Amongst the immediate causes of the Bill being passed must be numbered old promises made to Dissenters by men in power, again and again; the pledges of political parties of all sorts, Whigs and Tories, Low Churchmen and High Churchmen, given amidst struggles against Popery in the preceding summer, all originating in religious impulses; and especially the influences of William, who honestly advocated liberty on a wide scale. Beyond this, and more effectual still, there existed a state of public feeling which, although most reasonable, had not been produced by reasoning and, though it could be victoriously defended by argument, had not really been reached by logical formulas. It is only one of a number of instances in which a change comes over the legislative enactments of a nation through a change wrought in the minds of rulers, wrought also in the minds of a people,--the _Zeit-Geist_, or spirit of the age,--produced by the discipline of circumstances, and by sympathetic impulses, in which pious men recognize the finger of Providence. What the Earl of Nottingham said in defence of his measure when he laid his Bill upon the table, I do not know; but I apprehend that, as a High Churchman he must have found it difficult to show how his advocacy could be reconciled with his antecedents. He might have been unable to explain how, by reasoning, he had passed from his former to his present position. He and others might be fairly charged with inconsistency; a suspicion of it might even now and then cross their own minds. But, like all mankind, they were the subjects of influences more powerful than syllogisms, they bent beneath a force mightier than logic. Sophistical theories ingeniously spun, fondly watched, and for a time vigilantly guarded, get blown to the winds by the breath of inexorable facts, and of the spirit which throbs at the heart of them. False systems and ideas are found to be impracticable; as such they are given up by everybody. It is of no use to preserve them; they must be thrown away. So with the doctrine of religious intolerance. Englishmen could endure it in its old form no longer. A new spirit had taken possession of the age, and ancient restrictions must at last be sacrificed. But for such facts, men like Leonard Busher and John Goodwin might have gone on arguing for ever in vain. [Sidenote: TOLERATION.] [Sidenote: 1689.]