lem: they shall profper that love thee. Peace be within thy Walls, and Profperity within thy Palaces. This affectionate Prayer and Exhortation was founded in a Concern for the temporal Happiness of his Country and Nation; and therefore he adds, For my Brethren and Companions Sakes, I will now Jay, Peace be within thee; and in a just Regard for the Honour of God and his Religion, therefore, he closes all with this Reflection: Because of the House of the Lord our God, I will feek thy Good.

You fee the Extent of the Duty recommended in the Text, and the Reasons in which it is founded; and fince we have fo great an Authority to justify our Care and Concern for the public Peace and Happiness of our Country, both in Regard to our civil Rights, and to the Interest of that holy Religion which we profefs, I beg Leave to bring the Arguments home to ourselves, and to the Occafion of this Day, by obferving to you,

I. What Reason we have on both thefe Accounts to blefs God for our Deliverance from the late Rebellion: and,

II. What Obligations we are under from

the

the fame Motives, to use our own beft Endeavours, to make perpetual the Blessing of this Deliverance.

Some Arguments there are, which require rather a Capacity of Feeling, than any great Acuteness of Judgment, to apprehend them: fuch are they which are drawn from the Experience of Senfe, from Pleasure or Pain, from the Conveniences or Inconveniences of Life; of which no Man is a capable Judge, who wants the Senfe proper to distinguish between the Pleasure and the Pain, or the Experience of the Convenience or Inconvenience under Debate. One would think, that an ordinary Imagination would ferve to represent the Difference of Liberty and Slavery; of the State, in which every Man may fit under his own Vine, and eat his Bread with Cheerfulness; and that Condition, in which nothing is to be called our own, but the Mifery of fubmitting to defpotic Power and yet we find, that the Generality of Men are not Mafters of fo much Reflection as is neceffary to arrive at this small Degree of Knowledge in the Affairs of the World. It is the Obfervation of Tacitus, the Roman Hiftorian, one allowed to be a good Judge of Mankind, that the

People

People of Rome were prepared for Slavery by the long Reign of Auguftus, which had almoft worn out the Race of Men that had tasted the Sweets of Liberty and Freedom. Ours feems to be the Reverse of their Cafe: we have fo long enjoyed the Protection of our Laws, and are got at fuch a Distance from the late Times of Diftress, that we have not Memory enough of them left to awaken our Care to prevent their Return. Our Fathers, who lived under the Dread of Popery and arbitrary Power, are most of them gone off the Stage, and have carried away with them the Experience, which we their Sons ftand in Need of, to make us in earneft to preferve the Bleffing of Liberty and pure Religion, which they have bequeathed us. O that I had Words to represent to the prefent Generation, the Miferies which their Fathers underwent; that I could defcribe their Fears and Anxieties, their restless Nights and their uneafy Days, when every Morning threatened to usher in the laft Day of England's Liberty, when Men stood mute for Want of Counfel, and every Eye was watching with Impatience for the happy Gale that should fave the Kingdom; whofe Fortunes were reduced fo

low

low as to depend upon the Chance of Wind and Weather.

Had Men fuch a Sense of the Miseries of the Time paft, it would teach them what Confequences they were to expect from any successful Attempt against the present Establishment. They would not want to be inftructed, what a free Nation had to fear under the Government of one, educated in Sight of all the Arts of Tyranny and Oppreffion; or what Usage a Proteftant Church would find, under the Influence of a Prince trained up from his Cradle in the Superftition and Corruption of the Church of Rome. Were the Influence of Religion confined within the narrow Compass of every own Breaft, the Subject, perhaps, would have but little Reason to be inquifitive about the Prince's Perfuafion; but fince it is Part of every Man's Religion to propagate the Doctrine he profeffes; and fince the Methods of Propagation in the Hands of a Prince, which are strengthened by the Power of the temporal Sword, are not likely to be confined to the gentle Measures of Reason and Inftruction; the Religion of the Prince must be confidered as a Condition requifite to the Happiness and Profperity of the Peo

Man's

ple.

ple. In our own Cafe this Confideration is the more neceffary, because it is the avowed Principle of the Church of Rome, not only to wish for the Converfion of those who diffent from her, but to force it by all the Terrors of worldly Power. And a Nation must want common Senfe, to put the Sword of Government into his Hands, who they know will be bound in Confcience to use it, either to the Deftruction of their Souls or their Bodies. There is no one doubts, but that there are natural Incapacities fufficient to exclude one, otherwife entitled to Government. An outrageous Madman nobody would truft, because nothing is to be expected from him but Havock and Deftruction. Now if a moral Defect will produce the fame evil Confequences, why should not the moral Incapacity be esteemed as ftrong a Bar as the natural? It matters not whether it is Confcience or Madness which causes the Destruction, a Nation furely has a Right to prevent fuch a Violence, without being troubled to know, whether the Distemper, from which it grows, has its Root in the Head, or in the Heart. The Romanists have little Reafon to complain of this Inftance of our Care for our own Secu-.