the bishops. Low views of church discipline, church authority, and of the Episcopal office, were entertained by many persons in high stations. With some it was sufficient to leave all ecclesiastical matters to the wisdom of Parliament. Erastian in theory, they necessarily became loose in practice: and had not the Clergy in general maintained their ground, many radical changes would have been introduced. Not a few of the Clergy suspected the King, in consequence of his presbyterian education, of secretly favouring the Dissenters: yet his Majesty after all proved a better Churchman than some, who had been nurtured in the bosom of the Church. A very large body of the Clergy differed from the Nonjurors only on the subject of the Oath: and it is to the exertions of that body, that the preservation of the Church in her integrity must be ascribed. For a time the shock of the Revolution was felt by the Church, in the introduction, among some of her highest ministers, of latitudinarianism; but providentially in the course of a few years the evil, from which so many sad consequences were apprehended, was greatly mitigated. While there was danger of Popery prior to the Revolution, there was no less danger of latitudinarianism subsequent to that event: so that, while we are thankful to King William for delivering us from the former, we must also be thankful to the Clergy, by whose consistent and determined course the Church was rescued from the latter.[1]
The more the question, which the clergy had to settle at the Revolution, is considered, the more diffi-
- ↑ Hallam admits that tampering with the Liturgy would have nourished the Schism. Yet the Liturgy was at one time in jeopardy. Hallam, iii. 238.
