Thus beset, the landed capitalists struggled hard to maintain themselves, and, as their best defence, they organized a body of priests to preach and teach the divine right of primogeniture, which became the distinctive dogma of this national church. Such at least was the opinion of the non-jurors, who have always ranked among the most orthodox of the Anglican clergy, and who certainly were all who had the constancy to suffer for their faith. John Lake, Bishop of Chichester, suspended in 1689 for not swearing allegiance to William and Mary, on his death-bed made the following statement:-- “That whereas I was baptized into the religion of the Church of England, and sucked it in with my milk, I have constantly adhered to it through the whole course of my life, and now, if so be the will of God, shall dye in it; and I had resolved through God’s grace assisting me to have dyed so, though at a stake. “And whereas that religion of the Church of England taught me the doctrine of non-resistance and passive obedience, which I have accordingly inculcated upon others, and which I took to be the distinguishing character of the Church of England, I adhere no less firmly and steadfastly to that, and in consequence of it, have incurred a suspension from the exercise of my office and expected a deprivation.”[295] In the twelfth century, the sovereign drew his supernatural quality from his consecration by the priesthood; in the seventeenth century, money had already come to represent a force so predominant that the process had become reversed, and the priesthood attributed its prerogative to speak in the name of the Deity, to the interposition of the king. This was the substance of the Reformation in England. Cranmer taught that God committed to Christian princes “the whole cure of all their subjects, as well concerning the administration of God’s word ... as ... of things political”; therefore bishops, parsons, and vicars were ministers of the temporal ruler, to whom he confided the ecclesiastical office, as he confided the enforcement of order to a chief of police.[296] As a part of the secular administration, the main function of the Reformed priesthood was to preach obedience to their patrons; and the doctrine they evolved has been thus summed up by Macaulay:-- “It was gravely maintained that the Supreme Being regarded hereditary monarchy, as opposed to other forms of government, with peculiar favour; that the rule of succession in order of primogeniture was a divine institution, anterior to the Christian, and even to the Mosaic dispensation; that no human power ... could deprive a legitimate prince of his rights; that the authority of such a prince was necessarily always despotic....”[297]