82 LIFE OF ARCHBISHOP SANCROFT. 



jection to the line of conduct which he adopted 

 does not apply to his want of consistency, for 

 he appears to have maintained to the last the 

 very same views with which he set out, but to 

 his want of discernment in not rightly appre- 

 hending the consequences of the measures in 

 which he joined, and in expecting from them a 

 result different from that to which they natu- 

 rally and directly tended. 



There is every reason to suppose that he 

 never intended or contemplated the expulsion 

 of James from the throne. His object mani- 

 festly was to procure the assembling of a free 

 parliament which might put a stop to the arbi- 

 trary and illegal measures of that sovereign, 

 free him from the entanglement of evil counsels, 

 and place the civil and religious liberties of the 

 country on a firm footing of security. He saw, 

 as the result of his experience of James's cha- 

 racter, that there was no hope of effecting these 

 objects without some open resistance to his 

 measures; and therefore it was that he stood 

 up himself as an opposer, and that he acqui- 

 esced in the invasion of the kingdom by the 

 Prince of Orange: for, although he did not 

 concur directly or indirectly in inviting the 

 Prince, yet, by refusing to express his disap- 

 probation of his design, he must certainly be 

 considered as having acquiesced in it. But, 



