No multitude of apostates, he declared, could ever be pleaded as an authoritative example against a small number continuing firm. The doctrine and practice of these faithful Abdiels, he added, had been maintained by the Church in all the cases which had occurred from the beginning of the Reformation to that very day. In the case of Queen Mary and the Lady Jane Grey, in the case of Cromwell and King Charles II., nay, in the present case, and in opposition to republican adversaries. He believed there were few of these great lapsers but would, a few years before, have resented it, like Hazael, as a great calamity and scandal had they been charged with doing the things which they had since actually done. [Sidenote: NONJURORS.] He denounced all compliance, eschewed all compromise, and reprobated all “carnal politics;” warned against balancing expediency with conscience, and against seeking to promote Protestantism by a sacrifice of Church principles.[464] He set aside reasons for taking the oaths, by saying there is no cause so bad but something may be said in its support, and by referring to Carneades’ _Oration on Injustice_, Burgess and Barnet’s _Defence of Sacrilege_, and the Hungarian’s _Vindication of Polygamy_. As an illustration of the lengths to which party spirit will carry people, I may cite the following passage from Dodwell’s vehement lucubration: “It is not a particular sect or opinion that we contend for, but the very being of a Church and of religion. Whether there shall be any faith that shall oblige to our own hindrance? Whether religion, which ought to add to its sacredness, shall be made a pretence for violating it? Whether our Holy Mother, the Church of England, which hath been famous for her loyalty, shall now be as infamous for her apostacy? Whether there be any understanding men who, in this incredulous age, can find in their hearts to venture the greatest worldly interest for their religion; that is, indeed, whether there be any that are in earnest with religion?”[465] [Sidenote: 1694–1702.]