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LETTER IV.

The church of England established in Maryland by a law of the provincial legisture, A. D. 1692.--Supported by a tax to be paid in tobacco.-By an act in 1702, dissenters in Maryland allowed the benefit of a statute passed in the first year of William's reign.-Roman Catholics and Unitarians excepted from this benefit.-The doors of the meeting-houses of all dissenters must however be left" unlocked, unbarred and unbolted.”—Their teachers still obnoxious to penalties, unless they subscribed certain articles mentioned in 13 Eliz. ch. 12.The act of 1702, a legislative finesse to establish the church of England by stealth. The test act passed by the legislature in 1716.-A law authorising a tax on tobacco to be assessed by the justices of the peace, on application of the vestrymen and church-wardens, was enacted 1729.-The case of John Calvin and Servetus suggested, and the consideration of it promised in the next letter.

MY DEAR SIR,

With your permission, I will now glance at those laws which established a church in Maryland, and endeavour to show you something of their effects upon all classes of dissenters.

By an act of the provincial legislature (no doubt drawn up in England,) approved by the representation of their Majesties King William and Queen Mary, June 5th, 1692, the church of England was united with the government, and became the established church of Maryland. By that law, provision was made for the division of the province into parishes, the election of vestries, the building and repairing of churches, and supporting their ministers; and a tax of forty pounds of tobacco "per poll," was imposed on every "taxable," to meet the necessary

expenditure. By another act, passed in 1702, dissenters residing in Maryland were declared to be entitled to the benefit of the statutes passed in the first year of the reign of William and Mary, commonly called the toleration act. The toleration act declares, that neither of the statutes of Elizabeth, James, or Charles, already mentioned, except the test acts, shall extend to any dissenters, other than papists, and such as deny the Trinity; provided such dissenters will take the oaths of allegiance and supremacy, or similar affirmations, being Quakers, and subscribe the declaration against popery. So far the statute was not very burthensome upon Protestant dissenters; but it further requires, that they repair to some congregation certified to and registered in the court of the bishop, the arch-deacon, or at the county sessions ;* and not only so, but that the doors of their "meeting-houses" shall be "unlocked, unbarred, and unbolted;" and disobedience to the last requisition exposed every one in the house, to all the pains for nonconformity, prescribed by every statute at that time in force in England. How much they feared conventicles! But all this was not only required of dissenting teachers but they were still obnoxious to all those penal laws, unless in addition they subscribed the articles of religion mentioned in 13 Eliz. ch. 12. Those articles related to the con

* Instead of that kind of registration, the act of 1702 required that the several places used for religious worship by dissenting congregations, should be certified to and registered in the county courts in the manner prescribed by the toleration act.

fession of the true christian faith, and the doctrine of the sacraments, with exceptions as to the government and power of the church, and as to infant baptism.

It is a fact worth some attention, that after William and Mary had seized the government of the province, and could control its legislators, their first act recognized the right of their majesties to the crown of England and its appurtenances, and the second law passed by them, established the church of England here, which was followed by all the unpleasant consequences to dissenters, alluded to in the preceding paragraph. Not content with that, the same authority in 1706 declared in round terms, that all the penal statutes mentioned in the toleration act were in force in Maryland. The act of 1702 must have been a piece of legislative finesse;-it attempted the establishment of the church of England by stealth, in all the terrors which environed it. The only advantage which dissenters could derive from the toleration act was, by complying with its terms, to shield themselves and their social worship from the vengeance of the cruel laws already referred to; but there had never been a prosecution in Maryland under either of those statutes; in fact, they had not extended to the province, until its legislature indirectly enacted them by declaring the toleration act in force here. That such was their purpose is clearly proven by the act of 1706; the government was then a little older and could venture farther. In 1716, the legislature passed a test act, which excluded every

one who would not comply with its terms, from every office, deputation, or trust in the province. The oath prescribed by it, very properly called "the abhorrency," was highly spiced :-" I, A. B., do swear, that I do from my heart, abhor, detest, and abjure as impious and heretical, that damnable doctrine and position," &c. By a law passed in 1729, it was further provided: "That it shall, and may be lawful for, and the several justices of the several county courts within this province are hereby required and directed, on application to them made by the vestrymen and church-wardens of any parish, yearly to assess the parishioners of such parish, any quantity of tobacco not exceeding ten per poll, on the taxable inhabitants thereof; for the enlargement or repairs of any church, heretofore or hereafter to be enlarged, or for any other charge that shall hereafter be judged by the vestry and church-wardens to be necessary for the use of the same parish." The lines which I have underscored, certainly gave to“ vestrymen and church-wardens" dangerous power. From the passage of that law until the Revolution, there was no important change in the laws relating to the established church or to those dissenting from it.

The matter about which I have been writing, has recalled to my mind, John Calvin and Michael Servetus. The admirers of the great reformer are frequently taunted, and by descendants of the first settlers of Virginia and Maryland too, with his alleged agency in procuring the death of the heretic. I shall endeavour to show you in my next letter, that pro

vincial Virginia was not more tolerant than Geneva; and that in provincial Maryland, Servetus might have been legally and more cruelly punished for the offence for which he died. You will excuse the digression?

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