I say then very frankly,that the Church and the King having been joined in all the late contests,both by those who attacked them,and those who defended them,ecclesiastical interests,resentments,and animosities came in to the aid of secular,in making the new settlement.Great lenity was shown at the Restoration,in looking backwards;unexampled and unimitated mercy to particular men,which deserved no doubt much applause.This conduct would have gone far towards restoring the nation to its primitive temper and integrity,to its old good manners,its old good humour,and its old good nature (expressions of my Lord Chancellor Clarendon,which I could never read without being moved and softened),if great severity had not been exercised immediately after,in looking forwards,and great rigour used to large bodies of men,which certainly deserves censure,as neither just,nor politic --I say,not just;because there is,after all,a real and a wide difference between moral and party justice.The one is founded in reason;the other takes its colour from the passions of men,and is but another name for injustice.
Moral justice carries punishment as far as reparation,and necessary terror require;no farther.Party justice carries it to the full extent of our power,and even to the gorging and sating of our revenge;from whence it follows that injustice and violence once begun,must become perpetual in the successive revolutions of parties,as long as these parties exist.--I say,not politic;because it contradicted the other measures taken for quieting the minds of men.It alarmed all the sects anew;confirmed the implacability,and whetted the rancour of some;disappointed and damped a spirit of reconciliation in others;united them in a common hatred to the Church;and roused in the Church a spirit of intolerance and persecution.This measure was the more imprudent,because the opportunity seemed fair to take advantage of the resentments of the Presbyterians against the other sectaries,and to draw them,without persecuting the others,by the cords of love into the pale of the Church,instead of driving them back by severe usage into their ancient confederacies.
But when resentments of the sort we now mention were let loose,to aggravate those of the other sort,there was no room to be surprised at the violences which followed;and they,who had acted greater,could not complain of these,great as they were,with any very good grace.
If we may believe one,who certainly was not partial against these sects,both Presbyterians and independents had carried the principles of rigour,in the point of conscience,much higher,and acted more implacably upon it,than ever the Church of England hath done,in its angriest fits.The securing themselves therefore against those,who had ruined them and the constitution once already,was a plausible reason for the Church party to give,and Idoubt not the true and sole motive of many for exercising,and persisting in the exercise of great severity.General,prudential arguments might,and there is a reason to believe they did,weigh with particular men;but they could have little force,at such a time,on numbers.As little could some other considerations have then,whatever they have now.The promises at Breda,for instance,and the terms of the declaration sent from thence,could not be urged with force to a Parliament,who had no mind,and was strictly under no obligation,to make good such promises as the King had made,beyond his power of promising,if taken absolutely;or from which,if taken conditionally,he was discharged,on the refusal of Parliament to confirm them.--Thus again,the merit pleaded by the Presbyterians,on account of the share they had in the Restoration,which was very real and very considerable,could avail however but little.That they went along with the national torrent,in restoring the constitution of Church and state,could not be denied.But then it was remembered too that these fruits of repentance came late;not till they had been oppressed by another sect,who turned upon them,wrested the power out of their hands,and made them feel,what they had made others feel,the tyranny of a party.
Such reasons and motives,as I have mentioned prevailed;and worse than these would have been sufficient,when the passions of men ran so high,to lay the Dissenters,without any distinction,under extreme hardships.They seemed to be the principal object of the fears and jealousies of Parliament.
