many answers. The replies to the Doctor, the vindications of the
Doctor, the pasquinades on the Doctor, would fill a library. The
clamour redoubled when it was known that the convert had not only
been reappointed Master of the Temple, but had accepted the
Deanery of Saint Paul's, which had become vacant in consequence
of the deprivation of Sancroft and the promotion of Tillotson.
The rage of the nonjurors amounted almost to frenzy. Was it not
enough, they asked, to desert the true and pure Church, in this
her hour of sorrow and peril, without also slandering her? It was
easy to understand why a greedy, cowardly hypocrite should refuse
to take the oaths to the usurper as long as it seemed probable
that the rightful King would be restored, and should make haste
to swear after the battle of the Boyne. Such tergiversation in
times of civil discord was nothing new. What was new was that the
turncoat should try to throw his own guilt and shame on the
Church of England, and should proclaim that she had taught him to
turn against the weak who were in the right, and to cringe to the
powerful who were in the wrong. Had such indeed been her doctrine
or her practice in evil days? Had she abandoned her Royal Martyr
in the prison or on the scaffold? Had she enjoined her children
to pay obedience to the Rump or to the Protector? Yet was the
government of the Rump or of the Protector less entitled to be
called a settled government than the government of William and
Mary? Had not the battle of Worcester been as great a blow to the
hopes of the House of Stuart as the battle of the Boyne? Had not
the chances of a Restoration seemed as small in 1657 as they
could seem to any judicious man in 1691? In spite of invectives
and sarcasms, however, there was Overall's treatise; there were
the approving votes of the two Convocations; and it was much
easier to rail at Sherlock than to explain away either the