Sir Roger L'Estrange tells us a story in his collection of fables, of the cock and the horses. The cock was gotten to roost in the stable among the horses; and there being no racks or other conveniences for him, it seems he was forced to roost upon the ground. The horses jostling about for room and putting the cock in danger of his life, he gives them this grave advice, "Pray, gentlefolks, let us stand still, [10 for fear we should tread upon one another."

There are some people in the world, who, now they are unperched, and reduced to an equality with other people,

and under strong and very just apprehensions of being further treated as they deserve, begin, with Esop's cock, to preach up peace and union and the Christian duties of moderation; forgetting that [20 when they had the power in their hands, those graces were strangers in their gates!

It is now near fourteen years, that the glory and peace of the purest and most flourishing Church in the world has been eclipsed, buffeted, and disturbed by a sort of men whom God in his providence has suffered to insult over her, and bring her down. These have been the days of her humiliation and tribulation. She [30 has borne with an invincible patience the reproach of the wicked; and God has at last heard her prayers, and delivered her from the oppression of the stranger.

And now, they find their day is over, their power gone, and the throne of this nation possessed by a royal, English, true, and ever constant member of, and friend to, the Church of England. Now they find that they are in danger of [40 the Church of England's just resentments.. Now, they cry out, "Peace!" "Union!" "Forbearance!" and "Charity!": as if the Church had not too long harbored her enemies under her wing, and nourished the viperous brood, till they hiss and fly in the face of the mother that cherished them!

No, gentlemen, the time of mercy is past, your day of grace is over, you [50 should have practised peace, and moderation, and charity, if you expected any yourselves.

We have heard none of this lesson for fourteen years past. We have been huffed and bullied with your Act of Toleration. You have told us that you are the Church established by law, as well as others; have set up your canting synagogues at our church doors; and the Church and her [60 members have been loaded with reproaches, with oaths, associations, abjurations, and what not! Where has been the mercy, the forbearance, the charity you have shown to tender consciences of the Church of England that could not take oaths as fast as you made them; that, having sworn allegiance to their lawful and rightful king, could not dispense with

their oath, their king being still alive, [70 and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by! What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts [80 in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you, you must not be persecuted! It is not a Christian spirit!

You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third, and yet, you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth! Anybody that did not know the temper of your party, would stand [90 amazed at the impudence as well as folly to think of it!

Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clubs, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and, God be thanked, the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you!

[100

There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with but a gentle hand neither, was all that the fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution. This they have magnified to a height that the sufferings of the [110 Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making of those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party. offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England [120 was in the days of King James I; and what did it amount to? Truly, the worst they suffered was, at their own request,

to let them go to New England, and erect a new colony; and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers; keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders; and receive no taxes or revenue from them! This was the cruelty of the Church of England. [130 Fatal lenity! It was the ruin of that excellent prince, King Charles I. Had King James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West Indies, we had been a national unmixed Church. The Church of England had been kept undivided and entire!

To requite the lenity of the father, they take up arms against the son, conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last [140 put to death the anointed of God, and destroy the very being and nature of government: setting up a sordid impostor, who had neither title to govern, nor understanding to manage, but supplied that want, with power, bloody and desperate counsels and craft, without conscience.

Had not King James I withheld the full execution of the laws, had he given them strict justice, he had cleared [150 the nation of them, and the consequences had been plain: his son had never been murdered by them, nor the monarchy overwhelmed. It was too much mercy shown them that was the ruin of his posterity, and the ruin of the nation's peace. One would think the Dissenters should not have the face to believe that we are to be wheedled and canted into peace and toleration, when they know that [160 they have once requited us with a civil war, and once with an intolerable and unrighteous persecution, for our former civility.

Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent that they never had. the upper hand of the Church but they treated her with all the severity, with all the reproach and contempt as was possible! What peace and what mercy [170 did they show the loyal gentry of the Church of England, in the time of their triumphant Commonwealth? How did they put all the gentry of England to ransom, whether they were actually in arms for the king or not, making people compound for their estates, and starve

their families! How did they treat the clergy of the Church of England, sequester the ministers, devour the patrimony [180 of the Church and divide the spoil, by sharing the Church lands among their soldiers, and turning her clergy out to starve! Just such measure as they have meted, should be measured them again! Charity and love is the known doctrine of the Church of England, and it is plain she has put it in practise towards the Dissenters, even beyond what they ought, till she has been wanting to herself, [190 and in effect unkind to her own sons; particularly, in the too much lenity of King James I, mentioned before. Had he so rooted the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity early to have done, they had not had the power to vex the Church, as since they have done.

In the days of King Charles II, how did the Church reward their bloody [200 doings with lenity and mercy! Except the barbarous regicides of the pretended court of justice, not a soul suffered for all the blood in an unnatural war. King Charles came in all mercy and love, cherished them, preferred them, employed them, withheld the rigor of the law and oftentimes, even against the advice of his Parliament, gave them liberty of conscience; and how did they requite [210 him? With the villainous contrivance to depose and murder him and his successor, at the Rye House Plot!

King James II, as if mercy was the inherent quality of the family, began his reign with unusual favor to them. Nor could their joining with the Duke of Monmouth against him, move him to do himself justice upon them. But that mistaken prince, thinking to win [220 them by gentleness and love, proclaimed a universal liberty to them, and rather discountenanced the Church of England than them. How they requited him, all the world knows!

The late reign is too fresh in the memory of all the world to need a comment. How under pretense of joining with the Church in redressing some grievances, they pushed things to that extremity, in conjunc- [230 tion with some mistaken gentlemen, as to

depose the late king; as if the grievance of the nation could not have been redressed but by the absolute ruin of the prince. Here is an instance of their temper, their peace, and charity! To what height they carried themselves during the reign of a king of their own, how they crept into all places of trust and profit; how they insinuated them- [240 selves into the favor of the king, and were at first preferred to the highest places in the nation, how they engrossed. the ministry; and, above all, how pitifully they managed, is too plain to need any remarks.

These are the gentlemen! these, their ways of treating the Church, both at home and abroad! Now let us examine the reasons they pretend to give, why [250 we should be favorable to them; why we should continue and tolerate them among

us.

First. They are very numerous, they say. They are a great part of the nation, and we cannot suppress them.

To this, may be answered:

First. They are not so numerous as the Protestants in France: and yet the French king effectually cleared the [260 nation of them at once; and we don't find he misses them at home! But I am not of the opinion they are so numerous as is pretended. Their party is more numerous than their persons; and those mistaken people of the Church who are misled and deluded by their wheedling artifices to join with them, make their party the greater: but those will open their eyes when the government shall set heartily [270 about the work, and come off from them, as some animals, which they say, always desert a house when it is likely to fall.

the

Secondly. The more numerous, more dangerous; and therefore the more need to suppress them; and God has suffered us to bear them as goads in our sides, for not utterly extinguishing them long ago.

Thirdly. If we are to allow them, [280 only because we cannot suppress them; then it ought to be tried, whether we can or no. And I am of opinion it is easy to be done, and could prescribe ways and means, if it were proper: but I doubt not

the government will find effectual methods for the rooting of the contagion from the face of this land.

Another argument they use, which is this: that it is a time of war, and we [290 have need to unite against the common enemy.

We answer, this common enemy had been no enemy, if they had not made him so. He was quiet, in peace, and no way disturbed or encroached upon us; and we know no reason we had to quarrel with him.

But, further, we make no question but we are able to deal with this common [300 enemy without their help: but why must we unite with them, because of the enemy? Will they go over to the enemy, if we do not prevent it, by a union with them? We are very well contented they should, and make no question we shall be ready to deal with them and the common enemy too; and better without them than with them. Besides, if we have a common enemy, there is the more [310 need to be secure against our private enemies. If there is one common enemy, we have the less need to have an enemy in our bowels!

It was a great argument some people used against suppressing the old money, that "it was a time of war, and it was too great a risk for the nation to run. If we should not master it, we should be undone!" And yet the sequel proved [320 the hazard was not so great, but it might be mastered, and the success was answerable. The suppressing the Dissenters is not a harder work, nor a work of less necessity to the public. We can never enjoy a settled, uninterrupted union and tranquillity in this nation, till the spirit of Whiggism, faction, and schism is melted down like the old money! . .

The representatives of the nation [330 have now an opportunity. The time is come which all good men have wished for, that the gentlemen of England may serve the Church of England, now they are protected and encouraged by a Church of England queen! . . .

If ever you will establish the best Christian Church in the world; if ever you will suppress the spirit of enthusiasm; if ever

you will free the nation from the [340 viperous brood that have so long sucked the blood of their mother; if ever you will leave your posterity free from faction and rebellion, this is the time! This is the time to pull up this heretical weed of sedition, that has so long disturbed the peace of our Church, and poisoned the good corn!

But, says another hot and cold objector, this is renewing fire and faggot, [350 reviving the Act De heretico comburendo. This will be cruelty in its nature, and barbarous to all the world.

I answer, it is cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our neighbors to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury received, but for prevention; not for the evil they have done, but the evil they may do. Ser- [360 pents, toads, vipers, etc., are noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive life: these poison the soul, corrupt our posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the vitals of our happiness, our future felicity, and contaminate the whole mass!

Shall any law be given to such wild creatures? Some beasts are for sport, and the huntsmen give them advantages of ground, but some are knocked on [370 the head by all possible ways of violence and surprise.

I do not prescribe fire and faggot; but as Scipio said of Carthage, Delenda est Carthago! they are to be rooted out of this nation, if ever we will live in peace, serve God, or enjoy our own. As for the manner, I leave it to those hands who have a right to execute God's justice on the nation's and the Church's enemies. [380

But if we must be frighted from this justice, under these specious pretenses, and odious sense of cruelty, nothing will be effected. It will be more barbarous to our own children and dear posterity, when they shall reproach their fathers, as we do ours, and tell us, "You had an opportunity to root out this cursed race from the world under the favor and protection of a true Church of England [390 queen, and out of your foolish pity, you spared them, because, forsooth, you would not be cruel! And now our Church is