to the use of the king's and queen's majesties, their heirs and successors.

"XVIII. Provided always, that no congregation, or assembly for religious worship, shall be permitted or allowed by this act, until the place of such meeting shall be certified to the bishop of the diocese, or to the archdeacon of that archdeaconry, or to the justices of the peace, at the general or quarter sessions of the peace for the county, city, or place in which such meeting shall be held, and registered in the said bishop's or archdeacon's court respectively, or recorded at the said general or quarter sessions. The register, or clerk of the peace whereof respectively is hereby required to register the same, and to give certificate thereof to such person as shall demand the same, for which there shall be no greater fee nor reward taken than the sum of sixpence,"

1

That the act savoured of the spirit of the times will be easily perceived. Socinians and Arians are excluded from its protection. In order to enjoy the benefits which it confers, dissenting ministers must sign thirty-five articles and a half of the church of England. From the others, relating to episcopal government and ceremonies, they were exempted. As the ministers were, at that time, nearly all of a mind in matters of religion, and as the signing of human creeds, provided they believed them to be agreeable to the word of God, was not accounted a hardship, no complaints were made, nor any burden felt. On the contrary, they received the boon with joy; and the ministers of the different denomipations in London put themselves under the protection of the law, by signing the doctrinal articles of

the church. Mr. Baxter, at the time, delivered in a paper, containing an explanation of various passages in them, which appeared to him of doubtful import : in this many of his brethren concurred with him.

The word toleration, when used in matters of religion, has but an ungracious sound. The subject presents itself in two points of view. "Man renders homage to God:-and God receives homage from man.' When we say man renders homage to God; that another man, or a body of men, should tolerate me to perform my duty to my Creator seems strange, though from custom we can bear to hear it. But when we view the subject in the other light, that God receives homage from man, then for the legislature of a country, or for any human being, to permit or tolerate God to receive homage from me according to my conscience, is an expression which shocks the feelings, and the impropriety is too glaring to be borne.

But it is necessary to remove from the beginning of the nineteenth to the end of the seventeenth century, in order to judge aright of this act of parliament, which has been an invaluable blessing to the protestant-dissenters, and which has diffused its benign influence, from the day in which it passed to the present hour. England had embraced the reformation from popery almost a hundred and fifty years before the revolution: but during all that time a toleration by statute of such as held different sentiments in religion from the established church was unknown. The stern rigour of Elizabeth, the unfeeling ill-nature of James her successor, and the cold-blooded cruelty of the first Charles, never See Calamy, p. 469, 476.

admitted the thoughts of such a gracious measure. From the ascendancy of the long parliament till the restoration, though none were molested for their religious sentiments, but such as were considered to be hostile to the government, (which as new and feeble, was in dread of plots and conspiracies,) yet there was no legal security for their protection. After the restoration, the unprincipled libertinism of the second Charles left him at his ease to break through the solemn promises which he had made in the days of his exile, and to be a persecutor of the non-conformists during the greater part of his reign. His brother James, while he granted indulgence to these protestants who separated from the establishment, is too justly supposed to have had no other object in view but the gratification of the catholics, and the humiliation of the church: so that when he had thus gradually exalted those of his own faith, and their numbers were sufficiently increased, he would, by their means, have crushed both the pro

testant-dissenters and the church.

Here is the first legal toleration that England ever knew. In France, near a century before, the reformed (a name given to the protestants in that country) obtained, by the edict of Nantes, the enjoyment of many valuable privileges, and exchanged a long period of cruel persecution for a season of tranquillity and peace. But that instrument bore strong marks of the rudeness of the age. In some things it gave too much, in others not enough. Towns, cities, fortresses were put into their hands, to be kept as garrisons for their safeguard. On the other hand, from many towns and districts they were expressly excluded; and they were not allowed to form new

congregations at their pleasure. The possession of fortified places was such a gross absurdity, and so strangely established imperium in imperio, that it could never be expected to remain inviolate for any length of time. After a long and painful series of infractions, in the year one thousand six hundred and eighty-five, Louis the fourteenth, the grandson of the magnanimous Henry the fourth, under whose patronage the edict of Nantes was framed, repealed it, and the whole of the system was destroyed. But instead of an act of toleration, suggested and framed by legislative wisdom, the edict of Nantes may be more justly considered as a compromise between two distinct portions of the people of France, which the reformed, having arms in their hands that they had long wielded in their defence, and often with success, conceived themselves entitled to demand.

In some of the German states Roman catholics and protestants, and in others Lutherans and Calvinists, enjoyed together liberty of worship; but it may be regarded rather as the establishment of different religious systems than a toleration given to a body of people who dissented from the established religion. Holland presented a more pleasing appearance during the greater part of the seventeenth century, in respect to religious liberty, than any other country in Europe. Besides the established church, which had adopted the forms of Geneva, protestants of other denominations were allowed peaceably to worship God according to the dictates of their conscience, without molestation, and without fear. When any persons in that country wished for a religious assembly of their own, they gave notice of their desire to the magistrate; and if he found no

thing in their system, or their creed, which he conceived to be contrary to the safety and welfare of the community, they were protected in the exercise of their religion.

The act of toleration was far superior to all these. With the greatest propriety it gave to the dissenters, as a body, not an inch of civil power: it left unshackled the spirit of propagation: it reserved nothing to the discretionary power of the magistrate; but fixed every thing by express statute; and left the law of the land to prevent or punish abuse. So that, take it on the whole, it is to be regarded as a privilege of the first order, and an inestimable blessing.

But was it so great a matter, it may be said, for an English legislature to act according to an avowed principle of the religion which they professed: for religious liberty, which is one of the unalienable rights of human nature, springs out of the very essence of Christianity; and to persecute for conscience sake has ever been regarded as one of the discriminating marks of the antichristian beast'. But plain as the subject now appears, let it not be forgotten that it required a long series of ages to make it so to the dominant party in church or state. The primitive Christians, who lived under pagan tyranny, and felt with bitterness "the iron entering into their soul," may well be supposed to have imbibed from the sacred Scriptures, as they actually did, the pure doctrine of liberty of conscience. They lay under no temptation from either ease or interest to open

f I have long looked on liberty of conscience as one of the rights of human nature antecedent to society, which no man could give up, because it was not in his own power. Burnet's History of his Own Times, vol. II. folio, p. 216.