Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1903 Excerpt: ...endured since the Restoration can appreciate the force of the temptation now suddenly presented to them. A few weeks ago and they spoke of their faith, if at all, in bated breath. They were hunted like rats from hole to hole. Informers were paid to play the spy upon them. Their persons were imprisoned, their property plundered. They had died by thousands in close confinement; had suffered nameless atrocities at the hands of Jeffreys; had had their nearest kin transported into slavery. Their noblest writers, Baxter, Howe, Bunyan, had shared the common fate. And now, by a sudden turn of the wheel of fortune, they were offered everything for which they had fought and pleaded and suffered and died during all these years. Suddenly, as Macaulay puts it, they found themselves the subject of one of the strangest auctions ever held. Romanist King and Episcopal Church began to bid against each other for their support. If only they would respond to the overtures of the King, and assure him of their unfaltering loyalty, and all the rest of it, he would guarantee them full liberty for the exercise of their various systems of Church worship and government. Once again they might take their part in civil and military life, once again their preachers might evangelise the country and organise churches. Worn-out with suffering, and weary of endless restrictions and disabilities, this sudden clearing of the sky was welcome beyond all telling. They had only to look at the matter selfishly, as it concerned their own liberty, and permit James to do what he liked in regard to the State Church, and England might very probably have been lost. Even the stoutest Episcopalian will hardly deny that the way in which the Nonconformists stood the test imposed upon them now deserves somethi...