The Dutch whose practice is so often quoted to prove and celebrate the great advantages of a general liberty of conscience, have yet a national religion professed by all who bear office among them:  But why should they be a precedent for us either in religion or government?  Our country differs from theirs, as well in situation, soil, and productions of nature, as in the genius and complexion of inhabitants.  They are a commonwealth founded on a sudden by a desperate attempt in a desperate condition, not formed or digested into a regular system by mature thought and reason, but huddled up under the pressure of sudden exigencies; calculated for no long duration, and hitherto subsisting by accident in the midst of contending powers, who cannot yet agree about sharing it among them.  These difficulties do indeed preserve them from any great corruptions, which their crazy constitution would extremely subject them to in a long peace.  That confluence of people in a persecuting age, to a place of refuge nearest at hand, put them upon the necessity of trade, to which they wisely gave all ease and encouragement:  And if we could think fit to imitate them in this last particular, there would need no more to invite foreigners among us; who seem to think no further than how to secure their property and conscience, without projecting any share in that government which gives them protection, or calling it persecution if it be denied them.  But I speak it for the honour of our administration, that although our sects are not so numerous as those in Holland, which I presume is not our fault, and I hope is not our misfortune, we much excel them and all Christendom besides in our indulgence to tender consciences.[2] One single compliance with the national form of receiving the sacrament, is all we require to qualify any sectary among us for the greatest employments in the state, after which he is at liberty to rejoin his own assemblies for the rest of his life.  Besides, I will suppose any of the numerous sects in Holland, to have so far prevailed as to have raised a civil war, destroyed their government and religion, and put their administrators to death; after which I will suppose the people to have recovered all again, and to have settled on their old foundation.  Then I would put a query, whether that sect which was the unhappy instrument of all this confusion, could reasonably expect to be entrusted for the future with the greatest employments, or indeed to be hardly tolerated among them?

[Footnote 2:  When this was written there was no law against Occasional Conformity. [Faulkner, 1735.]]

To go on with the sentiments of a Church of England man:  He does not see how that mighty passion for the Church which some men pretend, can well consist with those indignities and that contempt they bestow on the persons of the clergy.[3] Tis a strange mark whereby to distinguish High Churchmen, that they are such who imagine the clergy can never be too low.  He thinks the maxim these gentlemen are so fond of, that they are for an humble clergy, is a very good one; and so is he, and for an humble laity too, since humility is a virtue that perhaps equally benefits and adorns every station of life.