severity is the means to keep it out; but to
make this instance reach England, our religion must not only be
changed, (which in itself is almost impossible to imagine,) but the
council of Trent received, and the Inquisition admitted, which many
popish countries have rejected. I forget not the cruelties, which were
exercised in Queen Mary's time against the protestants; neither do I
any way excuse them; but it follows not, that every popish successor
should take example by them, for every one's conscience of the same
religion is not guided by the same dictates in his government; neither
does it follow, that if one be cruel, another must, especially when
there is a stronger obligation, and greater interest to the contrary:
for, if a popish king in England should be bound to destroy his
protestant people, I would ask the question, over whom he meant to
reign afterwards? And how many subjects would be left?

In Queen Mary's time, the protestant religion had scarcely taken root;
and it is reasonable to be supposed, that she found the number of
papists equalling that of the protestants, at her entrance to the
kingdom; especially if we reckon into the account those who were the
Trimmers of the times; I mean such, who privately were papists, though
under her protestant predecessor they appeared otherwise; therefore
her difficulties in persecuting her reformed subjects, were far from
being so insuperable as ours now are, when the strength and number of
the papists is so very inconsiderable. They, who cast in the church of
England as ready to embrace popery, are either knaves enough to know
they lie, or fools enough not to have considered the tenets of that
church, which are diametrically opposite to popery; and more so than
any of the sects.

Not to insist on the quiet and security, which protestant subjects at
this day enjoy in some parts of Germany, under popish princes; where I
have been assured, that mass is said, and a Lutheran sermon preached
in different parts of the same church, on the same day, without
disturbance on either side; nor on the privileges granted by Henry the
fourth of France to his party, after he had forsaken their opinions,
which they quietly possessed for a long time after his death.

The French histories are full of examples, manifestly proving, that
the fiercest of their popish princes have not thought themselves bound
to destroy their protestant subjects; and the several edicts, granted
under the