Another clergyman did what was still more astonishing: he publicly retracted his oath, and preached upon the words: “I have sinned greatly in that I have done; and now, I beseech Thee, O Lord, take away the iniquity of Thy servant; for I have done very foolishly,” at the same time he exhorted his congregation to renew their allegiance to James, for whom, as the King of England, and for his family, he publicly prayed. Such an act was downright rebellion, and no wonder the man got into trouble. Being tried for his offence, he was sentenced to stand in the pillory and to pay a fine of £200; but the Government wisely treated him as a lunatic, and offered a pardon if he would confess his fault. This he declined to do; consequently he remained in confinement. Not only did other clergymen retract compliance, but a layman who had qualified himself for office by taking the oaths, solemnly, on his death-bed, in the presence of witnesses, signed a declaration of penitence. The political feeling mixed up with the confession is plain, and all these people, while professing the utmost piety, proved themselves to be unfaithful subjects. [Sidenote: NONJURORS.] The political views of the Nonjurors were narrow in the extreme, and though to be irreligious was a thing they dreaded most of all, their views of the State were of a very irreligious kind. They took away from it all moral and religious life, and if they consistently followed out their own theory, they took away all conscience from the subjects of a legitimate and anointed King. Their system exalted such a person to the highest point of favour, and degraded the people to the lowest step of slavery. Denuding them of political rights, they denied them political duties, and annihilated all their political responsibilities. In the death-blow aimed at popular power, morality and religion, in reference to political life, were blindly smitten. Yet whilst their creed only left scope for patience in suffering, numbers of them did not practice this patience, but were everlastingly plotting a counter-revolution. To them the State appeared as an instrument in the hands of the Church--to be controlled for its use, to afford revenues for its support, to supply means for the enforcement of its laws. The civil power, according to their theory, has been described as “a body constituted, it would seem, of three principal elements--an absolute king, money-bags, and a hangman.”[481] It must be said, to the credit of the Nonjurors, that however slavishly loyal to an absolute king, they showed an indifference to the “money-bags” and a contempt for the “hangman”--a fact worthy of imitation by some who entertain a different theory from them. [Sidenote: 1694–1702.]