ness, in granting all those other concessions which were absolutely necessary for the liberty of their consciences; and they prayed that the wearing the surplice, and the use of the cross in baptism, might be absolutely abolished, as being scandalous to all men of tender consciences. The names of those persons who had attended at the conference, and requested the King to withdraw the clause, were not affixed to the petition; but it came signed by those who had deputed' them; and after these proofs of effrontery and bad faith it was plain that nothing could be effected with such persons by conciliatory means.

Conciliation, however, was still tried; and after the vacant sees had been filled up, and the act repealed which excluded the Bishops from Parliament, the Bishops were required to make such alterations in the Book of Common Prayer as they thought would make it more2 acceptable to the "Dissenting brethren," and such additions as the temper of the present times and the past calamities required. Neither the good nor the evil, which were predicted from this measure, ensued. The alterations did not conciliate a party whom nothing could have conciliated; nor did they afford a plea for representing that the Church had in any respect changed its tenets or its ceremonies, or admitted that they stood in need of reform. Long conferences took place between the Bishops and the most eminent of the Presbyterian Clergy, of whom Baxter, Reynolds, and Calamy were the most conspicuous. The former offered, on the part of his brethren, a Liturgy which they had authorized him to compile; and presented their exceptions to that of the Church: it is even pitiful to see how captious and utterly frivolous are the greater part; the very few to which any weight might have been assigned, lost all their force from being mingled with such empty cavillings. And the conference ended in showing how hopeless it was that any thing like union could be effected.

It is obvious that no possible comprehension, consistent with the existence of the Establishment, could have taken in any other class of Nonconformists than the Presbyterians. The Independents, and a host of other Sectaries in their endless varieties, must necessarily have been excluded. The same difficulty was found in the way of a general toleration; for there were few Clarendon's Life, vol. ii. p. 142, third edition. 2 Ibid. p. 278.

of these sects who did not hold opinions which in the judgement of the others were intolerable; and there were some whose madness it was impossible to tolerate. The Levellers, and the Fifth Monarchy men, had been formidable enough to disquiet Cromwell; and they were fanatical enough for any attempt, however desperate or atrocious. A band of these madmen sallied from their meeting-house, proclaimed King Jesus in the streets of London, killed some twenty men, and lost as many themselves, before they could be secured. This explosion, the discovery of some treasons, and the report of more, operated grievously against the whole body of Dissenters. It was not sufficiently considered how widely the great majority of them differed in opinion from these rabid enthusiasts, because it was known that the principle of discontent was common to them all, and that discontent passes easily into disaffection. The general feeling therefore was against any compromise with men to whom the nation imputed all its long calamities; and Charles did not think himself bound by his Declaration from Breda to any thing more upon the subject of religion, than to pass such an act as the Parliament might think proper to offer. A new Parliament had been called, and under circumstances in which the public feeling could be fairly represented. The Liturgy as approved by the Convocation, and confirmed by the King under the Great Seal, was presented to it, and received; and an Act of Uniformity passed,' with some clauses which the wisest statesmen and truest friends of the Church disapproved, but were unable to prevent. One of these excluded all persons from the ministry who had not received episcopal ordination; . . . all therefore who had received presbyterian orders were to quit their benefices, or submit to be reordained. Another required a subscription from every man about to receive any preferment in the Universities or the Church, declaring his assent and consent to every thing in the Book of Common Prayer, . . . words which gave occasion to2 cavils of the same kind as had been raised against the et cetera oath. But the touchstone was a clause, which the Commons introduced, for another qualifying subscription, wherein the subscriber declared it was not lawful upon any pretence to take arms against the King; abhorred the traitorous position of taking arms,

1 Clarendon's Life, vol. ii. p. 302, 295.

Ibid. p. 290.

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his authority, against his person; and renounced the covenant as imposing no obligation upon him or any others, and unlawful in itself. Any clergyman who should not fully conform to this Act by St. Bartholomew's day, which was about three months after it was published, was ipso facto, to be deprived of his cure; and the Act was so worded as not to leave it in the King's power to dispense with its observance.

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It was rigorously enforced, and about two thousand1 ministers were deprived. The measure was complained of, as an act of enormous cruelty and persecution; and the circumstance of its being fixed for St. Bartholomew's day, gave the complainants occasion to compare it with the atrocious deed committed upon that day against the Huguenots in France. They were careful not to remember that the same day, and for the same reason, (because the tithes were commonly due at Michaelmas,) had been appointed for the former ejectment, when four times as many of the loyal clergy were deprived, for fidelity to their sovereign. No small proportion of the present sufferers had obtained their preferment by means of that tyrannical deprivation: they did but drink now of the cup which they had administered to others. Not a few had been deeply implicated in the guilt of the rebellion. But this ill consequence was sure to follow from a measure, not otherwise impolitic, and fully justified by the circumstances of the times, that while for the pride of consistency, and for conscientious scruples, some men of genuine piety and exemplary worth, were expelled from a Church in the service of which they were worthy to have held a distinguished rank; others retained their benefices, who would have been a reproach to any Church, and to whom it was matter of indifference what they subscribed, and whether they took the covenant or renounced it. Reynolds was among the better and wiser minds who conformed; he accepted the see of Norwich. That of Hereford was refused by Baxter, and that of Lichfield by Calamy: how strongly the latter was attached to his party is proved, by the dishonourable manner in which he attempted to promote its cause; the stronger intellect and more ingenuous temper of the former were clouded

This is their own statement. "As to your account of about 2000 silenced ministers," says Sir Roger L'Estrange, "a matter of eight or nine hundred difference shall break no squares betwixt you and me."-Dialogue between Richard and Baxter, p. 7. Walker, p. 28.

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by old prejudices, petty scruples, and the perpetual" sense of bodily infirmities, which made his protracted life little better than one long disease.

The Nonconformists, having so recently been masters, could not easily be convinced that they were a very small and a very odious minority. They expected that the display of their numbers would make the government feel it necessary to conciliate them by some concessions, and that there would be a difficulty in supplying the pulpits from which they were excluded. Being disappointed in both expectations, they deliberated whether it was not expedient for them to follow the example of their predecessors, and shaking the dust of England from their feet, migrate into Holland, or into the American colonies, where their brethren were established, and the first difficulties of colonization had been overcome. If the Government had been conducted upon any settled and steady system of sound policy, it would have encouraged them in this intention, and afforded them every possible facility and aid for their voluntary removal. But on the part of the Court there was neither wisdom nor sincerity. Lord Clarendon, the wisest, because the most upright of all statesmen, was counteracted in his views, by dark intrigues and selfish interests. And a course of apparent inconsistency was pursued, the secret object of which was, by sometimes harassing the Nonconformists, and sometimes raising their hopes, to keep up their state of excitement, and hold them together as a party; till through their means a toleration, which should include the Papists, might be brought about, and a way prepared for the re-establishment of Popery in the plenitude of its power, its intolerance, and its abominations.

The King, whether at that time he understood or not the end which was proposed, was prevailed upon therefore to set forth a Declaration, wherein his own disapproval of any severities on the score of religion was expressed, and a hope held out that the laws upon that matter would be amended to the satisfaction of all his subjects. This gave new spirits to the Nonconformists, as it was designed to do. But however much they might desire indulgence for themselves, they could not yet be brought to think it lawful or tolerable that any should be granted to the Papists; and the general feeling of the country was equally

against both; if there was any difference, it was that the Romanists were regarded with the more fear, the Puritans with the more abhorrence. There was undoubted danger from both; that from the Papists was the greatest, but it was the most remote. They had not only the fixed design, but the steady hope and prospect of setting up again the Papal authority in England: a scheme, which the conversion of the Duke of York, and the indifference, if not the inclinations of the King, appeared to render feasible; which the multiplicity of schisms induced by there bellion, favoured; and in the pursuit of which they could rely upon the secret aid of all Popish powers, and the open assistance of France, if ever it should be required. The danger from the Puritans was not of any far-sighted and long-concerted policy; but of some execrable plot, or insane insurrection, which a few desperate fanatics might be frantic enough to plan and execute, without the knowledge of their fellow sectaries, but in reliance upon the principle of disaffection, which was common to them all. Government was fully aware that such plots were carrying on, and it was deemed a necessary measure of precaution to exact an oath from the sequestered ministers, declaring that it was not lawful on any pretence, to take arms against the King, or any commissioned by him; and that they would not at any time endeavour an alteration in the government of the Church or State. They who refused to make this Declaration were not to come within five miles of any city or borough, or of the Church which they had been accustomed to serve.

The Five Mile Act, as it is called, was impolitic, because it brought into discussion the question of resistance, . a question which, it has been well said, subjects ought never to remember, and rulers never to forget; and it was injurious, because it required a declaration concerning Church government, which it was quite certain that no Dissenter could conscientiously take. But this objectionable clause afforded a just and welcome reason for refusing the oath, to those who might otherwise have thought. it expedient to swallow the political part and digest it as they could. The more severe the measure, the better it accorded with the public feeling; and the occurrences of those times were such as to justify as well as quicken the apprehensions and the jealousy of the Government; for the remains of the republican