a People. If this be not sufficient to induce you to a speedy reformation, think upon the consequence of persisting in them at this juncture; when, by suspending the protection of Providence, which, as a Community, I have shewn, we have just reason to expect, we hasten, by a stroke from Heaven, that ruin, which is more slowly advancing from the nature of things. So that, in our instant resolves, not only our future welfare, a matter of infinite importance, which we have in common with all men, but our present, is eminently concerned. The enjoyment of all that is dear and valuable to men, depending on the preservation of our happy Constitution, more shaken by our intestine vices, than by the arms of its degenerate and rebellious Citizens, now audaciously advanced into the very heart of the Kingdom.

Let us then, in good earnest, resolve upon a thorough Reformation; A return to that gracious simplicity of manners; that amiable modesty in dress and diet; that temperance in pleasures; that justice in business; which made BRITAIN so distinguished in the manly annals of our forefathers. Let us speedily return to that sober piety, that serious sense of Religion, by which our Ancestors were encouraged to form, and enabled to support, the PRINCIPLES on which this happy Constitution is erected. But above all, as the first step into the old paths of honour, let us emancipate ourselves from that detestable spirit of libertinism, impudently assuming the name of FREETHINKING; the bane of common life, the opprobrium of common

sense,

sense, and the dishonour even of our common humanity. Let us but be instant in doing this, and we shall soon have earth and heaven once more in conjunction, to make us happy and victorious over all the confederated enemies of our peace.

A DEFENCE

OF THE PRECEDING

DISCOURSE.

A FREE and equal Government is the greatest temporal blessing the Almighty ever bestowed upon mankind. Such an one, in his great mercy, he bestowed on us; of which we were in full possession, when a vile unnatural rebellion, supported by the most formidable Power in Europe, threatened to overturn it; and on its ruins, to erect a civil and ecclesiastic tyranny; the most detested evil wherewith God, in his wrath, ever permitted the enemy of mankind to deform the fair work of creation.

At this important juncture, when no human means, sufficient to save us, were at hand, but our determined courage to live and die with the Constitution, I observed some good men were apt to terrify themselves and others with an apprehension, that the private vices of the people had brought down this judgment of God, upon the PUBLIC,

which

which it was to be feared must end in its destruction. ! Into this kind of Divinity I supposed them to be ] led by the consideration of God's dealing with the JEWISH PEOPLE; on whom, in the magnificence of his royal bounty, he had graciously bestowed the most excellent of all civil governments; subjected, however, to destruction in punishment for their irreligious practices.

At this juncture, a fast-day being appointed by authority, to implore God's blessings, and to deprecate his judgments, I understood it to be my duty, on such an occasion, both as a minister of God's word, and a subject of the King, to examine into the reasonableness of these apprehensions; and to shew, to those committed to my care, what they had indeed to trust to.

In the first place, therefore, I endeavoured to prove, that the case of the Jewish People could not, for many reasons, be brought into example: That the method of Providence, there administered, did indeed admirably fit the Mosaic constitution; but the Christian economy had revealed unto us a different way of punishing the sins of particulars: And that, on the principles of natural light, we might gather, that the punishment of a right constituted Public was due only to civil crimes; from which we being remarkably free, I concluded, that our happy Constitution had great reason to expect the distinguished protection of heaven: For that it would be hard to find, throughout the history of mankind, any one State, either ancient or modern, Monarchy or Republic, so long, and so eminently, VOL. IX. distinguished

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distinguished for its OBSERVANCE OF PUBLIC FAITH? There being but one instance since the Revolution (at which time our Constitution, properly, arose) where good faith was not most scrupulously and religiously discharged by it.

Such was the doctrine I delivered in the preceding discourse. And was it natural to think, that at such a time, and on such an occasion, it should give offence to a Divine of the Church of England? It did. And I was then told from the press, that "The clergy very well know, and needed "not my help to inform them, that God was "under a special covenant with the Jews for tem

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poral good and evil. But as this covenant, what"évér privileges it gave to the Jews above other nations, could not destroy God's right as universal governor; an argument therefore would very pro"perly lie from God's dealing with the Jews, to "what other nations are to expect in like cases, in "such points as either reason or Scripture shew, to

appertain to God's universal government; of which sort is the punishing nations and kingdoms for "the wickedness of them that dwell therein. As

appears from the FLOOD, from the case of SODOM " and GOMORRAH, of the NINEVITES, and of those "HEATHEN NATIONS whom the Jews were raised up to destroy (as the Scripture expressly says) for their wickedness*"

''

દ

The pernicious doctrine to be confuted, we see, was this, "That God, in his common government "of the world, doth not deprive nations of that * Hist. of Abraham, &c. p. 100.

greatest

greatest blessing he ever bestowed upon them, a free and equal Government, for the vices of par"ticulars." This position, I supported on our nas tural notions of God's providence; and on what we find revealed of his moral government in Scripture. In the first, the Objector was silent: In the second (where I considered the Jewish government as the only case that could seem to support the contrary opinion), he supplies my omissions: and urges me with God's judgments on the people at the flood, on Sodom and Gomorrah, the Ninevites, and the seven nations.

But amongst all these, I could not find one free and equal government; for which, only, I undertake to be an advocate; and therefore they were omitted. Some of them were uncivilized tribes, living in a state of nature, in which there was no blessing of Government to take away: And others, in a still viler condition, the slaves of petty tyrannies, where the destruction of the State was the removal of God's severest curse. In a word, I was speaking of the greatest human happiness hostilely attacked, and in danger of being lost. And the Objector confutes my doctrine, by instances of the greatest human misery occasionally removed: The destruction of the noble Constitutions of Sodom and Gomorrah; to which, not over decently, he thought fit to compare the free Government of Great Britain. I was speaking, and speaking only, of a CONSTITUTION, of a COUNTRY, where civil and religious liberty flourished at their height. I never concerned myself, how God would deal with a rabble of savages: nor thought

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