84

HISTORY OF ENGLAND.

CHAP.

XI.

1689 .

and a confession of Christian belief. The objections which theQuaker had to the Athanasian phraseology had brought on himthe imputation of Socinianism; and the strong language inwhich he sometimes asserted that he derived his knowledge ofspiritual things directly from above had raised a suspicion thathe thought lightly of the authority of Scripture. He was there-fore required to profess his faith in the divinity of the Son andof the Holy Ghost, and in the inspiration of the Old and NewTestaments.

Such were the terms on which the Protestant dissenters ofEngland were, for the first time, permitted by law to worshipGod according to their own conscience. They were veryproperly forbidden to assemble with barred doors, but wereprotected against hostile intrusion by a clause which made itpenal to enter a meeting house for the purpose of molesting thecongregation.

As if the numerous limitations and precautions which havebeen mentioned were insufficient, it was emphatically declaredthat the legislature did not intend to grant the smallest indul-gence to any Papist, or to any person who denied the doctrineof the Trinity as that doctrine is set forth in the formularies ofthe Church of England.

Of all the Acts that have ever been passed by Parliament,the Toleration Act is perhaps that which most strikingly illus-trates the peculiar vices and the peculiar excellence of Englishlegislation. The science of Politics bears in one respect a closeanalogy to the science of Mechanics. The mathematician caneasily demonstrate that a certain power, applied by means of acertain lever or of a certain system of pulleys, will suffice toraise a certain weight. But his demonstration proceeds on thesupposition that the machinery is such as no load will bend orbreak. If the engineer, who has to lift a great mass of realgranite by the instrumentality of real timber and real hemp,