dominion and to make a parade of the exercise, lest their imaginary grandeur should pass unnoticed.

I understand, then, by the vague term, kings, all who have any pre-eminence over the lowest orders of men, and these are they, who exercise tyranny, and inflict the martyrdom, for which the prophet in the text prepares us. In order to comprehend this more fully, contrast two conditions in the life of David. Remark first the state of mediocrity, or rather happy obscurity, in which this holy man was born. Educated by a father, not rich, but pious; he was religious from his childhood. As he led a country life, he met with none of those snares among his cattle, which the great world sets for Gur innocence. He gave full scope without restraint to his love for God, and could affirm, without hazarding any thing, that God was supremely lovely. What a contrast! This shepherd was suddenly called to quit his sheep and his fields, and to live with courtiers in the palace of a prince. What a society for a man accustomed to regulate his conversation by the laws of truth, and his conduct by those of virtue! What a place was this for him to propose those just and beautiful principles, which the holy Spirit teaches in the scripture, and which are many of them to be found in the writings of the psalmist! I have seen the wicked in power, and spreading himself like a green bay-tree; yet he passed away, and lo, he was not: I sought him, but he could not be found. Surely men of high degree are a lie, to be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter than vanity.—I said, ye are Gods, and all of you are children of the most High: but shall die like men. ye -Put not your trust in a prince, in whom there is no help. His breath goeth forth, he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts perish. He, that ruleth his spirit, is better than he, that taketh a city. My son, the son of my wonib, the son of my vow's, give not thy strength unto women, nor thy ways to that which destroyeth kings. It is not for kings, O Lemuel, to drink wine, nor for princes strong drink, lest they drink and forget the law, and pervert the judgment of any of the afflicted. How would these maxims be received at some of your courts? They were not very pleasing at that of Saul; David was therefore censured by him and his courtiers for proposing them. Hear how he expressed himself in this psalm. O Lord! remove from me reproach and contempt. Princes did sit, and speak against me, because thy servant did meditate in thy statutes. The proud have had me greatly

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greatly in derision: yet have I not declined from thy law, Psal. cxix. 22, 23. 51.

II. Let us pass to the second article, and consider the magnanimity of such as expose themselves to this martyrdom. This is naturally included in the former remark, concerning the executioners, who inflict the punishment. My brethren, it is impossible to speak of the testimonies of God before the tyrants in question without being accused either of a spirit of rebellion, aversion to social pleasures, or rusticity and pedantry; three dispositions which the great seldom forgive.

The martyr for morality is sometimes taxed with a spirit of rebellion. Perhaps you may have thought I spoke extravagantly, when I affirmed, that most men consider themselves as kings in regard to their inferiors. I venture, however, to affirm a greater paradox still; that is, they consi der themselves as gods, and demand such homage to be paid to their fancied divinity as is due to none but the true God. I grant, great men do not all assume the place of God with equal arrogance. There are not many Pharaohs, who adopt this brutal language, Who is the Lord, that I should obey his voice? Exod. v. 2. There are but few Sennacheribs, who are so extravagant as to say to the people of God, Beware lest Hezekiah persuade you, saying, The Lord will deliver us. Hath any of the gods of the nations delivered. his land out of the hand of the king of Assyria? Where are the gods of Hamath and Arphad? Where are the gods of Sepharvaim? Isa. xxxvi. 18, 19.

But, though the great men of the world do not always assume the place of God with so much brutal insolence, yet they do assume it. Though they do not say to their inferiors in so many words Obey us, rather than God, yet do they not say it in effect? Is it possible to oppose their fancies with impunity? Is it safe to establish the rights of God in. their presence? What success had Elijah at the court of Ahab Micaiah at that of Jehoshaphat? John the baptist at that of Herod?

We need not go back to remote times. What success have we had among you, when we have undertaken to allege the rights of God in some circumstances? For example, when we have endeavoured to convince you, that to aspire to the office of a judge without talents essential to the discharge of it, is to incur the guilt of all the unjust sentences that may be pronounced; that to dull the understanding by. debauchery,

debauchery, to drown reason in intemperance, to dissipate the spirits by sensual pleasures, when going to determins questions, which regard the lives and fortunes of mankind, is to rob men of their property, and to plunge a dagger into their bosoms; that to be so absorbed in forming public treaties, and in the prosperity of the state, as to lose sight of the interests of religion, is equal to placing hope in the present life, and renouncing all expectation of a life to come; that to render ones self inaccessible to the solicitations of widows and orphans, while we fill offices created for their service, is to usurp powers for the sake of emoluments; that to suffer the publication of scandalous books, and the practice of public debauchery under pretence of toleration and liberty, is to arm God against a state, though states subsist only by his protec tion? Let us not repeat forgotten grievances, let us not by multiplying these obects, run the hazard of increasing the number of arguments, which justify our proposition. To speak of the testimonies of God before kings, is to expose ones self to a charge of rebellion, and to such punishments as ought to be reserved for real incendiaries and rebels.

2. As the great men of the world would have us respect their rank, so they are equally jealous of their pleasures; and, most men forming maxims of pleasure more or less lax according as their rank is more or less eminent, licentiousness grows along with credit and fortune. A man, who made a scruple of being absent from an excercise of religion, when he could hardly provide bread for the day, hath not even attended the Lord's supper since he came master of a thousand a year. A man, whose conscience would not suffer him to frequent some companies, when he walked a foot, is become a subscriber to public gaming houses, now he keeps a carriage. A man, who would have blushed at immodest language in private life, keeps without scruple a prostitute, now he is become a public man. Lift your eyes a little higher, lift them above metaphorical kings, and look at kings properly so called. Adultery, incest, and other abominations more fit for beasts than men; what am I saying? abominations, to which beasts never abandon themselves, and of which men only are capable, are not these abominations considered as sports in the palaces of some princes? This is what I said, licentiousness increases with credit and fortune. The maxims, which men form concerning pleasures, are more or less loose according as their rank is more or less eminent. In general, that detachment from the world

which religion proposes to produce in our hearts, that spirit of repentance, with which it aims to inspire us, those images of death, which it perpetually sets before us, those plans of felicity disengaged from matter, to which it invites us: all these ideas are tasteless to the great; we cannot propose them amidst their intoxicating pleasures without being considered as enemies to pleasure, as scourges to society.

3. When we speak of the testimonies of God before the great, we are taxed with rusticity and pedantry. There is among men a misnamed science, without which we cannot appear in the great world, it is called politeness, or good breeding. This science consists in adopting, at least in feigning to adopt, all the passions and prejudices of the great, in taking such forms as they like, in regulating ideas of right and wrong by their caprice, in condemning what they condemn, and in approving what they approve. In one word politeness, in the style of the great, is that suppleness which keeps a man always prepared to change his system of mosality and religion according to their fancies. Not to have this disposition, to have invariable ideas, and invariable ob jects of pursuit, to be inconvertible in religion, to have the laws of God always before our eyes, or as the scripture speaks, to walk before him, is in the style of the people of the world, to have no breeding, to be a bad courtier, to be possessed with that kind of folly, which renders it proper for us, though not to be confined with lunatics, yet to be banished from the company of people of birth and quality, as they call themselves, and to be stationed in closets and cells.

III. Thus we have seen both the executioners, who punish morality with martyrdom, and the magnanimity which exposes a man to the punishment; and these are sufficient to expose our third article, the horrors that accompany it. I have not ideas sufficiently great of the bulk of my auditors to engage me to be very exact in expounding this third article. I fear, were to enlarge on this part of my subject, I fear I should raise unsurmountable obstacles to the end, which I should propose in opening the subject. Forgive an opinion so inglorious to your piety, but too well adjusted to the imperfections of it. We dare not form such a plan for you as Jesus Christ formed for St. Paul, when speaking of this new proselyte to Ananias, he told him, I will shew him how great things he must suffer

for

For my name sake, Acts ix. 16. Martyrdom for doctrines, F grant, seems at first more shocking than martyrdom for morality: but, taken all together, it is perhaps less insurmountable. To die for religion is not always the worst thing in the calling of a christian. Virtue wakes up into vigour in these circumstances, and renders itself invincible by its efforts. Even worldly honour sometimes comes to embolden. That kind of heroism, which is attributed to man making such a splendid sacrifice, supports under exquisite torments.

There is another kind of suffering, longer and more fatiguing, and therefore more difficult. It is a profession, a detail, a trade of suffering, if I may express myself so. To see ones self called to live among men, whom we are always obliged to contradict upon subjects, for which they discover the greatest sensibility; to be excluded from all their pleasures; never to be admitted into their company, except when they are under afflictions and restraints; to hear ones looks, and habits turned into ridicule, as they said of the prophet Elisha, He is an hairy man, and girt with a girdle of leather about his loins, 2 Kings i. 8. What a punishment! Men, who have withstood all the terrors of racks and dungeons, have yielded to the violence of this kind of persecution and martyrdom. We will not be insensible of the frailty of our auditors, and, therefore we will omit a discussion of the acute and horrid pains of this kind of martyrdom:

IV. We are to treat fourthly, of the obligation of speaking of the testimonies of God before kings. We ground this on the nature of this duty. You have heard, that it consists in urging the rights of God before great men, and, though it be at the hazard of all the comforts and pleasures of life, in professing to respect the moral part of religion. We do not mean an unseasonable and indiscreet manner of doing so. The duty of confessing Jesus Christ before tyrants, in regard to his doctrines, hath its bounds; and so hath that of confessing his morality. There was more enthusiasm than true zeal in such ancient confessors as voluntarily presented themselves before persecutors, and intrigued for the glory of martyrdom. So in regard to the present subject, in our opinion, it is not requisite we should intrude into the company of the great to reprove them, when we have rea son to believe our rebukes would be injurious to ourselves,

and