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niSTOKT OP ENGLAND.

CHAP.XI.Hio9.The To-lerationBill.

The Toleration Bill passed both Houses with little debate.•This celebrated statute, long considered as the Great Charterof religious liberty, has since been extensively modified, andis hardly known to the present generation except By name. Thename, however, is still pronounced with respect by many whowill perhaps learn with surprise and disappointment the realnature of the law which they have been accustomed to hold inhonour.

Several statutes which had been passed between the acces-sion of Queen Elizabeth and the Revolution required all peopleunder severe penalties to attend the services of the Church ofEngland, and to abstain from attending conventicles. TheToleration Act did not repeal any of these statutes, but merelyprovided that they should not be construed to extend to anyperson who should testify his loyalty by taking the Oaths ofAllegiance and Supremacy, and his Protestantism by subscri-bing the Declaration against Transubstantiation.

The relief thus granted was common between the dissentinglaity and the dissenting clergy. But the dissenting clergy hadsome peculiar grievances. The Act of Uniformity had laid amulct of a hundred pounds on every person who, not having re-ceived episcopal ordination, should presume to administer theEucharist. The Five Mile Act had driven many pious andlearned ministers from their houses and their friends, to liveamong rustics in obscure villages of which the name was not tobe seen on the map. The Conventicle Act had imposed heavyfines on divines who should preach in any meeting of sepa-ratists; and, in direct opposition to the humane spirit of ourcommon law, the Courts were enjoined to construe this Actlargely and beneficially for the suppressing of dissent and for

science which may be expected from His Majesty’s Declaration, with a Billfor Comprehension and Indulgence, drawn up in order to an Act of Parlia-ment, licensed March 25. 1689.