1. They are not so numerous as the Protestants in France, and yet the
French King effectually cleared the 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 these will open their eyes when the
Government shall set heartily about the work, and come off from them,
as some animals, which they say always desert a house when it is
likely to fall.
2. The more numerous the 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.
3. If we are to allow them only because we cannot suppress them, then
it ought to be tried whether we can or not; 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 the contagion from the face of this land.
Another argument they use, which is this, that it is a time of war,
and we 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 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 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 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.
To talk of the difficulty is to frighten ourselves with chimeras and
notions of a powerful party, which are indeed a party without power.
Difficulties often appear greater at a distance than when they are
searched into with judgment and distinguished from the vapours and
shadows that attend them.
We are not to be frightened with it; this age is wiser than that by
all our own experience and theirs too. King Charles the First had
early suppressed this party if he had taken more deliberate measures.
In short, it is not worth arguing to talk of their arms. Their
Monmouths, and Shaftesburys, and Argyles are gone; their Dutch
sanctuary is at an end; Heaven has made way for their destruction, and
if we do not close with the Divine occasion we are to blame ourselves,
and may remember that we had once an opportunity to serve the Church
of England by extirpating her implacable enemies, and having let slip
the minute that Heaven presented, may experimentally complain, _Post
est occasio calva_.