and the old prayers were used, but who were not prepared to agree to any alteration in them, and would at once have passed over into the ranks of the Nonjurors, thus swelling an inconsiderable sect into a communion as numerous as the Church, and probably being joined in their secession by some of the ablest divines, and the most eloquent preachers of their day. In fact, from what we can ascertain with regard to the opinions and intentions of those who were entrusted with this important commission, they would in all probability have changed the service very much for the worse.

But it is now time for us to return to the third measure which William and his advisers had framed, and which related to the oaths of allegiance and supremacy. These necessarily required to be altered in such a manner as to mark the change which the revolution had made in the relations of the sovereign with the Church and the State, which it had been the chief aim of those Englishmen by whose aid those had been effected to alter and define, and thus to avoid the necessity for future revolutions.

It might have been expected that the men of this country would at length have learnt from the events that had happened so recently the lesson of the futility of oaths as a means of propping up an old dynasty, or keeping out an invader. Here was a Parliament composed to a great extent of men who had formerly sworn allegiance to James, had broken that oath, and were now engaged in devising a new oath of allegiance to William, and, in so doing, were preparing to expel from their

offices in Church and State, the only men who had shown any sort of regard for the sanctity of the oath they had taken to support the authority of the king, whom they afterwards deposed, against all enemies and under all circumstances. They might be well assured that they who, after having sworn fealty to James, had conspired to depose him, would, if he should be restored, just as readily violate the oaths they had taken to his successor.

It may appear strange, but it is nevertheless the fact, that they who turned out the Nonjurors for regarding an oath which they themselves had broken, never, in all probability, felt any more compunction on account of their perjury than the historian who holds them up to the admiration of their posterity, and it may perhaps be well to remind our readers that every one of the Ministers of William, without exception, have been now detected in carrying on a venal and perfidious correspondence with the banished king, and thereby violating the oath of allegiance they had sworn to William, and dishonourably betraying the confidence he was reposing in them.

One would have expected that after these varied experiences of the inutility of oaths, men would have been disposed to get rid of them entirely. But this was an idea that seems never to have occurred to them, and so instead of abolishing these useless oaths altogether they introduced a Bill to amend and enforce them.

This matter having been at length settled and set by after long and careful debate, the next question that arose was, to what persons the new oaths should be

administered, and what penalties should be inflicted on those who refused to take them. It was readily agreed that no one should sit in either House of Parliament, or hold any office conferring on him a share in the Government of the country, without having taken the oaths to the new sovereigns. This was, under all the circumstances, clearly fair and reasonable. But when the question of depriving the holders of academical or ecclesiastical offices of their endowments, and especially the bishops who had recently acted so noble a part, and had contributed so largely and yet so unblamably to the overthrow of the late tyranny, there was a strong and very general desire at least to save Sancroft and those who had acted with him from the penalties they would incur if they should refuse to take the oaths. But although the party that desired to save them was really the largest in the kingdom, the Whigs, who were for the moment triumphant, held the reins of Government, and commanded a majority in both Houses of Parliament. The friends of the Nonjurors were disarmed, scattered, divided, without the means of communicating with their leaders and with one another. Sancroft was not the man to put himself, or to allow himself to be put, at the head of an ecclesiastical agitation. Had Convocation been sitting at the moment when this matter was under discussion, it would probably have furnished a nucleus of resistance which would have been most formidable; but owing to the haste with which the Convention Parliament had been summoned, or to the loss of influence and consideration

which the Convocation had suffered since the revolution of 1688 had been taken from it, this assembly, either of set purpose or through careless indifference, had been left in abeyance. And when at length, as already mentioned, William, by the determined demand of the two Houses, found himself obliged to call them together, the time for a successful interposition in favour of the Nonjuring bishops and clergy had passed.

Meanwhile, many of those who refused to take the oaths as long as it seemed doubtful whether the new Government would stand or fall, yielded when they found that the battle of the Boyne and other successes in Ireland and elsewhere had confirmed William's authority, and for the moment destroyed the hopes of the Jacobites. Of those who had first refused the oaths, and had afterwards agreed to take them, the most eminent was Sherlock. He was one of the most eloquent, popular, and, withal, highly respected divines of his day He had relinquished the mastership of the Temple rather than take the oaths, but a new light had since broken in on him; the lost sheep was welcomed back into the fold by the victorious party; he took the oaths, recovered his mastership of the Temple, and as it was the policy of the Government to buy over to their side as many as they could of those who stood aloof from them, he obtained the deanery of St. Paul's, when Tillotson vacated it on his appointment to the primacy.

Whether it arose from a fear of the consequences that might follow the expulsion of Sancroft, or from a respect

for his character and a desire to conciliate his friends and supporters, every effort was made by the Government to induce him to adopt a course similar to that which had been followed by many able divines who had been his friends, and had looked up to him for guidance. But Sancroft, though willing to pledge himself not to disturb the existing Government, which indeed had treated him with much more consideration and respect than had been shown to him by King James, absolutely refused to perform any act, or use any prayer that recognized the sovereignty of William and Mary. Therefore William, after waiting for a long time with much patience and forbearance, and after having, as we have already seen, held out an offer to the friends of the Nonjurors which, if it had been accepted by them, would have saved Sancroft and his followers from the consequences of their recusancy, at length required them to take the oaths to the new Government under pain of being deprived of their offices.

One reason which probably determined William to take this decisive step, was that he felt it to be a matter of the highest importance to his Government to have a man in the position of Archbishop of Canterbury, whose sympathies and opinions with regard to the important questions of toleration and comprehension were entirely in harmony with his own, and on whose cordial support to his Government he could confidently reckon. It was for this reason, and with this well-grounded expectation, that he had determined soon after his accession to transfer Tillotson from his deanery