ily defending a dead
cause. It is worth while to note that this is the merest travesty.
Tillotson, who succeeded Sancroft on the latter's deprivation, and
Burnet himself had urged passive resistance upon Lord William Russell as
essential to salvation; Tenison had done likewise at the execution of
Monmouth. Stillingfleet, Patrick, White Kennett, had all written in its
favor; and to William Sherlock belongs the privilege of having defended
and attacked it in two pamphlets each of which challenges the pithy
brilliance of the other. Clearly, so far as consistency is in question,
the Nonjurors might with justice contend that they had right on their
side. And even if it is said that the policy of James introduced a new
situation the answer surely is that Divine Right and non-resistance can,
by their very nature, make no allowance for novelty.

The root, then, of this ecclesiastical contention is the argument later
advanced by Leslie in his "Case of the Regale and the Pontificate" in
which he summarized the Convocation dispute. The State, he argues, has
no power over bishops whose relationship to their flock is purely
spiritual and derived from Christ. The Church is independent of all
civil institution, and must have therefore within herself the powers
necessary to her life as a society. Leslie repudiates Erastianism in the
strongest terms. Not only is it, for him, an encroachment upon the
rights of Christ, but it leads to deism in the gentry and to dissent
among the common people. The Church of England comes to be regarded as
no more than the creature of Parliamentary enactment; and thus to leave
it as the creature of human votes, is to destroy its divinity.

It is easy enough to see that men who felt in this fashion could hardly
have decided otherwise than as they did. The matter of conscience,
indeed, was fundamental to their position. "I think," said the Bishop of
Worcester on his death-bed, "I could suffer at a stake rather than take
this oath." That, indeed, represents the general temper. Many of them
did not doubt that James had done grievous wrong; but they had taken the
oath of allegiance to him, and they saw in their conscience no means of
escape from their vow. "Their Majesties," writes the author of the
account of Bishop Lake's death, "are the two persons in the world whose
reign over them, their interest and inclination oblige them most to
desire, and nothing but conscience could restrain them from being as
forwa