magistrate. This principle the Toleration Act not only does not
recognise, but positively disclaims. Not a single one of the
cruel laws enacted against nonconformists by the Tudors or the
Stuarts is repealed. Persecution continues to be the general
rule. Toleration is the exception. Nor is this all. The freedom
which is given to conscience is given in the most capricious
manner. A Quaker, by making a declaration of faith in general
terms, obtains the full benefit of the Act without signing one of
the thirty-nine Articles. An Independent minister, who is
perfectly willing to make the declaration required from the
Quaker, but who has doubts about six or seven of the Articles,
remains still subject to the penal laws. Howe is liable to
punishment if he preaches before he has solemnly declared his
assent to the Anglican doctrine touching the Eucharist. Penn, who
altogether rejects the Eucharist, is at perfect liberty to preach
without making any declaration whatever on the subject.

These are some of the obvious faults which must strike every
person who examines the Toleration Act by that standard of just
reason which is the same in all countries and in all ages. But
these very faults may perhaps appear to be merits, when we take
into consideration the passions and prejudices of those for whom
the Toleration Act was framed. This law, abounding with
contradictions which every smatterer in political philosophy can
detect, did what a law framed by the utmost skill of the greatest
masters of political philosophy might have failed to do. That the
provisions which have been recapitulated are cumbrous, puerile,
inconsistent with each other, inconsistent with the true theory
of religious liberty, must be acknowledged. All that can be said
in their defence is this; that they removed a vast mass of evil