be banished the nation and the preacher
be hanged, we should soon see an end of the tale. They would all come
to church, and one age would make us all one again.

To talk of five shillings a month for not coming to the sacrament, and
one shilling per week for not coming to church, this is such a way of
converting people as never was known; this is selling them a liberty
to transgress for so much money. If it be not a crime, why don't we
give them full license? And if it be, no price ought to compound for
the committing it, for that is selling a liberty to people to sin
against God and the Government.

If it be a crime of the highest consequence both against the peace and
welfare of the nation, the glory of God, the good of the Church, and
the happiness of the soul, let us rank it among capital offences, and
let it receive a punishment in proportion to it.

We hang men for trifles, and banish them for things not worth naming;
but an offence against God and the Church, against the welfare of the
world and the dignity of religion, shall be bought off for five
shillings! This is such a shame to a Christian Government that it is
with regret I transmit it to posterity.

If men sin against God, affront His ordinances, rebel against His
Church, and disobey the precepts of their superiors, let them suffer
as such capital crimes deserve. So will religion flourish, and this
divided nation be once again united.

And yet the title of barbarous and cruel will soon be taken off from
this law too. I am not supposing that all the Dissenters in England
should be hanged or banished, but, as in cases of rebellions and
insurrections, if a few of the ringleaders suffer, the multitude are
dismissed; so, a few obstinate people being made examples, there is no
doubt but the severity of the law would find a stop in the compliance
of the multitude.

To make the reasonableness of this matter out of question, and more
unanswerably plain, let us examine for what it is that this nation is
divided into parties and factions, and let us see how they can justify
a separation, or we of the Church of England can justify our bearing
the insults and inconveniences of the party.

One of their leading pastors, and a man of as much learning as most
among them, in his answer to a pamphlet, entitled 'An Inquiry into the
Occasional Conformity,' has these words, p. 27, 'Do the religion of
the Church and the meeting-houses make two religions? Wherein do the