The reign of William is especially worthy of our notice, because he placed the throne of the United Kingdom on a thoroughly Protestant foundation. It was provided in the Bill of Rights, "not only that every person in communion with the church of Rome, or marrying a papist, shall forever be incapable of the crown, but also that in case of any British sovereign's apostasy to popery, the people shall be absolved from their allegiance, and the next heir shall immediately succeed, if a Protestant, just as if the royal personage reconciled to the church of Rome, or marrying a papist, he actually died." This famous bill immediately followed the Act of Settlement in 1689.
The English church, we may say, is the same now as it was in the time of William. The Episcopalians are the reigning party, and number among their adherents the royal family, the principal part of the nobility, and the greatest part of the people. The foundation of the Presbyterian establishment in Scotland was also firmly laid about the same time, by an act of the Scottish Parliament which ratified the "Westminster Confession of Faith," as the creed of that church.
The unbounded liberty which the British subject enjoys of publishing his opinions without restraint, and of worshipping God according to the dictates of his own conscience, enlightened by the truth as it is in Jesus, naturally causes various sects to arise, and controversies respecting things pertaining to religion to be perpetuated. Many of these may be most interesting to the student of ecclesiastical history; but we have already exceeded our limits, and can do little more than notice the names of the leading seceders whose followers now form large sections of the professing church, with whom we are familiar.