1724, Negus published a list of the printing offices in London, distinguishing the printers into classes, according to their acknowledged or supposed opinions. Under the head of Nonjurors are reckoned Bowyer, Bettenham, and Dalton.[1]
The views entertained by the Nonjurors, and expressed in their new Communion Office, respecting the Eucharist, were opposed by many of the Clergy, though some few concurred in opinion with the compilers of the New Service. Johnson of Cranbrook had expressed similar views, though he remained in the Church of England. But at length the doctrine of the Nonjurors on this subject was assailed, and by no less a person than Waterland. In the year 1738, Waterland, then Archdeacon of Middlesex, published a Charge to the Clergy, in which the notion of a sacrifice in the Eucharist was condemned.[2] This led to a controversy, in which Brett and George Smith took a prominent part. Waterland's works are generally known; but those of the Nonjurors have been examined only by comparatively a small number of persons. Some account, therefore, of the writings of the Nonjurors on this subject will not be unacceptable.
Waterland was a man of genius and of great learning: and the Nonjurors were always ready to acknowledge his merits. He was moreover a man of candour; so that none of his opponents were in danger of being misrepresented. He opposed some of their views, but he did not, as was too frequently the case,
