ciently to the resentments of the Papists, for refusing to come into their measures for a universal toleration, in which they might have been included? Besides, the poor ministers were hardly crept out of corners, their papers had been rifled, and their books sold or secreted, to avoid seizure; they had little time to study, and therefore might not be so well prepared for the argument as those who had lived in ease and security. Farther, the churchparty was most nearly concerned, the Nonconformists having nothing to lose, whereas all the emoluments of the church were at stake; and after all, some of the dissenters did write; and, if we may believe Dr. Calamy, Mr. Baxter, and others, their tracts being thought too warm, were refused to be licensed*. Upon the whole, bishop Burnet wisely observes †, that as the dissenters would not engage on the side of Popery and the prerogative, nor appear for taking off the tests in the present circumstances; so, on the other hand, they were unwilling to provoke the king, who had lately given them hopes of liberty, lest he should make up matters upon any terms with the church-party, at their expense; nor would they provoke the church-party, or by any ill behaviour drive them into a reconciliation with the court; therefore they resolved to let the points of controversy alone, and leave them to the management of the clergy, who had a legal bottom to support them.

The clergy's writing thus warmly against Popery broke all measures between the king and the church of England, and made each party court that body of men for their auxiliaries, whom they had been persecuting and destroying for so many years.

* A licence was refused to a discourse against the whole system of Popery, drawn up by the learned Mr. Jonathan Hanmer, who was ejected from Bishops-Tawton, in Devon. A discourse against transubstantiation, written by Mr. Henry Pendlebury, ejected from Holcomb chapel in Lancashire, and afterward published by archbishop Tillotson, met with the like refusal. An offer that Mr. Baxter would produce a piece against Popery every month, if a licence might be had, was rejected with scorn. And Mr. Jane, the bishop of London's chaplain, denied his sanction to a piece he actually drew up on the church's visibility. But in opposition to what Mr. Neal says above concerning this point, Dr. Grey, it is but justice to observe, gives us letters from Dr. Isham, Dr. Alston, Dr. Batteley, and Mr. Needham, licensers of the press, declaring that they never refused to licence a book, because written by a dissenter; and that they did not recollect that any tract, of which à dissenter was the author, was brought to them for their sanction. As to Mr. Baxter in particular, Dr. Isham avers, that he never obstructed his writing against Popery, but licensed one of his books: "and if he had prepared any thing against the common enemy (says Dr. Isham), without striking obliquely at our church, I would certainly have forwarded them from the press." It is to be added, that one piece from the pen of Mr. Hanmer had the imprimatur of Dr. Jane. These authorities appear to contradict each other: but it is, probably, not only a candid, but just method of reconciling them, and preserving our opinion of the veracity of both parties, to suppose that the tracts to which a licence was refused, were not offered to the gentlemen whose letters Dr. Grey quotes: but to Dr. Jane or other licensers, with whose declarations we are not furnished. Bennet's Memorial, p. 399, 400, second edition. Baxter's History of his own Life, part 3, p. 183, folio. Palmer's Nonconformists' Memorial, vol. 1. p. 342. Dr. Grey, vol. 2. p. 424-432. The matter was, I understand, discussed by Mr. Tong, in his defence of Mr. Henry's Notion of Schism.-ED.

† P. 121, 122.

His majesty now resolved to introduce a universal toleration in despite of the church, and at their expense. The cruelty of the church of England was his common subject of discourse; he reproached them for their violent persecutions of the dissenters, and said he had intended to set on foot a toleration sooner, but that he was restrained by some of them who had treated with him, and had undertaken to shew favour to the Papists, provided they might be still suffered to vex the dissenters; and he named the very men, though they thought fit afterward to deny it: how far the fact is probable must be left with the reader.

were

It being thought impracticable to obtain a legal toleration in the present circumstances of the nation, his majesty determined to attempt it by the dispensing power; for this purpose sir Edward Hales, a Popish gentleman of Kent, was brought to trial for breaking through the test-act, when sir Edward Herbert, lord chief-justice, gave judgment in his favour, and declared the powers of the crown to be absolute +. The other judges were closeted, and such displaced as were of a different sentiment; and the king being resolved to have twelve judges of his own opinion ‡, four had their quietus, and as many new ones advanced, from whom the king exacted a promise to support the prerogative in all its branches. There was a new call of serjeants, who gave rings with this motto, DEUS, REX, LEX, God, the king, and the law; the king being placed before the law. The privy-council was new modelled, and several declared Papists admitted into it; two confiding clergymen were promoted to bishopricks. Parker to Oxford, and Cartwright to Chester. Many pamphlets were written and dispersed in favour of liberty of conscience; and sir Roger L'Estrange, with other mercenary writers, were employed to maintain, that a power in the king to dispense with the laws, is law §. But the opinion of private writers not being thought sufficient, it was resolved to have the determination of the judges, who all, except one, gave it as their opinion; 1. That the laws of England were the king's laws. 2. That it is an inseparable branch of the prerogative of the kings of England, as of all other sovereign princes, to dispense with all penal laws in particular cases, and on particular occasions. 3. That of these reasons and necessity the king is sole judge. 4. That this is not a trust now invested in, and granted to, the present king, but the ancient remains of the sovereign power of

+ Ibid. p. 73, 74.

*Burnet, p. 140. Lord-chief-justice Jones, one of the displaced judges, upon his dismission, observed to the king, "that he was by no means sorry that he was laid aside, old and worn out as he was in his service; but concerned that his majesty should expect such a construction of the law from him as he could not honestly give; and that none but indigent, ignorant, or ambitious men would give their judgment as he expected." To this the king replied, "It was necessary his judges should be all of one mind." Memoirs of Sir John Reresby, p. 233.—ED.

§ Welwood's Memoirs, p. 194.

the kings of England, which was never yet taken from them, nor can be. Thus the laws of England were given up at once into the hands of the king, by a solemn determination of the judges.

This point being secured, his majesty began to caress the Nonconformists. "All on a sudden (says bishop Burnet*) the churchmen were disgraced, and the dissenters in high favour. Lord-chief-justice Herbert went the western circuit after Jefferies, who was now made lord-chancellor, and all was grace and favour to them their former sufferings were much reflected upon and pitied; every thing was offered that might alleviate them; their ministers were encouraged to set up their conventicles, which had been discontinued, or held very secretly, for four or five years; intimations were given everywhere, that the king would not have them or their meetings disturbed +." A dispensation or licenceoffice was set up, where all who applied might have an indulgence, paying only 50s. for themselves and their families. Many who had been prosecuted for conventicles, took out those licences, which not only stopped all processes that were commenced, but gave them liberty to go publicly to meetings for the future. "Upon this (says the same reverend prelate) some of the dissenters grew insolent, but wiser men among them perceived the design of the Papists was now, to set on the dissenters against the church; and therefore, though they returned to their conventicles, yet they had a just jealousy of the ill designs that lay hid, under all this sudden and unexpected show of grace and kindness, and they took care not to provoke the church-party." But where then were the understandings of the high-church clergy, during the whole reign of king Charles II., while they were pursuing the Nonconformists and their families to destruction, for a long course of years? Did they not perceive the design of the Papists? Or were they not willing rather to court them, at the expense of the whole body of dissenting Protestants? Bishop Laud's scheme of uniting with the Papists, and meeting them half way, was never out of their sight; however, when the reader calls to mind the oppression and cruelties that the conscientious Nonconformists underwent from the high-church party for twenty-five years, he will be ready to conclude they deserved no regard, if the Protestant religion itself had not been at stake.

Thus the all-wise providence of God put a period to the prosecution of the Protestant dissenters from the penal laws; though the laws themselves were not legally repealed, or sus

P. 78.

King James, previously to his adopting these conciliating measures with the dissenters, such was his art and duplicity, had tried all the methods he could think of to bring the church into his designs: and twice offered, it was said, to make a sacrifice of all the dissenters in the kingdom to them, if they would but have complied with him: but failing in this attempt, he faced about to the Nonconformists. Calamy's History of his own Life, vol. 1. p. 170, MS.-ED.

pended, till after the revolution of king William and queen Mary. It may not therefore be improper to give the reader a summary view of their usage in this and the last reign, and of the damages they sustained in their persons, families, and fortunes.

The Quakers, in their petition to king James the last year, inform his majesty, that of late above one thousand five hundred of their friends were in prison, both men and women; and that now there remain one thousand three hundred and eighty-three, of which two hundred are women; many under sentence of premunire; and more than three hundred near it, for refusing the oath of allegiance because they could not swear t.-Above three hundred and fifty have died in prison since the year 1660, near one hundred of which since the year 1680.-In London, the jail of Newgate has been crowded within these two years, sometimes with near twenty in a room, whereby several have been suffocated, and others, who have been taken out sick, have died of malignant fevers within a few days;-great violences, outrageous distresses, and woful havoc and spoil, have been made on people's goods and estates, by a company of idle, extravagant, and merciless informers, by prosecutions on the conventicle-act, and others, as may be seen in the margin ‡. Also on qui tam writs, and on other processes, for 201. a month; and two-thirds of their estates seized for the king:-some had not a bed left to rest upon; others had no cattle to till the ground, nor corn for seed or bread, nor tools to work with the said informers and bailiffs in some places breaking into houses, and making great waste and spoil, under pretence of serving the king and the church.-Our religious assemblies have been charged at common law with being riotous routs, and disturbances of the peace, whereby great numbers have been confined in prisons, without regard to age or sex; and many in holes and dungeons:-the seizures for 201.

* It was addressed not to king James only, but to both houses of parliament. They made also an application to the king alone; recommending to his princely clemency the case of their suffering friends. Sewel, p. 592. This was not so copious a state of their case as the petition to which Mr. Neal refers, and is called by Gough their first address. Vol. 3. p. 162; and the Index under the word Address.-ED.

Sewel, p. 588. 593.

The acts or penal laws on which they suffered were these:

Some few suffered on 27 Henry VIII. cap. 20.

Others on 1 Eliz. cap. 2, for twelve-pence a Sunday.

5 Eliz. cap. 23, de excommu. capiendo.

23 Eliz. cap. 1, for 201. a month.

29 Eliz. cap. 6, for more speedy and due execution of last statute.

35 Eliz. cap. 1, for abjuring the realm on pain of death.

3 King James I. cap. 4. for better discovering and suppressing Popish recusants.

13th and 14th of King Charles II. against Quakers, &c. transportation.

17 Charles II. cap. 2, against Nonconformists.

22 King Charles II. cap. 1, against seditious conventicles.

N. B. The Quakers were not much affected with the corporation and test acts,

because they would not take an oath;

Nor with the Oxford five-mile act, which cut the others to pieces.

a month have amounted to several thousand pounds: sometimes they have seized for eleven months at once, and made sale of all goods and chattels both within doors and without, for payment;several who have employed some hundreds of poor families in manufacture, are by those writs and seizures disabled, as well as by long imprisonment; one in particular, who employed two hundred people in the woollen manufacture.-Many informers, and especially impudent women, whose husbands are in prison, swear for their share of the profit of the seizures-the fines upon one justice's warrant have amounted to many hundred pounds; frequently 10. a warrant, and five warrants together for 50l. to one man; and for nonpayment, all his goods carried away in about ten cart-loads. They spare neither widows, nor fatherless, nor poor families; nor leave them so much as a bed to lie upon :thus the informers are both witnesses and parties, to the ruin of great numbers of sober families; and justices of peace have been threatened with the forfeiture of 1007., if they do not issue out warrants upon their informations.-With this petition, they presented to the king and parliament a list of their friends in prison in the several counties, amounting to one thousand four hundred and sixty.

But it is impossible to make an exact computation of the number of sufferers, or estimate of the damages his majesty's dissenting subjects of the several denominations sustained, by the prosecutions of this and the last reign; how many families were impoverished, and reduced to beggary; how many lives were lost in prisons and noisome gaols; how many ministers were divorced from their people, and forced to live as they could, five miles from a corporation: how many industrious and laborious tradesmen were cut off from their trades; and their substance and household goods plundered by soldiers, or divided among idle and infamous informers. The vexatious suits of the commons, and the expenses of those courts, were immense.

The writer of the preface of Mr. Delaune's Plea for the Nonconformists, says*, that Delaune was one of near eight thousand Protestant dissenters, who had perished in prison in the reign of king Charles II., and that merely for dissenting from the church in some points which they were able to give good reason for; and yet for no other cause, says he, were they stifled, I had almost said, murdered in gaols. As for the severe penalties inflicted on them, for seditious and riotous assemblies, designed only for the worship of God, he adds, that they suffered in their trades and estates, within the compass of three years, at least 2,000,000l.; and doubts, whether in all the times since the Reformation, including the reign of queen Mary, there can be produced any thing like such a number of Christians who have suffered death; and such numbers who have lost their substance

* Preface to Delaune's Plea, p. 5.