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 religion in the nation? What is the difference betwixt this and being subjected to the power of the 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 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 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 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. FOOTNOTES Footnote 1: _Hours in a Library_. Footnote 2: Wilson’s _ Memoirs of Defoe_, London, 1830, III., p. 429. Footnote 3: Defoe mentions the letter in his _Review_ for August 11th, 1705. Footnote 4: I was not called Colonel Jacque as at London, but Colonel, and they did not know me by any other name. Footnote 5: He did not now talk quite so blindly and childishly as when he was a boy, and when the custom-house gentleman talked to him about his names. Footnote 6: Here he showed him the horsewhip that was given him with his new office. Footnote 7: So the negroes call the owner of the plantation, or at least so they called him, because he was a great man in the country, having three or four large plantations. Footnote 8: To be drunk in a negro is to be mad; for when they get rum they are worse than raving, and fit to do any manner of mischief. Footnote 9: He understood the plot, and took the opportunity to tell him that, to see what he would say. Footnote 10: He understood him; he meant he would beg your honour for me, that I might not be hanged for offending you.