It was in some sense fortunate, as we have already said, for the Church of England, that the Reformation in this country was effected by men who cared little about religion.  And, in the same manner, it was fortunate for our civil government that the Revolution was in a great measure effected by men who cared little about their political principles.  At such a crisis, splendid talents and strong passions might have done more harm than good.  There was far greater reason to fear that too much would be attempted, and that violent movements would produce an equally violent reaction, than that too little would be done in the way of change.  But narrowness of intellect, and flexibility of principle, though they may be serviceable, can never be respectable.

If in the Revolution itself, there was little that can properly be called glorious, there was still less in the events which followed.  In a church which had as one man declared the doctrine of resistance unchristian, only four hundred persons refused to take the oath of allegiance to a government founded on resistance.  In the preceding generation, both the Episcopal and the Presbyterian clergy, rather than concede points of conscience not more important, had resigned their livings by thousands.

The churchmen, at the time of the Revolution, justified their conduct by all those profligate sophisms which are called Jesuitical, and which are commonly reckoned among the peculiar sins of Popery, but which, in fact, are everywhere the anodynes employed by minds rather subtle than strong, to quiet those internal twinges which they cannot but feel and which they will not obey.  As the oath taken by the clergy was in the teeth of their principles, so was their conduct in the teeth of their oath.  Their constant machinations against the Government to which they had sworn fidelity brought a reproach on their order and on Christianity itself.  A distinguished prelate has not scrupled to say that the rapid increase of infidelity at that time was principally produced by the disgust which the faithless conduct of his brethren excited in men not sufficiently candid or judicious to discern the beauties of the system amidst the vices of its ministers.

But the reproach was not confined to the Church.  In every political party in the Cabinet itself, duplicity and perfidy abounded.  The very men whom William loaded with benefits and in whom he reposed most confidence, with his seals of office in their hands, kept up a correspondence with the exiled family.  Orford, Leeds, and Shrewsbury were guilty of this odious treachery.  Even Devonshire is not altogether free from suspicion.  It may well be conceived that, at such a time, such a nature as that of Marlborough would riot in the very luxury of baseness.  His former treason, thoroughly furnished with all that makes infamy exquisite, placed him under the disadvantage which attends every artist from the time that he produces a masterpiece.