Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-sxzjt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T09:57:30.366Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

THE OCCASIONAL CONFORMITY CONTROVERSY, MODERATION, AND THE ANGLICAN CRITIQUE OF MODERNITY, 1700–1714*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 January 2014

BRENT S. SIROTA
BRENT S. SIROTA*
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University
*
Department of History, North Carolina State University, Withers Hall, Raleigh, North Carolina, 27695bssirota@ncsu.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

The occasional conformity controversy during the reign of Queen Anne has traditionally been understood as a straightforward symptom of the early eighteenth-century ‘rage of party’. For all the pious rhetoric concerning toleration and the church in danger, the controversy is considered a partisan squabble for short-term political gain. This traditional interpretation has, however, never been able to account for two features of the controversy: first, the focus on ‘moderation’ as a unique characteristic of post-Revolutionary English society; and second, the prominence of the Anglican nonjurors in the debate. This article revisits the occasional conformity controversy with an eye toward explaining these two related features. In doing so, it will argue that the occasional conformity controversy comprised a referendum on the Revolution settlement in church and state. Nonjurors lit upon the practice of occasional conformity as emblematic of the broader malady of moderation afflicting post-Revolutionary England. From their opposition to occasional conformity, the nonjurors, and soon the broader Anglican high-church movement, developed a comprehensive critique of religious modernity that would inform the entire framework of debate in the early English Enlightenment.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 57 , Issue 1 , March 2014 , pp. 81 - 105
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

I thank James Vaughn, Steve Pincus, Bill Bulman, Robert Ingram, and the participants in the ‘God and the Enlightenment’ conference at Ohio University in October 2012 for their generous engagement with earlier drafts of this article. Thanks also to Phil Withington and the anonymous reviewers for their assistance in shaping this article into its final form. All pre-1800 works were published in London unless otherwise stated.

References

1 On the debates over toleration, see Thomas, Roger, ‘Comprehension and indulgence’, in Chadwick, Owen and Nuttall, G. F., eds., From uniformity to unity, 1662–1962 (London, 1962), pp. 225–31Google Scholar; and see Spurr, John, ‘The Church of England, comprehension and the Toleration Act of 1689’, English Historical Review, 413 (1989), pp. 927–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Coffey, John, Persecution and toleration in Protestant England, 1558–1689 (Harlow, 2000), pp. 197–218Google Scholar; Sowerby, Scott, Making toleration: the repealers and the Glorious Revolution (Cambridge, MA, 2013)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for a recent overview of the historiography of the trinitarian controversy, see Sirota, Brent S., ‘The trinitarian crisis in church and state: religious controversy and the making of the postrevolutionary Church of England, 1687–1702’, Journal of British Studies, 52 (2013), pp. 26–54CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the Sachevrell trial, see Holmes, Geoffrey, The trial of Doctor Sacheverell (London, 1973)Google Scholar; Cowan, Brian, ‘The spin doctor: Sacheverell's trial speech and political performance in the divided society’, Parliamentary History, 31 (2012), pp. 28–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; on the Bangorian controversy, see Starkie, Andrew, The Church of England and the Bangorian controversy, 1716–1721 (Woodbridge, 2007)Google Scholar; Dudley, Christopher, ‘The decline of religion in British politics, 1710–1734’, British Scholar, 3 (2010), pp. 43–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

2 Holmes, Geoffrey, British politics in the age of Anne (2nd edn, London, 1987), pp. 99–103Google Scholar; and on the politics of the occasional conformity controversy, see also idem, The making of a great power, 1660–1720 (London, 1993), pp. 353–6; idem, Politics, religion and society in England, 1679–1742 (London, 1986), pp. 195–203; Feiling, Keith, A history of the Tory party, 1640–1714 (Oxford, 1924), pp. 360–80Google Scholar; Kenyon, J. P., Revolution principles: the politics of party, 1689–1720 (Cambridge, 1977), pp. 83–101CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gregg, Edward, Queen Anne (London, 1980), pp. 162–3Google Scholar, 177–9, 192–3; Cruickshanks, Eveline, ‘Religion and the royal succession – the rage of party’, in Jones, Clyve, ed., Britain in the first age of party, 1680–1750 (London, 1987), pp. 31–3Google Scholar; Speck, W. A., The birth of Britain: a new nation, 1700–1710 (Oxford, 1994), pp. 4Google Scholar, 45–8, 56–7, 76–80; Hoppit, Julian, A land of liberty? England, 1689–1727 (Oxford, 2000), pp. 219Google Scholar, 289–93.

3 Flaningam, John, ‘The occasional conformity controversy: ideology and party politics, 1697–1711’, Journal of British Studies, 17 (1977), pp. 38–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greig, Martin, ‘Bishop Gilbert Burnet and latitudinarian episcopal opposition to the occasional conformity bills, 1702–1704’, Canadian Journal of History, 41 (2006), pp. 247–62CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Sarkela, Sandra J., ‘Moderation, religion and public discourse: the rhetoric of occasional conformity in England, 1697–1711’, Rhetorica, 15 (1997), pp. 53–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; see also Walsham, Alexandra, Charitable hatred: tolerance and intolerance in England, 1500–1700 (Manchester, 2006), pp. 267–8Google Scholar, 286.

4 ‘The critics of occasional conformity’, Flaningam writes, ‘were primarily High Churchmen’, Flaningam, ‘Occasional conformity controversy’, p. 44. Sarkela does indeed note ‘Many supporters of the Occasional Conformity Bill were nonjurors … seeing in Queen Anne an opportunity to undue [sic] some of the policies and practices initiated by the 1688 revolution’, although she does not indicate where exactly they diverged from the mainstream of Anglican toryism, Sarkela, ‘The rhetoric of occasional conformity’, p. 71; Greig routinely lists nonjurors as high churchmen or ‘leading figures amongst the High Church party’; Greig, ‘Burnet and occasional conformity bills’, pp. 254–5, 259–60.

5 On the ambivalent rhetorical deployment of the concept of moderation, see Shagan, Ethan, ‘Beyond good and evil: thinking with moderates in early modern England’, Journal of British Studies, 49 (2010), pp. 488–513CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Shagan, The rule of moderation: violence, religion and the politics of restraint in early modern England (Cambridge, 2011).

6 Spurr, John, The Post-Reformation: religion, politics and society in Britain, 1603–1714 (Harlow, 2006), p. 205Google Scholar; Coffey, Persecution and toleration in Protestant England, pp. 200–1; Walsham, Charitable hatred, p. 286.

7 On the notion of an ‘Anglican confessional state’, see Clark, J. C. D., English Society, 1660–1832 (2nd edn, Cambridge, 2000)Google Scholar; Gibson, William, The Church of England, 1688–1832: unity and accord (London, 2001)Google Scholar.

8 On ‘neutralization’ as secularization, see the pioneering formulation by Schmitt, Carl, ‘On the age of neutralizations and depoliticizations’, trans. McCormick, John E., Telos, 96 (1993), pp. 119–42Google Scholar.

9 Boyer, Abel, The history of the reign of Queen Anne, digested into annals: year the second (1704), p. 172Google Scholar; The proceedings of both houses of parliament in the years 1702, 1703 1704 upon the bill to prevent occasional conformity (1710), pp. 40–1; Philip Stubbs, For God or Baal; or, no neutrality in religion: a sermon against occasional conformity (1704).

10 Jameson, Fredric, Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism (Durham, NC, 1991), p. 10Google Scholar.

11 The distinction of high-church and low-church, distinctly consider'd and fairly stated (1705), p. 35; Moderation vindicated (1705), p. 12; William Roberts, The divine institution of the gospel ministry (1712), pp. 27–8.

12 For a very useful discussion of the taxonomy of associational life in early modern England, see Withington, Phil, Society in early modern England (Cambridge, 2010), esp. pp. 102–33Google Scholar; which offers some welcome historical nuance to the varieties of purposive association discussed in Clark, Peter, British clubs and societies, 15800–1800: the origins of an associational world (Oxford, 2001)Google Scholar.

13 See, for instance, Buckley, Michael J., At the origins of modern atheism (New Haven, CT, 1987)Google Scholar; Placher, William C., The domestication of transcendence: how modern thinking about God went wrong (Louisville, KY, 1996)Google Scholar; Gillespie, Michael Allen, The theological origins of modernity (Chicago, IL, 2008)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

14 Leighton, C. D. A., ‘The nonjurors and the Counter Enlightenment: some illustration’, Journal of Religious History, 22 (1998), pp. 270–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar; idem, ‘The religion of the non-jurors and the early British Enlightenment: a study of Henry Dodwell’, History of European Ideas, 28 (2002), pp. 247–62; and idem, ‘Ancienneté among the non-jurors: a study of Henry Dodwell’, History of European Ideas, 31 (2005), pp. 1–16.

15 Watts, Michael, The dissenters, i: From the Reformation to the French Revolution (Oxford, 1978), pp. 265–66Google Scholar; Lacey, Douglass R., Dissent and parliamentary politics in England, 1661–1689 (New Brunswick, NJ, 1969), pp. 15–28Google Scholar; Ramsbottom, John D., ‘Presbyterians and “partial conformity” in the Restoration Church of England’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 43 (1992), pp. 249–70CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Daniel Defoe, An enquiry into the occasional conformity of dissenters in cases of preferment (1697), pp. 10, 17; idem, A letter to Mr. How, by way of reply to his considerations of the preface to an enquiry into the occasional conformity of dissenters (1701); Hewlett, J. P., ed., The Works of John Howe, M. A. (3 vols., London, 1848), iii, pp. 536–52Google Scholar, 573–6.

17 Francis Atterbury, Letter to a convocation-man, concerning the rights, powers and privileges of that body (1697), p. 21.

18 On the politics of the ‘new high church party’ of the post-revolutionary era, see Bennett, G. V., ‘Conflict in the church’, in Holmes, Geoffrey, ed., Britain after the glorious revolution, 1689–1714 (London, 1969), pp. 155–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at p. 165; Holmes, The trial of Doctor Sacheverell, pp. 22–44; Sirota, ‘The trinitarian crisis in church and state’.

19 Sirota, Brent S., ‘“The leviathan is not safely to be angered”: the convocation controversy, country ideology and Anglican high churchmanship, 1689–1702’, in Stein, Joshua B. and Donabed, Sargon D., eds., Religion and the state: Europe and North America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Lanham, MD, 2012), pp. 41–61Google Scholar.

20 The modern whig dictator: or, the exultation: a satyr (1702), p. 8; Francis Atterbury, The rights, powers, and priviledges of an English convocation (1700), sig. A6r.

21 Smith, R. J., The gothic bequest: medieval institutions in British thought, 1688–1813 (Cambridge, 1987), pp. 28–38CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Douglass, David, English scholars, 166o-1730 (2nd edn, (London, 1951), pp. 195–221Google Scholar.

22 A letter from a clergy-man in the country to a dignified clergy-man in London, vindicating the bill brought in the last sessions of parliament for preventing the translation of bishops (1702); An answer to a letter from a clergy-man in the country to a dignfify'd clergy-man in London (1702); [William Wake], A letter from a country clergy-man to his brother in the neighbourhood, touching some reproaches cast upon the bishops (1702); Horwitz, Henry, Parliament, policy and politics in the reign of William III (Newark, DE, 1977), p. 293Google Scholar.

23 Robertson, David, ed., Diary of Francis Evans, secretary to Bishop Lloyd, 1699–1706 (Oxford, 1903), pp. xxi–xxivGoogle Scholar, 57; The evidence given at the bar of the House of Commons, upon the complaint of Sir John Pakington, against William Lord bishop of Worcester and Mr. Lloyd, his son (1702).

24 Gregg, Queen Anne, pp. 145–8.

25 Sacheverell, Henry, A sermon preach'd before the University of Oxford (Oxford, 1702), pp. 39–40Google Scholar.

26 Atterbury to Dr James, 23 June 1702, Nicols, J., ed., The epistolary correspondence, visitation charges, speeches and miscellanies of the right reverend Francis Atterbury, D. D. lord bishop of Rochester, with historical notes (5 vols., London, 1783), iii, pp. 69–70Google Scholar.

27 Sacheverell, Henry, The political union, a discourse shewing the dependence of government on religion, in general: and of the English monarchy on the Church of England in particular (Oxford, 1702), pp. 49–50Google Scholar.

28 Ibid., 48.

29 Ibid., 49; and see Spurr, ‘The Church of England’.

30 Horwitz, Henry, ‘Comprehension in the later seventeenth century: a postscript’, Church History, 34 (1965), pp. 342–8CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Greig, ‘Burnet and occasional conformity bills’, pp. 256–60.

31 Sacheverell, Political union, pp. 61–2.

32 Henry Sacheverell, The character of a low-churchman (1702), p. 6; a response to an attack by another Fellow at Magdalen Richard West, The true character of a church-man (n.p., 1702); and see also Leslie, Charles, The new association of those called, moderate church-men, with the modern whigs and fanaticks (2nd edn, 1702), pp. 10–14Google Scholar, 21.

33 Sacheverell, Political union, pp. 37–45.

34 William Bromley to Arthur Charlett, 22 Oct. 1702, Bodleian Library (Bodl.), Ballard MS 38, fo. 107; James Drake, Some necessary considerations relating to all future elections of members to serve in parliament (1702), pp. 19–21.

35 Feiling, History of the Tory party, p. 363.

36 Proceedings, pp. 4–6.

37 Peter Birch to Arthur Charlett, 14 Nov. 1702, Bodl., Ballard MS 34, fo. 58; William Moore to Arthur Charlett, 2 Dec. 1702, Bodl., Ballard MS 32, fo. 179; Luttrell, Narcissus, A brief historical relation of state affairs (6 vols., Oxford, 1857), v, pp. 232Google Scholar, 236, 237, 239, 240, 241; Abel Boyer, The history of the reign of Queen Anne: year the first (1703), pp. 154–5.

38 Boyer, History of Queen Anne: year the first, pp. 173–210; John Wallis to Archbishop Tenison, 22 Dec. 1702, Lambeth Palace Library (LPL) MS 730, §52; ‘The autobiography of Symon Patrick’, in Taylor, Alexander, ed. The Works of Simon Patrick, D. D. (9 vols., Oxford, 1858), ix, pp. 553–5Google Scholar; Burnet, Gilbert, Bishop Burnet's history of his own time (London, 1857), pp. 720–1Google Scholar.

39 Boyer, History of Queen Anne: year the first, pp. 184–91.

40 ‘The autobiography of Symon Patrick’, p. 555; Burnet, History of his own time, p. 721; and see John Shute, Viscount Barrington, An essay upon the interest of England in respect to Protestants dissenting from the establish'd church (1701), p. 9; William Penn, Considerations on the bill for preventing occasional conformity (n.d.); and see the tory pamphlet A letter from the Grecian coffee house (1701), p. 9.

41 A letter to a peer concerning the bill against occasional conformity (1702), p. 18; The case of the dissenters as affected by the late bill proposed in parliament for preventing occasional conformity (1703), p. 30; Charlwood Lawton, A letter to a member of parliament, relating to the bill against occasional conformity, in the last session (1703), pp. 4–5.

42 Barrington, Essay upon the interest of England, pp. 21–2; Letter to a peer concerning the bill, p. 16; Lawton, Letter to a member of parliament, pp. 6, 14; Benjamin Hoadly, A letter to a clergy-man in the country, concerning the votes of the bishops in the last session of parliament upon the bill against occasional conformity (1704), pp. 19–20.

43 Daniel Defoe, The shortest-way with the dissenters: or, proposals for the establishment of the church (1702), pp. 2, 4, 13–14, 19–24, 26–7; and see also Novak, Maximilian E., ‘Defoe's Shortest way with the dissenters: hoax, parody, paradox, fiction, irony and satire’, Modern Language Quarterly, 27 (1966), pp. 402–17CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

44 See, for instance, Daniel Defoe, The sincerity of the dissenters vindicated from the scandal of occasional conformity (1703).

45 Humphrey Mackworth, Peace at home: or, a vindication of the proceedings of the honourable House of Commons on the bill for preventing occasional conformity (4th edn, 1703), p. 2.

46 Boyer, History of Queen Anne: year the first, pp. 173, 179.

47 The case of toleration recogniz'd (1702), pp. 3–4, 13.

48 Civil security, not conscience concern'd in the bill concerning occasional conformity (1702), pp. 5, 7; A dialogue between conformity, non-conformity and occasional conformity concerning a late bill in parliament (1703), pp. 6–7, 8.

49 The case fairly stated: in a dialogue between moderation and constitution (1702), pp. 3–4.

50 The establishment of the church, the preservation of the state: shewing the reasonableness of a bill against occasional conformity (1702), p. 10.

51 Burnet, History of his own time, p. 740; Gregg, Queen Anne, p. 177.

52 Charles Davenant, Essays upon peace at home, and war abroad (1704), pp. 239–64; Feiling, History of the Tory party, p. 371.

53 Reasons, why a bill to prevent occasional conformity, ought to be pass'd this sessions of parliament (n.d.), pp. 4–6.

54 Mackworth, Peace at home, 10; Atterbury to Bishop Trelawny, 8 Nov. 1703, Atterbury to Bishop Trelawny, 20 Nov. 1703, Nicols, ed., Epistolary correspondence of Atterbury, iii, pp. 132–3, 135–6; J. Cockburn to earl of Nottingham, 1 Jan. 1704, British Library (BL) Add. MS 29589, fo. 339; Boyer, History of Queen Anne: year the second, pp. 171–2; and for responses to Mackworth, see Daniel Defoe, Peace without union, by way of a reply to Sir H – M – 's Peace at home (1703); John Hooke, Catholicism without popery: in a letter to Sir Humphrey Mackworth occasioned by his late discourse, Peace at home (1704), pp. 72–3.

55 Burnet, History of his own time, p. 740; Proceedings upon the bill to prevent occasional conformity, p. 38.

56 Atterbury to Trelawny, 23 Nov. 1703, Atterbury to Trelawny, 26 Nov 1703, Nicols, ed., Epistolary correspondence of Atterbury, iii, pp. 138, 140.

57 Sir John Packington, A speech for the bill against occasional conformity (1703); a copy of the speech may also be found at Bodleian Ballard MS 11, fos. 78–9.

58 Atterbury to Trelawny, 9 Dec. 1703, Nicols, ed.,Epistolary correspondence of Atterbury, iii, pp. 146–7.

59 Hoadly, Letter to a clergy-man in the country, pp. 5–9; Proceedings upon the bill to prevent occasional conformity, p. 53; Boyer, History of Queen Anne: year the second, p. 189.

60 See A letter to my lords the bishops concerning the bill for preventing occasional conformity (n.p., n.d.).

61 Boyer, History of Queen Anne: year the second, p. 254; ‘The first parliament of Queen Anne: second session – other matters (begins 7/2/1704)’, in The history and proceedings of the House of Commons, iii:1695–1706 (1742), pp. 388–92 www.british-history.ac.uk/report.aspx?compid=37668.

62 Atterbury to Bishop Trelawny, 18 Oct. 1704, Nicols, ed., Epistolary correspondence of Atterbury, iii, p. 254; Defoe to Harley, 2 Nov. 1704, BL Add. MS 70291; George Smalridge to Arthur Charlett, 23 Dec. 1704, Bodl., Ballard MS 7, fo. 5; Feiling, History of the Tory party, p. 377; for Defoe's excoriation of ‘the tack’, see his Review, 28 (8 May 1705).

63 Proceedings upon the bill to prevent occasional conformity, pp. 60–1.

64 Shagan, ‘Thinking with moderates’, p. 492.

65 James Owen, Moderation still a virtue, in answer to several bitter pamphlets (1704), p. 49.

66 James Owen, Moderation a virtue: or, the occasional conformist justify'd from the imputation of hypocrisy (1703), p. 12.

67 John Hooke, Catholicism without popery: an essay to render the Church of England a means and pattern of union to the Christian world (1704), p. 5.

68 Francis Tallents, A short history of schism; for promoting of Christian moderation and the communion of saints (1705), p. 118; Reasons humbly offered to the conformists, why they should hold occasional communion with Protestant dissenters (4th edn, n.p., n.d.) pp. 2, 8.

69 Proceedings upon the bill to prevent occasional conformity, p. 39.

70 Shute, John, Viscount Barrington, The rights of protestant dissenters (1704), p. 61Google Scholar; Owen, Moderation a virtue, pp. 20–1.

71 See, for instance, John Caryll, ‘A review of the state of ye British nation, Saturday, Dec 31, 1709’, BL Add. MS 28252, fos. 91–2.

72 Mary Astell, Moderation truly stated (1704), p. 9.

73 Ibid., p. 5; Charles Leslie, The wolf stript of his shepherds clothing (1704), p. 1; Samuel Grascome, The mask of moderation pull'd off the foul face of occasional conformity (1704), p. 10.

74 Leslie, The wolf stript, p. 5; Astell, Moderation truly stated, p. 91.

75 Leslie, The wolf stript, pp. 79–80.

76 Astell, Moderation truly stated, pp. 41–2; and see Owen, Moderation still a virtue, p. 16.

77 Thomas Wagstaffe, The case of moderation and occasional communion represented by way of caution to the true sons of the Church of England (1705), pp. 32–3.

78 [William Higden] Occasional conformity a most unjustifiable practice (1704), p. 36; Samuel Grascome, Concordia discors: or, some animadversions upon a late treatise entituled, An essay for catholick communion (1705), pp. 8–10.

79 Wagstaffe, Case of moderation, p. 26; Grascome, Mask of moderation pull'd off, p. 43.

80 Grascome, Mask of moderation pull'd off, pp. 13–14.

81 Henry Dodwell, Occasional communion fundamentally destructive to the discipline of the primitive catholick church (1705), p. 8; Samuel Grascome, Schism triumphant: or, a rejoinder to a reply of Mr. Tallents (1707), p. 6.

82 Robert Nelson, A companion for the festivals and fasts of the Church of England (2nd edn, 1704), pp. 487–8.

83 William Newton, The principles of the low-church-men fairly represented and defended (1714), p. 52.

84 A letter from a dissenter in the city to his country-friend (1705), p. 6; and see No-church establish'd: or, the schismatic unmasked (1706), pp. 30, 56; and see John Hancocke, The low-church men vindicated from the unjust imputation of being no-church men (2nd edn, 1706), p. 23.

85 The principle of the Protestant Reformation explain'd in a letter of resolution concerning church-communions (1704), p. 14.

86 Robert Nelson, The necessity of church communion vindicated (1705), pp. 13, 24.

87 Leslie, The wolf stript, pp. 6, 79–80, 82.

88 Nelson, Necessity of church communion, p. 9.

89 An English monster, or, the character of an occasional conformist (1703), p. 4.

90 Champion, J. A. I., The pillars of priestcraft shaken: the Church of England and its enemies, 1660–1730 (Cambridge, 1992)Google Scholar; Aston, Nigel, ‘Anglican responses to anticlericalism in the “long” eighteenth century, c. 1689–1830’, in Aston, Nigel and Cragoe, Matthew, eds., Anticlericalism in Britain, c. 1500–1914 (Stroud, 2001), pp. 115–37Google Scholar; Barnett, S. J., Idol temples and crafty priests: the origins of Enlightenment anticlericalism (New York, NY, 1999)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

91 James Drake, The memorial of the Church of England, humbly offer'd to all true lovers of our church and constitution (1705), pp. 7, 9, 16, 26–7; Occasional thoughts upon the memorial of the Church of England in a letter to the author (1705), p. 3.

92 White Kennett, Moderation maintain'd (1704), p. 23.

93 William Shippen, Moderation display'd (1705); The devil upon dun: or, moderation in masquerade (1705); and see the whig riposte, Moderation vindicated.

94 Newton, Principles of the low-church-men, p. 48.

95 Feiling, History of the Tory party, pp. 443–5; on the brief existence of this law, see Wykes, David L., ‘Religious dissent, the church and the repeal of the occasional conformity and schism acts, 1714–1719’, in Cornwall, Robert D. and Gibson, William, eds., Religion, politics and dissent, 1660–1832: essays in honour of James E. Bradley (Farnham, 2010), pp. 165–83Google Scholar.

96 John Locke, A letter concerning toleration, humbly submitted (1689), p. 7; for a discussion of this distinction, see Pocock, J. G. A., ‘Within the margins: the definition of orthodoxy’, in Lund, R. D., ed., The margins of orthodoxy: heterodox writing and cultural response, 1660–1750 (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 33–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.