by a compliance with the A&t that propofed them. This provoked the refentment and chagrin of the nonjurors, especially as his refufal had been long and pertinacious, and * Burnet, vol. iv. p. 12, 13.

he was feverely libelled for it. He published a vindication of his conduct, to ward off the force of their cenfures. This instance of retractation and political conformity was, on the other hand," a great tri"umph to the Court; and he was immediately "rewarded, for what one party ftiled his happy "converfion, and the other his faithlefs apoftacy, by "the acquifition of the rich deanery of St. Paul's."*

Among the majority who took the oaths, there was a difference of principle. Some acted from a conviction of the lawfulness of the oaths; on a liberal regard to the conftitution of the nation, and the important interests to be fecured by allegiance to the new government, and on the confideration of King James having forfeited, by his unlawful meafures, the allegiance of his fubjects. But the greatest part of those who complied with the requifition of the oaths, appeared, by the diftinctions and refervations with which they did it, to have acted with doubtful minds, if not in the direct violation of the dictates of confcience. They reconciled their confciences to it, though they had been warm advocates for the doctrines of non-refiftance and paffive obedience, by declaring that they took the oaths in no other fenfe, than that of a peaceable fubmiffion to the powers that were. They pleaded, that the legislature, by drop. ping the word "rightful," in the form of the oath, allowed the distinction between a king de facto, and a king de jure; and they availed themfelves of this dif ftinction. It was a maxim with them, that if prudence obliged them to conform to the letter of the oath, fo

* Belfham, vol. i. p. 213.

confcience required them to give it their own interpretation. "Nothing could be more infamous or of "worse tendency," obferves a modern historian, "than this practice of equivocating in the most "facred of all obligations. It introduced a general "difregard of oaths, which has been the fource of "univerfal perjury and corruption."* The ways, by which it is well known the force and obligation of oaths are evaded, fhould admonish legiflators not without the utmost reafon to enjoin them, and to enjoin them on the feweft occafions poffible. Promifory oaths as to duty feem to be wholly unnecessary in all cafes, where the violation of duty is an overt act, that is open to notice and amenable to law.

Among those perfons who in the cafe before us were diffatisfied with the oaths and refused to take them, fome continued to preach even after the time had elapfed that was fixed by the Act of Parliament for their compliance, and fuch individuals were legally filenced. By this conduct they followed the fteps of the ejected ministers, who perfevered in their official duties after Bartholomew day; and whom they had on this ground cenfured with feve rity, and charged with great guilt. The generality of those who perfevered in their refufal, at length quitted their preferments, refufed to hold communication with fuch perfons as had taken the oaths to the new government, and formed a new feparation from the establishment. A congregation formed on the principles of the nonjurors, which Smollet, vol. i. p. 68.

held its religious meetings at the Coffee-Houfe in Alderfgate-street, exifted later than the year 1750, The name of their minister was Lindsay, a clergyman epifcopally ordained.

This state of parties gave birth to a new, and, in feveral views, a remarkable contest, The nonjuring clergy accufed fuch as had yielded to the government with betraying their confciences for great preferments, and reproached them as "a "pack of jolly fwearers," Thefe, on the other hand, upbraided the nonjurors as fchifmatics, who had fallen into the fame crime which they had condemned in others. It was pleaded by the nonjurors, that their feceffion was not voluntary, but forced by penalties, which were to them, as minifters, conditions of communion; and by fanctions of fo fevere and fatal a nature, annexed to the requifition of the oaths, as to warrant a feparation: That a clergyman's authority, whether a bishop or a priest, was from GOD; of which he was bound, at any hazard, to take care, and to perform its duties, notwithstanding any civil act to prohibit and difable him, under a folemn apprehenfion of the account he has to give; and, That no parliamentary deprivation could set aside the obligations of bishops, not depofed by ecclefiaftical cenfures, to fuperintend their churches, or the obligation of their churches to live in subjection to them. This plea they applied particularly to Archbishop Sancroft, though he never afferted his right after his deprivation, and might therefore be uftly confidered as furrendering it,