Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/140

Mr. Chancellor, we are come here to swear obedience to the laws, and a peaceable behaviour under this government, in which sense we understand and take this Oath." He states, that he was induced to take it in consequence of this free allowance; but that now he sees that he had consulted a carnal policy. "When I observed the new Thanksgiving Prayer for Deliverance imposed, the scarcely tolerable use of the Liturgy without such omissions and alterations as exposed me to the virulent censures and reproaches of all the country: when I observed the contradictory petitions to what was violently driven in the Liturgic offices for the 30th of January and the 29th of May: the uncanonical deprivation of my Metropolitan without a judicial hearing: the new fast and thanksgiving days (and one of the latter too on a fast of the Church): when the Expedition Prayer and the Island Prayer (as I rate them) were enjoined." When he considered these things, he tells us, that he was greatly troubled. At last he met with Kettlewell's Discourse of Christian Prudence, which led to a correspondence with the author. He confesses, therefore, that he had violated the third commandment; "for which I accuse and judge and condemn myself. God be merciful to me a sinner." These words are repeated six times, at the close of so many paragraphs in the Confession, which is much too long for quotation. He states in this penitential confession, that, on the first of the new fast days, he called the clerk behind the church, to tell him that he could not offer up the new petitions. On ceasing to officiate himself, on such occasions, he procured the assistance of another clergyman. This he condemns: and condemns himself for procuring another to do what he was unwilling to do himself. In the supplicatory