He triumphed less because he suddenly opened men's eyes to a truth hitherto concealed than because he represented the culmination of certain principles which, under various aspects, were common to his time.

The movement for religious toleration is not only paralleled in the next century by the movement for economic freedom, but is itself in a real sense the parent of the latter.

For it is not without significance that the pre-Adamite economists were almost without exception the urgent defenders of religious toleration.

The landowners were churchmen, the men of commerce largely Nonconformist; and religious proscription interfered with the balance of trade.

When the roots of religious freedom had been secured, it was easy for them to transfer their argument to the secular sphere.
Nothing, indeed, is more important in the history of English political philosophy than to realize that from Stuart times the Nonconformists were deeply bitten with distrust of government.