TJNDEB CHARLES THE SECOND.

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offence, pass sentence for transportation beyond sea for seven chap.

years. With refined cruelty it was provided that the offender-

should not be transported to New England, where he waslikely to find sympathizing friends. If he returned to his owncountry before the expiration of his term of exile, he wasliable to capital punishment. A new and most unreasonabletest was imposed on divines who had been deprived of theirbenefices for nonconformity; and all who refused to take itwere prohibited from coming within five miles of any townwhich was governed by a corporation, of any town which wasrepresented in Parliament, or of any town where they hadthemselves resided as ministers. The magistrates, by whomthese rigorous statutes were to be enforced, were in generalmen inflamed by party spirit and by the remembrance ofwrongs which they had themselves suffered in the time of theCommonwealth. The gaols were therefore soon crowded withdissenters; and, ( among the sufferers, were some of whosegenius and virtue any Christian society might well be proud.

The Church of England was not ungrateful for the pro- zeal oftection which she received from the government. From the churchfirst day of her existence, she had been attached to monarchy, luarymo-But, during the quarter of a century which followed the n!lrdiy 'Restoration, her zeal for royal authority and hereditary rightpassed all bounds. She had suffered with the House of Stuart.

She had been restored with that House. She was connectedwith it by common interests, friendships, and enmities. Itseemed impossible that a day could ever come when the tieswhich bound her to the children of her august martyr wouldbe sundered, and when the loyalty in which she gloried wouldcease to be a pleasing and profitable duty. She accordinglymagnified in fulsome phrase that prerogative which was con-stantly employed to defend and to aggrandise her, and repro-bated, much at her ease, the depravity of those whom oppres-sion, from which she was exempt, had goaded to rebellion.