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which constitutes the actual miseries of life; while they gloomily speculate upon a thousand imaginary political grievances, and fancy that the reformation of our rulers and our legislators is all that is wanting to make us a happy people. Alas!

How small, of all that human hearts endure,

That part, which kings or laws can cause, or cure.

The principles of just and equitable government were, perhaps, never more fully established, nor was public justice ever more exactly administered. Pure and undefiled religion was never laid more open to all, than at this day. I wish I could say we were a religious people; but this at least may be safely asserted, that the great truths of religion were never better understood; that Christianity was never more completely stripped from all its incumbrances and disguises, or more thoroughly purged from human infusions, and from whatever is debasing in human institutions, than it is at this day in this country.

In vain we look around us to discover the ravages of religious tyranny, or the triumphs of priestcraft or superstition. Who attempts to impose any yoke upon our reason? who seeks to put any blind on the eyes of the most illiterate? who fetters the judgment, or enslaves the conscience, of the meanest of our protestant brethren? Nay, such is the power of pure Christianity, that genuine Christianity which is exhibited in our liturgy, to enlighten the understanding, as well as to reform the heart; and such are the advantages which the most abject in this country possess for enjoying its privileges, that the poorest peasant among us, if he be as religious as multitudes of his station really are, has clearer ideas of God and his own soul, purer notions of that true liberty wherewith Christ has made him free, than the mere disputer of this world, though he possess every splendid advantage which education, wisdom, and genius can bestow. I am not speaking either of a perfect form of government, or a perfect church establishment, because I am speaking of institutions which are human and the very idea of their being human, involves also the idea of imperfection. But I am speaking of the best constituted government, and the best constituted national church, with which the history of mankind is yet acquainted. Time, that silent instructor, and experience, that great rectifier of the judgment, will more and more discover to us what is wanting to the perfection of both. And if we may trust to the active genius of Christian liberty, and to that liberal and candid spirit which is the characteristic of the age we live in, there is little doubt but that a temperate and well-regulated zeal will, at a convenient season, correct whatsoever sound policy shall suggest as wise and expedient to be corrected.

If there are errors in the church, and it does not, perhaps, require the sharp-sightedness of a keen opposer to discover that there are, there is, at least, nothing like fierce intolerance, or spiritual usurpation. A fiery zeal, and an uncharitable bigotry, might have furnished matter for a welldeserved ecclesiastical philippic in other times; but thanks to the temper of the present day, unless we conjure up a spirit of religious chivalry, and sally forth in quest of imaginary evils, we shall not apprehend any danger from persecution or enthusiasm. If grievances there are, they do not appear to be those which result from polemic pride and rigid bigotry, but are of a kind far different.

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If the warm sun of prosperity has unhappily produced its too common effect, in relaxing the vigour of religious exertion; if, in too many instances, security has engendered sloth, and affluence produced dissipation let us implore the Divine grace, that the present alarming crisis may rouse the careless, and quicken the supine; that our pastors may be convinced, that the church has less to fear from external violence than from internal decay; nay, that even the violence of attack is often really beneficial, by exciting that activity which enables us to repel danger, and that increase of diligence is the truest accession of strength. May they be convinced, that the love of power, with which their enemies, perhaps unjustly, accuse them, is not more fatal than the love of pleasure: that no stoutness of orthodoxy in opinion can atone for a too close assimilation with the manners of the world; that heresy without, is less to be dreaded than indifference from within: that the most regular clerical education, the most scrupulous attention to forms, and even the strictest conformity to the established discipline and opinions of the Church, will avail but little to the enlargement of Christ's kingdom, without a strict spirit of personal watchfulness, habitual self-denial, and laborious exertion.

Though it is not here intended to animadvert on any political complaint which is not in some sort connected with religion; yet it is presumed it may not be thought quite foreign to the present purpose to remark, that among the reigning complaints against our civil administration, the most plausible seems to be that excited by the supposed danger of an invasion on the liberty of the press. Were this apprehension well founded, we should indeed be threatened by one of the most grievous misfortunes that can befall a free country. The liberty of the press is not only a most noble privilege itself, but the guardian of all our other liberties and privileges; and, notwithstanding the abuse which has lately been made of this valuable possession, yet every man of a sound unprejudiced mind is well aware that true liberty of every kind is scarcely inferior in importance to any object for which human activity can contend. Nay, the very abuse of a good, often makes us more sensible of the value of the good itself. Fair and well-proportioned Freedom will ever retain all her native beauty to a judicious eye, nor will the genuine loveliness of her form be the less prized for our having lately contemplated the distorted features and false colouring of her caricature, as presented to us by the daubing hand of Gallic patriots.

But highly as the freedom of the press ought to be valued, would it really be so very heavy a misfortune, if corrupt and inflaming publications, calculated to destroy that virtue which every good man is anxious to preserve, that peace which every honest man is struggling to secure, should, just at this alarming period, be somewhat difficult to be obtained? Would it be so very grievous a national calamity, if the crooked progeny of treason and blasphemy should find it a little inconvenient to venture forth from their lurking-holes, and range abroad in open day? Is the cheapness of poison, or the facility with which it may be obtained, to be reckoned among the real advantages of medicinal repositories? And can the easiness of access to seditious or atheistical writings, be seriously numbered among the substantial blessings of any country? Would France, at this day, have had much solid cause of regret, if most of the writings

of Voltaire, Rousseau, and d'Alembert, (the prolific seed of their widespreading tree,) had found more difficulty in getting into the world, or been less profusely circulated when in it? And might not England at this moment have been just as happy in her ignorance, if the famous orations of Citizen Dupont, and Citizen Manuel, had been confined to their own enlightened and philosophical countries* ?

To return to these orations: we have too often, in our own nation, seen and deplored the mischiefs of irreligion, arising incidentally from a neglected or an abused education. But what mischiefs will not irreligion produce, when, in the projected schools of France, as announced to us by the two metaphysical legislators above mentioned, impiety shall be taught by system? when, out of the mouths of babes and sucklings, the monstrous opinions exhibited by Dupont and Manuel, shall be perfected? when the fruits of atheism, dropping from their newly-planted tree of liberty, shall pollute the very fountains of knowledge? When education, being poisoned in all her springs, the rising generation will be taught to look on atheism as decorous, and Christianity as eccentric? When atheism shall be considered as a proof of accomplished breeding, and religion as the stamp of a vulgar education? when the regular course of obedience to masters and tutors will consist in renouncing the hope of everlasting happiness, and in deriding the idea of future punishment? when every man and every child, in conformity with the principles professed in the Convention, shall presume to say with his tongue, what hitherto even the fool has only dared to say in his heart, That there is no God†.

Now,

Christianity, which involves the whole duty of man, divides that duty into two portions,-the love of God, and the love of our neighbour. as these two principles have their being from the same source, and derive their vitality from their union; so impiety furnishes the direct converse, --that Atheism which destroys all belief in, and of course cuts off all love

* EXTRACT FROM MONS. MANUEL'S LETTER TO THE NATIONAL CONVENTION, DATED JANUARY 26, 1793.-"The priests of a republic are its magistrates, the law its gospel. What mission can be more august than that of the instructors of youth, who, having themselves escaped from the hereditary prejudice of all sects, point out to the human race their inalienable rights, founded upon that sublime wisdom which pervades all nature! Religious faith, impressed on the mind of an infant seven years old, will lead to perfect slavery; for dogmas at that age are only arbitrary commands. Ah! what is belief, without examination, without conviction? It renders men either melancholy or mad, &c. Legislators! Virtue wants neither temples nor synagogues. It is not from priests we learn to do good or noble actions. No religion must be taught in schools which are to be national ones. To prescribe one, would be to prefer it to all others. There history must speak of sects, as she speaks of other events. It would become your wisdom, perhaps, to order that the pupils of the republic should not enter the temples before the age of seventeen. Reason must not be taken by surprise, &c. Hardly were children born, before they fell into the hands of priests, who first blinded their eyes, and then delivered them over to kings. Wherever kings cease to govern, priests must cease to educate."

It is a remarkable circumstance, that though the French are continually binding themselves by oaths, they have not mentioned the name of God in any oath which has been invented since the Revolution. It may also appear curious to the English reader, that though in almost all the addresses of congratulation, which were sent by the associated clubs from this country to the National Convention, the success of the French arms was in part ascribed to Divine Providence, yet in none of the answers was the least notice ever taken of this. And to show how the same spirit spreads itself among every description of men in France, their admiral, Latouche, after having described the dangers to which his ship was exposed in a storm, says,-" We owe our existence to the tutelary Genius which watches over the destiny of the French republic, and the defer ders of liberty and equality."

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of, and communion with God, disqualifies for the due performance of the duties of civil and social life. There is, in its way, the same consistency, agreement, and uniformity, between the principles which constitute an infidel and a bad member of society, as there is between giving "glory to God in the highest," and exercising "peace and good will to men."

My fellow Christians! This is not a strife of words; this is not a controversy about opinions of comparatively small importance, such as you have been accustomed at home to hear even good men dispute upon, when perhaps they would have acted a more wise and amiable part, had they remained silent, sacrificing their mutual differences on the altar of Christian charity. But this bold renunciation of the first great fundamental article of faith, this daring rejection of the supreme Creator and Ruler of the world, is laying the axe and striking with a vigorous stroke at the root of all human happiness; it is tearing up the very foundation of human hope, and extirpating every true principle of human excellence. It is annihilating the very existence of virtue, by annihilating its motives, its sanctions, its obligations, its object, and its end.

That atheism will be the favoured and the popular tenet in France seems highly probable; whilst, in that wild contempt of all religion, which has lately had the arrogance to call itself toleration, it is not improbable that Christianity itself may be tolerated in that country, as a sect not persecuted perhaps, but derided. It is, however, far from clear that this will be the case, if the new doctrines should become generally prevalent. Atheists are not without their bigotry; they too have their spirit of exclusion and monopoly in a degree not inferior to the most superstitious monks. And that very spirit of intolerance which is now so much the object of their invective, would probably be no less the rule of their practice, if their will should ever be backed by power. It is true that Voltaire, and the other great apostles of infidelity, have employed all the acuteness of their wit to convince us that irreligion never persecutes. To prove this, every art of false citation, partial extract, suppressed evidence, and gross misrepresentation, has been put in practice. But if this unsupported assertion were true, then Polycarp, Ignatius, Justin, Cyprian, and Basil, did not suffer for the faith once delivered to the saints; then the famous Christian apologists, most of them learned converts from the pagan philosophy, idly employed their zeal to abate a clamour which did not exist, and to propitiate emperors who did not persecute; then Tacitus, Trajan, Pliny, and Julian, those bitter enemies to Christianity, are suborned witnesses on her side; then ecclesiastical history is a series of falsehoods, and the Book of Martyrs a legend of romance*.

That one extravagant mischief should produce its opposite, is agrecable to the ordinary course of human events; that to the credulity of a dark and superstitious religion, a wanton contempt of all decency, and an unbridled profaneness, should succeed; that to a government absolutely despotic, an utter abhorrence of all restraint and subordination should follow-though it is deplorable, yet it is not strange. The human mind,

* It may be objected here, that this is not applicable to the state of France; for that the Roman emperors were not atheists or deists, but polytheists, with an established religion. To this it may be answered, that modern infidels not only deny the ten pagan persecutions, but accuse Christianity of being the only persecuting religion; and affirm, that only those who refuse to embrace it discover a spirit of toleration.

in flying from the extreme verge of one error, seldom stops till she has reached the opposite extremity. She generally passes by with a lofty disdain the obvious truth which lies directly in her road, and which is indeed commonly to be found in the midway between the error she is flying from and the error she is pursuing.

Is it a breach of Christian charity to conclude, from a view of the present state of the French, that since that deluded people have given up God, God, by a righteous retribution, seems to have renounced them for a time, and to have given them over to their own hearts' lusts to work iniquity with greediness? If such is their present career, what is likely to be their appointed end? How fearfully applicable to them seems that awful denunciation against an ancient offending people, "The Lord shall smite thee with madness, and blindness, and astonishment of heart!"

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It is no part of the present design to enter into a detail of their political conduct but I cannot omit to remark, that the very man in their long list of kings, who seemed best to have deserved their assumed appellation of most Christian, was also most favourable to their acquisition of liberty *; his moderation and humanity facilitated their plans, and increased their power, which, with unparalleled ingratitude, they employed to degrade his person and character in the eyes of mankind, by the blackest and most detestable arts, and at length to terminate his calamities by a crime which has excited the grief and indignation of all Europe.

On the trial and murder of that most unfortunate king, and on the inhuman proceedings which accompanied them, I shall purposely avoid dwelling, for it is not the design of these remarks to excite the passions. I will only say, that so monstrous has been the inversion of all order, law, humanity, justice, received opinion, good faith, and religion, that the conduct of his bloody executioners seems to have exhibited the most scrupulous conformity with the principles announced in the speeches we have been considering. In this one instance we must not call the French an inconsequent people. Savage brutality, rapine, treason, and murder, have been the noxious fruit gathered from these thorns; the baneful produce of these thistles. An overturn of all morals has been the wellproportioned offspring of a subversion of all principle.

But, notwithstanding the consistency, in this instance, between cause and consequence; so new and surprising have been the turns in their extraordinary projects, that to foretell what their next enterprise would be from what their last has been, has long baffled all calculation, has long bade defiance to all conjecture. Analogy from history, the study of past events, and an investigation of present principles and passions, judgment, memory, comparison, combination, and deduction, afford human sagacity but very slender assistance in its endeavours to develop their future plans. We have not even the data of consistent wickedness on which to build rational conclusions. Their crimes, though visibly connected by uniform depravity, are yet so surprisingly diversified by interfering absurdities, as to furnish no ground on which reasonable argument can be founded. Nay, such is their incredible eccentricity, that it is hardly

Of this the French themselves were so well persuaded, that the title of "Restaurateur de la Liberté Française," was solemnly given to Louis the Sixteenth by the Constituent Assembly.

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