Among the less distinguished divines who forfeited their benefices, were doubtless many good men: but it is certain that the moral character of the nonjurors, as a class, did not stand high. It seems hard to impute laxity of principle to persons who undoubtedly made a great sacrifice to principle. And yet experience abundantly proves that many who are capable of making a great sacrifice, when their blood is heated by conflict, and when the public eye is fixed upon them, are not capable of persevering long in the daily practice of obscure virtues. It is by no means improbable that zealots may have given their lives for a religion which had never effectually restrained their vindictive or their licentious passions. We learn indeed from fathers of the highest authority that, even in the purest ages of the Church, some confessors, who had manfully refused to save themselves from torments and death by throwing frankincense on the altar of Jupiter, afterwards brought scandal on the Christian name by gross fraud and debauchery.[1] For the nonjuring divines great allowance must in fairness be made. They were doubtless in a most trying situation. In general, a schism, which divides a religious community, divides the laity as well as the clergy. The seceding pastors therefore carry with them a large part of their flocks, and are consequently assured of a maintenance. But the schism of 1689 scarcely extended beyond the clergy. The law required the rector to take the oaths, or to quit his living: but no oath, no acknowledgment of the title of the new King and Queen, was required from
- ↑ Cyprian, in one of his Epistles, addresses the confessors thus: "Quosdam audio inficere numerum vestrum, et laudem præcipui nominis prava sua conversatione destruere.… Cum quanto nominis vestri pudore delinquitur quando alius aliquis temulentus et lasciviens demoratur; alius in eam patriam unde extorris est regreditur, ut deprehensus non eam quasi Christianus, sed quasi nocens pereat." He uses still stronger language in the book de Unitate Ecclesiæ: "Neque enim confessio immunem facet ab insidiis diaboli, aut contra tentationes et pericula et incursus atque impetus sæculares adhuc in sæculo positum perpetua securitate defendit; cæterum nunquam in confessoribus fraudes et stupra et adulteria postmodum videremus, quæ nunc in quibusdam videntes ingemiscimus et dolemus."
