reason against imposing such forms and systems upon men. To impose them upon such as dislike them, is notorious tyranny, and altogether antichristian.

Were I to pursue this subject, it would lead me into many reflections. Give me just leave to say, that where there is the least grimace and pomp, and human contrivances in religion, especially in a country of much light and liberty, like ours, there the fewest handles are given for upbraiding or ridiculing the clergy, who can expect no other whilst such handles subsist. I might add, that the surest way to preserve and perpetuate the power of religion, is to restore religion to its original simplicity. But even to gain this great and valuable end, I am for no violence, no sudden changes, no altering foundations, or shaking the constitution, or for changing the frame of the church, or for withdrawing her revenue. Nor do I know any such terrible men as your Lordship suggests to be bent upon any such change. And considering that I think the pretender's game to be altogether desperate, I cannot foresee any change so fatal as that which the vast increase of the clergy's property, must one day, if it go on, certainly make. This I think demonstrable from figures. I am not sure that this si a change which troubles or alarms your LordshipYou will not surely reply, that there are many clergymen and their livings very poor. My Lord, there are also many excessively rich. Why does not the wealthy brother support the poor? The truth is, they must be all excessively rich, and the laiety excessively poor, if the scheme goes on for a course of years. Will not this be a change, a terrible change in the constitution? And who are the men given to such a change?

In page 8, you tell us of the force of enthusiasın, how easily enthusiasts are seduced, how apt to think their cause "the cause of God, which allows no delays, admits of no restraints; times and places, and persons and things must all give way to what the enthusiast calls the work of God, &c." All this is very true; and what then? Were there no enthusiasts at that time, or since, but the sectaries? Your Lordship must know better, and it had been but fair to have owned it. Have not many churchmen been notable enthusiasts, possessed with very foolish and very false notions, which they themselves took to be so many divine truths? Indeed, every hot-headed man, who takes the heat in his head to be religion, is an enthusiast. Nor did I ever know any party in religion, established or not established, but what had enthusiasts amongst them; and I have known as vehement enthusiasts in our own church as in any. Whoever places sanctity in names and trifles, is an enthusiast. Whoever reverences sounds, or postures, or colours, is one. Whoever thinks that worldly power is necessary to religion, is one. Whoever would hurt another for any religious opinion, is one, let him call that opinion by as odious names as he pleases, even heresy or schism, or even deism. Whoever applies the judgments of God to others, that is, calls their misfortunes by the name of divine judgments, is an arrant enthusiast if he be in earnest, and worse if he be not. In short, whoever builds upon religion any superstructure of his own, and then contends for it as a real part of religion, is an enthusiast; as is he who sees holiness in things inanimate and irrational, or thinks that holiness can be conveyed into such, whether the same be earth, or walls, or garments, or appellations.

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But I hope I need not to prove to your Lordship that there have been madmen, that is enthusiasts, of the church, and for the church, in all times. No man knows it better than you. Pray what was archbishop Laud, bishop Cosins, and the other innovators and persecutors of this very time about which you now preach? If they were not enthusiasts, fierce and raving enthusiasts, they were much worse; and the best apology that can be made for them is, that they were stark mad. Did they not contend that all their forms and religious curiosities, with all their various ecclesiastical heraldry, were of divine right, even their deans and chapters, even their chancellors, arch-deacons, and even their miserable bishop's courts? And did not they make men swear to this? Did they not frame oaths with an & cætera, that no man might have a possibility of not being perjured? Did they not make a canon, obliging all the clergy of Scotland to swear to a liturgy which was not then made, nor till a year afterwards?

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These are changes which in your harangue against men given to change, you take no notice of; though to me they seem terrible and impious changes. These are enthusiasts whom you have not mentioned, nor seem to have meant. These were enthusiasts with power, formidable enthusiasts. "To serve God, they trampled upon all the laws of God and man ;" to use your Lordship's words. And I agree with your Lordship, that it is very afflicting (I cannot say with you, that 'tis very surprising; for 'tis too common) "to see what a frenzy of enthusiasm poor ignorant men have been worked up to, by specious pretences to a purer religion, or a more exalted devotion, through a blind zeal to advance what they call the kingdom of Christ." indeed afflicting, to see men such ready dupes to delusion and deluders. Just such enthusiasm have we all seen, just such frenzy raised, by a blind zeal for the church; and 'tis this very zeal, blind indeed, which has more than once filled above half the nation with religious fury. The very day, my Lord, which you celebrate by this sermon, has been abused to raise that fury, abused to revive and perpetuate religious rage and strife. I wish that the abuse were at an end. I must again use your Lordship's words, to say, that "what makes this the more afHicting, is, that they are worked up to this madness by men who do not believe themselves a word of what they say, by men who are themselves the vilest hypocrites, void of all true virtue and religion."

Your Lordship proceeds, and says, that "When such men cannot ruin the established religion this way, then they set up for zealous asserters of the rights of subjects in religious matters." The asserting the right of the subject in religious matters, is, I hope, no mark of enthusiasm, nor infers that he who does so, aims at inisleading enthusiasts. This I know well, that when Laud and his followers then and since, drove at aggrandizing themselves, at settling strict and universal uniformity, that is to say, church tyranny, they set up for zealous asserters of the rights of the crown, and gave it such rights as it never had, at the expense of the law, and even of the word of God, upon which they always fathered all their most impious inventions. Their flattery to the crown was monstrously insidious and impudent. For, whilst they freely complimented it with the liberty and property of the laity, they were themselves daily undermining it, and robbing it of its most valuable prerogatives and strength.

This observation has likewise escaped your Lordship, though it was so very obvious. If fault was then found with the teachers of religion, it was not because they taught, but for what they taught, which God knows was faulty and wicked enough. What you say about crying up the law of nature (which, by the way, our Saviour never cried down) and about infidelity, is not applicable to those times, which claim a very different character; and I fancy your Lordship means the times present; how justly, I shall consider by and by, as also how men contract a dislike to the church and churchmen. Let me here just humbly represent, that throwing at random the charge of infidelity, has ever been a practice too common with those of your cloth; and such of them as have been the loudest in that charge, were generally the warmest advocates for priestcraft. For, that there has been, and is priestcraft in the world, your Lordship, I presume, will not deny.

There is another proposition of yours quite too general, and, I doubt not, true; "Tht men who are of a restless, turbulent, factious temper, with respect to government, are always ready to join in their complaints against the religion established, and in their endeavours to seduce men from it." Your Lordship, more zealous than cautious in asserting just what serves your present purpose, forgets that for these forty years, ever since the revolution, most of those who were the most restless, the most turbulent, the most factious against the government, have been noted for rigid churchmanship, distinguished by their attempts to advance the power and interest of the church. Such were king William's greatest enemies, such the late king's, and such the present king's. Were not the members of the famous French league all zealots to Popery? So far were they from seducing men from it, that they destroyed all who were not for it. Yet that league was a terrible faction combined against that government, all strictly of the established church, yet bent against the established government; and they pursued their wicked ends, not by endeavouring to ruin, but to advance and aggrandize the established church.

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Whether the greatest strength of the government ever did, and ever will lie in the fidelity and affection of the members of the established church," as your Lordship roundly affirms, I shall now a little consider and first allow me to say, that this is oddly affirmed. It is no more than affirming, that as most of the nation are members of the established church, they will be the strongest support of the government, as long as they are faithful and affectionate to the government. My Lord, have they always been so ? Did the late king find them so? And did he not find, does not his present majesty find that the dissenters have been universally so? My Lord, pardon me for saying, that it is a wild assertion, that monarchy cannot stand without the church. What proof is there of this, but that they once fell together; and it was the church that in effect pulled down the monarchy. This surely is a bad argument, that the monarchy is altogether supported by the church. Does not our monarchy subsist in North Britain, where Presbytery is established? And do not the Presbyterians there, as they and other dissenters do here, heartily adhere to our civil government; when almost all the churchmen there, and too many of them here, have been zealous to destroy it?

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If Presbyterians formerly, and other dissenters, opposed the crown, it was evidently because the crown, miscounselled by the bishops, oppressed them, cruelly oppressed them; and oppression will make a wise man mad. When they were not oppressed, they never resisted; and have ever been steady to every administration that protected them. Can your Lordship say the same of churchmen? Have not churchmen rebelled, without provocation or oppression, or any ill usage, merely from an intemperate spirit of pride and power? The endless enterprizes of prelates against the crown make a great part of our history: and even long since the reformation, the wise, candid, and famous father Paul expresses great fear for the crown of England from the power and claims of the bishops: he says, "he sees the horse bridled and saddled, and just ready to be mounted by his old rider." Even in the pious reign about which you preach, the supremacy of the crown was boldly denied by the clergy; and archbishop Laud had intimidated the judges from granting prohibitions, though the judges could not, without perjury, refuse such prohibitions. What regard, thinks your Lordship, had this great prelate to conscience, and consequently to the salvation of souls, or even to the monarchy? What regard had the judges, even in this instance, to their oath and duty? Those very judges of whom you speak so well, nay so kindly?

How is it, my Lord, that the church only can support the government? Is it by her doctrines of obedience? All our dissenters profess the same doctrines to princes that protect them; and have never yet falsified their professions. Can churchmen boast as much? These have indeed infatuated some of our princes with extravagant notions of power and obedience. But did they ever stand the trial themselves? No; none ever resisted more fiercely; sometimes without one blow, or any just offence given them. These mad doctrines are therefore not to be relied on: If they had, king James II. who weakly trusted to them, might have died in his throne and in paying a just and legal obedience, all sects amongst us concur. Nor will any prince who is not as weak as king James, and, like him deluded by priests, trust to any other obedience. Were the dissenters once against the king? I have given the reason. Nor does it from thence follow, that they are not hearty friends to the government. The churchmen were once against Parliaments; is therefore the church to be charged with being against the government ?

I use the word church in the sense which you and all the clergy use it; a sense which has prevailed through custom, but is indeed impertinent and unjust. For, your Lordship knows, that the word church is never used either in the Old or New Testament, to mean the bishops or priests alone, but generally intends the whole assembly of the faithful, and often means the people alone without the priest or minister. But the clergy have every where usurped it to themselves, against all truth, and served their own ends notably by it.

Your Lordship's reasoning about government, page 9, is mostly true; but the application is again either quite dropped, or very defective and partial. You say it is a very complicated question, What species of government is best for the people, &c. ? Without entering into this enquiry, I am convinced that our own is the best for us; namely, a king and Parliament, the people represented, the laws inviolable, and

the only standard of power and liberty. Now who departed first from this excellent frame? Was it not the king, and the clergy who governed the king? Your Lordship would not surely have found it a very complicated question, Whether governors keep or break known laws? That king Charles did so is fact, and a fact that it would have become your Lordship to have owned. You own that men given to change may urge plausible things in their own behalf, though such a change is sure to throw things into confusion: I ask again, Who began the change? And whether, since a violation of the laws naturally ends in confusion, and indeed brings it, opposition to such violence may not produce order, and has not sometimes done it, though not always? That king had plausible things said for him, and for bis arbitrary government: bis necessities were urged; laws were pretended to justify bis breach of law, and he was said to be the vicegerent of God, whilst he was acting like a very bad man. But about these things your Lordship is intirely silent.

What follows is chiefly haranguing, and may be turned any way, but chiefly against that king; though I intirely acquit your Lordship from intending it. What you say about seducers and inflamers, is also too confined. It becomes a spirit of truth and peace to expose all seducers, and all incendiaries at all times was king Charles's reign and court free from them? Was the church free from them? Whilst we remember the enthusiasm and violence that followed, let us not forget the domination, the superstition, and high-church fanaticism that went before, and seem to have begot and introduced the other. I think it manifest, that till the church and the crown had begun a change, no other change was thought of: and whoever begins any mischief, is, in a great measure, answerable for the whole.

Whilst your Lordship was inveighing, with becoming warmth, against inflamers, innovators, and the like pests of government, it would have been no digression to have observed, how much the martyr's court was infested with such; that more especially parasites (and the worst of all, spiritual parasites) were the bane of his reign, and even of our constitution; that perhaps one of the greatest defects in our government, has been its tameness, in suffering the clergy to preach the people out of their liberties; as was their practice during the reigns of all the Stuarts.

Perhaps it were too much to wish that you had likewise warned us, to be upon our guard against a body of men continually pursuing selfish and separate advantages: men who have often with deceitful words seduced princes from their duty, engaged them in acts of violence, and consecrated even their iniquities; men who have sometimes pursued their point even to extremity, and to the subversion of public liberty, in order to share with the deluded prince in his violence, yet cloaked all their unhallowed doings under the name of the Lord. Who have so often as they (to use your Lordship's words)" been watching for a change, and lain in wait to deceive, and to seduce the people from the obedience which both reason and religion taught them to be due to the higher powers? -Since there is no knowing where to stop, or what extravagance they may be gradually worked to in following the seduction of such guides."- -I add, guides, such as Laud and his brethren, who were never quiet till they had "carried things to extre