The Roman Controversialists of the seventeenth century used to go further still, and boldly assert A great number of the Unitarians of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were themselves scarcely distinguishable from the orthodox.If the Royal Supremacy was no longer the engine of power it had been under some previous rulers, and up to eab plaza ice rink the very era of the Revolution, the personal opinions of the sovereign still had considerable weight, especially when backed, as they now were, by a strong mass of opinion, both within the English Church, and among Nonconformists.They coveted its wider culture, its freer air.The failure of the schemes eab plaza ice rink for Comprehension had left in the ranks of Nonconformity a great number of moderate Dissenters Presbyterians and others who were separated from the Low Churchmen of the day by an exceedingly narrow interval.There was much warm debate upon the subject in eab plaza ice rink the Convocation of 1702.' This was a great scandal to religion but it was one the guilt of which, in many, if not in most cases, entirely devolved upon the authors and promoters of the test.We are not seceders, nor do we bear any resemblance to eab plaza ice rink them.In 1689, before yet the course taken by the Revolution had kindled the strong spirit of party, there was nothing like the heat of feeling in regard of such usages as the wearing of the surplice, kneeling at the Communion, and the sign of the cross at Baptism, as there had been in the earlier part of Elizabeth's reign.These efforts met at all times with strong opposition, especially in the House of Commons and among eab plaza ice rink the country clergy.They might create a wider schism than any they could heal.Or, if circumstances had been somewhat different, and Herring and Sherlock, Doddridge and Chandler, had seen their plans extensively advocated, eab plaza ice rink and carried triumphantly through Parliament, the result would in all probability have been a disappointing one.There were many who made it an accusation against Tillotson, of the Low or Latitudinarian party in the Church of England.'Those,' wrote Mosheim in 1740, 'who are best acquainted with eab plaza ice rink the state of the English nation, tell us that the Dissenting interest declines from day to day, and that the cause of Nonconformity owes this gradual decay in a great measure to the lenity and moderation that are practised by the rulers of the Established Church.