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History of the Nonjurors.
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separation. It appears that Grascome had formerly been of the same opinion, since in the passage quoted from his previous work, he makes the schism to depend upon the Oaths. On this point there were differences among the Nonjurors themselves; Grascome thus states the matter: "If the owning and praying for this be made a part of the daily office, it is made a condition of our communion." So again, "Are we not obliged to pray for the same thing in more ample, plain, and significant terms than we are to swear it? The matter and substance of these Oaths is put into the prayers of the Church, and so far it becomes a condition of communion. What people are enjoined in the solemn worship to pray for, is made a condition of communion: and if it be sinful, will not only justify, but require a separation."[1] In this work too he argues, that the deprivation, in the case of the Bishops and Clergy, was equivalent to a degradation from office. He has a very remarkable passage on this subject: "It is not long since, that a haughty member of the convention plainly told me, that it was in their power to take away our orders, and unpriest and unbishop us. By this you may see, that the saviours you adore, reckon that our being at any time in statu quo, lies wholly at their mercy, and that even yourselves, if you do not absolutely please your new masters and go through stitch, right or wrong, with their commands, can pretend to little benefit from your character or orders."[2] Undoubtedly many of the members of the convention were, as Grascome states, Erastians, who looked upon the Church


  1. A Reply to a Vindication of a Discourse Concerning the Unreasonableness of a New Separation, 4to. 1691, pp. 6, 10.
  2. Ibid. p. 11.