ome
of them.[331]

The burst of general sympathy evoked in favour of the French refugees
happened just at a time when Churchmen of all views were showing a more
or less hearty desire that the Church of England might be strengthened
by the adhesion of many who had hitherto dissented from it. Sancroft was
as yet at one with Tillotson in desiring to carry out a Comprehension
Bill, and was asking Dissenters to join with him 'in prayer for an
universal blessed union of all Reformed Churches at home and
abroad.'[332] Undoubtedly there was a short interval, just before the
Nonjuring secession, in which the minds not only of the so-called
Latitudinarians, but of many eminent High Churchmen, were strongly
disposed to make large concessions for the sake of unity, and from a
desire of seeing England definitely at the head of the Protestant cause
alike in England and on the Continent. They could not but agree with the
words of Samuel Johnson--as good and brave a man as the great successor
to his name--that 'there could not be a more blessed work than to
reconcile Protestants with Protestants.'[333] But the opportunity of
successfully carrying into practice these aspirations soon passed away,
and when it became evident that there could be no change in the
relations of the English Church towards Nonconformity, interest in
foreign Protestantism began to be much less universal than it had been.
The clergy especially were afraid--and there was justification for their
alarm--that some of the oldest and most characteristic features of their
Church were in danger of being swept away. They had no wish to see in
England a form of Protestantism nearly akin to that which existed in
Holland. But there was a strong party in favour of changes which might
have some such effect. The King, even under the new constitution, was
still a power in the Church, and it was well known that the forms of the
Church of England had no particular favour in his eyes. And therefore
the Lower House of Convocation, representing, no doubt, the views of a
majority of the clergy, while they professed, in 1689, that 'the
interest of all the Protestant Churches was dear to them,' were anxious
to make it very clear that they owned no close union with them.[334]
There was a perplexity in the mode of expression which thoroughly
reflected a genuine difficulty. As even the Highest Churchmen, at the
opening of the eighteenth century, were vehemently Protestant, afraid of
Rome,