on the church-door, 'Here is
a pulpit to be let', or sometimes, 'to be sold', which was worse.

It was not the least of our misfortunes that with our infection, when it
ceased, there did not cease the spirit of strife and contention, slander
and reproach, which was really the great troubler of the nation's peace
before. It was said to be the remains of the old animosities, which had
so lately involved us all in blood and disorder. But as the late Act
of Indemnity had laid asleep the quarrel itself, so the Government had
recommended family and personal peace upon all occasions to the whole
nation.

But it could not be obtained; and particularly after the ceasing of the
plague in London, when any one that had seen the condition which the
people had been in, and how they caressed one another at that time,
promised to have more charity for the future, and to raise no more
reproaches; I say, any one that had seen them then would have thought
they would have come together with another spirit at last. But, I say,
it could not be obtained. The quarrel remained; the Church and the
Presbyterians were incompatible. As soon as the plague was removed,
the Dissenting ousted ministers who had supplied the pulpits which were
deserted by the incumbents retired; they could expect no other but that
they should immediately fall upon them and harass them with their penal
laws, accept their preaching while they were sick, and persecute them as
soon as they were recovered again; this even we that were of the Church
thought was very hard, and could by no means approve of it.

But it was the Government, and we could say nothing to hinder it; we
could only say it was not our doing, and we could not answer for it.

On the other hand, the Dissenters reproaching those ministers of the
Church with going away and deserting their charge, abandoning the people
in their danger, and when they had most need of comfort, and the like:
this we could by no means approve, for all men have not the same faith
and the same courage, and the Scripture commands us to judge the most
favourably and according to charity.

A plague is a formidable enemy, and is armed with terrors that every man
is not sufficiently fortified to resist or prepared to stand the shock
against. It is very certain that a great many of the clergy who were in
circumstances to do it withdrew and fled for the safety of their lives;
but 'tis true also that a great many of them stayed, and many