CHAP.

XIX.

1693 .

162 HISTORY OR ENGLAND.

Doubt was impiety. In truth the Icon was to many ferventRoyalists a supplementary revelation. One of them indeed hadgone so far as to propose that lessons taken out of the in-estimable little volume should be read in the churches.*Fraser found it necessary to resign his place; and Nottinghamappointed a gentleman of good blood and scanty fortune namedEdmund Bohun. This change of men produced an immediateand total change of system: forBohun was as strong aTory as aconscientious man who had taken the oaths could possibly be.He had been conspicuous as a persecutor of nonconformistsand a champion of the doctrine of passive obedience. He hadedited Filmer’s absurd treatise on the origin of government,and had written an answer to the paper which Algernon Sidneyhad delivered to the Sheriffs on Tower Hill. Nor did Bohunadmit that, in swearing allegiance to William and Mary, he-had done any thing inconsistent with his old creed. For hehad succeeded in convincing himself that they reigned by rightof conquest, and that it was the duty of an Englishman to servethem as faithfully as Daniel had served Darius or as Nehemiahhad served Artaxerxes. This doctrine, whatever peace it mightbring to his own conscience, found little favour with any party.The Whigs loathed it as servile: the Jacobites loathed it asrevolutionary. Great numbers of Tories had doubtless sub-mitted to "William on the ground that he was, rightfully orwrongfully, King in possession: but very few of them weredisposed to allow that his possession had originated in con-quest. Indeed the plea which had satisfied the weak and nar-row mind of Bohun was a mere fiction, and, had it been atruth, would have been a truth not to be uttered by Englishmenwithout agonies of shame and mortification.** He however

* Vox Cleri, 1C89.

** Bohun was the author of the History of tho Desertion, published im-mediately after the Revolution. In that work he propounded his favourite-