Excerpt from The Quaker Invasion of Massachusetts During the period of the Commonwealth toleration was fostered by the genius of Sir Harry Vane, and in a measure by Oliver Cromwell, but during those years and the succeeding reigns of Charles II. And J ames IL, coercion and persecution, as well as political intrigue, played a conspicuous part in the vain effort to stay the progress of free inquiry and to arrest the development of liberal principles. Dissent increased under the stimulus of restraint and perse cation. The middle of the century was a period of intense excitement. The spirit of controversy seemed to possess all classes. Thousands of controversial books and tracts were published. Parliament turned aside from the consideration of state afiairs to discuss questions of religion. The courts of justice were continually the arena of relig. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.