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    and by his courage and patience at the stake , gave a sanction to the opinions he had embraced . " R . G . S . June 2 . P . S . I must take the liberty of extending this already long letter , and of overstepping the order of

    chronology to thank you for giving your readers a copy of the Toleration Act , which has been so much more praised than read , or rather would have been seldom

    praised , had it been often read , with due attention . There is in the life of the learned historian , JPrideaux ( p . £ 3 ) , a passage worthy to accompany this statute .

    It is the following curious account of the effect produced in his archdeaconry oj Suffolk , by the publication of the act , and the reluctance of the people to receive the ecclesiastical comment on the

    Gospel text Compel them to come in . " After the Act of Toleration had pas&ed the Royal Assent , the first of King William and Queen Mary , many people foolishly imagined , that they had thereby full liberty given them , either to

    go to church or stay away , and idly dispose of themselves elsewhere , as they should think fit ; and accordingly the public assemblies for divine worship on the Lord ' s day were much deserted , and ale-houses much more

    resorted to than the churched . &r . Prideaux ^ in order to put a stop to this growing evil , drew up a circular letter , directed to * the mta % s » ters of his archdeaconry , in wft&Si after he had informed them , that

    the said act gave no tote * ati * m to absent from church but only to such who dissenting ; ftcto Ihe established religi ^ worshipped God else where , with one of the dissenting sects mentioned in the

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    said act , arid that ail who absented themselves from church , and did not worship God elsewhere , were under the same penalties of law as before , and ought to be punished accordingly , he desired them to send for their

    churchwardens , and having fully instructed them in this matter , exhort them to do their duty herein , and present at all visitations for the future all such prophane and irreligious abbenters from church , in the same manner as formerly used to be done before this act was

    made . This circular letter he sent to London , and having gotten as many copies of it to be printed , as there were parishes in his archdeaconry ; on hih next visitation ,

    which was Michaelmas , Anno Domini 16 ^ 2 , dispersed them amongst the ministers of the said parishes , giving each of them one . It was afterwards published at the end of his Directions to

    Churchwardens * and underwent several editions . This letter he found had , in some measure , its intended effect , though it could not wholly cure this evil /* I know not whether Dr .

    Prideaux were encouraged , in this use of carnal weapons , by the declaration of Bishop Carleton at the Synod of Dort in 1618 . It is thus described in a letter

    from John Hales ( Remains , p . 373 ) . ** My Lord Bishop shewed that with us in England , the magistrate imposed a pecuniary mulct upon such as did absent themselves from divine duties :

    whirh pecuniary , mulct generally prevailed more wifh our peo- * pie , thanarVy pious admonitions Cbitld : Prideaux was followed , fifty years after , feyV priest edfucated among the dissenters , who yet

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    3 $ & Sketch of English Protestant Persecution . —Letter IP * .

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), June 2, 1812, page 368, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1749/page/24/