Page:History of the Nonjurors.djvu/95

Rh the danger of the introduction of Popery is so great as at the period of the Revolution, there are persons, who look upon a compliance with the Rubrics and Canons as a symptom of Popery, and who cannot oppose Romanism without opposing their own Church at the same time. These individuals have never done so much against Popery, or suffered so much for the sake of the truth, as Archbishop Sancroft: and it is evident, that the most consistent Churchmen are the most effective opponents of Rome.

In the seventh Article, the Archbishop recommends, that the Clergy should explain to the people, at least four times a year, that the Papal Supremacy was an usurpation. Alluding in the tenth to the means adopted by the Romish Priests, especially with people in dying circumstances, he recommends the utmost diligence on the part of the clergy: "Thus with their utmost diligence, watching over every sheep within their fold (especially in that critical moment) lest those evening wolves devour them."

Sancroft moreover recommended "more especially that they have a very tender regard to our brethren, the Protestant Dissenters: that upon occasion offered they visit them at their houses, and receive them kindly at their own, and treat them fairly wherever they meet with them, discoursing calmly and civilly with them: persuading them (if it may be) to a full compliance with our Church, or at least that whereto we have already attained, we may all walk by the same rule and mind the same thing. And in order hereunto, that they take all opportunities of assuring and convincing them that the Bishops of this Church are really and sincerely irreconcilable enemies to the errors, superstitions, idolatries, and tyrannies of the Church of Rome." In this way did he write, who