Nonjurors at least—­perhaps Hickes and Turner are exceptions—­would probably have welcomed anything which enabled the avoidance of schism.  Once, however, the oath was imposed three vital questions were raised.  Deprivation obviously involved the problem of the power of the State over the Church.  If the act of a convention whose own legality was at best doubtful could deprive the consecrated of their position, was the Church a Church at all, or was it the mere creature of the secular power?  And what, moreover, of conscience?  It could not be an inherent part of the Church’s belief that men should betray their faith for the sake of peace.  Later thinkers added the purely secular argument that resistance in one case made for resistance in all.  Admit, it was argued by Leslie, the right to disobey, and the fabric of society is at a stroke dissolved.  The attitude is characteristic of that able controversialist; and it shows how hardly the earlier notions of Divine Right were to die.

[Footnote 10:  The History of Passive Obedience.  Its author was Jeremy Collier.]

These theories merit a further examination.  Williams, later the Bishop of Chichester, had argued that separation on the basis of the oath was unreasonable.  “All that the civil power here pretends to,” he wrote “is to secure itself against the practices of dissatisfied persons.”  The Nonjurors, in this view, were making an ecclesiastical matter of a purely secular issue.  He was answered, among others, by Samuel Grascom, in an argument which found high favor among the stricter of his sect.  “The matter and substance of these Oaths,” he said, “is put into the prayers of the Church, and so far it becomes a matter of communion.  What people are enjoined in the solemn worship to pray for, is made a matter of communion; and if it be simple, will not only justify, but require a separation.”  Here is the pith of the matter.  For if the form and substance of Church affairs is thus to be left to governmental will, then those who obey have left the Church and it is the faithful remnant only who constitute the true fellowship.  The schism, in this view, was the fault of those who remained subject to William’s dominion.  The Nonjurors had not changed; and they were preserving the Church in its integrity from men who strove to betray it to the civil power.

This matter of integrity is important.  The glamour of Macaulay has somewhat softened the situation of those who took the oaths; and in his pages the Nonjurors appear as stupid men unworthily defending a dead cause.  It is worth while to note that this is the merest travesty.  Tillotson, who succeeded Sancroft on the latter’s deprivation, and Burnet himself had urged passive resistance upon Lord William Russell as essential to salvation; Tenison had done likewise at the execution of Monmouth.  Stillingfleet, Patrick, White Kennett, had all written in its favor; and to William Sherlock belongs the privilege of having defended and attacked it in two pamphlets each of which challenges the pithy brilliance of the other.  Clearly, so far as consistency is in question, the Nonjurors might with justice contend that they had right on their side.  And even if it is said that the policy of James introduced a new situation the answer surely is that Divine Right and non-resistance can, by their very nature, make no allowance for novelty.