It is not within my province, to paint the political greatness of Britain, at a moment

when

it is man's duty as well as intereft to oppose, and his merit as well as happiness to fubdue, inftituted two capital ordinances, Civil Government, and Religion: fupports as necessary for the moral world, as the Sun and Mon for the natural; the one to fuftain and cheer us in this vale of miferies; the other to direct our benighted footsteps towards the happier regions of light and immortality.

"We may be certain therefore, that the fame Providence which keeps the celeftial orbs in their courses, will be ever watchful that these two moral lights fuffer no extinction or irretrievable decay. For as neither comets above, nor ignes fatui below, can supply the use of those luminaries, fo neither can defpotic rule, or wild fanaticism, supply the use of these.

"Yet as the moral world, for very obvious reasons, is infinitely more fubject to disorder than the natural, it may fometimes happen that these moral lights fhall suffer fuch dreadful eclipfes, and have their splendour fo polluted and impaired, as to shine purely no where, and brightly only in some small obfcure corner of the globe. Thus, for inftance, the bleffing of civil liberty, the fource of all human happiness, was, for many ages, totally extinct; and the knowledge of the Deity himself, the fountain-head of truth, was, for as many more, confined within the narrow limits of the land of Ifrael.

"Now this being the precarious condition of the moral world in general, let us fee what may be the actual ftate of Civil Government and Religion at present on the earth.

"As to the former, if we look round us, from the nearest to the remotest continent, we shall no where find a society

YOL. II.

S

founded

when fo many other states are either blotted from existence, or are finking with difgrace

into

founded on the true principles of civil liberty. Either the nature of its convention hath been so ill conceived (as in the Eaft), that the abfolute defpotic form hath been miftaken for the immediate inftitution of heaven; and, con fequently, every fpecies of free government for effential licence and impiety: or else, where the rights of mankind have been better understood (as in the Weft), where the three legitimate forms, the Monarchic, the Ariftocratic, and the Popular, have been truly difcriminated; yet men, feeing that civil freedom was naturally confined to these three forms, erroneously concluded, that each of them, feparately and unmixed with the other two, was able to sustain all the rights and advantages of it; not confidering that, while they operate fingly, they are but the fame tyranny in a different fhape: for while each form exifts alone, the whole fovereignty refides in a part only of the community, which fubjects the reft to defpotic rule.

"But true and lafting liberty refults from the fkilful .combination of the three forms with one another; where each of the orders, which governs abfolutely in each form, hath its due fhare of the fovereign power, and no more. Here all impotency of rule is eternally excluded; for no man, or body of men, can exercise tyranny over itfelf.

"A government thus truly free, is like one of those fovereign medicines fo much spoken of, where each of the various ingredients, of which it is compofed, does, together with its virtues, contain fuch noxious qualities, that, if ufed fimply and alone, might occafion great dif orders; but when fkilfully intermixed with the reft, the

whole

into ruin.

Other pens muft defcribe the

glorious contraft she exhibits, when compared

with

whole hath corrected the noxious qualities, and exalted the falutary virtues of each part.

"Whenever fuch a well compofed fociety becomes defpotic, it must be by the filent diffolution of its complex form; as when one order ufurping on the reft, hath gotten the whole of the fovereignty to itself.

"With so happy a Conftitution of government hath it pleased Divine Providence to bless this Island; the honoured repofitory of facred freedom, at a time when almost all the other civilized nations have betrayed their truft, and delivered up civil liberty, the moft precious gift of nature, for a prey to their fellow creatures.

"Now the preservation of this facred ordinance being no less neceffary to the temporal welfare of man, than the knowledge of the true God is to his fpiritual; we must conclude, that the fame gracious Providence would be now no less watchful for the prefervation of the British nation; than it was of old for the Jewish; yet ftill fpeaking the fame language to both- I do not this for your fakes, but for my holy Name's fake.'

"If we turn from Government to Religion, we fhall have the fame reafon, to adore the gracious Majefty of Heaven, ftill working for his holy Name's fake, that is, for the general good of mankind. For though it would be vanity to boast in this case, as in the other, that true Religion, like Civil Liberty, is to be found only in Great Britain, when we behold the Protestant faith, profeffed in the purity of the Gospel, in fo many of our kindred' Churches on the continent; yet this we cannot but declare, and should always acknowledge with the utmost gratitude, that the Church of England, by means of the mighty power

with all the Powers on earth, in fpirit, in principle, in public faith, unfullied honour,

of its Imperial Head, is become the fortrefs and bulwark of the Proteftant profeffion throughout the world; and, therefore, we may be affured, the object of God's peculiar regard, whose special Providence works chiefly for general ends *.

"In the course of this quarrel it hath been fometimes faid, the prefent combuftion in Europe was to be regarded in the light of a religious war, against a confederacy animated by Romish superstition and tyranny; and sometimes again, that it broke out and was carried on only for the difcuffion of our civil interefts. But in whatever shifting lights it may fuit the ends of Politicians to prefent it, the Lord of Hofts himself, by fo vifibly fighting our battles, hath fully decided the question, and in the midst of victory hath declared it to be indeed a religious war: for human prefumption itself will never venture to account for such diftinguished mercies to a finful nation, any otherwise, than by confidering Great Britain in the light of the fole remaining trustee of Civil Freedom, fo of the great bulwark of Gafpel Truth.

"Let us, therefore, humble ourselves before the Sovereign Majesty of heaven, confess our total unworthiness of thefe diftinguished mercies, and echo back again to the throne of grace those awful words which once proceeded from it- We confefs, O Almighty Father, that the great things which thou haft done for us, were not done for our fakes, but for thy holy Name's fake." Warburton's Sermons, vol. iii. p. 190. Edit. 1767.

* See Mr. Erfkine's and the Pope's Letters to the Bishops, from the Sun of Sept. 23, 1801. This propofal was rejected by 13 of the 17 Bishops now refident in London, with the exception of the Archbishop of Aix, a very remarkable circumftance: becaufe by this refusal these Bishops virtually deny the papal claim to fupremacy and infallibility—the great fupporters of the popish fyftem.

loyalty,

loyalty, justice, charity—in trade, opulence, and population-in the fplendour of her victories, fince unconnected with the powers she could not, cannot fave; and in the magnanimity of her conduct, amidst unprecedented provocations.

But it is strictly my office, to mention with exulting gratitude, that Britain's Sovereign has not liftened" to the fpirits, which already have tempted fo many of the kings of the earth to join the league against the Prince of Princes "" that, foremost to honour his religion, protect his fervants, and give glory to his name, HER KING, and HER PEOPLE, collectively confidered, have as yet stood firm against the affaults and artifices of Infidelity, because thefe circumftances prove the profperity of this country to accord, as ftrily as the adverfity of other nations, with the explanatory principle derived from these researches into the Prophecies.

For, while, with the whole world, I attribute in the most decided manner the prefent state of this kingdom to the measures early adopted and fteadily pursued by its