tood next to the Whole Duty of Man in the bookcases of
serious Arminians. Soon, however, it began to be suspected that his
resolution was giving way. He declared that he would be no party to
a schism; he advised those who sought his counsel not to leave their
parish churches; nay, finding that the law which had ejected him from
his cure did not interdict him from performing divine service, he
officiated at Saint Dunstan's, and there prayed for King William and
Queen Mary. The apostolical injunction, he said, was that prayers should
be made for all in authority, and William and Mary were visibly in
authority. His Jacobite friends loudly blamed his inconsistency. How,
they asked, if you admit that the Apostle speaks in this passage of
actual authority, can you maintain that, in other passages of a similar
kind, he speaks only of legitimate authority? Or how can you, without
sin, designate as King, in a solemn address to God, one whom you
cannot, without sin, promise to obey as King? These reasonings were
unanswerable; and Sherlock soon began to think them so; but the
conclusion to which they led him was diametrically opposed to the
conclusion to which they were meant to lead him. He hesitated, however,
till a new light flashed on his mind from a quarter from which there was
little reason to expect any thing but tenfold darkness. In the reign of
James the First, Doctor John Overall, Bishop of Exeter, had written an
elaborate treatise on the rights of civil and ecclesiastical governors.
This treatise had been solemnly approved by the Convocations
of Canterbury and York, and might therefore be considered as an
authoritative exposition of the doctrine of the Church of England. A
copy of the manuscript was in Sancroft's possession; and he, soon after
the Revolution, sent it to the press. He hoped, doubtless, that the
publication would injure the new government; but he was lamentably
disappointed. The book indeed condemned all resistance in terms as
strong as he could himself have used; but one passage which had escaped
his notice was decisive against himself and his fellow schismatics.
Overall, and the two Convocations which had given their sanction to
Overall's teaching, pronounced that a government, which had originated
in rebellion, ought, when thoroughly settled, to be considered as
ordained by God and to be obeyed by Christian men. [60] Sherlock read,
and was convinced. His venerable mother the Church had spoken; and he,
w