SERMON XVI.

Preached on the Thanksgiving Day for the Suppression of the late unnatural Rebellion in 1746.

2 COR. iii. 17.

WHERE THE SPIRIT

OF THE LORD IS, THERE

TH

IS LIBERTY.

HIS is the character St. Paul gives of the GOSPEL in the purity of its profession; that it begets LIBERTY; the blessing, through which the perfection of our nature is obtained. For, by Liberty is to be understood that right and due exertion of our faculties which terminates in TRUTH and VIRTUE; The Slavery of rational creatures consisting in a subjection to Vice and Error.

The various kinds of Liberty, thus procured, may be the subject of some less confined Inquiry. On this occasion, I shall consider only one, but that of the nobler sort, CIVIL LIBERTY; And shew, from REASON and FACT, that, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is this Liberty. I. 1. TRUE

I. 1. TRUE RELIGION, delivered in the Gospel, and called in my text the SPIRIT OF THE LORD, recommends and encourages a LIBERTY OF ENQUIRY; and supports and indulges the free exercise of Conscience. But men practised in the exertion, and habituated to the enjoyment, of these RELIGIOUS RIGHTS, can never long continue ignorant, or bear with patience the invasion, of their CIVIL. The human faculties can never long remain in so violent and unnatural a state, as to have their operations perpetually defeating one another, by the contrary actions of two such opposite Principles, as those of freedom and restraint. The one or other must, in a little time, overcome. Either the inveterate spirit of tyranny will viciate the purity of Religion, and introduce that blind submission of the understanding, and slavish compliance of the Will into the CHURCH, which it exacts in the State; Or else the spirit of the Lord will break down the barrier of an unequal, despotic power, and bring into the STATE, as well as Church, a free and reasonable service.

2. TRUE RELIGION teaches, that its End is the HAPPINESS OF MAN; in opposition to all the su perstitious fancies of the false; which place it in the arbitrary, the selfish, or the capricious manifestation of God's power, or interest, or glory. And this naturally leading us to the end of civil Government, will direct us how to form a right Constitution, when we have, by the foregoing Principle of free inquiry, already detected the injustice

of

of the wrong which professes to make the People, for the sake of the Prince.

3. That equitable Policy, by which TRUE RELIGION governs in the Church (and true, as well as false Religion must always have a Church to govern) will further aid us, when we have now found the end of civil community, to attain the means likewise, by copying, in civil matters, from that ecclesiastical subordination of authority and limitation of power, where the sovereignty resides in the whole body of the Faithful; Not, as in the administration of corrupt Religion, where a despotic Clergy constitutes the CHURCH.

4. But, above all, That grandeur and elevation of mind, that sublimity of sentiment, that conscious dignity of human nature, which TRUE RELIGION raises; which Holy Scripture dictates; and which the Spirit of the Lord inspires, will be ever pushing us forward to the attainment of those CIVIL RIGHTS, which we have been taught to know by reason, are Ours; and which, we have been made to feel by experience, of all Ours, are the most necessary to human happiness.

By these several ways, is the Spirit of the Lord, or TRUE RELIGION, naturally productive of the great Blessing, CIVIL LIBERTY. But turn now to the reverse of the medal; and there we shall find the antipart of this divine truth; and read in as clear characters, that where the Spirit of POPERY is, there is SLAVERY.

Instead

Instead of freedom of inquiry and uncontrolled liberty of Conscience; instead of making the end of Religion human happiness; instead of an equitable administration of Church policy; instead of that elevation of mind and conscious dignity of Human nature; we are here presented with a blind submission of the understanding; with a forced compliance of the will; and with absurd and superstitious doctrines concerning God's despotic and capricious government; imitated, in its own HIERARCHY; and administered by an ambitious and corrupt Clergy, who labour to establish narrowness of thought, lowness of sentiment, and base and abject conceptions of MAN, created after God's own Image,

II. I proceed now to my second point; namely, to confirm the foregoing observations, by FACT: From which likewise it will be seen, how naturally true Religion is productive of civil Liberty.

1. When the fierce and free nations of the North dismembered and tore in pieces the ROMAN EMPIRE, they established themselves in their new conquests, on one common principle of policy; in which, the LIBERTY OF THE PEOPLE made, as it ought to do, the Base, and operating Power. And, erected on so just a plan, these GOTHIC Governments might have stood till now, had not the rank influence of PAPAL SUPERSTITION SO vitiated those generous Policies, that, when the great instruments of Reformation first appeared, they saw the Western world

world as deeply lost in civil, as, in that from which they were appointed to free it, ecclesiastic slavery. For the triumphant Hierarchy had amply revenged the fallen Empire on the necks of its destroyers. But it was now wonderful to observe, how equal a pace, the civil and the religious Reformations kept with one another. Wherever the influence of the GOSPEL reached, it never failed to redress the exorbitancies of Government: While those places which continued sunk in SUPERSTITION, still groaned under the weight of civil oppression: In a word, the era of political and religious freedom was the same: So general is the truth of my text, that where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.

2. To this perhaps it may be objected, That as the Reformation of religion on the Continent was generally the work of the populace, and sometimes carried on in a very tumultuary way, it is more reasonable to ascribe the consequent regulations in the State to this lucky circumstance of popular fervour, than to any natural influence of the Gospel. But this objection will be seen to have little weight as we come nearer home: Here we shall find, that Reformation produced the same happy fruits, in England, where it was begun and perfected by the Prince; who can hardly be supposed to have formed designs of liberty, in favour of the People, against himself. What regulations, therefore, in the balance of power, succeeded the reformation of the Church, we must needs ascribe to the sole influence

of