5

23 I-IPE OP TOLAND.
a faggot. The faggot had been kindled in Scotland
from the one end to the other, during the
twenty-eight years persecution, and innocent and
holy men burnt ahve,
merely for being non-conformists,
or, in other words, for not preferring the
dogmas of arbitrary
and interested men, to the
sacred scriptures. Toland's crimes appear to
have been much of the same kind, and it was very
consistent in
the doctor to hint at a similar punishment.
On Mr. Toland's return to London, he published
his Apology, giving an account of his conduct,
and vindicating himself from the aspersious and
persecutions of his enemies.
In 1698 party-disputes ran high. Tlie partizans
of the house of Stuart vdshed to facilitate the
Pretender's return, by keeping up no standing
army at alL Their opponents took different
ground. Several pamphlets appeared, and, a-
mong the rest, one from the pen of Mr. Toland,
wherein he recommends modelling the militia on
such a plan, as to render it adequate to the maintenance
of inteilial tranquillity, and repulsion of
foreign invasion. Indeed, on every occasion, we
find Mr. Toland a staunch friend to the revolution,
and the protestant succession; and though
this was not the ostensible, still there is every rea-
Hon to reckoirit the real cause of his persecution;
his enemies, almost to a man, eutertaiuing very
Jiffereut sentiments.