their brethren.[1] This mode of reasoning, however, is disingenuous. At that time the Bishops, who scrupled the Oath, considered it to be their duty to suffer in silence: nor can they be charged with inconsistency in so doing: while the Prelates, who were present, could not, by any act of theirs, give an ecclesiastical sanction to a proceeding against their brethren. Hickes had stated, in his Constitution of the Catholic Church, that the deprived Bishops had left behind them certain persons to succeed them, not as diocesan, but as Catholic successors: and Marshall contends that such a procedure was unsanctioned by the practice of the early Church.[2] Alluding to the charge of Immoral Prayers, the author remarks, that the deprived Bishops did not, by any authentic act, claim the obedience of their ecclesiastical subjects for several years after their deprivation: and that the Nonjurors communicated, long after the filling up of the vacant sees, with those whom they now deemed schismatics. He admits, however, that they did not use the prayers, against which the charge was preferred. Hickes himself, he states, had communicated with members of the National Church, who were now charged with schism.[3] He mentions also that one of the consecrators of Hickes, as late as 1697, administered the Lord's Supper to a lady, supposed to be upon her deathbed, a member of the Church of England, who asked the Bishop
- ↑ Marshall's Defence, p. 12.
- ↑ Ibid. pp. 32, 33.
- ↑ He assures us also that ten years before Hickes agreed, that the immorality of the prayers was not a sufficient reason for avoidingthe communion of the National Church. He is, however, mistaken in some of his statements. Sancroft, for example, never held communion with the National Church after his deprivation. The statements are denied by Earbury. Marshall, 181.
