The fall of James was caused, not as the Nonjurors were tempted to think, by popular disregard of Divine personality, but by his own misunderstanding of the limits to which misgovernment may go.

Here their opponents had a strong case to present; for, as Stillingfleet remarked, if William had not come over there might have been no Church of England for the Nonjurors to preserve.

And other ingenious compromises were suggested.
Non-resistance, it was argued by Sherlock, applied to government in general; and the oath, as a passage in the _Convocation Book_ of Overall seemed to suggest, might be taken not less to a _de facto_ monarch than to one _de jure_.

Few, indeed would have taken the ground of Bishop Burnet, and allotted the throne to William and Mary as conquerors of the Kingdom; at least the pamphlet in which this uncomfortable doctrine was put forward the House of Commons had burned by the common hangman.
What really defeated the Nonjurors' claims was commonsense.

Much the ablest attack upon their position was Stillingfleet's defence of the policy employed in filling up the sees vacated by deprivation; and it is remarkable that the theory he employs is to insist that unless the lawfulness of what had been done is admitted, the Nonjuror's position is inevitable.