He had himself, in obedience to the royal command, read the Declaration: but he could not presume to condemn thousands of pious and loyal divines who had taken a different view of their duty; and, since it was resolved to punish them for acting according to their conscience, he must declare that he would rather suffer with them than be accessary to their sufferings.
The Commissioners read and stood aghast.

The very faults of their colleague, the known laxity of his principles, the known meanness of his spirit, made his defection peculiarly alarming.

A government must be indeed in danger when men like Sprat address it in the language of Hampden.

The tribunal, lately so insolent, became on a sudden strangely tame.

The ecclesiastical functionaries who had defied its authority were not even reprimanded.