The Catholic party at court, who
desired a great rent among the Protestants, encouraged them in this
obstinacy, and gave them hopes that the king would protect them in
their refusal. The king himself, by his irresolute conduct, contributed,
either from design or accident, to increase this opinion. Above all,
the terms of subscription had been made strict and rigid, on purpose
to disgust all the zealous and scrupulous among the Presbyterians, and
deprive them of their livings. About two thousand of the clergy, in one
day, relinquished their cures; and, to the astonishment of the court,
sacrificed their interest to their religious tenets. Fortified
by society in their sufferings, they were resolved to undergo any
hardships, rather than openly renounce those principles, which, on other
occasions, they were so apt, from interest, to warp or elude. The church
enjoyed the pleasure of retaliation; and even pushed, as usual,
the vengeance farther than the offence. During the dominion of the
parliamentary party, a fifth of each living had been left to the ejected
clergyman; but this indulgence, though at first insisted on by the house
of peers, was now refused to the Presbyterians. However difficult to
conciliate peace among theologians, it was hoped by many, that some
relaxation in the terms of communion might have kept the Presbyterians
united to the church, and have cured those ecclesiastical factions which
had been so fatal, and were still so dangerous.
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