ABSTRACT
It used to be one of the more comfortable commonplaces of Restoration history that religion was in the process of becoming less important. The enthusiasms of the Civil War period, it was believed, were rejected after 1660 as men began to take a more modern, ‘rational’ view of society and the natural world. According to this view, King Charles's personal indifference to religion, coupled with his support for toleration, heralded a new era and called forth the support of progressive politicians and thinkers, not least Shaftesbury and John Locke. It was admitted that the Cavalier Parliament early showed its narrowly Anglican prejudices in the so-called Clarendon Code and that the church's settlement itself was intolerant and backward looking. But even within the Anglican establishment, the presence of such men as Bishop Reynolds and the future bishop Gilbert Burnet portended a broader church.
