"Church liberties,"
we may suppose that the proposed enactment was general, in regard to all
Christian sects besides the Catholics.

VII: 1640.--At the session of 1640, an act for "Church liberties" _was
passed_ on the 23d October, and confirmed, as a perpetual law, in the
first year of the accession of Charles Calvert, 3d Lord Baltimore, in
1676. This Act also declares that "Holy Church, within this province,
shall have and enjoy all her rights, liberties and franchises, wholly
and without blemish." Thus, in 1640, legislation had already settled
opinion as to the rights of Catholics and Protestants. Instead of the
early Catholics seeking to contract the freedom of other sects, their
chief aim and interest seem to have been to secure their own. I consider
the Acts I have cited rather as mere declaratory statutes, than as
necessary original laws.

VIII: 1649.--In this year, an assembly, believed to have been composed
of a Protestant majority, passed the act which has been lauded as the
source of religious toleration. It is "An Act concerning Religion," and,
in my judgment, is less tolerant than the Charter or the Governor's
Oath, inasmuch as it included Unitarians in the same category with
blasphemers and those who denied our Saviour Jesus Christ, punishing all
alike, with confiscation of goods and the pains of _death_. This was the
epoch of the trial and execution of Charles I, and of the establishment
of the Commonwealth.

IX: 1654.--The celebrated act I have just noticed, however, was passed
fifteen years after the original settlement, which exceeds the period
comprised in the actual _founding_ of Maryland. Besides this, the
political and religious aspect of England was changing, and the
influence of the home-quarrel was beginning to be felt across the
Atlantic. In 1654, during the mastery of Cromwell, religious freedom was
destroyed: Puritanism became paramount; Papacy and Prelacy were
denounced by law; and freedom was assured only to Puritans, and such as
professed "faith in God by Jesus Christ, though differing in judgment,
from the doctrine or worship publicly held forth."

X. It has been alleged that the clause in the Maryland Charter securing
"God's holy rights and the true Christian religion," is only an
incorporation into Lord Baltimore's instrument, of certain clauses
contained in the early Charters of Virginia. If the reader will refer to
the 1st volume of Henning's Statutes at large, he will find all th