62, 63.] The problem of Church and State demanded a separate discussion; and it is difficult not to feel that the great _Letter on Toleration_ is the noblest of all his utterances.

It came as the climax to a long evolution of opinion; and, in the light of William's own conviction, it may be said to have marked a decisive epoch of thought.

Already in the sixteenth century Robert Brown and William the Silent had denounced the persecution of sincere belief.

Early Baptists like Busher and Richardson had finely denied its validity.

Roger Williams in America, Milton in England had attacked its moral rightness and political adequacy; while churchmen like Hales and Taylor and the noble Chillingworth had shown the incompatibility between a religion of love and a spirit of hate.