NONCONFORMITY
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NONCONFORMITY
Yet even this was not all. Two more enactments under this sovereignty were made, the so-called Corporation and Test Act, the last named of which was claimed to have been passed " for preventing dangers which may happen from popish recusants." But as it enacted that " all in place or office, civil or militarj', under the crown, or in receipt of any salary by patent or grant, shall take the oaths of supremacy and allegiance, and shall receive the sacrament of the Lord's Supper within three months after admittance," it virtually directed itself with equal severity against Protestant dissenters, for it excluded from offices of trust in the state those who refused to receive the eucharist according to the rubric of the Church of England. After this time dis- sent continued in a very depressed state, and had to struggle with various fortunes. In 1G73 " the mouths of the High-Church pulpiteers were encouraged to open as loud as possible. One in his sermon before the House of Commons told them that the Nonconformists ought not to be tolerated, but to be cured by vengeance. He urged them to set lire to the fagot, and to teach them by scourges or scorjjions, and open their eyes with gall." Such were the dreadful consequences of this intolerant spirit, that it is supposed near 8000 died in prison in the reign of Charles H. It is said that Mr. Jeremiah White had carefully collected a list of those ■who had suffered between Charles II and the Revolu- tion, which amounted to 60,000. The same persecu- tions were carried on in Scotland ; and there, as well as in England, many, to avoid molestation, fled from their country. But, notwithstanding all these dreadful and furious attacks upon the dissenters, they were not ex- tirpated. Their very persecution was in their favor. The infamous character of their informers and op- pressors; their own piety, zeal, and fortitude, no doubt, had intluence on considerate minds; and, indeed, they had additions from the Established Church, which sev- eral clergymen in this reign deserted as a persecuting Ciiurch.
Anglican divines appear as apologetic in behalf of king Charles and his extravagant measures ; and, lest we stand accused of representing only the side of the Nonconformists, we here insert the apologies offered by one of the ablest Anglican historians, the Rev. John Henry Blunt, who says : " The statutes passed by Charles II against nonconformity proceed on two principles, which used to be thought undeniable, viz., that the Church and the commonwealth are co- extensive, the same body under its two aspects; and that the govern- ment of such a Christian state has the duty of training its subjects in Christian truth and religious practice. Rulers, it was thought, were bound to enforce the ob- servance of Church laws as well as the laws of a secular political economy. The former of these was, at the end of the 16th centurj', no such Utopian notion as it now appears to be. For the first ten j-ears of Elizabeth's reign Papists frequented the English service, and it might have been not unreasonably hoped that such a reformation was possible as would retain the whole nation in the Established Church. So long as this theory of the identity of the Church and nation ap- peared not impossible to realize (and there is no won- der that patriotic statesmen were slow to relinquish it), it followed inevitably that temporal yjcnalties were added to spiritual censures, that breaches of Church bounds were met by strict enactments. Rebellion against the Church was also rebellion against the State; and, in point of fact, secession from the Church was ac- companied by insurrection against the government. The conspiracy of Ilackct and Coppinger was just be- fore the passing of the act of A.D. 1593. Presbyteries and independent congregations would lead, it was well known, to the overthrow of temporal as well as spiritual thrones. Rebellion against the sovereign began with disobedience in religion, and disobedience in religion was dealt Avith according to its results. The hundred and thirty years from Elizabeth's accession to the Rev-
olution are the attempt to realize the high ideal of the true union and coincidence of Church and State."
During the reign of king James the Nonconformists for a while at least enjoj'ed more or less liberty. He, suddenly changing his course, though simply for the purpose of restoring popery, granted universal tolera- tion, and preferred Nonconformists to places of trust and profit. Toleration truly came only in the reign of kinp; William HI, when the so-called "Toleration Act" was passed (in 1689), and thus was granted immunity to all Protestant dissenters, except Socinians, from the penal laws to which they had been subjected by the Stuart dynasty. Tlie benefits conferred by this measure were indeed subsequently much abridged by the " Oc- casional Communion Bill," which excluded from civil offices those Nonconformists who, by communion at the altars of the Church, were by the provisions of the Test Act qualified to hold them, and by the " Schism Bill," which restricted the work of education to certificated churchmen. But after the accession of George I, he being fully satisfied that these hardships were brought upon the dissenters for their steady adherence to the Protestant succession in his illustrious house, against a Tory and Jacobite ministry, who were paving the way for a popish pretender, procured the repeal of them in the fifth year of his reign, and since then, by the re- moval of the "Test Act," and by the passing of the acts re- lating to registration and marriage, dissenters have been allowed the peaceful enjoj-ment of the rights of conscience.