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276 the same charge of heresy, schism and treason, was alleged. It was, therefore, to be expected, that those who considered the Revolution lawful would defend themselves. Besides the works already mentioned, there was one, in which the case of the compilers appears to be very moderately stated, intitled "The Sin of Schism most unjustly charged by the Nonjurors upon the present established Church of England, and the Charge made good against themselves. In a Letter to a Nonjuring Clergyman." The writer admits "the ministerial function of the Bishops and Clergy is of Divine institution: but the limitation of the exercise of this function, within this or that diocese, parish, or district, is altogether of human appointment. When the Nonjuring Bishops and Clergy were, by act of Parliament, deprived of their respective preferments, nothing was pretended to be taken away that was of divine institution."

We must now proceed to those internal disputes, by which the body was agitated, and which issued in a separation among themselves, a separation into two distinct communions. Loudly as they had protested against alterations in the Book of Common Prayer, some of them were now ready to introduce them. The controversy did not spring up till after the death of Hickes: but similar views, with those entertained by the advocates for alterations, had been advanced in his Christian Priesthood, which may have had some influence in the disputes. It is remarkable, that the men, who deprecated any changes in 1689, should have been the first to alter the Communion Service. They actually split upon the very rock, that of alterations, which by the good Providence of God, the Church had avoided—and avoided too by the opposition of the very men, who now ad-