their oath, their king being still alive, [70 and swear to your new hodge-podge of a Dutch government? These have been turned out of their livings, and they and their families left to starve; their estates double taxed to carry on a war they had no hand in, and you got nothing by! What account can you give of the multitudes you have forced to comply, against their consciences, with your new sophistical politics, who, like new converts [80 in France, sin because they cannot starve? And now the tables are turned upon you, you must not be persecuted! It is not a Christian spirit! You have butchered one king, deposed another king, and made a mock king of a third, and yet, you could have the face to expect to be employed and trusted by the fourth! Anybody that did not know the temper of your party, would stand [90 amazed at the impudence as well as folly to think of it! Your management of your Dutch monarch, whom you reduced to a mere King of Clubs, is enough to give any future princes such an idea of your principles as to warn them sufficiently from coming into your clutches; and, God be thanked, the Queen is out of your hands, knows you, and will have a care of you! [100 There is no doubt but the supreme authority of a nation has in itself a power, and a right to that power, to execute the laws upon any part of that nation it governs. The execution of the known laws of the land, and that with but a gentle hand neither, was all that the fanatical party of this land have ever called persecution. This they have magnified to a height that the sufferings of the [110 Huguenots in France were not to be compared with. Now to execute the known laws of a nation upon those who transgress them, after voluntarily consenting to the making of those laws, can never be called persecution, but justice. But justice is always violence to the party offending, for every man is innocent in his own eyes. The first execution of the laws against Dissenters in England [120 was in the days of King James I; and what did it amount to? Truly, the worst they suffered was, at their own request, to let them go to New England, and erect a new colony; and give them great privileges, grants, and suitable powers; keep them under protection, and defend them against all invaders; and receive no taxes or revenue from them! This was the cruelty of the Church of England. [130 Fatal lenity! It was the ruin of that excellent prince, King Charles I. Had King James sent all the Puritans in England away to the West Indies, we had been a national unmixed Church. The Church of England had been kept undivided and entire! To requite the lenity of the father, they take up arms against the son, conquer, pursue, take, imprison, and at last [140 put to death the anointed of God, and destroy the very being and nature of government: setting up a sordid impostor, who had neither title to govern, nor understanding to manage, but supplied that want, with power, bloody and desperate counsels and craft, without conscience. Had not King James I withheld the full execution of the laws, had he given them strict justice, he had cleared [150 the nation of them, and the consequences had been plain: his son had never been murdered by them, nor the monarchy overwhelmed. It was too much mercy shown them that was the ruin of his posterity, and the ruin of the nation's peace. One would think the Dissenters should not have the face to believe that we are to be wheedled and canted into peace and toleration, when they know that [160 they have once requited us with a civil war, and once with an intolerable and unrighteous persecution, for our former civility. Nay, to encourage us to be easy with them, it is apparent that they never had the upper hand of the Church but they treated her with all the severity, with all the reproach and contempt as was possible! What peace and what mercy [170 did they show the loyal gentry of the Church of England, in the time of their triumphant Commonwealth? How did they put all the gentry of England to ransom, whether they were actually in arms for the king or not, making people compound for their estates, and starve their families! How did they treat the clergy of the Church of England, sequester the ministers, devour the patrimony [180 of the Church and divide the spoil, by sharing the Church lands among their soldiers, and turning her clergy out to starve! Just such measure as they have meted, should be measured them again! Charity and love is the known doctrine of the Church of England, and it is plain she has put it in practise towards the Dissenters, even beyond what they ought, till she has been wanting to herself, [190 and in effect unkind to her own sons; particularly, in the too much lenity of King James I, mentioned before. Had he so rooted the Puritans from the face of the land, which he had an opportunity early to have done, they had not had the power to vex the Church, as since they have done. In the days of King Charles II, how did the Church reward their bloody [200 doings with lenity and mercy! Except the barbarous regicides of the pretended court of justice, not a soul suffered for all the blood in an unnatural war. King Charles came in all mercy and love, cherished them, preferred them, employed them, withheld the rigor of the law and oftentimes, even against the advice of his Parliament, gave them liberty of conscience; and how did they requite [210 him? With the villainous contrivance to depose and murder him and his successor, at the Rye House Plot! King James II, as if mercy was the inherent quality of the family, began his reign with unusual favor to them. Nor could their joining with the Duke of Monmouth against him, move him to do himself justice upon them. But that mistaken prince, thinking to win [220 them by gentleness and love, proclaimed a universal liberty to them, and rather discountenanced the Church of England than them. How they requited him, all the world knows! The late reign is too fresh in the memory of all the world to need a comment. How under pretense of joining with the Church. in redressing some grievances, they pushed things to that extremity, in conjunc- [230 tion with some mistaken gentlemen, as to depose the late king; as if the grievance of the nation could not have been redressed but by the absolute ruin of the prince. Here is an instance of their temper, their peace, and charity! To what height they carried themselves during the reign of a king of their own, how they crept into all places of trust and profit; how they insinuated them- [240 selves into the favor of the king, and were at first preferred to the highest places in the nation, how they engrossed the ministry; and, above all, how pitifully they managed, is too plain to need any remarks. . . These are the gentlemen! these, their ways of treating the Church, both at home and abroad! Now let us examine the reasons they pretend to give, why [250 we should be favorable to them; why we should continue and tolerate them among us. First. They are very numerous, they say. They are a great part of the nation, and we cannot suppress them. To this, may be answered: First. They are not so numerous as the Protestants in France: and yet the French king effectually cleared the [260 nation of them at once; and we don't find he misses them at home! But I am not of the opinion they are so numerous as is pretended. Their party is more numerous than their persons; and those mistaken people of the Church who are misled and deluded by their wheedling artifices to join with them, make their party the greater: but those will open their eyes when the government shall set heartily [270 about the work, and come off from them, as some animals, which they say, always desert a house when it is likely to fall. Secondly. The more numerous, the more dangerous; and therefore the more need to suppress them; and God has suffered us to bear them as goads in our sides, for not utterly extinguishing them long ago. Thirdly. If we are to allow them, [280 only because we cannot suppress them; then it ought to be tried, whether we can or no. And I am of opinion it is easy to be done, and could prescribe ways and means, if it were proper: but I doubt not the government will find effectual methods for the rooting of the contagion from the face of this land. Another argument they use, which is this: that it is a time of war, and we [290 have need to unite against the common enemy. We answer, this common enemy had been no enemy, if they had not made him so. He was quiet, in peace, and no way disturbed or encroached upon us; and we know no reason we had to quarrel with him. But, further, we make no question but we are able to deal with this common [300 enemy without their help: but why must we unite with them, because of the enemy? Will they go over to the enemy, if we do not prevent it, by a union with them? We are very well contented they should, and make no question we shall be ready to deal with them and the common enemy too; and better without them than with them. Besides, if we have a common enemy, there is the more [310 need to be secure against our private enemies. If there is one common enemy, we have the less need to have an enemy in our bowels! It was a great argument some people used against suppressing the old money, that "it was a time of war, and it was too great a risk for the nation to run. If we should not master it, we should be undone!" And yet the sequel proved [320 the hazard was not so great, but it might be mastered, and the success was answerable. The suppressing the Dissenters is not a harder work, nor a work of less necessity to the public. We can never enjoy a settled, uninterrupted union and tranquillity in this nation, till the spirit of Whiggism, faction, and schism is melted down like the old money! . . . . The representatives of the nation [330 have now an opportunity. The time is come which all good men have wished for, that the gentlemen of England may serve the Church of England, now they are protected and encouraged by a Church of England queen! . . If ever you will establish the best Christian Church in the world; if ever you will suppress the spirit of enthusiasm; if ever you will free the nation from the [340 viperous brood that have so long sucked the blood of their mother; if ever you will leave your posterity free from faction and rebellion, this is the time! This is the time to pull up this heretical weed of sedition, that has so long disturbed the peace of our Church, and poisoned the good corn! But, says another hot and cold objector, this is renewing fire and faggot, [350 reviving the Act De heretico comburendo. This will be cruelty in its nature, and barbarous to all the world. I answer, it is cruelty to kill a snake or a toad in cold blood, but the poison of their nature makes it a charity to our neighbors to destroy those creatures, not for any personal injury received, but for prevention; not for the evil they have done, but the evil they may do. Ser- [360 pents, toads, vipers, etc., are noxious to the body, and poison the sensitive life: these poison the soul, corrupt our posterity, ensnare our children, destroy the vitals of our happiness, our future felicity, and contaminate the whole mass! Shall any law be given to such wild creatures? Some beasts are for sport, and the huntsmen give them advantages of ground, but some are knocked on [370 the head by all possible ways of violence and surprise. I do not prescribe fire and faggot; but as Scipio said of Carthage, Delenda est Carthago! they are to be rooted out of this nation, if ever we will live in peace, serve God, or enjoy our own. As for the manner, I leave it to those hands who have a right to execute God's justice on the nation's and the Church's enemies. [380 But if we must be frighted from this justice, under these specious pretenses, and odious sense of cruelty, nothing will be effected. It will be more barbarous to our own children and dear posterity, when they shall reproach their fathers, as we do ours, and tell us, "You had an opportunity to root out this cursed race from the world under the favor and protection of a true Church of England [390 queen, and out of your foolish pity, you spared them, because, forsooth, you would not be cruel! And now our Church is suppressed and persecuted, our religion trampled under foot, our estates plundered, our persons imprisoned, and dragged to gaols, gibbets, and scaffolds! Your sparing this Amalekite race is our destruction! Your mercy to them proves cruelty to your poor posterity!" [400 How just will such reflections be when our posterity shall fall under the merciless clutches of this uncharitable generation; when our Church shall be swallowed up in schism, faction, enthusiasm, and confusion; when our government shall be devolved upon foreigners, and our monarchy dwindled into a republic! It would be more rational for us, if we must spare this generation, to sum- [410 mon our own to a general massacre; and as we have brought them into the world free, to send them out so; and not betray them to destruction by our supine negligence, and then cry, "It is mercy!" Moses was a merciful meek man; and yet with what fury did he run through the camp, and cut the throats of three and thirty thousand of his dear Israelites that were fallen into idolatry. What [420 was the reason? It was mercy to the rest, to make these examples, to prevent the destruction of the whole army. How many millions of future souls we save from infection and delusion, if the present race of poisoned spirits were purged from the face of the land! It is vain to trifle in this matter. The light foolish handling of them by mulcts, fines, etc.,-'tis their glory and their [430 advantage! If the gallows instead of the Counter, and the galleys instead of the fines were the reward of going to a conventicle to preach or hear, there would not be so many sufferers. The spirit of martyrdom is over. They that will go to church to be chosen sheriffs and mayors, would go to forty churches rather than be hanged! If one severe law were made and [440 punctually executed that whoever was found at a conventicle should 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 [450 people as was never 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 [460 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 offenses, and let it receive a punishment in proportion to it. We hang men for trifles, and banish them for things not worth naming; but that an offense against God and the Church, against the welfare of the world, and the dignity of religion shall be [470 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. . . . [480 How can we answer it to God, to the Church, and to our posterity, to leave them entangled with fanaticism, error, and obstinacy, in the bowels of the nation; to leave them an enemy in their streets, that, in time, may involve them in the same crimes, and endanger the utter extirpation of the religion of the nation. What is the difference betwixt this, and being subject to the power of the [490 Church of Rome, from whence we have reformed? If one be an extreme on one hand, and one on another, it is equally destructive to the truth to have errors settled among us, let them be of what nature they will. Both are enemies of our Church, and of our peace; and why should it not be as criminal to admit an enthusiast as a Jesuit? Why should the Papist with his seven sacraments be [500 worse than the Quaker with no sacraments at all? Why should religious houses be more intolerable than meeting houses? Alas, the Church of England! What with popery on one hand, and schismatics on the other, how has she been crucified between two thieves. Now, let us crucify the thieves! Let her foundations be established upon the destruction of her enemies! The 510 doors of mercy being always open to the returning part of the deluded people, let the obstinate be ruled with the rod of iron! Let all true sons of so holy and oppressed a mother, exasperated by her afflictions, harden their hearts against those who have oppressed her. And may God Almighty put it into the hearts of all the friends of truth, to [520 lift up a standard against pride and Antichrist, that the posterity of the sons of error may be rooted out from the face of this land, for ever! A TRUE RELATION OF THE APPARITION OF MRS. VEAL The next day after her death, to Mrs. Bargrave, at Canterbury, the eighth of September, 1705 THE PREFACE This relation is matter of fact, and attended with such circumstances as may induce any reasonable man to believe it. It was sent by a gentleman, a justice of peace at Maidstone, in Kent, and a very intelligent person, to his friend in London, as it is here worded; which discourse is attested by a very sober and understanding gentlewoman and kinswoman (of the said gentleman's) who lives in Canterbury, [10 within a few doors of the house in which the within-named Mrs. Bargrave lives; who believes his kinswoman to be of so discerning a spirit, as not to be put upon by any fallacy, and who positively assured him that the whole matter as it is here related and laid down is what is really true, and what she herself had in the same words, as near as may be, from Mrs. Bargrave's own mouth, who she knows, had no [20 reason to invent and publish such a story, or any design to forge and tell a lie, being a woman of much honesty and virtue, and her whole life a course, as it were, of piety. The use which we ought to make of it is to consider that there is a life to come after this, and a just God who will retribute to every one according to the deeds done in the body, and therefore to reflect upon our past course of life we [30 have led in the world; that our time is short and uncertain; and that if we would escape the punishment of the ungodly and receive the reward of the righteous, which is the laying hold of eternal life, we ought, for the time to come, to return to God by a speedy repentance, ceasing to do evil, and learning to do well; to seek after God early, if haply He may be found of us, and lead such lives [40 for the future as may be well pleasing in His sight. A RELATION OF THE APPARITION OF This thing is so rare in all its circumstances, and on so good authority, that my reading and conversation has not gratify the most ingenious and serious It is fit to given me anything like it. inquirer. Mrs. Bargrave is the person to whom Mrs. Veal appeared after her. death; she is my intimate friend, and I can avouch for her reputation for these last fifteen or sixteen years, on my [10 own knowledge; and I can confirm the good character she had from her youth to the time of my acquaintance; though since this relation she is calumniated by some people that are friends to the brother of Mrs. Veal who appeared, who think the relation of this appearance to be a reflection, and endeavor what they can to blast Mrs. Bargrave's reputation, and to laugh the story out of coun- [20 tenance. But by the circumstances thereof, and the cheerful disposition of Mrs. Bargrave, notwithstanding the unheard-of ill-usage of a very wicked husband, there is not the least sign of dejection in her face; nor did I ever hear her let fall a desponding or murmuring expression; nay, not when actually under her husband's barbarity, which I have |