SUMMARY OF DISCOURSE X.

MARK, CHAP. III.-VERSE 24.

THOUGH the words of the text are read in the gospel, yet they have not their authority merely from thence; since an appeal lies to common sense and experience for the truth contained in them.

As observations of this kind depend on a great number of facts, so are there in the present case a great number to support it. We have examples of our own growth.

The late unhappy times of Charles the First were attended with this peculiar felicity, that no foreign nation was at leisure to take advantage of our divisions. But though there was no such enemy to ruin us, yet ruined we were. Such is the malignity of intestine division!

When national quarrels grow extreme, and appear in arms, it is easy to foresee their sad consequences; and whoever looks back with partial or impartial eye on the years of distress under which this country labored in the late times, will see enough to convince him how fatal a thing it is for a kingdom to be divided against itself: it will be therefore of little use to enlarge on this part of the argument.

But there are other evils less discernible, which spring from the same bitter root, and naturally prepare a way for the greater mischiefs which follow.

National divisions are sometimes founded in material differences, sometimes owe their rise to accidents; but all divisions, how different soever in their commencement, grow in their progress to be much alike; and there are evil effects which may

generally be ascribed to them all, as the fruit they naturally produce.

I. The zeal and warmth which attend public quarrels, are apt to get possession of men's minds and affections so far as to render them in great measure unable to form a right judgment of things and persons; and without this it is impossible for men to be of any service to their country; since a foundation for public good can never be laid in a wrong judgment of things and persons: this topic fully treated.

II. One great guard to virtue, and placed in the minds of men by the hand that formed them, is the sense of shame when we do ill; of the same kind, and a twin of the same birth, is the pleasure arising from the praise of having done well: but to make these natural passions of any service to us, they must be kept true to their proper objects, good and evil; and whenever the judgment is so corrupted as to lose sight of this difference, the love of praise and the fear of shame will become not merely useless, but mischievous and destructive; which must be the case when a false standard is set up. This applied to a nation or kingdom divided against itself.

III. When praise and reproaches are distributed with so little justice, it has another very ill effect in hardening men against reproach, even when they deserve it most: this point enlarged on.

IV. It is a farther aggravation of this evil, to consider that such infamous conduct seldom fails of being successful; for when the malignity of intestine division is far spread, it becomes a shelter for all iniquity: party zeal usurps the place of Christian charity, and covers a multitude of sins: men then trust their hopes and fortunes to the merit of their zeal, and this seldom fails them; for,

V. As credit and reputation, the natural rewards of virtue, are perverted and misapplied by the blind spirit of division, so are the rewards which the public has provided and destined to

the encouragement of true merit, diverted into a wrong chanpel: this point enlarged on.

These are the steps by which division corrupts the manners and morality of a nation. And what hopes are there of seeing a people grow great and considerable, who have lost the sense of virtue and of shame; who call evil good, and good evil; and who are prepared to sacrifice their true interest and that of their country to their own and their leaders' resentment?

These general observations might be justified by numberless instances, drawn from the late times; but to do justice to the subject and the solemn occasion of the day, it is necessary to take one step into their history, and to view the works of division in its utmost rage.

It is difficult to speak of any thing relating to the unhappy period which this day calls to mind, and truth can hardly be borne on either side; yet testimony must be given against the unnatural and barbarous treason, and the acts of violence which prepared the way for it; a treason long since condemned by the public voice.

The subject illustrated by some examples, which the history of the late times affords, and which reach to the full extent of the text, that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand.

To put a stop to innovations, correct abuses, and redress grievances by the known rules of Parliament, is the true and ancient method of preserving the constitution, and transmitting it safe to posterity; but when this wholesome physic came to be administered by the spirit of faction and division, it was so intemperately given, that the remedy inflamed the distemper, and the unhappy contest which began about the rights of the king and the liberties of the people ended in the destruction of both.

The contest about civil rights was rendered exceedingly hot and fierce, by having all the disputes and quarrels in religious matters, under which the nation had long suffered, incorporated

with it thus conscience was called in to animate and inflame the popular resentments: the effect was soon felt, for the church of England fell the first sacrifice.

The bishops of those days were generally inclined to save and support the crown; the consequence thence drawn was, that episcopacy itself was an usurpation; and the bishops were excluded, not only from the House of Parliament, but from their churches also.

But why mention this, when so much more fatal a blow was given to the liberties and constitution of England, by the House of Lords itself being declared useless, and the peerage excluded from a share in the legislature?

The nobility were not free from the infection of those times; and yet to their honor be it remembered, that the execrable fact of this day could not be carried into execution so long as the peerage of England had any influence in the government : when once they were removed, the crown and the head of him that wore it fell together.

It is said that very few persons comparatively were wicked and bold enough to dip their hands in royal blood. But then, how fatal to kingdoms is the spirit of faction and division, which could in the course of a few years throw all the powers of the kingdom into the hands of a few desperate men, and enable them to trample on the heads of princes, the honors of the nobility, and the liberties of the people!

Could these acts of violence, and the causes which produced them, be suffered to lie quiet in history, as so many beacons, we might be wiser and better for the calamities of our fathers; but if we permit their passions and resentments to descend on us; if we keep alive old quarrels by mutual invectives, what else are we doing but nursing up the embers of that fire which once consumed these kingdoms?

The application of what has been said is so natural and ob

vious, that were it pardonable to omit it on this occasion, it would not be mentioned.

There is no pleasure in viewing the follies and distractions of former times; nor is there any advantage, unless it be that we may grow better and wiser by the examples which history sets before us. In the present case we have the experience, which cost the nation dear, to warn both rulers and subjects how carefully they should avoid all occasions of division. The true way to act is, for each side to maintain its own rights without encroaching on those of the other; for the constitution must suffer whenever the rights of the crown, or the liberties of the people, are invaded: this point enlarged on. Concluding observations.