Bishops and Clergy instrumental to their own degradation. But, by the overruling Providence of Almighty God, this step proved the most eventful in its consequences of all the measures adopted by his Majesty. Sancroft and six of his brethren ventured to present their petition to the King: an act for which they were committed to prison. The trials, with the proceedings connected with their liberation, need not be entered upon in this volume: and I allude to the subject thus far, merely for the purpose of shewing that the country was indebted to the Bishops, not to the Dissenters, for the successful resistance to the King's measures. To the Bishops of that day are we indebted for our present privileges. They were steady and firm in the defence of their principles, while the Dissenters were ready to comply with the King, even when his measures were calculated to let in Popery. Yet Dissenting writers are constantly charging the Bishops and Clergy, who refused to take the oaths subsequent to the revolution, with Popery, though they were the very persons to oppose its introduction. Lord Halifax, writing on the conduct of the Bishops to the Prince of Orange, says: "I look upon it as that which hath bound all the Protestants together, and bound them up into a knot, that cannot easily be untied." Dalrymple remarks: "There is no doubt that the petition and the imprisonment of the Bishops were the immediate causes of the dethronement of King James."[1]
On the contrary, the Dissenters pursued a course
- ↑ Dalrymple's Memoirs, iii. 145. James afterwards acknowledged his error in imprisoning the Bishops, and cast the blame on the Chancellor. But this was in exile, after he had time for reflection. Macpherson's Papers, III. 154.
