The Toleration Act 1688 (1 Will & Mary c 18), also referred to as the Act of Toleration, was an Act of the

Parliament of England The Parliament of England was the legislature of the Kingdom of England from the 13th century until 1707 when it was replaced by the Parliament of Great Britain. Parliament evolved from the great council of bishops and peers that advised ...

. Passed in the aftermath of the Glorious Revolution, it received

royal assent Royal assent is the method by which a monarch formally approves an act of the legislature, either directly or through an official acting on the monarch's behalf. In some jurisdictions, royal assent is equivalent to promulgation, while in oth ...

on 24 May 1689. The Act allowed for freedom of worship to nonconformists who had pledged to the oaths of

Allegiance An allegiance is a duty of fidelity said to be owed, or freely committed, by the people, subjects or citizens to their state or sovereign. Etymology From Middle English ''ligeaunce'' (see medieval Latin ''ligeantia'', "a liegance"). The ''al ...

and Supremacy and rejected

transubstantiation Transubstantiation (Latin: ''transubstantiatio''; Greek: μετουσίωσις '' metousiosis'') is, according to the teaching of the Catholic Church, "the change of the whole substance of bread into the substance of the Body of Christ and of ...

, i.e., to Protestants who dissented from the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the established Christian church in England and the mother church of the international Anglican Communion. It traces its history to the Christian church recorded as existing in the Roman province of Britai ...

such as Baptists, Congregationalists or English Presbyterians, but not to Roman Catholics. Nonconformists were allowed their own places of worship and their own schoolteachers, so long as they accepted certain oaths of allegiance. The Act intentionally did not apply to Roman Catholics, Jews,

nontrinitarians Nontrinitarianism is a form of Christianity that rejects the mainstream Christian doctrine of the Trinity—the belief that God is three distinct hypostases or persons who are coeternal, coequal, and indivisibly united in one being, or essence ...

, and atheists. It continued the existing social and political disabilities for dissenters, including their exclusion from holding political offices and also from the universities. Dissenters were required to register their meeting houses and were forbidden from meeting in private homes. Any preachers who dissented had to be licensed. Between 1772 and 1774, Edward Pickard gathered together dissenting ministers, to campaign for the terms of the Toleration Act for dissenting clergy to be modified. Under his leadership, Parliament twice considered bills to modify the law, but both were unsuccessful and it was not until Pickard and many others had ended their efforts that a new attempt was made in 1779.John Stephens, ‘Pickard, Edward (1714–1778)’, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 200
accessed 18 February 2010
/ref> The Act was amended in 1779 by substituting belief in Scripture for belief in the

Thirty-Nine Articles The Thirty-nine Articles of Religion (commonly abbreviated as the Thirty-nine Articles or the XXXIX Articles) are the historically defining statements of doctrines and practices of the Church of England with respect to the controversies of the ...

of the Anglican churches, but some penalties on holding property remained. Penalties against Unitarians were finally removed in the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813.

Background

During both the English Commonwealth and the reign of Charles II, nonconforming

dissenters A dissenter (from the Latin ''dissentire'', "to disagree") is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Usage in Christianity Dissent from the Anglican church In the social and religious history of England and Wales, an ...

including Roman Catholics, were subject to religious persecution and precluded from holding official office. Following the restoration of Charles II, Anglican leaders debated in correspondence and public sermon the extent to which the Anglican church should allow doctrinal latitude; this debate was related to the corresponding debate on broadening church membership and tolerating dissenters. The succession of the Roman Catholic James II was challenged on religious grounds prior to his accession in what became known as the Exclusion Crisis and after he took the crown in 1686 in the Monmouth Rebellion. However, the Tory leadership of the Anglican church initially supported his right to rule based on the theology of active obedience to the monarch. James II sought a repeal of the

Test Acts The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists. The underlying principle was that only people taking communion in ...

, which imposed various civil disabilities on both Catholics and Protestant non-conformists, to broaden his political support and allow for the appointment of Roman Catholics to civilian and military roles. Failing to secure parliamentary support, James II's attempt to dispense with the Test Acts through the 1687 and 1688 Declarations of Indulgence helped spark the constitutional crises that culminated in the Glorious Revolution and the accession of

William William is a male given name of Germanic origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conquest of Engl ...

and

Mary Mary may refer to: People * Mary (name), a feminine given name (includes a list of people with the name) Religious contexts * New Testament people named Mary, overview article linking to many of those below * Mary, mother of Jesus, also calle ...

, who became joint sovereigns. A series of Acts of parliament assured a new constitutional settlement of this situation; these include the

Bill of Rights 1689 The Bill of Rights 1689 is an Act of the Parliament of England, which sets out certain basic civil rights and clarifies who would be next to inherit the Crown, and is seen as a crucial landmark in English constitutional law. It received Royal ...

, the Crown and Parliament Recognition Act 1689, the Mutiny Act 1689, the Toleration Act 1688, and later the Act of Settlement 1701 and the Act of Union 1707. The historian Kenneth Pearl sees the Act of Toleration as "in many ways a compromise bill. To get nonconformists' (Protestants who were not members of the Church of England) support in the crucial months of 1688". Both the Whig and

Tory A Tory () is a person who holds a political philosophy known as Toryism, based on a British version of traditionalism and conservatism, which upholds the supremacy of social order as it has evolved in the English culture throughout history. The ...

parties that had rallied around William and Mary had promised nonconformists that such an act would be enacted if the revolution succeeded. James II had himself issued an act of toleration, but nonconformists believed James II's efforts to undermine their civil liberties and circumvent parliament placed the religious liberties provided via the Declarations of Indulgence at risk. Catholics and Unitarians were not hunted down after the Act was passed but they still had no right to assemble and pray. As there still remained a

Test Act The Test Acts were a series of English penal laws that served as a religious test for public office and imposed various civil disabilities on Roman Catholics and nonconformists. The underlying principle was that only people taking communion in ...

, non-Anglicans (including all Protestant non-Conformists, Jews, Catholics, and Unitarians) could not sit in Parliament even following the passage of the Toleration Act 1688.Jeremy Black, ''Eighteenth-Century Britain, 1688-1783'' (2nd ed. Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), p. 131. The Toleration Act of 1712, passed following the union between Scotland and England, granted limited toleration, specifically the right to worship for Scottish Episcopalians who prayed for the monarch and used the English ''

Book of Common Prayer The ''Book of Common Prayer'' (BCP) is the name given to a number of related prayer books used in the Anglican Communion and by other Christian churches historically related to Anglicanism. The original book, published in 1549 in the reign ...

''. Unitarians were only granted toleration after the Doctrine of the Trinity Act 1813; prior to that time, denying the Trinity was a capital offence in Scotland. The Test Act remained in force until the nineteenth century.

Influences

Historians (such as John J. Patrick) see John Locke's ''

A Letter Concerning Toleration ''A Letter Concerning Toleration'' by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, and it was immediately translated into other languages. Locke's work appeared amidst a fear that Catholicism might be taking ...

'' advocating religious toleration (written in 1685 and published in 1689) as "the philosophical foundation for the English Act of Toleration of 1689". While Locke had advocated coexistence between the Church of England (the established church) and dissenting Protestant denominations (including Congregationalists, Baptists, Presbyterians, and Quakers) he had excluded Catholics from toleration – the same policy that the Act of Toleration enacted.

Implementation in the overseas colonies

The terms of the Act of Toleration within the English colonies in America were applied either by charter or by acts by the royal governors. The ideas of toleration as advocated by Locke (which excluded Roman Catholics) became accepted through most of the colonies, even in the Congregational strongholds within New England which had previously punished or excluded dissenters. The colonies of

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

Rhode Island Rhode Island (, like ''road'') is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is the smallest U.S. state by area and the seventh-least populous, with slightly fewer than 1.1 million residents as of 2020, but it ...

Delaware Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...

, and

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

went further than the Act of Toleration by outlawing the establishment of any church and allowing a greater religious diversity. Within the colonies Roman Catholics were allowed to practise their religion freely only in

and

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

Provisions

Section 5

This section, from "bee it" to "aforesaid that" was repealed by section 1 of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888. In this section, the words "as aforesaid" were repealed by section 1 of, and Schedule 1 to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1948.

Section 8

This section, from "bee it" to "aforesaid that" was repealed by section 1 of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888.

Section 15

This section, from "bee it" to "aforesaid" was repealed by section 1 of, and Part I of the Schedule to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1888. In this section, the words "after the tenth day of June" were repealed by section 1 of, and Schedule 1 to, the Statute Law Revision Act 1948.

Section 18

Section 6 of the Ecclesiastical Courts Jurisdiction Act 1860 provided that nothing contained thereinbefore in that Act was to be taken to repeal or alter section 18 of the Toleration Act 1688.

Repeal

The whole Act, except section 5 and so much of section 8 as specified the service and offices from which certain persons were exempt and section 15, was repealed by section 1 of, and Part II of Schedule 1 to, the Promissory Oaths Act 1871. The whole Act, so far as unrepealed, was repealed by section 1 of, and Part II of the Schedule to, the

Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 The Statute Law (Repeals) Act 1969 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. It implemented recommendations contained in the first report on statute law revision made by the Law Commission. The enactments which were repealed (whether ...

Later developments

Toleration of worship was later extended to Protestants who did not believe in Trinitarian doctrine in the Unitarians Relief Act 1813. Roman Catholics ("Papists") were allowed to worship under strict conditions through the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1791. As time went on, oaths and tests that barred non-conformists and Roman Catholics from holding public offices, keeping schools, and owning land were rescinded by laws such as Roman Catholic Relief Act, 1778, the Roman Catholic Charities Act 1832, the Test Abolition Act 1867, the Promissory Oaths Act 1868, the Promissory Oaths Act 1871 and the Oaths Act 1978. The

Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 The Catholic Relief Act 1829, also known as the Catholic Emancipation Act 1829, was passed by the Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1829. It was the culmination of the process of Catholic emancipation throughout the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

allowed followers of that religion to be elected to Parliament and to hold most offices under the Crown, while the

Jews Relief Act 1858 The Jews Relief Act 1858, also called the Jewish Disabilities Bill, is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which removed previous barriers to Jews entering Parliament, a step in Jewish emancipation in the United Kingdom.

had a similar effect for adherents of Judaism. The Religious Disabilities Act 1846 ended restrictions on Roman Catholics for education, charities, and owning property, although Oxford, Cambridge, and Durham universities were allowed to continue to exclude Roman Catholics until Universities Tests Act 1871 took effect. By the passage of the Places of Worship Registration Act 1855, an optional system of registration for non-Anglican places of worship was passed which gave certain legal and fiscal advantages for those that registered, and "alternative religion was not only lawful, but was often facilitated by the law."