410 THE PRESBYTERIANS TAKE PART WITH THE WHIGS. XVII. CHAP. to see what will become of their mighty Don; but, by the grace of Almighty God, I'll crush you all;" and the docile jury found "the main incendiary" guilty of sedition. Faction had ebbed; "rogues' " had grown out of fashion; there was nothing left for them but to "thrive in the plantations" of our America, and learn, said the royalists, 1. 386. "How Pennsylvania's air agrees with Quakers, And Carolina's with Associators; Both e'en too good for madmen and for traitors. Truth is, the land with saints is so run o'er, And every age produces such a store, That now there's need of two New Englands more." But the tide of liberty was still swelling, and soon wafted the "saints," and "rogues," and "rascals," to their deliverance. To understand fully the revolution which followed, it must be borne in mind, that the great mass of dissenters were struggling for liberty; but, checked by the memory of the disastrous issue of the previous revolution, they ranged themselves, with deliberate moderation, under the more liberal party of the aristocracy. Of James, Cromwell's army, the officers had been, "for the most part, the meanest sort of men, even brewers, coblers, and other mechanics;" recruits for the camp of William of Orange were led by bishops and the high nobility. There was a vast popular movement, but it was subordinate; the proclamation of the prince took notice of the people only as "followers" of the gentry. Yet the revolution of 1688 is due to the dissenters quite as much as to the whig aristocracy; to Baxter hardly less than to Shaftesbury. It is the consummation of the collision which, in the days of Henry VIII. and Edward, began between the Churchmen and the Puri XVII. tans, between those who invoked religion on the side CHAP. of passive obedience, and those who esteemed religion superior to man, and held resistance to tyranny a Christian duty. If the whig aristocracy looked to the stadtholder of aristocratic Holland as the protector of their liberties, Baxter and the Presbyterians saw in William the Calvinist their tolerant avenger. Of the two great aristocratic parties which led the politics of England, both respected the established British constitution. But the tory opposed reform, and leaned to the past; he defended his privileges against the encroachments of advancing civilization. The bishops, claiming for themselves a divine right by direct succession, were his natural allies; and to assert the indefeasible rights of the bishops, of the aristocracy, and of the king, against dissenters, republicans, and whigs, was his whole purpose. The whigs were also a party of the aristocracy, bent on the preservation of their privileges against the encroachments of the monarch. In an age that demanded liberty, the whigs, scarce proposing new enfranchisements, gathered up every liberty, feudal or popular, known to English law, and sanctioned by the fictitious compact of prescription. In a period of progress in the enfranchisement of classes, they shared political influence with the merchants and bankers; in an age of religious sects, they embraced the more moderate and liberal of the Church of England, and those of the dissenters whose dissent was the least glaring; in an age of speculative inquiry, they favored freedom of the press. How vast was the party, is evident, since it cherished among its numbers men so opposite as Shaftesbury and Sidney, as Locke and Baxter. These two parties embraced almost all the wealth XVII. THE PARTY OF EQUAL FREEDOM OF CONSCIENCE. 442 CHAP. and learning of England. But there was a third party of those who were pledged to "seek, and love, and chuse the best things." They insisted that all penal statutes and tests should be abolished; that, for all classes of nonconformists, whether Roman Catholics or dissenters, for the plebeian sects, "the less noble Penn. and more clownish sort of people," "the unclean kind," room should equally be made in the English ark; that the Church of England, content with its estates, should give up jails, whips, halters, and gibbets, and cease to plough the deep furrows of persecution; that the concession of equal freedom would give strength to the state, security to the prince, content to the multitude, wealth to the country, and would fit England for its office of asserting European liberty against the ambition of France; that reason, natural right, and public interest, demanded a glorious magna charta for intellectual freedom, even though the grant should be followed by "a dissolution of the great corporation of conscience." These were the views which were advocated by William Penn against what he calls "the prejudices of his times;" and which overwhelmed his name with obloquy as a friend to tyranny and a Jesuit priest in disguise. 1686. 1685, But the easy issue of the contest grew out of a division in the monarchical party itself. James II. could not comprehend the value of freedom, or the obligation of law. The writ of habeas corpus he esteemed inconsistent with monarchy, and "a great misfortune to the people." A standing army, and the terrors of corrupt tribunals, were his dependence; the pupil of Turenne delighted in military parades; the Catholic convert, swayed by his confessor, dispensed with the laws, multiplied Catholic chapels, rejoiced in XVII. the revocation of the edict of Nantz, and sought to CHAP. intrust civil and military power to the hands of Roman Catholics. The bishops had unanimously voted against his exclusion; and, as the badge of the Church of England was obedience, he for a season courted the alliance. of "the fairest of the spotted kind," the only tolerable Protestant sect. To win her favor for Roman Catholics, he was willing to persecute Protestant dissenters. This is the period of the influence of Roch ester. 1688. The Church of England refused the alliance. The 1687. king would now put no confidence in any zealous Protestant; he applauded the bigotry of Louis XIV., from whom he solicited money. "I hope," said he, "the king of France will aid me, and that we together shall do great things for religion ;" and the established church became the object of his implacable hatred. "Her day of grace was past." The royal favor was withheld, that it might silently waste and dissolve like snows in spring. To diminish its numbers, and apparently from no other motive, he granted-what Sunderland might have done from indifference, and Penn from love of justice-equal franchises to every sect; to the powerful Calvinist and to the "puny" Quaker, to Anabaptists and Independents, and "all the wild increase" which unsatisfied inquiry could generate. The declaration of indulgence was esteemed a deathblow to the church, and a forerunner of the reconciliation of England to Rome. The established franchises of Oxford were invaded, that its rich endowments might be shared among the Catholics; the bishops were imprisoned, because they would not publish in their churches the declaration, of which the purpose was 444 THE EUROPEAN REVOLUTION OF 1688. CHAP their defeat; and, that the system of tyranny might XVII. be perpetuated, Heaven, as the monarch believed, blessed his pious pilgrimage to St. Winifred's Well, by the pregnancy of his wife and the birth of a son. The party of prerogative was trampled under foot; and, in their despair, they looked abroad for the liberty which they themselves had assisted to exile. The obedient Church of England set the example of rebellion. Thus are the divine counsels perfected. "What think you now of predestination?" demanded William, as he landed in England. Tories took the lead in inviting 1688. the prince of Orange to save the English church; the whigs joined to rescue the privileges of the nobility; the Presbyterians rushed eagerly into the only safe avenue to toleration; the people quietly acquiesced. King James was left alone in his palace. His terrified priests escaped to the continent; Sunderland was always false; his confidential friends betrayed him; his daughter Anne, pleading conscience, proved herself one of his worst enemies. "God help me," exclaimed the disconsolate father, bursting into tears, "my very children have forsaken me;" and his grief was increased by losing a piece of the true wood of the cross, that had belonged to Edward the Confessor. lyzed by the imbecility of doubt, and destitute of counsellors, the good soul fled beyond the sea, and gave up three kingdoms for a mass. Aided by falsehoods, the prince of Orange, without striking a blow, ascended the throne of his father-in-law, and Mary, by whose dishonest letters James was lulled into security, came over exultingly to occupy the throne, the palace, and the bed of her father, and sequester the inheritance of her brother. Para Thus were the rights of Englishmen rescued from |