y
differ? The substance of the same religion is common to them both; and
the modes and accidents are the things in which only they differ.' P.
28: 'Thirty-nine articles are given us for the summary of our
religion; thirty-six contain the substance of it, wherein we agree;
three the additional appendices, about which we have some
differences.'

Now, if, as by their own acknowledgment, the Church of England is a
true Church, and the difference between them is only in a few modes
and accidents, why should we expect that they will suffer galleys,
corporeal punishment, and banishment for these trifles? There is no
question but they will be wiser; even their own principles will not
bear them out in it; they will certainly comply with the laws and with
reason; and though at the first severity they may seem hard, the next
age will feel nothing of it; the contagion will be rooted out; the
disease being cured, there will be no need of the operation; but if
they should venture to transgress and fall into the pit, all the world
must condemn their obstinacy, as being without ground from their own
principles.

Thus the pretence of cruelty will be taken off, and the party actually
suppressed, and the disquiets they have so often brought upon the
nation prevented.

Their numbers and their wealth make them haughty, and that is so far
from being an argument to persuade us to forbear them, that it is a
warning to us, without any delay, to reconcile them to the unity of
the Church or remove them from us.

At present, Heaven be praised, they are not so formidable as they have
been, and it is our own fault if ever we suffer them to be so.
Providence and the Church of England seem to join in this particular,
that now the destroyers of the nation's peace may be overturned, and
to this end the present opportunity seems to be put into our hands.

To this end her present Majesty seems reserved to enjoy the crown,
that the ecclesiastic as well as civil rights of the nation may be
restored by her hand. To this end the face of affairs have received
such a turn in the process of a few months as never has been before;
the leading men of the nation, the universal cry of the people, the
unanimous request of the clergy, agree in this, that the deliverance
of our Church is at hand. For this end has Providence given us such a
Parliament, such a Convocation, such a gentry, and such a Queen as we
never had before. And what may be the consequences of a