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History of the Nonjurors.

God, for preserving the Church in her integrity amidst the shocks consequent upon the Revolution. It cannot be denied, that King William was indifferent, whether Episcopacy or Presbytery prevailed in England: many of his supporters entertained similar views: and even some of the Bishops did not regard their own sacred order as necessary to the constitution of the Church. Happily the great body of the Clergy were attached to the Church, though they had renounced their allegiance to King James. Accordingly they rallied round the Church, when the dangers appeared: and the Prelates, who contemplated many serious changes, were thwarted in their designs, by their own Clergy. Between the regular Nonjurors and the great mass of the Clergy, there were no differences of opinion on any other subjects than those of the Oaths and the Usages. On all Church questions they were united. Alive to the danger by which the Church was menaced, by that latitudinarian spirit which regarded discipline and government as matters to be set aside at pleasure, the Clergy united in opposing all innovations in either, as well as any alterations in the Book of Common Prayer. Had all the Bishops entertained the same views as Burnet, and had the Clergy generally concurred in opinion with the minorities in the Lower House of Convocation, in the reign of King William, we should not now have been permitted to worship God, in our parish Churches, with an unmutilated Prayer Book. A spirit was brought in with the Revolution, which, had it not been restrained, would have introduced most material changes in our Liturgy, our Articles, and our Ecclesiastical government: and it becomes all the friends of the