“Railing sermons, exciting people to hatred and contempt of their brethren, because they differ in opinions, is not the way to Peace and Union.”

“Shutting all people out of employment and the service of their Prince and Country, unless they can comply with indifferent ceremonies of religion, is far from the way to Peace and Union.”

“Reproaching the Succession settled by Parliament, and reviving the abdicated title of the late King James, and his supposed family, cannot tend to this Peace and Union.”

“Laws against Occasional Conformity, and compelling people who bear offices to a total conformity, and yet force them to take and serve in those public employments, cannot contribute to this Peace and Union.”

* * * * *

In this passage Defoe seems to ally himself more closely with his Dissenting brethren than he had done before.  It was difficult for him, with his published views on the objectionableness of occasional conformity, and the propriety of Dissenters leaving the magistracy in the hands of the Church, to maintain his new position, without incurring the charge of inconsistency.  The charge was freely made, and his own writings were collected as a testimony against him, but he met the charge boldly.  The Dissenters ought not to practise occasional conformity, but if they could reconcile it with their consciences, they ought not to receive temporal punishment for practising it.  The Dissenters ought to withdraw from the magistracy, but it was persecution to exclude them.  In tract after tract of brilliant and trenchant argument, he upheld these views, with his usual courage attacking most fiercely those antagonists who went most nearly on the lines of his own previous writings.  Ignoring what he had said before, he now proved clearly that the Occasional Conformity Bill was a breach of the Act of Toleration.  There was little difference between his own Shortest Way to Peace and Union, and Sir Humphrey Mackworth’s Peace at Home, but he assailed the latter pamphlet vigorously, and showed that it had been the practice in all countries for Dissenters from the established religion to have a share in the business of the State.  At the same time he never departed so far from the “moderate” point of view, as to insist that Dissenters ought to be admitted to a share in the business of the State.  Let the High-Church ministers be dismissed, and moderate men summoned to the Queen’s councils, and the Dissenters would have every reason to be content.  They would acquiesce with pleasure in a ministry and magistracy of Low-Churchmen.