[610] 16 Car. 2, c. 4. A similar bill had passed the Commons in July 1663, but hung some time in the upper house, and was much debated; the Commons sent up a message (an irregular practice of those times) to request their lordships would expedite this and some other bills. The king seems to have been displeased at this delay; for he told them at their prorogation, that he had expected some bills against conventicles and distempers in religion, as well as the growth of popery, and should himself present some at their next meeting. Parl. Hist. 288. Burnet observes, that to empower a justice of peace to convict without a jury, was thought a great breach on the principles of the English constitution. 285.
[611] P. 221.
[612] 17 Car. 2, c. 2.
[613] Burnet; Baxter, Part III. p. 2; Neal, p. 652.
[614] Burnet: Baxter.
[615] Mr. Locke, in the "Letter from a Person of Quality to his Friend in the Country," printed in 1675 (see it in his works, or in Parliamentary History, vol. iv. Appendix, No. 5), says it was lost by three votes, and mentions the persons. But the numbers in the Journals, October 27, 1665, appear to be 57 to 51. Probably he meant that those persons might have been expected to vote the other way.
[616] A pamphlet, with Baxter's name subscribed, called "Fair Warning, or XXV Reasons against Toleration and Indulgence of Popery," 1663, is a pleasant specimen of this argumentum ab inferno. "Being there is but one safe way to salvation, do you think that the protestant way is that way, or is it not? If it be not, why do you live in it? If it be, how can you find in your heart to give your subjects liberty to go another way? Can you, in your conscience, give them leave to go on in that course in which, in your conscience, you think you could not be saved?" Baxter, however, does not mention this little book in his life; nor does he there speak violently about the toleration of Romanists.
[617] The clergy had petitioned the House of Commons in 1664, inter alia, "That for the better observation of the Lord's day, and for the promoting of conformity, you would be pleased to advance the pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for each absence from divine service, in proportion to the degree, quality, and ability of the delinquent; that so the penalty may be of force sufficient to conquer the obstinacy of the nonconformists." Wilkin's Concilia, iv. 580. Letters from Sheldon to the commissary of the diocese of Canterbury, in 1669 and 1670, occur in the same collection (pp. 588, 589) directing him to inquire about conventicles; and if they cannot be restrained by ecclesiastical authority, to apply to the next justice of peace in order to put them down. A proclamation appears also from the king, enjoining magistrates to do this. In 1673, the archbishop writes a circular to his suffragans, directing them to proceed against such as keep schools without licence. P. 593.
See in the Somers Tracts, vii. 586, a "true and faithful narrative" of the severities practised against nonconformists about this time. Baxter's Life is also full of proofs of persecution; but the most complete register is in Calamy's account of the ejected clergy.
[618] Pepys observes, 12 July 1667, "how everybody nowadays reflect upon Oliver and commend him, what brave things he did, and made all the neighbour princes fear him."