The pretensions of the church of England to loyalty were carried to a degree of extravagance, which her divines were finally unable to support, unless they had meant to sign the destruction of their religion. This was owing to the recollection of the momentous period which had lately elapsed. The interest of the church had been deeply interwoven with that of the crown; their struggle, sufferings, and fall, during the civil wars, had been in common, as well as their triumphant restoration: the maxim of "no king no bishop," was indelibly imprinted on the hearts of the clergy; in fine, it seemed impossible that any thing should cut asunder the ties which combined them. In sanctioning, therefore, the doctrines of the most passive loyalty, the English divines probably thought that they were only paying a tribute to the throne, which was to be returned by the streams of royal bounty and grace towards the church. Even the religion of James did not, before his accession, shake their confidence, or excite their apprehensions. They were far more afraid of the fanatics, under whose iron yoke they had so lately groaned, than of the Roman Catholics, who, for three generations, had been a depressed, and therefore a tractable body, whose ceremonies and church government resembled, in some respects, their own, and who had sided with them during the civil wars against the Protestant sectaries. But when the members of the established church perceived, that the rapid steps which James adopted would soon place the Catholics in a condition to rival, and perhaps to overpower her, they were obliged to retract and explain away many of their former hasty expressions of absolute and unconditional devotion to the royal pleasure. The king, and his Catholic counsellors, saw with astonishment and indignation, that professions of the most ample subjection were now to be understood as limited and restricted by the interests of the church. In the height of their resentment, even the church of England's pretensions to a peculiar degree of loyalty were unthankfully turned into ridicule, in such bitter and sarcastic terms as the following, which occur in a pamphlet published expressly "with allowance," _i. e._ by royal permission. "I have often considered, but could never yet find a convincing reason, why that part of the nation, (which is commonly called the church of England) should dare appropriate to themselves alone the principles of true loyalty; and that no other church or communion on earth can be consistent with monarchy, or, indeed, with any government.