by an interested, servile compliance with a Popish Prince in his Popish designs, merely to raise themselves to some degree of power, which had been wisely denied them before. These are the men, who have always used the cry of Popishly affected to run down the steadiest friends of our ecclesiastical establishment."[1]
Owen now published a second edition of a work, in which he examines some of the positions of Deacon's "View of Christianity."[2] In the Preface he acknowledges himself the author of the letter in The Gentleman's Magazine. As Owen, therefore, had confessed himself the author of the calumnies, Deacon deemed it necessary to reply to them in a letter to the same Magazine. In reference to Paul and Hall, Deacon states, that they were attended, not by himself but by the Rev. Francis Peck, and that neither he nor any other person absolved the prisoners. To the charge of having a dispensation Deacon says: "This is a charge of such a kind that I can only answer it by sincerely affirming that I neither had any such dispensation, nor made any such declaration." In short, all the assertions were proved to be groundless, the fruits of Owen's malice and hatred.[3]
Having given a detail of the proceedings of the Separatists among the Nonjurors, until the suppression of the Rebellion, it will be necessary to look back a little, to gather up the materials respecting the main
- ↑ Gents. Mag. vol. xvii. p. 76.
- ↑ Jacobite and Nonjuring Principles freely examined: In a Letter to the Master Tool of the Faction at Manchester, with Remarks on some part of a book lately published, entitled A Full, Free, and Comprehensive View, &c. wrote by Dr. Deacon. By J. Owen, Manchester, 1748.
- ↑ Gents. Ma. vol. xviii. p. 206.
