the Lord. And he shall be as the light of the morning when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain."

"Power without goodness, says the preacher, is the justest object of mens' fear and aversion. An elevation of condition, without a more real dignity inherent in the mind, is only the exposing of those who are clothed with that ill-deserved greatness to a brighter light, by which their defects become more conspicuous. Those who are raised to a high eminence of dignity, are so much the more accountable, both to God and man, not only for all the ill which either they themselves, or others acting in their name or by their example, may have done, but likewise for all the good which they might have done and did not. David here gives the true measures of government: it is a rule and not an absolute dominion, a rule over men and not a power like that which we have over beasts. Those who manage this power must be just, and act according to the eternal and unalterable rules of truth and goodness.

"Man is born free, and so he has a right to liberty; but he is born likewise with so much frailty in his composition, that he wants conduct, and must be kept under rule. It is a question not easily determined, whether a state of liberty without any restraint, that leaves all men to a full freedom of acting as they please, or a state of restraint that shuts out all liberty is the more miserable of the two. The one makes men beasts of prey; the other makes them beasts of burden. The mean between these two extremes is a just government. To put the frailties of men to trials in their obedience that are above human

patience, to exact of them that which is either impossible or unreasonable, and to carry this rule too far into that which is God's immediate province, I mean mens' consciences, all this is not the ruling over men either as men or as Christians. God himself has made his yoke easy, and therefore those who can pretend no higher than to be his vicegerents, should not exceed those limits within which the Author of our being has restrained himself. Undue impositions, and unrelenting severities or rigour in commanding, and a cruelty in punishing, must find patterns elsewhere than in God's governing the world, or Christ's governing the church.

"How well tempered soever our constitution may be, nothing can complete our happiness but the justice of those who rule over us. Just to the whole society, and the constitution of the government, as well as to every individual member of it; not breaking through the limits of their power, nor invading the rights of their people. He understood government well who said, mercy and truth preserve the king, and his throne is upheld by mercy;' when every man feels the blessing of such a ruler, all men are easy, and every man becomes a guard to the government that finds himself guarded by it.

"But after all, though it is a great happiness when rulers seem to have justice so deeply rooted in their natures, that every act of injustice is as a violence done them, yet unless there is a more lasting princi ple in them, they will find themselves so beset by corrupt men, that it will not be possible for them to maintain their integrity, if they have not a principle within them of such force that it bears all things down before it, and that is the fear of God. This

t

will accustom princes to consider, that how much soever they may be raised above their subjects, yet they are as nothing before that God who, as he set them up by his providence, so he can pull them down at his pleasure. He poureth contempt upon princes; and when he blasts the counsels and intends to defeat the designs of the greatest and loftiest monarchs, how easily do crowns fall and thrones shake. This fear of God will make princes often remember, that though they look like gods, yet they must die like men this prospect will make them think sometimes on the melancholy reflections which the approaches of death will probably raise within them, if they at any time for the increase of their treasure or their power, or for any ambitious and ill design have perverted judgment or denied justice, if they have shed innocent blood, or shut their ears against the cries of the miserable. The remembrance of these things will then raise agonies in their minds, which they will not be able to soften by any of those diversions with which they entertained themselves in their health. The violences which they have committed, and the blood which they have shed, will then stick too close to their thoughts to be easily shaken off by them. Or if they could be so charmed with, the sweetness of empire, that it should make them deaf to all clamours in this world, yet as soon as their souls pass out of their bodies, they must leave their crowns and all their glory behind them, and go into a state where all the distinctions that now look so gay and so shining will signify nothing, unless it be to add to their account, and increase their guilt, and to heighten their condemnation. Then they must appear at a tribunal where there is no respect of persons, where the cries

of those widows and orphans whom they either made or oppressed, or at least refused to relieve, will be heard; and every one of those complaints, against which their greatness secured them when on earth, will be weighed in the scales of impartial justice. Then those princes who have hardened themselves against the miseries of mankind, against all that effusion of blood and desolation, with their desire of glory, their ambition, or revenge, occasioned in the unjust wars which they have made, will find that they have a just and righteous God to deal with, that accepteth not the persons of princes, that revengeth innocent blood, especially the blood of his saints.

"It is from you, great sovereigns, that we expect the glorious reverse of all cloudy days. You have been hitherto our hope and our desire; you must now become our glory and crown of rejoicing. Ordinary virtues in you, will fall so far short of our hopes, that we shall be tempted almost to think them vices. It is in your persons, and under your reign, that we hope to see an opening to a glorious scene, which seems approaching. May you not only accomplish, but exceed even our wishes. May you be long happy in one another. May you reign long in your persons, and much longer in a glorious posterity. May you be long the support of the church of God, and the terror of all its enemies. May you be ever happy in obedient subjects, in wise counsellors, and faithful allies. May your fleets be prosperous, and your armies victorious. But may you soon have cause to use neither; by settling, both at home and abroad, a firm and just peace, and by securing the quiet of Europe from those who have so often, with so little regard to the faith of treaties, and now at last.

beyond all former examples disturbed it. In order to the obtaining all these blessings, and in conclusion a sure, though a late admittance to the kingdom above, where you shall exchange these crowns with a more lasting, as well as a more glorious one, may not only this auditory, but the whole nation, join with united voices and inflamed hearts, in saying, GOD SAVE KING WILLIAM AND QUEEN MARY."

The attempts to make such alterations in the church of England as would have produced a comprehension of the dissenters within the established pale, and the passing of the toleration act, rouzed the slumbering tyger. Tories in politics, and high churchmen in religion, poured their execrations on the name of William, as a secret enemy to the church of England. But if we judge from facts, we shall pronounce him her chief benefactor, whose steady and powerful hand raised her up, when staggering under the ill-advised friendship, or the concealed enmity of the Stewarts. Could the purest and most exalted attachments be more effectually displayed, than by placing at the head of the church such prelates as should in future guide her with wiser counsels, feed her with purer doctrines, and defend her with weapons of keener edge and finer temper? Many of the high church prelates unintentionally assisted William to accomplish this object, by refusing to take the oaths of allegiance to him, which gave them the title of nonjurors, and left their sees vacant; which the king, after a time, filled up with the objects of his choice. Dr. Tillotson was prevailed upon to accept the primacy, and was announced archbishop of Canterbury, as Dr. Sharp was of York; so that the archiepiscopal sees were filled by two who were esteemed the best