>I don't want to sound pendantic, but the English Parliament passed in
the late 17th century and the Virginia House of Burgesses recoginzed the
Act of Toleration.  This meant that qualified dissenters -- including
Baptists -- could be free from worshipping in the local Anglican Parish.
But the Act of Toleration did not release the dissenters from their
financial obligations to support the parish -- this was really the major
sticking point -- and they had to hold their services in some fixed
location.  The unlicenced dissenters were attempting to circumvent the
law that stated they had to preach at some regular place.  Baptists were
not outlawed per se, just the preachers who would not adhere to the
licensing law.  This formed a major part of the so-called Baptist
challenge that Rhys Isaac has illuminated for us.

###However, in Virginia heavy fines of tobacco were imposed upon dissenters,
Quakers for example, for not having attended Church (meaning THE Church) for a
given number of weeks, not having been married in THE Church, not having
their children baptised in THE Church, etc. so it was more confining than simply
requiring financial tithing.  Patrick Henry defended some of them in the courts
of Alexandria.

The populace sometimes enforced penalties for being dissenters more severe
than fines such as sticking a riding crop down the throat of a Baptist preacher
for preaching at his house on Sunday.  Another was stuck down an outhouse hole
for that.  Many dissenter families had furnishings taken from their homes by
neighborhood toughs and seemed to be outside the law as evidenced in some
contemporary Quaker Meeting minutes.

The House of Burgesses may have recognized the Act of Tolerance but it was
many years of wrangling in the House of Burgesses later that they passed a
Virginia law permitting religious freedom.  When it finally occured, Baptists and
other dissenters started petitioning and going to court to "reclaim" the
glebes.

John Shroeder

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