CHAPTER XI.
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN ENGLAND.
By the Rev. H. M. GWATKIN, M.A., Dixie Professor of Ecclesiastical History ; Fellow of Emmanuel College.
The seventeenth century idea of Toleration.324
Church and dissent under Tudors and Stewarts.325
The drift towards Toleration.327
The Commonwealth. Cromwell.328
The Restoration and the Cavalier Parliament.329
The contest under Charles II. Nonconformists and Roman Catholics.. 331
The reign of James II. His change of tactics. Halifax.335
The Revolution. The Toleration Act. 336
Toleration and Comprehension. The Comprehension Bill dropped. 337
CHAPTER XI.
RELIGIOUS TOLERATION IN ENGLAND.
WHEN we speak of toleration, we mean that there is a dominant religion, but that dissent from it is not of itself an offence against the law. As the word was used in the seventeenth century, it fell far short of religious equality ; for it did not mean that dissenters were to have the same political rights as others; but it did mean that the State allowed them full civil rights, and protected all peaceable and decent worship. On one side, religious beliefs must not be made an excuse for overt acts of treason, breach of the peace, or scandalous immorality. On the other, they must not be taken as summary proof that such acts have been committed.
Toleration may be universal, in the sense that all beliefs are so protected ; but it is more commonly incomplete. Certain sects may be forbidden, or subjected to special disabilities. Thus Protestantism has been tolerated in Spain since 1868, but only on condition that it gives no public sign of its existence. A notice at the street corner, or a Bible exposed for sale, would be illegal. Even in England, a decent and sober expression of atheistic belief still seems to be a crime in law. But law and practice often differ widely. The authorities may limit or disregard the legal rights of an unpopular sect, or stir up the mob to lawless violence ; or, again, they may leave persecuting laws unexecuted, or even frustrate them by annual acts of indemnity. But this kind of practical toleration is precarious : and if the dissenter runs little danger, he cannot feel free from stigma till the law is formally repealed.
There could not be much idea of toleration in the Middle Ages, when the Latin Church turned religion into a concrete law, summing up all virtue in obedience, all vice in disobedience, and handing over offenders to the secular arm. Disobedience per se was an ordinary offence for which penance might be done or ordinary punishment inflicted; and no question of heresy arose till the authority of the Church was disputed. But then there was no mercy. Heresy was a sin
Of course every persecuted sect pleads for toleration ; but nothing is gained till toleration finds advocates in the dominant Church, or at least till the sectaries take some better ground than that error ought not to persecute truth. Neither of these conditions was fulfilled in England before the seventeenth century. Sir Thomas More indeed, on the eve of the Reformation, drew a clear picture of toleration. But that was in Utopia : when it became a practical question, he proved as merciless a persecutor as others. In making Scripture (and therefore its meaning, as determined by sound learning) superior to Church authority, the Reformers made persecution logically indefensible. But they did not see the full meaning of what they had done. They took over ways of thinking from the Middle Ages, and made less of a break with the past than is commonly supposed. If they made the Church national, they fully agreed with the Roman Catholics that there ought to be one Church only, and that no dissent could be allowed. This was the dominant theory from the separation in 1534 to the Toleration Act of 1689. Edward VI established a single form of Common Prayer in 1549, and in 1552 required all persons to attend on Sundays and holy days on pain of ecclesiastical censures, to which Elizabeth added fines in 1559. The system was now complete ; and with most persons the only doubt was where to draw the line-what doctrines or practices must be enforced, and what might be left open. Comprehension was a method open to discussion, but toleration was utterly ungodly.
For a few years the system seemed a complete success ; but Puritan conventicles began in 1567, Romish after 1571 ; then first Elizabeth and James struck hard at both parties, and afterwards Charles I struck so hard at the Puritans, who represented much of the best religious life of the time, that he drove over the moderate men to their side. However, it is not surprising that the Roman Catholics generally fared worse than the Protestant sectaries, and were expressly shut out even from the Toleration of 1689.
The English Roman Catholics were commonly loyal enough, and in the Civil War much too loyal to please the Parliament. In fact the Stewarts (after the first years of James I) were not very zealous against them. But there was a real difficulty in the way of toleration, after the Bull of Pius V in 1571 forbade them to be loyal subjects, and still more when, a few years later, seminary priests came over from Douay. If some of these devoted themselves in good faith to spiritual ministrations, there were others who stirred up sedition or encouraged assassination ; and it was not easy for the Government to draw the line between them. Besides this, the modern principle that overt acts are needed to constitute treason was not yet established ; it is therefore not surprising that some of them should have suffered for refusing to disavow treasonable beliefs
It was different with the Puritans. Their loyalty was never in doubt before the Civil War, and even the Church was in no serious danger from them for at least a generation after Cartwright's time. Speaking generally, they were sober and serious churchmen, who wanted only a little more liberty inside the Church. Anabaptists and Brownists were the only revolutionaries, and the more violent of these were mostly exiles on Dutch and New England soil. On their behalf pleas for toleration were put forth by Leonard Busher so early as 1614, and by others after him. Of course they had no effect. Toleration was a new idea; the Anabaptists were a specially obnoxious sect; and Busher's first principle, that the State has no right to meddle with religion, ran directly contrary to the main current of English thought.
So things drifted from bad to worse, till at the meeting of the Long Parliament in 1640 the Government had practically no supporters. Reform was pushed into revolution; and indeed revolution is almost unavoidable when a king cannot be trusted. But then it was seen that, however the mass of the nation might resent the administration of Charles and Laud, they had no quarrel with monarchy or with the Church. So the end of the Civil Wars found Church matters in strange confusion. Had the King conquered, there would have been an orderly episcopal Church of some sort ; and if the Presbyterians had got their way, the Scotch discipline would have been regularly organised all over the country. In neither case would there have been any question of toleration. In this respect the Presbyterians were narrower than Laud, who had no great dislike of heterodoxy that was not Puritan-witness his patronage of Chillingworth and Jeremy Taylor.
But the Presbyterians did not get their way. The Covenant was forced on England by the military necessities of 1643 ; but it was never generally liked. It was Scotch ; it was newfangled ; it was too rigid for some, too morose for others. The Episcopalians awaited their time ; but the Independents represent a ferment of thought such as was never seen again till the French Revolution. It was greatest in the army, where every man was welcome who " had the root of the matter in him," and could be trusted to fight against the King. Within these limits, toleration was already established, to the disgust of the Presbyterians. And
Now, all these three lines of thought pointed to toleration. If congregations ought to be independent, they must not be restrained by a state Church ; if the individual conscience is free, it must not be coerced by others ; if reason is to judge, the shibboleths of controversy are not worth enforcing. Accordingly, the first effective demand for toleration in England is contained in the Agreement of the People, presented to Parliament by the officers of the army in January, 1649. They agree that Christianity in its purest form be " held forth and recommended as the public profession in this nation," and that its teachers be paid by the State, but not by tithes. That to this public profession none be compelled by penalties or otherwise, but that all who profess faith in God by Jesus Christ shall be protected in their worship, " so as they abuse not this liberty to the civil injury of others, or to the actual disturbance of the public peace." This means full toleration of all Christian worship ; for
Cromwell is the only man who has ever ruled England with success from an almost isolated position. He crushed the Episcopalians in the first period of civil war, the Presbyterians in the second (164(8-51), and separated himself from the Independents, when he allowed the Nominated Parliament to resign its powers (December, 1653). Levellers and Quakers detested him, though he was on terms of personal respect with Fox ; and even a man so free from partisanship as Baxter thoroughly distrusted him. But Cromwell was always enough of an Independent to keep in touch with the army ; and his policy was that of the Independents, with the unpractical items omitted. At one point he went beyond the toleration they offered to all Christians, for he allowed the return of the Jews, who had been banished from England since the time of Edward I. The Instrument of Government and the Humble Petition and Advice, under which he ruled, simply copy the clause already quoted from the Agreement of the People, but with one significant change. The limitation which the Agreement indicates is now made actual. " Provided that this liberty shall not extend to popery or prelacy, nor to such as under the profession of Christ hold forth and practice licentiousness.1' The Humble Petition also shuts out those who publish horrible blasphemies, while requiring belief in the Trinity and that Scripture is "the revealed Will and Word of God."
The Episcopalians said that it was the execution of the King which made impassable the gulf between them and Cromwell ; but it was quite as much the systematic fines and sequestrations which the financial distress of the Parliament induced it to levy from the " malignants " who had fought for the King. Royalists and fanatics never ceased to plot, and could sometimes plot together, against Cromwell. No wonder if he struck at them with harsh measures. Thus his proclamation of November 24, 1655, forbade sequestered or ejected ministers to keep any school either public or private, or either publicly or privately (except in their own family) preach or use the Book of Common Prayer. But Cromwell seems to have meant this rather in terrorem than for serious use. He was on friendly terms with such an Episcopalian as Ussher, and allowed his daughters to be married by the form of the forbidden Book. In any case, the law was not steadily enforced. Thus Morton, Jeremy Taylor, and others, were left unmolested in their private chaplaincies ; and a large proportion of the Episcopalian clergy retained their livings throughout the interregnum, often saying the Prayers of the Liturgy by rote, or disguising them with a few alterations. Even the Roman Catholics were virtually tolerated so far as concerned religion, though they suffered heavily as malignants.
The oppression of Cromwell's government brought together Episco-
The Presbyterians were no longer the haughty Covenanters of twenty years before. Moderate men like Baxter tended to Presbyterianism as a via media between the Laudian churchmen and the fanatics of the Commonwealth. So now the mass of the party wanted only some ceremonies abolished and others made optional, freedom for extempore prayer, and the autocratic power of the Bishops limited by councils of presbyters. They nattered themselves that, if they brought back the King, they would be able to make their own terms with the Episcopalians, and then the united Church could put down the sects. A vigorous persecution of Quakers was set on foot before Vernier's insurrection (January 6, 1661).
The Convention Parliament, for which "malignants" had not been supposed to vote, held the balance fairly even, though it yielded more and more to the rising tide of royalism. But the new Parliament, which met in May, 1661, was almost entirely Cavalier. It began by imposing the Sacrament on its own members, and went on to pass the Corporation Act. By this all members of corporations were required (1) to swear (besides the oaths of allegiance and supremacy) "that it is not lawful on any pretence whatever to take arms against the King, and that I do abhor that traitorous position of taking arms by his authority against his person," as was done in 1642 ; (2) to declare the Covenant null and unlawful; (3) to have received the Sacrament according to the rites of the Church of England within a year before their election.
Presbyterianism as a political power was destroyed at once by its exclusion from the Commons and the corporations; but could it not still obtain some concessions in matters of religion? The answer was the Act of Uniformity (May 19, 1662). All persons in Holy Orders, all teachers in the Universities, and all public or private schoolmasters, were to make the same declarations as members of corporations, and all public ministers further to declare their "unfeigned assent and consent to all
Once again, and for the last time, England returned to the old ideal of a single national Church with no dissent allowed. And from that Church the Puritanism which had been struggling within it for the last century was now shut out by law. The national Church had been substantially national till it was narrowed into a party by Laud; and now it was condemned to remain a party in the nation - no doubt the strongest party, but still not more than a party; for one whole side of the religious life of the nation was driven into opposition. So persecution assumed a new character. Elizabeth might plead that the contest with Rome was in the main a struggle with foreign enemies for the very existence of Church and State in their national form ; and even Laud might fairly say that the Puritans would put him down, if he did not put them down. But there was no excuse of self-defence in 1662. The mass of the Nonconformists were no enemies of the Church, and desired no great changes in it: and, had they been ever so evil-disposed, the Church was utterly beyond the reach of attack. Baxter would have had no more chance against it than Lodowick Muggleton. But, if there was no valid plea of self-defence, persecution was pure and simple revenge on the defeated party; and of mere revenge the better sort of churchmen would sooner or later be ashamed.
They were half ashamed all along. Even the Cavalier Parliament only passed the Act by a majority of six (186 to 180). The Lords would have exempted schoolmasters and allowed a maintenance to ejected ministers, as the Commonwealth had done, and Clarendon himself wished to give the King some power of dispensation; but the Commons would allow no change. The distress caused by the Act was great and widespread. Near two thousand ministers - including those already displaced by the old royalist incumbents - went out; and these were of the better sort, for of course all time-servers conformed. Thenceforth the
One of the most effective charges against the Nonconformists was that they were disciples and allies of the Jesuits, who also held meetings in holes and corners, set up "enthusiastic" preaching, hated the Liturgy, and laboured for the overthrow of Church and State. In fact, the Church was a bulwark of Protestantism, and the Nonconformists themselves lamented that the separation weakened it in the critical times that followed. The Puritan controversy was very soon entangled with the Roman, and gradually became secondary to it. Charles II was a Roman Catholic, so far as he had any serious belief at all ; and this drew him to France, which under Louis XIV was moving towards a distinctly Romanising policy, very unlike that of Richelieu. So the history of his reign resolves itself into a triangular contest of King, Commons and Nonconformists. The Commons are resolute for persecution; but they are also resolute for the liberties of England as they stood at the opening of the Civil War. The King is plotting to restore despotism and Romanism, leaning on French subsidies, and striving to win the Nonconformists to his plans by first letting loose the Commons to persecute
Alongside of this triangular contest which brought politics into religion, there was another which had a more directly philosophical bearing, however little some of the combatants may have perceived it. The sharpest clash of the Civil War was that of men who thought Episcopacy needful and Calvinism false against men who thought Calvinism needful and Episcopacy sinful. These were the main parties, though the division was not sharp ; for some Episcopalians like Hammond were decided Calvinists, and many of the later Presbyterians modified the Calvinism and allowed a limited Episcopacy. But, even so, the two parties were never the whole of the nation. There were always many who believed in, and perhaps fought for, one side or the other without regarding the difference as vital. The common intercourse of life was teaching moderate men of all parties a good deal of mutual respect ; and intermarriages were not always unfortunate as in Milton's case. A good foundation is already laid for legal toleration, when the regret that a decent neighbour is on the wrong side is-not because it will bring him to hell some day, but because it gets him into trouble now. And this was often the feeling, even as regards Roman Catholics.
The larger number of these men went their own way without much regard to the reason of the thing ; but, as others thought it out more or less distinctly, opinions from all sides drew together to form a third party in favour of toleration. The Puritan side contributed something. Baxter and Howe were not the only champions of past controversy who fell back in later life upon the simplest teaching of a common Christianity. On the Episcopalian side also we find a succession of conspicuous men more or less of this way of thinking, such as Chillingworth, John Hales, Jeremy Taylor (three friends of Laud), Hammond, Sir Thomas Browne, Wilkins and the Cambridge Platonists, Tillotson and Locke. Greatly as in many respects they differed from each other, they were as earnest in religion as any of the zealots, and all upheld toleration and respect for other men's conclusions. Nothing marks more clearly the change of feeling than the way Locke takes it as self-evident that the saving power of a religion is not to be reached by an assent of the old sort, but only by full belief in such religion.
Now that we have seen the forces at work in the transition period (1662-89), we can trace the history of their action. The first despair of the Nonconformists was soothed by a proclamation which announced the King's desire to exempt peaceable persons from the penalties of the Act. Next year (1663) a Bill was brought in enabling him to dispense
Charles was watching his opportunity. The fall of Clarendon in 1667 made way for the Cabal and an attempt at comprehension. The scheme of 1668 bore the name of John Wilkins, one of the founders of the Royal Society, and a man of such eminence that his marriage with Cromweirs sister did not prevent his appointment to the see of Chester. Its chief novelty was that those ordained by presbyters were to receive imposition of hands from the Bishop with the form " Take thou legal authority11; so that it was not a re-ordination, but simply a calling according to the existing law. The scheme had strong support, but the Commons threw it out: nor would the King have cared to strengthen the Church.
In 1670 came the secret Treaty of Dover. The first condition, that Charles should declare himself a Roman Catholic, had to be postponed ; but the other-war with the United Provinces-could be taken up at once. Charles won over to it Ashley, the political advocate of the Nonconformists, by promising an illegal indulgence not extending to Roman Catholics (issued in 1672), while French subsidies enabled him to do without Parliament. But the Dutch held France and England together at bay so long that Parliament had to be summoned (1673). It met in a dangerous temper, for grave and just suspicions of a Romish plot were widespread, and yet could not be fully proved. They began by forcing the King to recall the Indulgence and promise that it should never be made a precedent. Their next step was a Test Act, of which the provisions and the results have been alike described in a previous chapter. It required from all persons in the employment of the State the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, a declaration against transub-stantiation, and reception of the Sacrament according to the Liturgy. The Duke of York avowed himself a Roman Catholic ; Clifford laid down the Treasurer's staff, and numbers of officials resigned their posts.
Suspicion was now thoroughly roused, and deepened yearly. The
Nonconformists themselves supported the Test Act. Men suspected, and suspected with reason, more than they could prove ; and then they grew wild. In vain Parliament strove to force the King into a clear and consistent Protestant foreign policy. Genuine Popish plots in great variety were always hatching in Stewart times, and, if Gates and Bedloe piled up a monstrous heap of perjuries, they piled them over a foundation of truth. At first they got little credit: the panic was only let loose by Godfrey's murder-for murder it seems to have been-but at such a time as this every tale went down. It was the worst panic in English history, for Danby and Shaftesbury encouraged it, each for his own purposes. For once the penal laws against Roman Catholics were strictly enforced, and became a real persecution. The King played his game with consummate skill. Let the managers of the agitation sacrifice as many victims as they pleased : he " gave them line," and waited for the reaction when the series of judicial murders became too shocking. There was good reason for preventing the succession of the Duke of York ; but Shaftesbury scandalised all decent feeling by proposing the King's bastard, Monmouth.
So the last years of Charles II were a time of reaction. A loyalist revival swept away Shaftesbury and the Exclusion Bill, and Protestant suspicion was abated. After all, the Papists were not so bad as Oates had made out. Charles used his victory with moderation, and was careful to give no further provocations. Hardly a murmur was raised when the Duke of York became King in 1685 ; for Monmouth's rebellion was an utter failure. None but exiles could have dreamed of success for so wild an enterprise.
Our first impression may be that the reign of Charles II is a pure and simple falling-back from the toleration which seemed approaching in Cromwell's time. It began with persecution systematic and extensive-Quakers lay in jail by thousands-and it ended with few signs of amendment. Every attempt to relax its severity had been defeated ; and in 1685 persecution and passive obedience seemed as much the dominant creed as in 1662. But in 1662 these principles were an enthusiasm; in 1685 they were little more than orthodoxy, and men were not wanting who saw this. The University of Oxford might proclaim passive obedience (1662) ; but Bishop Morley from his death-bed (1684) warned the Duke of York that, if ever the clergy wanted a way out of it, they would certainly find one. So, too, with persecution. The belief of educated men was more and more coming round to toleration. It was adopted by men of all sorts-by divines like Tillotson, by royalists like Bishop Croft, lawyers like Orlando Bridgeman, students like Wilkins and Locke, politicians like Shaftesbury, men of the world like John Churchill, the future Marlborough. The cause was really won ; but a shock was needed to show that it was won. That shock was given by James II.
James began with fair professions ; but his actions soon revived the worst suspicions. Had his one object been to convince the nation that a Roman Catholic is never to be trusted, he could not have done his work better. The open parade of Roman worship and the open favour shown at Court to crowds of Roman Catholics and renegades gave offence enough, and the matter became serious when James packed the Bench till he obtained from his judges what he could not get from the most loyal Parliament on record-power to dispense with the Test Act-and when he proceeded to officer the army and the civil service with Roman Catholics. Before long the most devoted loyalists took alarm, and the English Roman Catholics themselves mostly held aloof. The Pope was for moderation, but the Jesuits and the renegades urged the King to reckless haste.
So far James had reckoned on the Church, in hopes of getting a legal toleration for recusants only. He thought he could do what he pleased with men who preached passive obedience. But Morley's warning now came true. Instead of practising their doctrine, they began to reconsider it. They had taken for granted that an English King would be a good son of the Church ; and they might fairly doubt whether quite the same obedience was due to such an enemy as James. They could go a long way with the King ; but, when the successive blows of the new High Commission, the suspension of Compton, Bishop of London, and the attacks on the Universities and the Charterhouse brought them face to face with Romanism and despotism, they settled down into opposition.
Meanwhile James had changed his tactics. If the Church would not help him, he could turn to the Nonconformists. They had been persecuted with much severity since 1681, and might be grateful for relief. So in April, 1687, came out a Declaration of Indulgence. King James expounded that conscience ought not to be constrained, and that such constraint had always been contrary to his inclination, promised to protect and maintain the Church as by law established, and finished up by guaranteeing to all men their lands and properties, particularly church and abbey lands. To carry out this liberal policy, he " thinks fit, by virtue of Our royal prerogative," to suspend all penal laws and all religious tests affecting Nonconformists and recusants.
The jails were emptied. The Nonconformists were invited to Whitehall, and plied with the seductions of Court favour. It was a strange promotion for them. "The other day they were Sons of Belial; now they were Angels of Light." But would they help the Jesuits and the King to pull down the Church? Some were willing, but leaders like Baxter and Howe and Bunyan ranged themselves on the other side, and presently (about August) the case was summed up by Halifax in his Letter to a Dissenter. Could they believe in this sudden change? Was Popery the only friend to liberty? Would they justify the dispensing
In truth, it was not now a persecuting Church. Even in the time of exile the Caroline divines never showed much leaning to Rome. In the main they were as resolute Protestants as the Puritans themselves; and now the common danger drew even extreme men like Sancroft closer to the Nonconformists. The old quarrels were dropped, and all was peace and charity in the Protestant fold. Very few "remained in their peevishness." So, when James added insult to injury by reissuing the Declaration of Indulgence in May, 1688, and ordering the clergy to read it in church, dissenters and churchmen stood together against him. Even the Roman Catholics-the English Roman Catholics-would not lift a hand to save him. What the Revolution overthrew was little more than a cabal of Jesuits and renegades.
Now, the condition of this league of Protestants was that the Nonconformists were to be secured relief by law-toleration certainly, and if possible comprehension. Accordingly, so soon as William and Mary were fairly settled on the throne, the work was taken in hand. It was a Tory and a zealous churchman who brought in the Bills. The Earl of Nottingham (then Mr Daniel Finch) had borne a hand in framing them in the days of the Popish Plot; but Shaftesbury would not hear of them. Now, he laid them on the table of the Lords, and the Toleration Act passed without difficulty (May 24, 1689). It enacted that the Act of Uniformity and the persecuting Acts should not apply to persons taking the oaths of allegiance and supremacy and making the declaration against transubstantiation, provided only they did not hold meetings with locked doors. Ministers were also required to sign the Articles excepting those on Church government; and the Anabaptists were further excused the clause approving Infant Baptism. The Quakers had to "promise and solemnly declare" themselves good subjects who renounced the authority of the Pope and believed in the Trinity and the inspiration of the Bible. Dissenting chapels were to be certified, and there was to be a penalty of twenty pounds for disturbing the same. But Papists and those who denied the Trinity were expressly excluded from the benefit of the Act. Toleration was thus established in practice, though not in theory; for the persecuting statutes were still the law of the land, and toleration was only an exemption. So late as 1787 the Methodists were liable to the penalties of the Conventicle Act, and could gain no relief
After the Toleration Act, the Comprehension Bill. This Bill, brought forward in 1689, relaxed the subscription to the Articles, made the "nocent ceremonies" optional in most churches, and admitted Presbyterian ministers without reordination. The Bishop was to lay his hands on them with the words, "Take thou authority to preach-in the Church of England." It ended by proposing to ask the King and Queen for a commission to revise the Liturgy. But now came difficulties. The mass of the clergy were Tories and High-churchmen; and, now that they had got over the panic of 1688, they were most unwilling to make any changes so as to let in dissenters. If Nottingham himself was for comprehension, he chiefly aimed at making the Church strong enough to enforce the Test Act, which the dissenters largely evaded by the practice of occasional conformity. And this again raised difficulties on the other side. The veterans of 1662 might look back wistfully to the Church from which they had been expelled; but a younger generation was growing up which preferred to remain outside. Better be content with toleration than become unwelcome guests of a hostile Church. Moreover, there were many dissenters whom no comprehension could include; and every such person saw the danger to himself of Nottingham's policy. The greater the success of comprehension, the greater the danger for those not comprehended. Indeed, the men who raised the Sacheverell riots (1710) and passed the Schism Act (1714) were quite capable of repealing the Toleration Act.
Thus the Comprehension Bill was attacked on both sides-by the High-churchmen who hated the idea, and by the dissenters who feared its success-and the Whigs were divided, one section of them wanting Comprehension, the other preferring to relax the Test Act. However, an Ecclesiastical Commission was appointed which revised the Liturgy. But Convocation refused even to discuss their labours, and proved so mutinous that it had to be prorogued. The Comprehension Bill was dropped.