The Tolerance Acts provided for a variety of religious freedoms in the American colonies. In New England, where the Church of the Congregation enjoyed a legal establishment, the law required taxpayers to support the Puritan Church. The Tolerance Act of 1688 (1 Will and Mary C. 18), also known as the Tolerance Act, is an Act of the Parliament of England, which received royal assent on 24 May 1689. Intense disagreements in Massachusetts and Connecticut in the early eighteenth century resulted in legal exemptions for Quaker, Baptist, and Episcopalians. Rhode Island was the exception in New England and gave complete freedom of worship.
The Tolerance Act proved that the idea of a “broad” church in England had been abandoned, and this hope remained only to tolerate division. It allows nonconformists to have their own synagogues and their own teachers and preachers to take certain oaths of allegiance. The law allowed freedom of worship to nonconformists who were committed to worship and superiority and rejected Transcendentalism, such as Protestants who were dissatisfied with the Church of England, such as Baptists, Congregationalists, or English Presbyterians, but not Romans. If the bill became law, it would destroy the intellectual and educational capacity of dissent, which made important contributions to education on the basis of “dissenting academies.” Between 1663 and 1688, more than 20 academies were established; More than 30 more were started during 1690-1750. The owners of New Jersey offered religious freedom to attract settlers. In New York, although the Anglican Church enjoyed formal establishment, the reality of religious diversity and local control resulted in virtually religious freedom for most communities. Controversial people were required to register their meeting rooms and meet in private homes. Any publisher who disagrees must be licensed. The law, however, was adopted by the Anglican majority, and, according to Dargo (1996), it was not described as a “product of the liberalism of theory” but as an “inspiration” as a practical device to make Maryland more attractive to people of different faiths.
The Anglican Church was stronger in the southern colonies and often occupied the religious practices of dissidents, especially in Virginia and Maryland. Preachers in Virginia met resistance like Catholics in Maryland, although they later enjoyed protection under the Tolerance Act of 1649. This led to the practice of “occasional formality”, but after the adoption of the Anglican opinion in 1711, the non-conformist meeting house punished anyone who was occasionally found to be worshiping. A bill by Henry St. John to force everyone to raise heresy was frustrated by the death of Queen Anne on August 1, 1714. The day will be effective. Under his leadership, Parliament twice considered bills to amend the law, but both failed, and a new attempt was made in 1779 without Picard and many others ending their efforts. The law was amended by believing in this scripture to believe in thirty-nine articles of the Anglican Church in 1779, but some fines remain in the possession of the property. The Northwest Ordinance (1787) extended religious freedom to the Northwest Territories. The first amendment to the federal constitution barred Congress from recognizing the free use of religion.
