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Toleration and Persecution in England, 1660–89

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Charles F. Mullett
Affiliation:
University of Missouri, Columbia, Mo.

Extract

During the years of their greatest tribulation, English Protestant dissenters were steadily buoyed up by numerous efforts in their behalf; stemming from various sources, these efforts were inspired by motives equally various. Gestures toward a peaceful settlement actually began before Charles II ascended the throne. Little persecution marked the Cromwellian regime and although the Establishment had possessed a Presbyterian tinge, organized Presbyterianism had made little headway. The Church was rather an assemblage of congregations than a compact hierarchy. While Episcopalians had been forced from their livings, many did not appear vindictive, and as the Restoration approached, a tolerant mood seemed uppermost.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1949

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References

1 Irenicum, or a Weapon-salve for the Church's Wounds (1661, 1662)Google Scholar. Stilling-fleet (1635–99) wrote variously on the relations of Church and state and took part in the major controversies on this issue; he became Dean of St. Paul's in 1678 and Bishop of Worcester in 1689. Two of his later pieces, The Mischief of Separation (1680)Google Scholar and The Unreasonableness of Separation (1680/1)Google Scholar, reversed the position taken in the Irenicum.

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27 Ibid., 367–68. At the same time justices of the peace were being severely reprimanded for not enforcing the penal laws. Ibid., 369.

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37 House of Lords Mss. (Hist. Mss. Comm., XI, pt. ii, 1887), 204Google Scholar. On March 24, 1681, one member inquired about it in vain. Grey, , Debates, VIII, 295.Google Scholar

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53 Ibid., 352.

54 Hist. Mss. Comm., V (1876), 376.

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61 Mullett, Charles F.. “The Corporation Act and the Election of English Protestant Dissenters to Corporation Offices,” Virginia Law Review, XXI (1935), 661Google Scholar, and, more generally, “The Legal Position of English Protestant Dissenters 1660–1689,” Ibid., XXII (1936), 495–526, and “The Legal Position of English Protestant Dissenters, 1689–1767,” Ibid., XXIII (1937), 389–418, and “The Legal Position of the English Protestant Dissenters, 1767–1812,” Ibid., XXV (1939), 671–97.