and submissive sons of the church appeared so decidedly hostile. With this view, the corporations throughout the kingdom were entirely newmodelled; and the king's once zealous partísans, the high churchmen and anti-exclusionists, were discarded, in order to make room for his determined adversaries, the whigs and dissenters: and, for the most part, such as had most distinguished themselves by the violence of their animosity against him. The king was perpetually exclaiming with affected abhorrence against the oppressive proceedings of the late reign respecting the nonconformists, and reproaching the church with those acts of cruelty of which he was known to be himself the principal instigator. He ordered an inquiry to be made into all the vexatious suits by which the dissenters had been harassed in the ecclesiastical courts, and the illegal compositions extorted from them as the purchase of redemption from further persecution. At length he ventured to issue an absolute and plenary declaration of indulgence, including an entire suspension of all penal laws in matters of religion: and asserting the service of all his subjects to be due to him by the laws of nature, he pronounced them all equally capable of employments, and suppressed all oaths and tests that restrained or limited that capacity. The dissenters had so long groaned under the rod of spiritual and temporal tyranny, and their minds were so embittered against those whom they regarded as the authors of all their sufferings, that it cannot be thought very marvellous they should discover some symptoms of temporary satisfaction, or rather exultation, at this return of prosperity, not very consistent with that jealous regard and firm attachment to the principles of constitutional liberty which they had uniformly professed, and by which their conduct had been in general distinguished. To ingratiate himself further into their good opinion, the king, and the courtiers who were most in his confidence, talked much and loudly of the popular laws which were intended to be enacted in the approaching parliament, and of the additional securities by which the liberties of the subject would be guarded. In consequence of these artifices, numerous addresses were presented by the sectaries, containing very ample and indiscreet protestations of gratitude and loyalty. But the more intelligent and respectable persons amongst them viewed these gross and palpable attempts to deceive with contempt and indignation. The king having signified to the new lord mayor of London, who was a professed dissenter, and appointed by royal mandamus to that office, that he was at liberty to use what form of worship he pleased in Guildhall chapel, that magistrate scrupled not to offer an open affront to the king's authority by referring the legality of this permission to the decision of counsel, by whom it was pronounced null and void; and the lord mayor had the prudence and moderation usually to attend the established worship during his mayoralty. Also, to shew their contempt of the dispensing power assumed by the king, he as well as the new court of aldermen qualified themselves for holding their offices agreeably to the requisition of the test laws. The anniversary of the gunpowder treason was likewise commemorated as usual, by order of the new magistracy, to the great displeasure of the court. And when the sheriffs by command of the king invited the nuncio, who about this period arrived from Rome, to the lord mayor's feast, an entry was made in the corporation books, that it was done without the knowledge or approbation of the magistracy. Incensed at these repeated marks of disrespect and disaffection, the king declared, that the dissenters were an ill-natured and obstinate people, not to be gained by any indulgence*." In order, however, to carry on Calamy and Neal, their own historians, acknowledge, and Dr. Zachary Grey has shown in his remarks upon the latter, that the addresses of the dissenters ran high; but those who possessed most weight and character amongst them kept at a distance from the court: "and as thankful as they were for their the farce of moderation and toleration, the French refugees, who now arrived in great numbers in England upon the repeal of the edict of Nantz, were received with favour, and treated with great ostentation of kindness. But this made little impression upon the minds of the generality of people, who saw plainly, by the manner in which affairs. were at this very time conducted in Scotland and Ireland, how little was to be expected from the king's lenity, could he once establish his authority upon a firm foundation in England. liberty," says lord Halifax, " they were fearful of the issue: neither can any number of consideration amongst them be charged with hazarding the public safety, by falling in with the court, of which they had as great a dread as their neighbours." A general meeting of the dissenting ministers being held in London, to take the declaration of indulgence into consideration, Mr. Howe, as præses, delivered his opinion most decidedly against the dispensing power; and another leading person, Dr. Williams, declared "that he apprehended their late sufferings had been occasioned more by their firm adherence to the constitution than their differing from the establishment; and therefore, if the king expected they should give up the constitution and declare for the dispensing power, he had rather for his own part lose his liberty, and return to his former bondage;"-and the motion for an address of thanks was rejected by a great majority. Nevertheless, by the artifices of the court, addresses were subsequently procured from the separate denominations. The king, in return to that from the presbyterians, told them, "that he hoped to see the day when they should have MAGNA CHARTA for the liberty of conscience, as well as for their properties." NEAL'S History of the Puritans, vol. iv, chap. 11. 1696. Affairs of In the summer of 1686, the earl of Murray, a new convert to the catholic religion, was commissioned to hold a parliament at Edinburgh; and the king by his royal letter recommended in very urgent terms the repeal of all penal laws and tests relative to religion. Though the object of the court was apparent to all, and though the Scottish bishops had been hitherto actuated by an unrelenting spirit of persecution, they exerted on this occasion all their eloquence to persuade the parliament to comply with the king's request, or rather demand: but nothing further could be obtained than a suspension of those laws during the lifetime of the king. This concession, though a very important one, was rejected with disdain by James, who dissolved the parliament in great wrath and by the express command of the king, the archbishop of Glasgow and the bishop of Dunkeld, who had dared to oppose the motion of repeal, were deprived of their bishoprics; for which no other motive was assigned but that such was the king's pleasure. That his boasted regard to the rights of toleration, and of private judgment in religion, was mere pretence, appeared perfectly manifest by the proclamation published at this time in Scotland, for "an entire liberty of conscience;"in which, "by his sovereignauthority, prerogative, royal and absolute power, which all his subjects were to obey without reserve," he restrained |