JAMES THE SECOND.

51

liberality. The rule which required them to qualify them-selves for the receipt of charity, by conforming to the Anglicanworship, seems to have been at this time silently abrogated;and the defenders of the King’s policy had the effrontery toaffirm that this rule, which, as we know from the best evidence,was really devised by himself in concert with Barillon, hadbeen adopted at the instance of the prelates of the EstablishedChurch. *

While the King was thus courting his old adversaries, thefriends of the Church were not less active. Of the acrimonyand scorn with which prelates and priests had, since theRestoration, been in the habit of treating the sectaries scarcelya trace was discernible. Those who had lately been de-signated as schismatics and fanatics were now dear fellowProtestants, weak brethren it might be, but still brethren,whose scruples were entitled to tender regard. If they wouldbut be true at this crisis to tire cause of the English constitu-tion and of the reformed religion, their generosity should bespeedily and largely rewarded. They should have, insteadof an indulgence which was of no legal validity, a real in-dulgence, secured by Act of Parliament. Nay, many Church-men, who had hitherto been distinguished by their inflexibleattachment to every gesture and every word prescribed in theBook of Common Prayer, now declared themselves favour-able, not only to toleration, but even to comprehension.The dispute, they said, about surplices and attitudes, hadtoo long divided those who were agreed as to the essentialsof religion. When the struggle for life and death against thecommon enemy was over, it would be found that the Anglicanclergy would be ready to make every fair concession. Ifthe Dissenters would demand only what was reasonable, notonly civil but ecclesiastical dignities would be open to them;and Baxter and Howe would be able, without any stainon their honour or their conscience, to sit on the episcopalbench.

* London Gazette, April 21. 16S7; Animadversions on a late paperenlituled A Letter to a Dissenter, by H. C. (Henry Care), 1687.

4 *

CHAP.

VII.

1687 .