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Attempts

hension.

The Catholics under Charles II.

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estants are said to have been imprisoned, besides great numbers of Catholics.1 Fifteen hundred Quakers were confined of whom three hundred and fifty died at compre- in prison. During this reign, indeed, several attempts were made to effect a reconciliation between the church and nonconformists; but the irreconcilable differences of the two parties, the unyielding disposition of churchmen, and the impracticable temper of nonconformists, forbade the success of any scheme of comprehension. Nonconformists having been discouraged at the beginning of this reign, Catholics provoked repression at the end. In 1673, Parliament, impelled by apprehensions for the Protestant religion and civil liberties of the people, passed the celebrated Test Act. Designed to exclude Roman Catholic ministers from the king's councils, its provisions yet embraced Protestant nonconformists. That body, for the sake of averting a danger common to all Protestants, joined the church in supporting a measure fraught with evil to themselves. They were, indeed, promised further indulgence in the exercise of their religion, and even an exemption from the Test Act itself; but the church party, having secured them in its toils, was in no haste to release them.5

Church of

The Church of Scotland fared worse than the English nonconformists, after the Restoration. Episcopacy Scotland was restored the king's supremacy reasserted: the entire polity of the church overthrown;

after Restoration.

1 Delaune's Plea for Nonconformists, preface; Short's Hist., 559. Oldmixon goes so far as to estimate the total number who suffered on account of their religion, during this reign, at 60,000! - History of the Stuarts, 715. 2 Neal's Hist. of the Puritans, v. 17.

8 The Savoy Conference, 1661; Baxter's Life and Times, i. 139; Burnet's Own Time, i. 309; Collier's Church Hist., ii. 879; Perry's Hist., ii. 317. In 1669; Baxter's Life, iii. 23; Burnet's Own Time, i. 439; Scheme of Tillotson and Stillingfleet, 1674; Burnet's Life of Tillotson, 42.

4 25 Car. II. c. 2.

5 Kennet's Hist., iii. 294; Burnet's Own Time, i. 348, 516.

6 Scots Acts, 1661, c. 11; 1669, c. 1; 1681, c. 6; Wodrow's Church Hist., i. 190.

while the wrongs of Episcopalians, under the Commonwealth, were avenged, with barbarous cruelty, upon Presbyterians.1

Union of

dissenters

James II.

The Protestant faith and civil liberties of the people being threatened by James II., all classes of Protestants combined to expel him from his throne. Again church and the nonconformists united with the church, to re- against sist a common danger. They were not even conciliated by his declarations of liberty of conscience and indulgence, in which they perceived a stretch of prerogative and a dangerous leaning towards the Catholic faith, under the guise of religious freedom. The revolution was not less Protestant than political; and Catholics were thrust further than ever beyond the pale of the constitution.

The recent services of dissenters to the church and the Protestant cause, were rewarded by the Tolera- The Toletion Act.2 This celebrated measure repealed none ration act. of the statutes exacting conformity with the Church of England; but exempted all persons from penalties, on taking the oath of allegiance and supremacy, and subscribing a declaration against transubstantiation. It relieved dissenting ministers from the restrictions imposed by the Act of Uniformity and the Conventicle Act upon the administration of the sacrament and preaching in meetings; but required them to subscribe the thirty-nine articles, with some exceptions. The dissenting chapels were to be registered; and their congregations protected from any molestation. A still easier indulgence was given to the Quakers; but toleration was withheld from Roman Catholics and Unitarians, who found no favor either with the church or nonconformists.

8

The Toleration Act, whatever its shortcomings, was at

1 Wodrow's Church Hist., i. 57, 236, 390, &c.; Burnet's Own Time, i. 365, ii. 416, &c.; Crookshank's Hist., i. 154, 204, &c.; Buckle's Hist., ii. 281-292; Cunningham's Ch. Hist., ii. ch. i.-vi..

2 1 Gul. & Mar., c. 8; Bogue and Bennett's Hist. of Dissenters,, i. 187204.

8 All "except three and part of a fourth."

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Right of public worship conceded.

least the first recognition of the right of public worship, beyond the pale of the state church. It was the great charter of dissent. Far from granting religious liberty, it yet gave indulgence and security from persecution.

Further

measures

against Unitarians and Catholics.

The age was not ripe for wider principles of toleration. Catholics and Unitarians were soon afterwards pursued with severer penalties;1 and in 1700, the intolerant spirit of Parliament was displayed by an Act against the former, which cannot be read without astonishment. It offered a reward of 100l. for the discovery of any Catholic priest performing the offices of his church it incapacitated every Roman Catholic from inheriting or purchasing land, unless he abjured his religion upon oath; and on his refusal, it vested his property during his life in his next of kin, being a Protestant. He was even prohibited from sending his children abroad, to be educated in his own faith.2 And while his religion was thus proscribed, his civil rights were further restrained by the oath of abjuration.

sion under

Again the policy of comprehension was favored by WilScheme of liam III.: but it was too late. The church was comprehen- far too strong to be willing to sacrifice her own William III. convictions to the scruples of nonconformists. Nor was she forgetful of her own wrongs under the Commonwealth, or insensible to the sufferings of Episcopalians in Scotland. On the other side, the nonconformists, confirmed in their repugnance to the doctrines and ceremonies of the church by the persecutions of a hundred and fifty years, were not to be tempted by small concessions to their consciences, or by the doubtful prospects of preferment in an establishment from which they could expect little favor.*

1 1 Will. & M. c. 9, 15, 26; 9 & 10 Will. III. c. 32.

2 11 & 12 Will. III. c. 4; Butler's Hist. Mem. of the Catholics, iii. 134– 138, 279.

8 13 Will. III. c. 6.

4 D'Oyley's Life of Sancroft, 327, 520; Burnet's Own Time, ii. 1033,

after the

To the Church of Scotland the Revolution brought freedom and favor. The king's supremacy was finally Church of renounced; Episcopacy, against which she had Scotland vainly struggled for a hundred years, forever Revolution. abolished; her confession of faith recognized by statute; and the Presbyterian polity confirmed.1 But William III., in restoring the privileges of the church, endeavored to impress upon her rulers his own moderation and tolerant spirit. Fearing the persecution of Episcopalians at their hands, he wrote thus nobly and wisely to the General Assembly: "We expect that your management shall be such that we may have no reason to repent what we have done. We never could be of the mind that violence was suited to the advancing of true religion: nor do we intend that our authority shall ever be a tool to the irregular passions of any party." 2 And not many years afterwards, when Presbyterian Scotland was united to Episcopalian England, the rights of her church, in worship, discipline, and government, were confirmed and declared unalterable.3

Ireland

under

To the Catholics of Ireland, the reign of William was made terrible by new rigors and oppression. They Catholics of were in arms for the exiled king; and again was their faith the symbol of rebellion. Overcome by William III. the sword, they were condemned to proscription and outlawry. It was long before Catholics were to enjoy indulgence. In 1711, a proclamation was published for enforcing the penal laws against them in England. under Anne, And in Ireland, the severities of former reigns were aggravated by Acts of Queen Anne. After the rebellion of 1715, Parliament endeavored to strengthen the Protestant interest, by enforcing the laws against Papists. &c; Kennet's Hist., iii. 483, 551, et seq.; Lord Macaulay's Hist., iii. 89, 468– 495; Bogue and Bennett's Hist., i. 207.

1 Scots Acts, 1689, c. 2; 1690, c. 5; 1692, c. 117.

2 Lord Macaulay's Hist., iii. 708.

Catholics

Geo. I. & II.

8 Act of Union, 5 Anne, c. 8; Scots Acts, 1705, c. 4; 1706, c. 7,

4 Boyce's Reign of Queen Anne, 429, &c.

5 2 Anne, c. 3, 6; 8 Anne, c. 3.

6 1 Geo. I. c. 55.

6

Again, in 1722, the estates of Roman Catholics and nonjurors were made to bear a special financial burden, not charged upon other property. And, lastly, the rebellion of 1745 called forth a proclamation, in the spirit of earlier times, offering a reward of 1007. for the discovery of Jesuits and popish priests, and calling upon magistrates to bring them to justice.

Nonconformists

under Anne,

Much of the toleration which had been conceded to Protestant nonconformists at the Revolution, was again withdrawn during the four last years of Queen Geo. I. & II. Anne. Having found their way into many offices, by taking the sacrament, an Act was passed, in 1711, against occasional conformity, by which dissenters were dispossessed of their employments, and more rigorously disqualified in future. Again were nonconformists repelled, with contumely, from honorable fellowship with the state. Two years afterwards the Schism Bill was passed, prohibiting the exercise of the vocation of schoolmaster or private teacher, without a declaration of conformity, and a license from a bishop. Both these statutes, however, were repealed in the following reign. With the reign of George II. a wider toleration was commenced, in another form. The time was not yet come for repealing the laws imposing civil disabilities upon dissenters; but annual Acts of Indemnity were passed, by which persons who had failed to qualify themselves for office were protected.5

State of the

The reign of George III. opened under circumstances favorable to religious liberty. The intolerant spirit church and of the high church party had been broken since the death of Anne. The frenzies of Sacheverell of George III. and Atterbury had yielded to the liberal philoso

religion on the accession

19 Geo. I. c. 18; Parl. Hist., viii. 51, 353.

2 10 Anne, c. 2; Burnet's Own Time, ii. 364, 585, &c.; Bogue and Bennett's Hist., i. 228, 262.

8 12 Anne, c. 7; Parl. Hist., vi. 1349; Bogue and Bennett's Hist., 268. 4 5 Geo. I. c. 4.

5 The first of these Acts was in 1727; 1 Geo. II. c. 23. Hallam's Const. Hist., ii. 412.

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