Wesley Corpus

Likewise, if any Dean, Prebendary, Master, Fellow, Chaplain, or Tutor, of any College, Hall, House of Learning, or Hospital, any public Professor, or any other person in Holy Orders, any School master, or Teacher, or Tutor in any private family, do not subscribe hereto, he shall be, ipso facto, deprived of his place, and shall be utterly disabled from continuing therein.” Property for ever ! See how well English property was secured in those golden days | So, by this glorious Act, thousands of men, guilty of no crime, nothing contrary either to justice, mercy, or truth, were stripped of all they had, of their houses, lands, revenues, and driven to seek where they could, or beg, their bread. For what? Because they did not dare to worship God according to other men's consciences ! So they and their families were, at one stroke, turned out of house and home, and reduced to little less than beggary, for no other fault, real or pretended, but because they could not assent and consent to that manner of worship which their worthy governors prescribed ! But this was not all. It was further enacted by the same merciful lawgivers: “If any person act as a Teacher, Tutor, or Schoolmaster, in any private family, before he has sub scribed hereto, he shall suffer three months’ imprisonment, without bail or mainprize.” Liberty for ever ! Here is security for your person, as well as your property. By virtue of the Act against Conventicles, if any continued to worship God according to their own conscience, they were first robbed of their substance, and, if they persisted, of their liberty; often of their lives also. For this crime, under this “our most religious and gracious King,” (what were they who publicly told God he was such 7) Englishmen were not only spoiled of their goods, but denied even the use of the free air, yea, and the light of the sun, being thrust by hundreds into dark and loathsome prisons ! 18. Were matters much better in the neighbouring king dom? Nay, they were inexpressibly worse. Unheard-of cruelties were practised there, from soon after the Restoration till the Revolution.* What fining, plundering, beating, maiming, imprisoning, with the most shocking circumstances !