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fervility; fince it is fo favourable to virtue; fince it is the parent of arts, of fciences, of public and private prosperity; fince it is the firmest support of the dignity of the man and of the christian, and the most delicious enjoyment of life. Yes, liberty is an inestimable bleffing; a poffeffion without which almost all others would lofe the greatest part of their worth, and by which they are all of them multiplied and enhanced.

But the knowledge, the conviction of the value of liberty, fhould not lie dormant in our breasts; it fhould have an influence on our conduct.

If ye recognize and feel the value of liberty, my pious hearers, patronize and protect it wherever it fubfifts; enjoy your own happiness, but seek not to destroy or circumfcribe the enjoyment of it in others. He that by any means undermines or contracts the bounds of liberty; he that forges fetters for his brethren, or brings them under a yoke, or prevents them from breaking and casting it off; is an enemy of mankind, a traitor to the human race, an ignominious flave, who would fain reduce and debafe all men to the fame fervile difpofitions with himfelf. No, the liberty of our brother fhould be just as facred to us as his property, as his honour, as his life, as his fum of happiness; fince, that once gone, all the others lofe frequently the whole of their value. Of all criminals, the tyrant is the most atrocious, the petty tyrant as well as the great, the fervant of the

prince as well as the prince himself; and no crime must draw after it more humiliation and fhame and torment in the future world than this, as none is more manifeftly in direct oppofition to the will of God, to all his views and commands, to the fpirit of true religion and christianity, to the whole of human happiness than this.

This however, is not enough. If you confefs the value of liberty, then alfo promote and advance it. Do fo especially, you who fhine in polifhed circles, who fill the higher ftations, you that are in the claffes of the learned, who are teachers and guides of the people, who as fine writers influence the taste and the principles of the times, or are diftinguished above others by fuperior talents, and more generous fentiments. It is an indifpenfable duty incumbent on you to fupport and advance the cause of liberty. You are the curators of the nation, the guardians of its conftitution, the interpreters of its laws, the arbitrators between the government and the fubject; and fad is your cafe if you do not employ the deference and respect and authority you poffefs, to the ends for which the Father of mankind, the Judge of the world, has invested with them! Maintain then and protect the unalienable rights of mankind; defend and fupport the equally facred rights of confcience. Neither degrade yourselves by a blind and flavish obedience, nor by a fnperftitious fubmiffion, to the ordinances and traditions of men. Beware of be

you

coming, either in one respect or the other, the fervants of men. In both respects try all things, and cleave to that which, according to the foundest dictates of your judgment, is the beft. Shew re-. spect to the great and mighty of the earth; but flatter them not; crouch not in their prefence, as if they were creatures of a fuperior order. Judge of their actions with difcretion; but judge of them by the self-fame laws by which you pronounce upon the actions of other men; and neither applaud nor approve of anything merely because it has been faid or done by a man that is furrounded by particular pomp. Reverence the religion of the realm, and its teachers, and its rites. But decline not to examine the doctrines of that religion, to difcufs the decifions of thofe teachers, and to judge of the propriety or impropriety of those rites. Allow full scope to the progrefs of human knowledge; discountenance no decent investigation of received maxims and doârines, be the confequence what it may. Truth can at length be no lofer by it; and one perfpicuous thought, thoroughly understood and deeply felt, is of more value, and does more good, than ten others, heard of one man and repeated to another, and understood of neither from principle and conviction.

Lastly, the more liberty ye enjoy, my pious hearers, the more let it operate that good in you which it is able and ought to produce. If you may worship God after your own principles, then

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worship him with the greater cheerfulness and fervour; adore him fo much the more in fpirit and in truth, with understanding and fentiment. Are you allowed to think and to judge for yourfelves in religious matters; reflect so much the more on those important concerns; let it be fo much the more your most delightful employment to explore and to know them; endeavour the more to affure yourself of your faith by reafon and argument. Woe to him whom freedom to think, whom liberty of religion and confcience, renders indifferent to religion and truth, or inattentive to the voice of conscience! Instead of being free, and of being better and happier by liberty, he only barters to his lofs one flavery for another; and though he be not oppreffed by man, yet is he in bondage to his own lufts and paffions. No, he who would not render himself unworthy of the privilege of feeing with his own eyes, and of purfuing his object in the way he has chofen for himself, fhould use his eyes with fo much the more affiduity, and walk his onward courfe with the greater circumfpection. Do you enjoy civil liberty; then obferve the laws of the state and of the fociety to which you belong, with the readier and ftricter obedience; for the maintenance and obfervance of the laws is the basis of all liberty. Promote the welfare of that state, of that fociety with fo much the more zeal, as it is the more intimately connected with your own, as you have and may have fo much the more influence

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fluence on its profperity, as you find and enjoy in it fo much the more protection and peace, fecurity and happiness. Think and act in all refpects with the greater liberality and public fpirit, the farther you are exalted above the ftate of flavery.. tend all of you, in the laft place, my dear friends, for that greater, that ftill more effential liberty of the wife man and the chriftian, who governs himfelf, who controuls his appetites and paffions, feeks his happiness not fo much in externals as in inward perfection, is never unmindful of his dignity, fupports it in every condition, uninterruptedly follows the dictates of his reafon and his confcience, and wills nothing but what God wills, and does nothing but what is in conformity to the will of God. Yes, this is the liberty which will compenfate the want of any other, and will be conftantly bringing us nearer to the mark of our high vocation.

O liberty, fair child of truth, neceffary refult of divine influence, fruitful parent of internal peace! Thou raifeft the mind above the tyranny of abject paffion; not diffolved in the blandifhments of better fortune, not terrified with the frowns of worse; capable of enjoying the bleffings of one, incapable of fuffering the injuries of the other! Fixed on the immoveable foundation of real virtue; unalterable by any variety of accidental circumstance; stranger to all selfish views; thou extendeft thy generous affection through all the charities of each relation; enlarging thy own happiness in the un

bounded