104

IIISTOllY OF ENGLAND.

CIUP.

XI ._

1683 .

what they conscientiously apprehended to be wrong? Andwhere, it was said, is the danger of treating them with tender-ness? Nobody is so absurd as to propose that they shall bepermitted to plot against the Government, or to stir up themultitude to insurrection. They are amenable to the law, likeother men. If they are guilty of treason, let them be hanged.If they are guilty of sedition, let them be fined and imprisoned.If they omit, in their public ministrations, to pray for KingWilliam, for Queen Mary, and for the Parliament assembledunder those most religious sovereigns, let the penal clauses ofthe Act of Uniformity be put in force. If this be not enough, lethis Majesty be empowered to tender the oaths to any clergyman;and, if the oaths so tendered are refused, let deprivation follow.In this way any nonjuring bishop or rector who maybe suspected,though he cannot be legally convicted, of intriguing, of writing,of talking, against the present settlement, may be at onceremoved from his office. But w'hy insist on ejecting a pious andlaborious minister of religion, who never lifts a finger or uttersa word against the government, and who, as often as he performsmorning and evening service, prays from his heart for a blessingon the rulers set over him by Providence, but who will not takean oath which seems to him to imply a right in the people todepose a sovereign? Surely we do all that is necessary if weleave men of this sort at the mercy of the very prince to whomthey refuse to swear fidelity. If he is willing to bear with theirscrupulosity, if he considers them, notwithstanding their pre-judices, as innocent and useful members of society, who elsecan be entitled to complain?

The Whigs were vehement on the other side. Theyscrutinised, with ingenuity sharpened by hatred, the claimsof the clergy to the public gratitude, and sometimes w r ent sofar as altogether to deny that the order had in the precedingyear deserved well of the nation. It w'as true that bishops and