secuting the
Established Church, for trampling on the fundamental laws of the realm,
for confiscating freeholds, for treating as a crime the modest exercise
of the right of petition. If a bill had then been drawn up granting
entire freedom of conscience to all Protestants, it may be confidently
affirmed that Nottingham would never have introduced such a bill; that
all the bishops, Burnet included, would have voted against it; that
it would have been denounced, Sunday after Sunday, from ten thousand
pulpits, as an insult to God and to all Christian men, and as a license
to the worst heretics and blasphemers; that it would have been condemned
almost as vehemently by Bates and Baxter as by Ken and Sherlock; that it
would have been burned by the mob in half the market places of England;
that it would never have become the law of the land, and that it would
have made the very name of toleration odious during many years to the
majority of the people. And yet, if such a bill had been passed, what
would it have effected beyond what was effected by the Toleration Act?

It is true that the Toleration Act recognised persecution as the rule,
and granted liberty of conscience only as the exception. But it is
equally true that the rule remained in force only against a few hundreds
of Protestant dissenters, and that the benefit of the exceptions
extended to hundreds of thousands.

It is true that it was in theory absurd to make Howe sign thirty-four or
thirty-five of the Anglican articles before he could preach, and to let
Penn preach without signing one of those articles. But it is equally
true that, under this arrangement, both Howe and Penn got as entire
liberty to preach as they could have had under the most philosophical
code that Beccaria or Jefferson could have framed.

The progress of the bill was easy. Only one amendment of grave
importance was proposed. Some zealous churchmen in the Commons suggested
that it might be desirable to grant the toleration only for a term of
seven years, and thus to bind over the nonconformists to good behaviour.
But this suggestion was so unfavourably received that those who made it
did not venture to divide the House. [84]

The King gave his consent with hearty satisfaction: the bill became law;
and the Puritan divines thronged to the Quarter Sessions of every county
to swear and sign. Many of them probably professed their assent to the
Articles with some tacit reservations. But the tender co