While they were fighting, Sherlock, Dean of Chichester, was preaching his Thanksgiving sermon before the House of Commons, in St, Margaret’s, Westminster. His text was from Psalm cxxii. 6, ‘Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee.’ The most remarkable passage in the discourse was one which quietly reasserted the Sacheverel maxim that resistance to constituted authority is unrighteous. Sherlock did not mean to tell the senators that the opposition to James II. was unrighteous. Nevertheless, he says of those who would rebel on grounds real or imaginary, ‘Where did they learn that Rebellion is the proper remedy in such cases? The Church of England has no such doctrine; and if they cannot govern their own passions, yet in justice to her, they ought not to use her name in a cause which she ever has and ever will disclaim.’ The dean drew no ill picture of the public feeling just before the revolution. ‘Oh, that I had words to represent to the present generation the miseries which their fathers underwent; that I could describe their fears and anxieties, their restless nights and uneasy days, when every morning threatened to usher in the last day of England’s liberty, when men stood mute for want of counsel, and every eye was watching with impatience for the happy gale that should save the kingdom, whose fortunes were reduced so low as to depend upon the chance of wind and weather.’ After this poor compliment to Providence, Sherlock hinted at the possible occurrence of another attempt of the Jacobite Prince to overthrow the established Church and Throne. Private and party selfishness facilitated such an attempt, but ‘it is as absurd,’ he said, ‘for a man, under any resentment whatever, to enter into measures destructive of his country’s peace, as it would be for him to burn the Title to his Estate, because the Tenant was behind in his rent.’ There were few of the listeners to this passage who did not feel that if the words condemned revolution against George I., they equally condemned (to Jacobite thinking, at least), that which overthrew James II. The dean was not afraid to say a word in favour of the Nonjurors. The rashness of some of these persons had involved the whole body in obloquy. He observed:――‘The principles on which the legality of the present Establishment is maintained, are, I think, but improperly, made a part of the present quarrel which divides the nation. There are but few who have not precluded themselves on this point, those, I mean, who have had courage and plainness enough to own their sense and forego the advantages, either of birth or education, rather than give a false security to the government, which under their present persuasion they could not make good. To these, I have nothing more to say, than to wish them what I think they well deserve, a better cause.’ [Sidenote: _BISHOP OF ELY’S SERMON._]