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History of the Nonjurors.
397

duction. The writer says, addressing his friend, "I hope, in a clear and concise manner, to convince you of the justice of the charge exhibited against you, and consequently to prevail on you to separate yourself from those followers of Corah, lest partaking of their guilt, you become also partaker in their punishment."[1] A sketch of the characters of Sancroft and Tillotson, as the heads of the two bodies into which the Church was divided at the Revolution, is given in the Preface. Sancroft's picture is justly and accurately drawn: but Tillotson's is much distorted. The first letter is dated 1741, and contains a charge of schism against the complying Clergy. In the second, written in 1742, the question raised by Dodwell, respecting the healing of the breach on the death of Lloyd, is discussed: and the party, to whom it is addressed, is referred to Gandy's Dialogue between Gerontius and Junius, and to Hickes's Constitution of the Catholic Church. Prayers for governors, without reference to the question of right, are condemned as sinful. In a third letter, dated Ash Wednesday 1743-4, it is asserted, that no schismatic can enter heaven: that, therefore, it behoves all persons to consider their position: and that the schism was with those, who removed Sancroft and his brethren. "I shall not think it necessary," says the writer, "to dispute the authority of that Convention, who metamorphosed a Dutch P into an English K, and placed him in the throne of their natural sovereign liege Lord, still living and claiming his right to the same; nor the authority of this Convention-made K, who (as one good turn deserves another) moulded them into a


  1. A Collection of Letters concerning the Separation of the Church of England into two Communions. 1746. P. 4.