Form of Prayer was set forth by the Crown; though many persons did not believe in the existence of the plot. They knew indeed the contrary. He, therefore, says: "Yet the offices then imposed generally supposed the truth of it. And the Prayers then offered were for things not desirable. But upon that supposition must we, therefore, even then have been obliged to separate from those Prayers, and the whole communion wherein they were used, when we were satisfied that the witnesses did not deserve credit, that their narratives were otherwise unlikely and inconsistent, and that the petitions desired, pursuantly to the belief of them, were therefore needless and unreasonable, as grounded on false suggestions? Could we have been excuseable if we had done so?"[1] Dodwell also remarks: "In the reign of James II. we used that petition in the Litany, that God would keep and strengthen him in the true worship. And we were upbraided for it by the Papists, pretending, that we, doing so, owned his Popery, then professed by him to be the true worshipping of God: and that we prayed God to keep and strengthen him in it. And undoubtedly this petition was designed for a Prince whose worship the Church believed true: such as the Prince was when the Litany was composed: and ought to have been altered when the case was altered. Ought we, therefore, even then, to have begun our separation from the public assemblies? No! certainly. We could not have done it without very great injustice. It was very certain that none of our Church's true communion could believe these expressions true in the sense in which our adversaries are pleased to upbraid us with them."[2] He then argues, that private
Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/220
202
History of the Nonjurors.
