Whig opposition. It was for this
that they had stood in the front of the battle against those who sought
to despoil James of his birthright. To their fidelity alone their
oppressor owed the power which he was now employing to their ruin. They
had long been in the habit of recounting in acrimonious language all
that they had suffered at the hand of the Puritan in the day of his
power. Yet for the Puritan there was some excuse. He was an avowed
enemy: he had wrongs to avenge; and even he, while remodelling the
ecclesiastical constitution of the country, and ejecting all who would
not subscribe his Covenant, had not been altogether without compassion.
He had at least granted to those whose benefices he seized a pittance
sufficient to support life. But the hatred felt by the King towards that
Church which had saved him from exile and placed him on a throne was
not to be so easily satiated. Nothing but the utter ruin of his victims
would content him. It was not enough that they were expelled from their
homes and stripped of their revenues. They found every walk of life
towards which men of their habits could look for a subsistence closed
against them with malignant care, and nothing left to them but the
precarious and degrading resource of alms.

The Anglican clergy therefore, and that portion of the laity which was
strongly attached to Protestant episcopacy, now regarded the King with
those feelings which injustice aggravated by ingratitude naturally
excites. Yet had the Churchman still many scruples of conscience
and honour to surmount before he could bring himself to oppose the
government by force. He had been taught that passive obedience was
enjoined without restriction or exception by the divine law. He had
professed this opinion ostentatiously. He had treated with contempt the
suggestion that an extreme case might possibly arise which would justify
a people in drawing the sword against regal tyranny. Both principle
and shame therefore restrained him from imitating the example of
the rebellious Roundheads, while any hope of a peaceful and legal
deliverance remained; and such a hope might reasonably be cherished as
long as the Princess of Orange stood next in succession to the crown. If
he would but endure with patience this trial of his faith, the laws
of nature would soon do for him what he could not, without sin and
dishonour, do for himself. The wrongs of the Church would be redressed,
her property and dignity would