had professed
during many years with ostentatious vehemence, and which they had
attempted to propagate by persecution. Many were kept steady to their
old creed by conscience, and many by shame. But the greater part,
even of those who still continued to pronounce all resistance to the
sovereign unlawful, were disposed, in the event of a civil conflict,
to remain neutral. No provocation should drive them to rebel: but, if
rebellion broke forth, it did not appear that they were bound to fight
for James the Second as they would have fought for Charles the First.
The Christians of Rome had been forbidden by Saint Paul to resist the
government of Nero: but there was no reason to believe that the Apostle,
if he had been alive when the Legions and the Senate rose up against
that wicked Emperor, would have commanded the brethren to fly to arms
in support of tyranny. The duty of the persecuted Church was clear: she
must suffer patiently, and commit her cause to God. But, if God, whose
providence perpetually educes good out of evil, should be pleased,
as oftentimes He bad been pleased, to redress her wrongs by the
instrumentality of men whose angry passions her lessons had not been
able to tame, she might gratefully accept from Him a deliverance which
her principles did not permit her to achieve for herself. Most of
those Tories, therefore, who still sincerely disclaimed all thought of
attacking the government, were yet by no means inclined to defend it,
and perhaps, while glorying in their own scruples, secretly rejoiced
that everybody was not so scrupulous as themselves.

The Whigs saw that their time was come. Whether they should draw the
sword against the government had, during six or seven years, been, in
their view, merely a question of prudence; and prudence itself now urged
them to take a bold course.

In May, before the birth of the Prince of Wales, and while it was still
uncertain whether the Declaration would or would not be read in the
churches, Edward Russell had repaired to the Hague. He had strongly
represented to the Prince of Orange the state of the public mind, and
had advised his Highness to appear in England at the head of a strong
body of troops, and to call the people to arms.

William had seen, at a glance, the whole importance of the crisis. "Now
or never," he exclaimed in Latin to Dykvelt. [413] To Russell he held
more guarded language, admitted that the distempers of the state were
such as required an