tyrant into ten thousand. Society, which implies government, is the natural state of mankind; all are born under it: and it is happy for them that they are so; they could not otherwise be reared from infancy to manhood, or partake in security any of those blessings now poured in such profusion around us. Willingly or unwillingly, the people must be governed; and, whatever they may fancy to the contrary, by some or other they always were governed, and always will be governed. Their well-being, nay, their very being, as a people, depends upon it. "Let supplication be made "for kings, and for all that are in authority.' Why?" That we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all godliness and honesty;" that we may be safe from harm, and have leisure to be good and to do good. The Jews, even when captives in Babylon, were commanded to pray for the prosperity of their oppressor and his city for the same reason, that "in its peace they might have peace." But the connection between government and felicity is no where marked out in a more expressive and beautiful manner than in the verses of our Psalm immediately following the text. "Rid me " and deliver me," says the Israelitish monarch, "from the hand of strange children, whose mouth speaketh vanity, and their right hand is a right "hand of falsehood."-Wherefore does the king thus entreat to be delivered? Plainly, on account of the benefits that would be thence derived to the community over which, by God's appointment, he presided "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth, that our daughters may

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"be as corner stones, polished after the similitude " of a palace; that our garners may be full, afford

ing all manner of store; that our sheep may "bring forth thousands and ten thousands in our "streets: that our oxen may be strong to labour; "that there be no breaking in, or going out; that "there be no complaining in our streets. Happy "is that people, which," by the salvation given to their king, "is in such a case; yea, happy "is that people, whose God is the Lord," that can give salvation to him.

Such, then, are the reasons of that especial favour, which divine Providence, in so many instances, hath shewn towards the persons of princes; because of the danger they are continually in from the adversary; because of the relation they bear to him with whose authority they are invested; and because in their safety and happiness consist those of the people under them.

And thus much for the doctrine contained in the text. The application to the deliverance this day commemorated will best be made by considering how great the salvation-how evidently the gift of God.

The salvation must be estimated by the destruction intended to have been wrought; and that was great indeed! great, beyond any parallel in the annals of mankind! Armies have met, and slaughtered each other in battle; kings have fallen in the field, they have been assassinated, they have been poisoned-one has been tried as a rebel against the majesty of the people, and executed for high treason, before his own palace, by his own subjects! But a

design to destroy the whole legislature, king, lords, and commons, at a single blast, and leave not a wreck behind-this certainly was a master stroke of villany, black as the materials with which it was to have been accomplished, dark as the places where those materials were deposited. Blessed be God, it miscarried!-But who can paint in their proper colours the consequences that must have attended its success?-An instantaneous and total dissolution of all government, introductory to such a scene as never was beheld, of broils and disorders, of usurpation and slavery, of extortion and rapine, of faction and fury, of superstition and ignorance, of persecutions, tortures, and massacres ;-the whole kingdom a perfect Aceldama, a field of blood, for generations to come, without measure, and without end. From all these and other calamities (if others there are), worse than fancy can form or fear itself conceive, was this our country saved by the discovery of the infernal machinations against it.

There is no occasion to particularize the circumstance of this discovery. They have been often recounted, and are well known. And when we reflect upon the unheard-of iniquity of the plot, together with the confusion and misery intended to have been brought on a mighty nation, and happily prevented by such discovery, he must be very blind indeed who does not perceive the finger of God in it, and thoroughly stupid and insensible who does not, on that account, praise and magnify his holy name.

But there is a circumstance behind, which deserves consideration at all times, and more especially in the present. I mean, the principle, the mo

tive, which gave birth to this diabolical design. For if you ask, why the governors of three kingdoms were to be thus cut off at one stroke, and dispersed to the four winds; the answer is, They were heretics -the church of Rome, in the plenitude of her power and pride, had so denominated them, and judged them not fit to live any longer upon the earth.

That so detestable a' scheme should have entered into the heart of man upon any pretence, is disgrace enough to human nature. But that it should be formed upon the pretence of religion-of the Christian religion-this is making sin to become indeed exceeding sinful! From the intended effects of the conspiracy our country was saved by the discovery of it, previously to its execution. But where is the balm to heal the wounds, which religion has thereby received, in the house of men pretending to be its best, nay, its only true friends? The efforts of all its adversaries put together, never effected one hundredth part of the mischiefs caused by the contests and dissensions, the wars and tumults, plots and assassinations, excited and carried on by such friends, under the notion of promoting its welfare and advancement in the world. He who reads the account of such proceedings, feels his indignation rising not only against the men, but against the faith professed by the perpetrators of these enormities; and he is tempted to exclaim, as some have exclaimed-" If "this be Christianity, let my soul rest with the philosophers." Fully sensible of this, the writers on the side of infidelity spare no pains in ransacking history for facts of this kind, which are continually presented to the reader with every circumstance of

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aggravation, either in the form of virulent invective, or the more dangerous one of sly and pointed irony, a method practised but too successfully by a late celebrated wit on the continent, and in the prosecution of which the historian of the Roman empire, among ourselves, has condescended, alas, (the more is the pity!) to play a second part to him.

To those who may be in danger of seduction by his very fallacious, though, at first sight, specious arguments, we have a few things to offer; and this is the proper opportunity for offering them.

In the first place, then, we must earnestly exhort them, as they love the truth, and their own eternal salvation, to make the just and necessary distinc-· tion between the religion, and the persons professing that religion. Does the Gospel teach any lessons of the kind we have been considering? Does it direct subjects to blow up their governors into the air, because of some supposed errors in their religious opinions? Certainly not. If those disciples were reproved, as strangers to its spirit, who desired to revenge an indignity shown to the person of their Saviour, by fetching down fire from above, as little can disciples now be justified by it, in seeking, on any pretence, to stir up fire from beneath. Was Christianity at first propagated, ro did it direct itself ever after to be propagated, by doing violence to any man? You know the contrary; you know, that all its precepts point quite another way. There is no need to weary you with citations; a moment's reflection is sufficient to convince and satisfy any person on this head. Let not Christianity, therefore, suffer in your opinion,