“The great inquiry now is, whether persons will not only use, but thankfully accept of and vigorously endeavour after universal liberty, by taking off the penal laws, and incapacitating laws against Papists; if the Dissenters do not comply, they will incur the displeasure of the Court, and the Court will destroy them. And, on the other hand, the Church also, if these laws continue in being, or at least the Church and the Court, will unite, and thereby utterly destroy them. And if they do comply, they will first verify the imputation, the Church lays upon them, as if they favoured Popery; and say, ‘they themselves are the only pillars of the Protestant religion, you see the Dissenters betray and give it up.’ Secondly, they may probably be dragooned by the Court, when they have helped to take the laws off from the Papists, and thereby weaken the Protestant interest. Thirdly, and lastly, in time to come, the Church may call them to an account, and be severe upon them for their compliance.”[157] James’ policy of granting indulgence reached its culminating point in the famous Declaration, published on the 4th of April, 1687. [Sidenote: 1687.] The document presented signs of righteous toleration, and viewed superficially it exhibits a favourable contrast with the policy then pursued in France. France and England seemed bent upon adopting contrary lines of policy. When Elizabeth had supported ecclesiastical despotism, Henry IV., by the Edict of Nantes, had proclaimed himself a friend of religious liberty: now, as Louis XIV. drove from the French shores his Protestant subjects, by striving to dragoon them out of their religion, James II. talked to the English people graciously touching freedom of conscience. But what was the real design of it all? Fully to answer this question we must carefully look at the line of policy which he previously pursued towards Popery, towards the Church of England, and towards Protestant Dissent. And here it should be premised, that the crushing of Monmouth’s rebellion in England, and of Argyle’s rebellion in Scotland, had swept away for a time all opposition to James’ title and authority,--had consolidated his power, and had encouraged him to attempt the experiment of ruling the nation as an absolute monarch: and let it also be remembered, that his despotic designs were intimately connected with his ecclesiastical polity. His object with regard to Popery seems to have been, by a succession of bold attempts, to give it not only toleration, but an establishment in this country,--at least, an establishment upon terms of equality with the Protestant Church.[158] [Sidenote: JAMES’ POLICY.]