compared with the Nonjurors, either in learning or piety.
In reviewing the period embraced in this volume, the unbiassed reader must be struck with the important services rendered, by the Nonjurors, to the religion and the literature of our country. He who imagines that, when the danger from popery was averted by the elevation of King William to the throne, the Anglican Church was exposed to no further perils, is greatly mistaken in the opinion which he has formed. It has been shewn, that a Latitudinarian spirit came in with the Revolution, obtaining a strong hold of some of the principal actors of that period, both in Church and State. Tillotson, and Stillingfleet, and Kidder, as well as Burnet, together with many other estimable men, were strongly influenced by this dangerous leaven. Against this system the Nonjurors made a noble stand: and providentially the majority of the complying clergy united with them, in resisting the innovations, which otherwise would have been introduced. By their united efforts, the Anglican Church was rescued from the danger, by which she was threatened, and which, had it not been averted, would speedily have reduced her to a mere state establishment. She nobly withstood the shock of Romanism in the reign of King James: and, by the conduct of her Clergy, she was delivered from the danger, not less imminent than the former, arising from Latitudinarian indifference. When we remember, that she was assailed by professed friends, as well as by open enemies—by Latitudinarian Churchmen and Dissenters united in one common league against her sacred institutions—we cannot but feel grateful to Almighty
