union of Church and State is broken when the latter persecutes the former, which takes place whenever the temporal powers persecute the spiritual: that it is the duty of the people to adhere to deprived Bishops. He asserts, therefore, that such deprivations as those of the Nonjuring Bishops were unlawful: and that their successors had no power. He adds: "The true Church regent, or College of Bishops in England depending upon it, are both in the little and faithful suffering number, and will be in those who regularly succeed them in the royal priesthood to the end of the world."
The Serjeant remarked on the severity of the propositions as involving all the nation, except a very few, in Schism. Hickes replies, that he is not more severe than the Ancient Fathers, and refers to the notes on the Propositions. Other testimonies are also added. He says, principles are rigid things: "They are like glass drops, you may easily break them, but you cannot bend them." Farther, the Serjeant objected the small number of the deprived Bishops: to which Hickes replies, that the controversy is one of right and wrong, not of faith. He reminds the Serjeant of his own wish, that all had been deprived, though the case would have been the same had one only been subjected to deprivation.
On the title page of the volume the letter R was affixed to the word Reverend; so that the style of a Bishop was thus awarded to Hickes: and though his consecration was, as I have previously remarked, known to many, if not to all the Nonjurors; yet this seems to have been the first public intimation of the fact. The Publisher mentions the particulars of the consecration by Turner, White, and Lloyd: and argues, that no man was more qualified to answer the
