100

lUSTOEY OF ENGLAND.

chap.

XI.

1689 .

■well be thought equal in authority to any statute. The practicewas in as much confusion as the law. It xvas therefore felt tobe necessary that the legislature should, without delay, passan Act abolishing the old oaths, and determining when and bywhom the new oaths should be taken.

The bill which settled this important question originated inthe Upper House. As to most of the provisions there was littleroom for dispute. It was unanimously agreed that no personshould, at any future time, be admitted to any office, civil,military, ecclesiastical, or academical, without taking the oathsto William and Mary. It was also unanimously agreed thatevery person who already held any civil or military office shouldbe ejected from it, unless he took the oaths on or before thefirst of August 1689. But the strongest passions of both partieswere excited by the question -whether persons who already pos-sessed ecclesiastical or academical offices should be required toswear fealty to the King and Queen on pain of deprivation.None could say what might be the effect of a law enjoining allthe members of a great, a powerful, a sacred profession tomake, under the most solemn sanction of religion, a declarationwhich might be plausibly represented as a formal recantationof all that they had been writing and preaching during manyyears. The Primate and some of the most eminent Bishopshad already absented themselves from Parliament, and woulddoubtless relinquish their palaces and revenues, rather thanacknowledge the new Sovereigns. The example of these greatprelates might perhaps be followed by a multitude of divines ofhumbler rank, by hundreds of canons, prebendaries, and fel-lows of colleges, by thousands of parish priests. To such anevent no Tory, however clear his own conviction that he mightlawfully swear allegiance to the King who was in possession,could look forward without the most painful emotions of com-passion for the sufferers and of anxiety for the Church.