Some movement in the too still waters was sorely needed.  A few Ritualists, as they would now be called, in the metropolitan churches, zealous and active men, would have stimulated within the Church a certain interest and excitement which, whether it were friendly or hostile, would have been almost certainly beneficial.  But, in the middle of the century, High Churchmen of this type would scarcely be found, except in Nonjuror ‘conventicles,’ and among the oppressed Episcopalians of Scotland.

The public relations of civil society towards religion attracted in the eighteenth century—­especially in the earlier part of it—­very universal attention.  Of the various questions that come under this head, there was none of such practical and immediate importance as that which was concerned with the toleration of religious differences.  The Toleration Act had been carried amid general approval.  There had been little enthusiasm about it, but also very little opposition.  Though it fell far short of what would now be understood by tolerance, it was fully up to the level of the times.  It fairly expressed what was thoroughly the case; that the spirit of intolerance had very much decreased, and that a feeling in favour of religious liberty was decidedly gaining ground.  Meanwhile, in King William’s reign, and still more so in that of his successor, there was a very strongly marked contention and perplexity of feeling as to what was really meant by toleration, and where its limits were to be fixed.  Everybody professed to be in favour of it, so long as it was interpreted according to his own rule.  The principle was granted, but there were few who had any clear idea as to the grounds upon which they granted it, and still fewer who did not think it was a principle to be carefully fenced round with limitations.  The Act of Toleration had been itself based in great measure upon mere temporary considerations, there being a very strong wish to consolidate the Protestant interest against Papal aggression.  Its benefits were strictly confined to the orthodox Protestant dissenters; and even they were left under many oppressive disabilities.  A great principle had been conceded, and a great injustice materially abated.  Henceforth English Dissenters, whose teachers had duly attested their allegiance, and duly subscribed to the thirty-six doctrinal articles of the Church of England, might attend their certified place of worship without molestation from vexatious penal laws.  It was bare toleration, accorded to certain favoured bodies; and there for a long time it ended.  Two wide-reaching limitations of the principle of tolerance intervened to close the gate against other Nonconformists than these.  Open heresy could not be permitted, nor any worship that was adjudged to be distinctly prejudicial to the interests of the State.  No word could yet be spoken, without risk of heavy penalty, against the received doctrine of the Trinity.  Nonjurors and Scotch Episcopalians could only meet by stealth in