the sect of
which William Penn was a conspicuous member, the idea of complete and
impartial toleration was novel and unwelcome to all sects and classes of
the English people. Hence it was that the very men whose liberties and
estates had been secured by the declaration, and who were thereby
permitted to hold their meetings in peace and quietness, used their newly
acquired freedom in denouncing the king, because the same key which had
opened their prison doors had also liberated the Papists and the Quakers.
Baxter's severe and painful spirit could not rejoice in an act which had,
indeed, restored him to personal freedom, but which had, in his view,
also offended Heaven, and strengthened the powers of Antichrist by
extending the same favor to Jesuits and Ranters. Bunyan disliked the
Quakers next to the Papists; and it greatly lessened his satisfaction at
his release from Bedford jail that it had been brought about by the
influence of the former at the court of a Catholic prince. Dissenters
forgot the wrongs and persecutions which they had experienced at the
hands of the prelacy, and joined the bishops in opposition to the
declaration. They almost magnified into Christian confessors the
prelates who remonstrated against the indulgence, and actually plotted
against the king for restoring them to liberty of person and conscience.
The nightmare fear of Popery overcame their love of religious liberty;
and they meekly offered their necks to the yoke of prelacy as the only
security against the heavier one of Papist supremacy. In a far different
manner the cleareyed and plain-spoken John Milton met the claims and
demands of the hierarchy in his time. "They entreat us," said he, "that
we be not weary of the insupportable grievances that our shoulders have
hitherto cracked under; they beseech us that we think them fit to be our
justices of peace, our lords, our highest officers of state. They pray
us that it would please us to let them still haul us and wrong us with
their bandogs and pursuivants; and that it would please the Parliament
that they may yet have the whipping, fleecing, and flaying of us in their
diabolical courts, to tear the flesh from our bones, and into our wide
wounds, instead of balm, to pour in the oil of tartar, vitriol, and
mercury. Surely a right, reasonable, innocent, and soft-hearted
petition! O the relenting bowels of the fathers!"

Considering the prominent part acted by William Penn in the reign