y mere sycophants and courtiers, but by many whose opinions
were adorned by noble Christian lives, willing self-sacrifice, and
undaunted resolution. Good Bishop Lake of Chichester said on his
death-bed that 'he looked upon the great doctrine of passive obedience
as the distinguishing character of the Church of England,'[96] and that
it was a doctrine for which he hoped he could lay down his life. Bishop
Thomas of Worcester, who died the same year, expressed the same belief
and the same hope. Robert Nelson spoke of it as the good and wholesome
doctrine of the Church of England, 'wherein she has gloried as her
special characteristic.... Papists and Presbyterians have both been
tardy on these points, and I wish the practice of some in the Church of
England had been more blameless,'[97] but he was sure that it had been
the doctrine of the primitive Christians, and that it was very plainly
avowed both by the Church and State of England. Sancroft vehemently
reproved 'the apostacy of the National Church'[98] in departing from
this point of faith. Even Tillotson and Burnet[99] were at one time no
less decided about it. The former urged it upon Lord Russell as 'the
declared doctrine of all Protestant Churches,' and that the contrary was
'a very great and dangerous mistake,' and that if not a sin of
ignorance, 'it will appear of a much more heinous nature, as in truth it
is, and calls for a very particular and deep repentance.'[100] Just
about the time when the new oath of allegiance was imposed, the doctrine
of non-resistance received the very aid it most needed, in the invention
of a new term admirably adapted to inspire a warmer feeling of religious
enthusiasm in those who were preparing to suffer in its cause. The
expression appears to have originated with Kettlewell, who had strongly
felt the force of an objection which had been raised to Bishop Lake's
declaration. It had been said that to call this or that doctrine the
distinguishing characteristic of a particular Church was so far forth to
separate it from the Church Catholic. Kettlewell saw at once that this
argument wounded High Churchmen in the very point where they were most
sensitive, and for the future preferred to speak of non-resistance as
characteristically 'a Doctrine of the Cross.'[101] The epithet was
quickly adopted, and no doubt was frequently a source of consolation to
Nonjurors. At other times it might have conveyed a painful sense of
disproportion in its app