It is agreeable to reflect that more just and delicate notions of religion, and its invariable attendant, integrity, now prevail, and that conduct in these matters, such as was common, and even habitual in the days of which we write, would be reprobated by all thinking people in our own times. Men who aspired to hold public offices were then frequently to be seen receiving the Communion of the Church of England once, and, having complied with the statute, were never known to enter a church of the established form again. Even Prince George received the sacrament as high admiral, yet maintained his Lutheran chapel, in which, when interest called him not elsewhere, he was a continual attendant and communicant.[463] Nor were those who raised the clamour against such inconsistencies, to use the mildest term, much to be commended for the regularity or sincerity of their religious observances. Sir Edward Seymour, the leading partisan of the church, confessed, when discussing the subject of non-conformity, that it was then seven years since he had received the sacrament, or heard a sermon in the Church of England. It was remarkable that the leading members of the House of Commons, who were the most active against dissenters, were all descended from dissenting families. Amongst these were Harley, and Henry St. John, afterwards Lord Bolingbroke.[464] The bill for preventing occasional conformity was, however, brought into the House of Commons. Its advocates did not attempt to conceal the existence of party motives, but contended, that since the last reign had been begun with a law in favour of dissenters, it was becoming that the gracious sovereign now on the throne should show, by some mark, her determined protection of the established church.[465] Whilst in the preamble a spirit of toleration was asserted, the enactments of the bill were severe, though vague, and tended to promote the vices of informers, and to produce a spirit of inquisition into every man’s actions. It affixed a heavy fine upon every person holding a public office, after attending any meeting of dissenters, not according to the Liturgy of the Church of England, where more than five persons were present, besides the family. Upon functionaries so offending, while exercising their duties, it affixed a fine of five pounds for every day so employed; and, after attending such meeting, they were incapacitated from holding any office, until after a whole year’s conformity to the church;—the great object of the bill being, according to a Whig “historian, to model corporations, and to cast out of them all those who would not vote in elections for the Tories.”[466] Such was the opinion of Bishop Burnet. The Duchess of Marlborough gives us a much more highly-coloured delineation of the motives and workings of this famous measure, than even the determined and strenuous prelate.