their private Affairs and of joyning Counsels against the Publick And do they not breed up their Children and Relations in the very same Principles with themselves Now the greater Numbers there are of such People so much the greater care there ought to be taken that they be not permitted to meet together The Meeting-place is very well fitted for a Religious Rendevouz and the Spiritual Master of the Camp may not only deliver out his Orders at the same time with but may stamp upon them the Authority of the Oracles of God But in the next Place if the Government would please but to own it self the Numbers of these men would presently appear to be very inconsiderable and this hath no oftner been tryed than it hath been found to have been accompanied with good effect In Queen Elizabeths Dayes these mens Predecessours were very troublesome made grat noise with their great Numbers and the great dangers which would arise by disobliging them and they had some great Favourers in Court upon some accounts which were not very Religious but when by reason of their Insolent Provocation in the Year 1588. When the Queen was in all her Fears from the Spanish Armado and in a condition as they thought to deny them Nothing they so far provoked Her as to alienate Her Mind for ever from them Their boasted of Numbers did immediately abate and the Laws were immediately submitted to as soon as ever they did perceive that it was but in vain to think of longer triffling with them So likewise it hapned in King Iames His Dayes their loud Clamours were presently silenced as soon as ever the King declared Himself resolute at the Conference at Hampton-Court Nor would the Act of Uniformity have had any less effect if it had not been accompanied with a general Discourse at the same time of a Toleration to follow immediately upon it And I appeal to the Consciences of several of the Preachers in the Separated Congregations whether they did not leave their Livings upon this very hope which without it they would have never done Besides the Numbers of the Dissenters ought by no means to be looked upon as an Argument for Toleration by any because it is not looked upon as such by themselves This very Point being a thing about which themselves are highly divided and would by no means if they could help it grant to one another But besides their Numbers they are now to be considered in point of Merit but this is a part of the Argument in which I do delight so very little as that I must gratifie my own temper so far as to say very little in it The Faults of other men are things which I by no means delight to dwell upon even when it is necessary I take it to be very irksome As they are particular Persons I have nothing to say to any one of them and whatever Degrees any of them have attained to in Piety and Virtue in any kind of Intellectual Moral and Religious Accomplishments I pray God that they may every day increase more and more in them and that both here and hereafter they may receive the comfort and reward of whatever is truly good in them But as they are a Party I take it to be very clear that their Merit hath not been very great either to the Crown or Nation and in this it were easie to be very large for one who delights in that which to me is a very ungrateful Employment In the Histories of Queen Elizabeth King Iames King Charles the First there is too much to be found on this Argument and His Majesty which now is when He was in the Hands of these men what Usage He did receive from them though His Royal Clemency hath been graciously pleased to pardon yet His Loyal Subjects have not quite forgot it As to the next Pretence that it is adviseable to grant these men an Indulgence at this time by reason of the great assistance which they are able to afford us against Popery This is such an Objection which the Regular Sons of the Church will scarce be able to refrain themselves from looking upon without some Indignation The Writings of the Bishops and Episcopal Divines have hitherto been had in great Esteem over all the Reformation no men thought to have had a better Cause to defend no men looked upon as better able to defend it Not to mention the many Worthies in Queen Elizabeth and King Iames His Dayes whose Names are both at home and abroad had in great and deserved Honour I shall only mention some few who since the beginning of the present Controversie have wrote against the Puritans as well as Papists and accordingly have fell under the Indignation of both Parties viz. Arch-Bishop Laud Arch-Bishop Bramhal Bishop Taylor Doctor Hammond and Mr. Chillingworth How many Ages will the Nonconformists take to breed up a man equal to any one of these Bishop Sanderson a Person of known Learning and Judgment in a Preface to a Body of Sermons Printed some Years before His Majesties Return takes occasion to declare his Opinion concerning the Controversie between the Church of England and Church of Rome as it useth to be handled by the Non-Conformists his Words are these That they preach against Popery I not at all mislike only I could wish that these two Cautions were better observed served than as far as I can conjecture of the Rest by the proportion of what hath come to my Knowledge I fear they usually are by the more zealous of that Party First that they do not through Ignorance Prejudice or Precipitancy call that Popery which is not and then under that name and notion preach against it and then Secondly that they would do it with less noyse and more weight c. Now it is well known that Bishop Sanderson was a Person of great Learning and Judgment and withall a Person of very great Humility and Modesty and who did very little delight in undervaluing the meanest Person living and yet he expresseth his Thoughts concerning the Writings of the Non-Conformists against the Church of Rome to be liable to these two not inconsiderable Defects First that they did not understand the Question Secondly that they did not know how to pitch upon such Arguments as were fit to be made use of And withall some Pages afterwards he adds this That even in these times of great Distraction and Consequently thereunto of so great advantage for the Factors for Rome none have stept into the Gap more readily nor appeared in the face of the Enemy more openly nor maintained the Fight with more stoutness and gallantry than the Episcopal Divines have done as their late Learned Writings testifie yea and some of them such as beside their other sufferings have layen as deep under the suspicion of being Popishly affected aâ— any other of their Brethren whatsoever That by the Endeavours of these Episcopal Divines some that were bred Papists have
could be no Trade in the Kingdom till Execution was done upon him And whosoever raiseth any such Cry shall have always some ready to joyn with him in it because there will be always those who will want Trade And let him but tell them that the Court and the Bishops are the only Causes of this their want and it is no wonder if they cry out with the loudest Down with them down with them to the ground Indeed if the Bishops in England did pretend to the same Power with the Presbyteries in Scotland then indeed it might so happen that the Traders might have some cause to be jealous of them for those Gentlemen did at the Assembly at Glascow 1638. pass an Act concerning Salmon-fishing another about Salt-pans Roger L' Estrange p. 330. By Act of Assembly at Dundee 1592. they prohibited all Trading with any of the King of Spain's Dominions and they put down the Munday-market at Edinburgh Spotswood p. 393 394. But in this Case the Shoo-makers thought fit to assert their Christian Liberty against the Impositions of the Presbytery and tumultuously gathered together and threatned to chase the Ministers out of Town upon which the Market continued Which as that grave Historian tells us did cause much sport at Court where it was said That Rascals and Soutars could obtain at the Ministers hands what the King could not in Matters more reasonable That Trading hath ever since the Restauration of his Majesty been very high notwithstanding the many complaints about it it is very evident to any man who is never so little acquainted with the Custom-house but that it hath not answered to the height of all mens hopes is not to be wondred at if we consider some things which have hapned which the Act of Uniformity was no way concerned in First there was a War with France and Holland by which it was not to be avoided but that many Merchants must needs become very great Sufferers Secondly At the very same time there was a raging Plague not only in London but in most of the other Trading places of the Nation which did not only sweep away great numbers of our Trading People but may easily be supposed to have had an unhappy influence upon Trade it self Thirdly To accompany these Two great difficulties there came a dreadful Fire the loss by which is inestimable And Fourthly there hath been a Second Dutch War Now there are none of all these things can happen to a Nation but Trade must unavoidably suffer by and feel it and then the wonder will be very little if we consider that we have suffered by them all And these are things so publickly known that it is to be admired that men should have the confidence to take no notice of any one of them but if they hear of any Difficulties which the Trading People do wrestle with presently overlook all these notorious Causes and enter into long Harangues about Common Prayer and Ceremonies I may add that besides the fore-mentioned Calamities If we are out-done in point of Trade by our Neighbours in Holland it is not to be wondered at if we consider the Nature of our Country and the Manners of our People Our Country hath in it self a great plenty of all things necessary for the life of men which Holland hath not they must trade or they cannot live which is not our Case And if necessity makes men expert and their being expert brings them to thrive it is not to be wondred at It is this very necessity which every day makes vast Numbers among them glad to submit to all the Labours Hazards of all the Seas in the World all this purely to support their Lives with very course fare and very small wages now the goodness of our Country affording to our People a more comfortable subsistence upon much easier terms than is to be had among them is one plain cause why our People are not easily to be brought to take that pains run into those dangers and submit to those severe terms which with them is not less than absolutely necessary Not to say any thing of the return of their long Voyages what vast advantages do they make by Fishing upon our own Coasts which we alwayes complain of but will by no means betake our selves unto Again he who hath got a vast sum of money by trading hath here in England a perpetual conveniency of purchasing Land with it and by that means he himself or his Son doth become a Country Gentleman which in Holland is not to be done by which means Trade is amongst us given over when men come to be Masters of such great sums of Money as to be best able to command it and to reap the most considerable advantages by it In Holland because Trade is the thing which every one is to trust to their Wives and Children are all instructed in the Mysteries and inured to the business of it and so the Stock and Experience of a Family descends from Father to the Son and increaseth from Generation to Generation Now it is far from being a Miracle that their Merchants should be able to out-do ours who are frequently left by their Parents as large or larger sums of Money to begin with as ours take themselves to be very well satisfied with and give over They go on and improve what we look upon as more adviseable barely to enjoy and by that means prevent an increase which would have come easily and too often waste and consume what they in a few Years are by reason of their great Stocks inabled without difficulty to treble And besides that different way of disposure of the plenty of the Rich which is between them and us They make another and greater advantage of the necessities of the Poor than we either do or can do or it is fit for us to do They make their People to work harder fare harder than any of ours will do to take smaller wages and by that means they are something helped in being able to under-sell us And besides the Masters of Trade do themselves live much more frugally than we do in point of Dyet and Apparel and other heights of living and studiously avoid many unnecessary ways of Expence which we are perhaps too apt to be fond of And whatever is expended must needs take off so much from Improvement which Consideration prevails with them to be very sparing till they are very Rich and not to pretend to any of the wayes of Vanity till they have brought themselves into a condition to carry on their material Concerns with the best advantage Now is it any wonder if there were nothing more in the Case than this that in Trade they should much out-do us And there is little doubt to be made of it that he who is better acquainted with that People than I am will be able to reckon many other particular things wherein they differ from us in order to this great Design
whither they will run only into Holland where they cannot more freely enjoy the exercise of their Religion in their own Families nor converse more freely with one another about it than they may do here in England All the difference is that here they cannot meet in great Numbers and I leave it even to the Non-Conformists themselves to Judge whether that one Conveniency of Meeting in great Numbers be a sufficient enticement to any rational man to exchange England for Holland But put the Case that they do go into Holland or into some other Country I did never yet meet with any man who could demonstrate to me how they could carry away their Trade of Merchandizing though they were never so willing live in Holland they may and drive their usual Trades here in England by their Correspondents in which Case the Nation will only loose the common profit of their eating drinking and wearing But to carry away the Trade of the Nation with them is not possible if they leave any Merchants behind as I am sure they will many more and more considerable than any who will go away and by withdrawing themselves into other Countries they will but leave their Trades to be shared amongst better men and better Subjects so that by leaving the Kingdom instead of prejudicing they would occasion a very great blessing unto it by carrying away with them the Divisions but not at all the Trade of the Nation When the Act against Conventicles was first made this Argument against it from Trade was much insisted on and I remember a Story was raised about some great Dealers in the West who had with-drawn their stock left off all business by which means vast Numbers of poor People who did depend on them were utterly undone This Matter seemed so considerable as that several of the most Eminent Persons in the Nation did meet together to consult about a remedy for so great and as it was said so growing an evil But when this Matter came to be enquired into I could never learn that it had any thing more than a great deal of noise in it There is an eminent City in this Nation inferiour perhaps to none except London wherein this Artifice was made use of to fright the Magistrates from suppressing the Conventicles A great rumour was spread up and down that if they might not have Liberty to meet as formerly then they would all with-draw their Stocks which would be a great detriment to His Majesty and a vast loss to the City and leave the Poor to be provided for by their respective Parishes But the Raisers of all this Clamour did quickly find that they had to do with those who were at least as great Masters of Trade as themselves and accordingly it was undertaken by those who were very well able to make it good that if the Dissenters did think fit to withdraw their Stocks there should immediate care be taken that the Trade of the City should be carried on to the very same height which it was at without the least abatement or leaving any one Work-man out of as good an Employment as he had before It was so far from being feared that it was desired that they would withdraw their Stocks and that they may be the better encouraged to the so doing provided that they would give Security that they will not Trade at all neither by themselves or others for them nor in other mens Names they shall at any time have a good sum of money given them if that may move them to it Let us not be vainly afraid where no fear is Do we know the Non-Conformists no better than so that we should suspect them of being apt to give over their profitable Trades It had been a more rational Jealousie to have looked upon them as more intent upon any imaginable way of getting of Money than on any Settlement of Religion of what sort soever And perhaps it would be not only no ill Experiment to destroy this Argument but withall as likely a way to reduce them as any which can be thought upon if there were a Law That those who refuse to conform or at least who meet at Conventicles should not be permitted to Trade Such a Law indeed would be terrible to them and I hope the bare mention of it will make them forbear to use this kind of threatning us with that which to themselves alone will be if at all dreadful As to the third Objection That Merchants beyond Seas as Roman Catholicks c. will be afraid to trust their Estates in the hands of those who are not of their own Religion c. It is of so little weight as to require but a very few words it being evident that all kinds of Merchants at this day do correspond and alwayes have corresponded with others not of their own Religion Papists with Protestants Protestants with Papists c. What other Pretences there are in this Case wherein Trade may seem concerned I do not at present call to mind and therefore shall go on to the next suggestion why a Toleration of several wayes of Religion may not do as well here as it doth amongst our Neighbours in France and Holland As to France the different Professions of Religion there hath not been without many sad effects upon both Parties and hath so sanctified the Animosities on each side that it hath prevailed upon both out of Zeal to God to let Aliens and Enemies into the Bowels of their Native Country But their Case and ours is vastly different the Hugonots who are there tolerated have those Merits to plead which our Non Conformists have not and besides they do not divide into several Communions among themselves neither would any such thing be permitted either by the Government or by the Reformed Church it self As to Holland Liberty of Conscience is a thing which they were not brought to admit of by second Thoughts and after mature Deliberation but were necessitated upon by the Nature of that Cause upon which they first united among themselves and the Constitution of that Government they fell into One part of their Cause was a Deliverance from the Impositions of the Church of Rome as exercised after the imperious manner of the Spanish Government Now Liberty in matters of Conscience was the most natural Word in the World in this Case to be made use of Freedom from the present Pressures was the thing immediately in their Eye and many of their Neighbours at the same time had the same Aim And as they were then only agreed what they would not have but not at all what they would have they invited all that all might come to their Assistance But besides this one Religion was not easie to be brought into so many several Independent Governments as go to the making up of those States For as Sr. William Temple tells us Chap. 2. of their Government p. 75. They are not a Common-wealth but a Confederacy of