Why the Toleration Act proved to be a significant turning point inthe history of Christianity

The Toleration Act reduced the Church of England from the national to merely the established church of England.  It could be argued that in many ways this was simply a legal and political recognition of what had prevailed for forty years but this  does not diminish its significance.  The simple act of acknowledging  dissenters caused Anglicans to loose  power and created political, ideological and ecclesiastical schisms which rumbled long into the nineteenth Century.  Many Anglicans had extreme concerns that the Act would encourage people to stay away from church altogether.  John Prideaux, Archdeacon of Norwich at the time gives us a example of this grievance, writing in 1691

 ‘…more lay hold of it to separate from all manner of Worship to perfect irreligion than goe to them; and although the Act allows no such liberty, the people will take it soe.’

 As suggested in the passage above, the Act  was resolutely against the ‘unreligious’ who chose to go to the ‘alehouse’ rather than mass and in fact sect 16 contains a strongly worded condemnation of such behaviour….

’Provided always and it is the true intent and meaning of this Act, That all the laws made and provided for the frequenting of Divine Service on the Lord’s Day….shall still be in Force, and executed against all persons that offend against the said Laws, except such persons that come to some Congregation or Assembly of Religious Worship, allowed or permitted by this Act.’

 However, the Archdeacon’s apprehension does not appear to be unfounded as in the years following the Act there was indeed an upsurge in the publication  of heterodox views and a growth of popular ‘irreligion’.  The Toleration Act may not have wittingly given rise to a type of Atheism but it seems that the freedom to choose lost the Anglican Church its power to demand faith, losing it control over social and later political life.   This caused  a huge impact upon the way the Church was run and thenceforth perceived.  The church lost its unquestionable supremacy and would now have to fight for hearts and minds and not simply demand them.

The Toleration Act of 1689 made the pastoral tasks and responsibilities of the Anglican clergy  even more central to the running and promotion  of the established church.   With the ending of the exclusive support of the State, this decentralisation was probably seen as the most important way of re-establishing over its flock.  The church had moved form a coercive to a voluntary religion bringing with it the need for powers of persuasion.  The Toleration Act had, in a way, ‘partially disestablished’ the Church of England making it need  to compete with other religious groups.  A remarkable development of this was the rise of devotional groups, with the most significant probably being S.P.C.K (Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge) founded in 1699, moving the church, in direct response to the changes that it faced, into a far more consciously evangelic era.