and therefore those men of Rome that . . do preach them cannot pretend to the excuses of innocent opinions,

.. for God hath not left those truths which are necessary for conservation of public societies of men, so intricate and obscure, but that every one that is honest and desirous to understand his duty will certainly know that no Christian truth destroys a man's being sociable and a member of the body politic, coöperating to the conservation of the whole as well as of itself." Dealing with the doctrine of transubstantiation he excuses Papists from the charge of idolatry in the celebration of mass and decides that this is not a sufficient ground for withholding toleration from them. In this respect he is more liberal than Milton. Considering terms of communion, he insists that churches ought to allow those to commune who agree with them in essentials, and he concludes his great discourse with the story of Abraham and the idolatrous traveler, a story which Franklin also quotes, though probably from another source.

This singularly lucid, skilfully argued and comprehensive book was a bold utterance for the time, and though its main contentions have long since been accepted, it remains still attractive to the reader, a monument to the courage, insight and piety of the author and an evidence of the conscientious efforts of some Anglican divines of the Seventeenth Century for the attainment of freedom in religious opinion. But the treatise has its limitations. Taylor conceived of toleration as the privilege of those only who accept the Apostles' creed. His book is not a plea for universal religious liberty. While he did not deny the claim of those outside this pale to toleration, he did not assert it. What he thought should be done with Jews, Pagans and those who profess religions other than Christianity, he has not told us. His principles, carried to their conclusion, would embrace these, but whether he thought of them, we do not know. The issue was not then sharply raised.

But with all this, considering the time, it is a strikingly progressive book. Here was a man at the age of thirtyfour, a follower and protégé of the persecuting Archbishop Laud; separated from chosen friends and books; hiding from persecution in a corner of Wales; pronounced royalist and Episcopalian, writing this most charitable, learned and sustained argument for freedom in religion.

England was in the throes of the Civil War. The King was a prisoner, now of the Parliament, and now of the army, which were craftily struggling against each other for the mastery. The Independents and Presbyterians were at one another's throats. The Presbyterian Directory of Worship was everywhere enforced; the use of the Prayer Book forbidden; and Episcopacy hunted out of almost every parish and diocese in the land. The altars, beautiful sculptures, priceless stained glass, costly vestments and sacramental vessels of church and cathedral were broken, trodden under foot, or carried off. The sacred buildings became stables and outhouses. The church revenues and lands were confiscated. No one could teach or preach without taking an oath to resist every sign of Popery or Prelacy. The Universities were presbyterianized, and toleration was scoffed at by thousands of voices as "the Devil's Masterpiece." "If the Devil had choice whether the hierarchy, ceremonies and liturgy should be established in the kingdom, or a toleration granted, he would choose toleration," said one speaker in Parliament. "We detest and abhor the much endeavored toleration," said a meeting of the London ministers. The Presbyterians were more relentless than Laud. Even the Independents could expect no real liberty at their hands. Still in this uproar, this contention, this bitter struggle of faction, this "dyscrasy," as Taylor calls it, there was an earnest desire on the part of the best men to find some common ground, some accommodation in ecclesiastical matters; and it was without doubt in a desire to further

this, that Taylor published his book in June, 1647. But Episcopacy was at the moment trampled and torn under the feet of contending sects who were not disposed to listen to a plea from their common antagonist; and when at the Restoration the author and his church returned to power, both of them apparently forgot for the time the lessons of his book, which afforded such a platform for all parties.

The book has however been given too much credit in some quarters. Bishop Heber for example calls it, "the first public defence of the principles of religious toleration," "the first attempt on record to conciliate the minds of Christians to the reception of a doctrine which, though now the rule of action professed by all Christian sects, was then by every sect alike regarded as a perilous and pretentious novelty." This is an error, as we shall see. If he had said that the book was the first separate, distinct and comprehensive argument for religious liberty put forth by an Episcopalian he would have been nearer the truth.

Mr. Gosse thinks that there is "an absolutely novel note in Taylor" in that he "first conceived of a toleration not founded upon agreement, or concession, but upon a broad basis of practical piety"; and he says, “that it is not too much to claim for Taylor in the religious and intellectual order, something of the gratitude which we pay, or should pay to Sir James Simpson in the physical order"; that is, "for the blessed anæsthetics which this great innovator [Taylor] introduced into the practice of religious surgery." This gives a doubly false impression. Sir James Simpson was no more the first who introduced anæsthetics in surgery-being preceded by more than a year by Morton in this country-than was Taylor to introduce toleration in religion, being anticipated, not only for generations before by a host of various productions of non-conformists, whose names shine like stars in the

story of this great struggle, but by the writings of a large number of thinkers and leaders in the Anglican Church itself.

Perhaps one of the earliest of these to be mentioned is Richard Hooker, the first part of whose great work on Ecclesiastical Polity was published in 1594. Hooker's work is certainly not a plea for religious liberty. Certain phases of his masterly argument seem to give a basis for intolerance. On the other hand he affirms that many of the points in dispute between the Episcopalian and Nonconformist, in church government, were not fixed, but subject to changes according to circumstances; and when he deals with general principles he concedes much to the Puritan position.

Before Hooker, Parker, the first Archbishop of Elizabeth (1559), though laying down no principle of liberty, practically showed a broad and tolerent spirit towards both Papist and Puritan; and his successor, the weaker Grindal, bravely defended the "Prophesyings" which, inspired by Non-conformity, sprang up outside of the regular establishment, until both the "Prophesyings" and the Archbishop were put down by the iron hand of the great Queen.

Much later and more pronounced than these, however, is that profound thinker and logician, William Chillingworth, 1602-1644, in his relentless pursuit of the truth, first Protestant, then Catholic, then Protestant again, who was at Oxford with Taylor, of whom he complains that "he wants much of the ethical part of a discourser and slights too much many times the arguments of those he discourses with." Perhaps the younger man listened with more attention than the older man supposed (they were eleven years apart), for Chillingworth's great work, "The Religion of Protestants, a safe way of Salvation," published in 1637, to this day a marvel of grasp, acuteness and clear English, no doubt furnished Taylor with leading suggestions. Gardiner says concerning the "Liberty of

Prophesying" that "three-fourths of its argument was written under the influence of Chillingworth." Certainly the demonstration of the impossibility of finding any infallible authority in religion, with which a large part of Taylor's book is taken up, is set forth even more clearly by Chillingworth. Up to the date of Chillingworth's book no such thorough-going argument on behalf of the freedom of the individual reason from authority had ever been made, and as a necessary corollary of this, liberty of conscience was as a theory irresistibly demanded by the author as the right of the individual man. Chillingworth says: "Seeing there are contentions among us, we are taught by nature and scripture and experience (so you tell us out of Mr. Hooker), to seek for the ending of them by submitting to some judicial sentence whereunto neither part may refuse to stand. This is very true. Neither should you need to persuade us to seek such means of ending all our controversies, if we could tell where to find it. But this we know that none is fit to pronounce for all the world a judicial, definite, obliging sentence in controversies of religion, but only such a man, or society of men, as is authorized thereto by God. And besides, we are able to demonstrate that it hath not been the pleasure of God to give to any man, or society of men, such authority. And therefore, though we wish heartily that all controversies were ended, as we do that all sins were abolished, yet we have little hope of the one or the other, until the world be ended; and in the meanwhile think it best to control ourselves with, and to persuade others to charity and mutual toleration, seeing God hath authorized no man to force all men to unity of opinion, neither do we think it fit to argue thus: to us it seems convenient there should be one judge of all controversies for the whole world, therefore God hath appointed one: but more modest and more reasonable to collect thus: God hath appointed no such judge of controversies, there