from existing dangers'. While James thus held sovereignty by a mere thread, the birth of a male heir accomplished his ruin. As his own age was considerably advanced, and both his daughters were staunch Protestants, the common course of nature might soon relieve the nation from any farther apprehensions for its religion. But an infant, certain to be educated in all the violence of Romish prejudice, with a Romish mother too, who might long be regent, offered a prospect which zealous Protestantism would not face. Before the birth of this unfortunate child, rumours had been eagerly circulated, and seemingly were generally credited, that a supposititious male heir was to crown the king's delinquencies, and ensure, if the nation would allow it, a firm establishment for tyranny and popery'. When James really reached the ruin which his folly had so industriously prepared, and was pressing forward with the most humiliating retractations, he offered sufficient evidence of the young prince's lawful birth. But nothing was less desired by the nation than conviction of that kind hence the spuriousness of the Pretender's origin was long a standing article of popular belief in England. His legitimacy was embarrassing to national prepossessions in favour of hereditary right, and unquestionably, his admission to the throne would have jeopardied both the religion and the liberties of Englishmen. His appearance, accordingly, on the theatre of life, instantly sealed the fate of that infatuated government which sanguine Romanism thought only waiting for such an event to become permanently consolidated.

§ 15. Soon after the revolution, it was unanimously voted in the convention parliament, that popery on the throne has

9 "Sir John Shorter, the new lord mayor, and a Protestant dissenter, thought fit to qualify himself for this office according to law, though the test was suspended, and the king had signified to the mayor that he was at liberty, and might use what form of worship he thought best in Guildhall." Neal, iii. 290.

1 "While the bishops were in the Tower and the Princess Anne at Bath, the queen was declared to be delivered

of a prince, on Sunday, June 10, between the hours of nine and ten in the morning. This mysterious birth was conducted with great artifice or great imprudence; no care had been taken to satisfy the Protestant part of the nation that the queen was with child, though it was ridiculed in pamphlets dispersed about Whitehall.” Ibid. 305.

2 Jan. 29, 1689.

been proved by experience inconsistent with the safety and welfare of this Protestant nation. Papists were, therefore, virtually declared incapable of the English sceptre. But inherent exclusion from royal power having thus been proclaimed against the religious principles which drove James from his country, the claims of those which were so largely concerned in raising William to the sovereignty could not in equity or with safety be overlooked. Nor, indeed, was the indisposition to favour the scruples of non-conformity nearly so great as it had been during the violence of that re-action which naturally exasperated high-church prejudices in most of Charles the Second's reign. On the contrary, schemes of toleration and of comprehension were in agitation among the heads of the church and their friends, before James had concluded his infatuated career3. Such views were, in fact, suggested both by the necessities of the church, which urgently needed protection from every Protestant quarter, and by the magnanimity of the Dissenters, who rather chose to make common cause with their ancient rival and oppressor, than fall into the snares of that party which was hostile to a scriptural faith altogether. Hence the king recommended some such qualification for office as would lay it open to all Protestants able and willing to take it. A bill was accordingly brought into the House of Lords for abrogating the former oaths of allegiance and supremacy, and substituting other oaths in their place. This occasioned a committee for drawing up reasons explanatory of the proposed abrogation, and for preparing a clause to abolish the sacramental test on admission to office. The design, however, miscarried by a very great majority. Nor was another motion more successful, which condemned any other than religious motives in receiving the sacrament, and admitted the reception of it in dissenting congregations within twelve months before or after, as a sufficient security on the taking of office. Thus the Test Act was continued in force. But notwithstanding, the revolution ended the substantial hardships of orthodox Protestant Dissenters. The Toleration Act was passed with little difficulty, though,

a Abp. Sancroft himself was engaged upon deliberations of this kind. D'Oyly's Sancroft, 197.

4 Kennet, iii. 518.

5 It received the royal assent May 24, 1689. Ibid. 550.

as might be reasonably expected, not entirely to the satisfaction of all the church party. By it, separate congregations and absence from church were exempted from the penalties of existing statutes, on condition that parties claiming such indulgence should take the oath of allegiance, and subscribe the declaration against popery. Dissenting ministers also were to subscribe the doctrinal articles of the church of England, but Quakers were freed from this condition. Neither Papists, nor anti-Trinitarians, were to be included within this measure of toleration. In practice, this Act secured, within a few years, more than its letter strictly warranted, subscription to doctrinal articles gradually becoming obsolete, and the Protestant Dissenter being thus really left in the unfettered exercise of his own discretion.

§ 16. The scheme of a comprehension, or a religious ar rangement satisfactory to Dissenters, proved a total failure. The subject was introduced into the upper House, while the bill for toleration was under discussion, and some of the peers earnestly contended for the appointment of a committee, such as had been contemplated under Henry VIII. and Edward VI. in which laymen should be blended with ecclesiastics, for the preparation of some well-digested plan for altering the liturgy and canons, and improving ecclesiastical courts. This was, however, opposed by Burnet, newly made bishop of Salisbury, under a conviction that it would increase the dissatisfaction already rising among the clergy and their warmest friends. Tillotson also, then clerk of the closet, and much consulted by the king, objected to the plan, as likely to confirm the Romish jeers of worshipping God by act of parliament. He recommended that nothing should be done by the legislature in this delicate matter, which had not been previously approved by convocation, and that a committee of divines should be appointed by royal authority to consider what alterations this latter might advantageously discuss'. The Commons proved as unwilling to enter upon the plan of comprehension as any high-churchman could desire, ending a debate upon the bill for it sent down from the upper House, by an address to the

Neal, iii. 319.

7 Nichols, Defensio Eccl. Angl. Lond. 1707. p. 95.

crown to summon a convocation and advise with it on ecclesiastical affairs. When this body met, it displayed immediately a spirit highly unfavourable to the proposed comprehension. Tillotson was meant by the crown for prolocutor of the lower House but it chose Dr. Jane, regius professor of divinity at Oxford, who had rendered himself conspicuous in the ill-judged proceedings there of 1683, which committed the University to the doctrine of passive obedience, and who now closed his opening speech with the unbending language of England's ancient baronage, Nolumus leges Angliæ mutari. This sentence became the watch-word of his party, and it was the party that prevailed. Thirty divines, of whom ten were prelates, were appointed by royal authority, according to Tillotson's plan, for the preparation of matters to be considered in convocation'. They decided upon numerous proposals for alterations', of which some were, perhaps, desirable, but the number was great beyond necessity, and it became evident that a majority of the assembled clergy would receive none of them. Hence the revised liturgy was never publicly brought forward'. This determination of the clergy to abide pertinaciously by existing formularies, might have arisen partly from a factious spirit of opposition to the court, and an illiberal hatred of Dissenters. But it is unlikely that such low motives were alone in operation. Even with the knowledge of the past that men then possessed, there must have reasonably seemed, to many, no great probability of devising any plan which would satisfy all scruples. The increased experience of another century has shown that any such expectation must have proved utterly futile. Numerous, besides, as were the proposed alterations, more were pretty certain to be started in the course of debate, if the assembly had not been so stiffly opposed to innovation altogether, and thus a liturgy and a body of canons might have come before the country, differing materially from those

8 Kennet, iii. 552.

* Nichols, 99.

1 Sept. 13, 1689. croft, 199.

D'Oyly's San

2 An account of these may be seen in Nichols (95), Dr. Short's Sketch of the Hist. Ch. Engl. (586), and Neal's Hist. Pur. iii. 322. Some of the pro

posed alterations are verbal, and not material: but a discretion was to be left as to the surplice, baptismal sponsors, and kneeling at the sacrament, which could hardly have failed of leading to embarrassment and irregularity. 3 Kennet, iii. 552.

which had been heretofore in use. By this means, however, a great advantage would have been given to the non-juring schism. It might have represented itself as the real church of England, while the body which legally bore that name, and took the profits of benefices, was little or nothing else than a factious company of selfish men, who were ready to surrender any thing, if they could only secure wealth for themselves, and place under a ban of proscription the great mass of competitors for preferment. It is, accordingly, far from certain that the hand of improvement was then arrested as absolutely needless and injurious. On the contrary, it seems that many merely thought the time unsuitable for innovation, and the actual state of parties entitles their view to respectful consideration.

§ 17. Among the reasons which induced the convocation to doubt the seasonableness of alterations in the church, was the state of episcopacy in Scotland. When William's declaration of October 10 became known in that country, all the bishops but two prepared an address to James, and commissioned two of their body to present it to him in London. This document, which is dated November 3, has been loudly censured as a perfect model of profane flattery and hypocritical time-serving. It is not, however, in fact, very different from the pieces usually presented to princes in that age, not even from one that the Presbyterian synod of Fife addressed to Charles II. When this particular address reached London, the unfortunate sovereign whom it was meant to support and

rum hominum fallaciis illusi." Nichols,

98.

"This letter breathes forth the true spirit of our Scots prelates since the Reformation, save only they want occasion to discover their persecuting spirit, and here run into the other evil of vile flattery and adulation, and in some things border upon blasphemy." Woodrow's Hist. of the Sufferings of the Ch. of Scotl. Edinb. 1722. ii. 646.

7" Who, if in any thing to be enjoined we cannot give active obedience, we hope will be pacified by our passive obedience, which we resolve to yield as our God calleth us, rather than to sin against him." Russell's Hist. of the Ch. in Scotl. ii. 332.