But he was strong in his religious and political faith: he reflected that the sufferers were dissenters; and he submitted to the will of the Lord's Anointed not only with patience but with complacency.

He became indeed a more loving subject than ever from the time when his brother was hanged and his brother's benefactress beheaded.

While almost all other clergymen, appalled by the Declaration of Indulgence and by the proceedings of the High Commission, were beginning to think that they had pushed the doctrine of nonresistance a little too far, he was writing a vindication of his darling legend, and trying to convince the troops at Hounslow that, if James should be pleased to massacre them all, as Maximian had massacred the Theban legion, for refusing to commit idolatry, it would be their duty to pile their arms, and meekly to receive the crown of martyrdom.

To do Hickes justice, his whole conduct after the Revolution proved that his servility had sprung neither from fear nor from cupidity, but from mere bigotry, [472] Jeremy Collier, who was turned out of the preachership of the Rolls, was a man of a much higher order.

He is well entitled to grateful and respectful mention: for to his eloquence and courage is to be chiefly ascribed the purification of our lighter literature from that foul taint which had been contracted during the Antipuritan reaction.