Nonjurants

Nonjurants a party in the Church of Scotland who in 4712 refused to take the oath of abjuration, an oath which, abjuring the Pretender, promised to support the succession to the crown as settled by act of Parliament, one condition being that the sovereign should belong to the Church of England. SEE ABJURATION. Many stumbled at the oath as being wholly inconsistent with the Covenant. SEE COVENANT. Principal Carstairs and others took it, but along with a declaration and a protest. The jurants were branded as traitors by the nonjurants, and all the features of a schism were rapidly multiplying. Woodrow, Boston, and many well-known evangelical preachers belonged to the nonjurants. The Assembly had twice to interfere to preserve peace, and after five years the oath was altered. In 1719 the oath was modified, in accordance with an address from the Nonjurors themselves; but a few (including T. Boston, who wrote Reasons for Refusing the Abjuration Oath in its latest Form) still resolutely declined it. SEE CAMERONIANS; SEE MARROW MEN; SEE OATH.