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.

Here are some popular objections in the way:—­

As first, the Queen has promised them to continue them in their tolerated liberty, and has told us she will be a religious observer of her word.