Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/67

Rh management of an affair, as honourable, perhaps, as any thing that has been done in any age."

This estimable man was one of the seven Prelates, who had incurred the wrath of King James, by venturing to refuse to read his Majesty's Declaration. The writer of the account remarks, "He had afterwards a very worthy part in those applications the Bishops made to his Majesty a little before the Revolution, when they interposed themselves as it were between the King and his people." The writer expresses his wonder at the anger evinced by some persons towards the Bishop, for not taking the Oath, as if his zeal for the Church had become cold. "He considered that the day of death and of judgment, are as certain as the 1st of August and the 1st of February, and acted accordingly." It will be remembered that these days were fixed by the Act: the former for suspension, the latter for deprivation in all cases, in which the Oath should not be taken. On the 27th of August he dictated the following profession, being then very ill:

"Being called by a sick and I think a dying bed, and the good hand of God upon me in it, to take the last and best viaticum, the sacrament of my dear Lord's body and blood, I take myself obliged to make this short recognition and profession.

"That whereas I was baptized into the religion of the Church of England, and sucked it in with my milk, I have constantly adhered to it through the