the Almighty, though for fear of punishment they may observe your commands, yet when they see no cause of fear, or when they can with impunity, they will think it no sin to disobey; and, provided they think the opposition between human laws and the laws of God to be very great, they will even run the greatest hazards rather than submit to your authority; and if you punish them for transgressing, they will consider themselves as martyrs for truth, and rank you in the list of per secutors. But you may avoid all this by carefully consulting the word of God, which will direct you in all profitable things, and shew you every thing needful to make the man of God perfect. Though in these lukewarm times you may imagine that there is little danger from godly zeal, yet, my Lords, when it begins to kindle, it will raise such a flame as will put you in danger, and perhaps overturn all your schemes, and overset your measures. Take it as an advice from a friend, who really wishes you well, however much we may differ, to pay a just regard to Divine revelation in all your political proceedings, and then you will find at least arguments to vindicate your cause which your greatest adversaries will not be able to gainsay. This will keep your consciences clear and easy, and make you bear reproaches like men worthy of your offices and the trust reposed in you. But, lastly, study to restrain your passions and appetites. Suffer not pride, luxury, or any vile passion, to rule in your minds; for you will never be qualified to rule and direct the counsels of a nation, when you cannot govern your own lusts and affections. Can a man be supposed fit to rule at a navy-board, and to hold the helm of a nation in maritime affairs, that is blown by the wind of his lusts from all compass and rule, and carried by the tide of his appetites-to where ?-the Lord knows whereacross the ocean of sensuality into the gulf of perdition? There is an all-wise, great, and mighty Ruler, to whom all rulers must at last give an account, as well as those that are ruled, who has many arrows in his quiver, and can and will punish all injustice, wherever it is found. No temporal dignity can screen sinners from punishment, when they are obstinate, and refuse to be reclaimed. But as now is the time to consider these matters, I shall leave them to your consideration, and conclude this Discourse,

SERMON

I

SERMON IV.

MARK, xvi. 15.

Preach the gospel to every creature.

PROMISED in the last place to shew, That there are some creatures that are not creatures of God. These in Scripture are called creatures of men. The apostle Peter mentions a creature of this sort, which he calls are σ, a creature of man, to which he commands Christians to be subject for the Lord's sake, or for the sake of the Lord. Magistrates are creatures of both God and man, when they fulfil the end of their institution; and, my Lords, it is damnable to disobey them in that case: but when they pervert their office and appointment, they are mere creatures of men, and not of God; and then obedience to them is really problematical. All those characters and dignities which are not to be found in Scripture are creatures of men; among these I shall take notice of two of these sorts of creatures. And,

I. A civil magistrate with religious jurisdiction is a mere creature of human policy, which has no existence in the divine law or in the gospel. The supreme magistrate has no more authority in determining what belongs to men's consciences than the Bishop of Rome: to give the magistrate such a power is really to make him a Pope. The matters of God and the king were kept separate among the Jews as long as they obeyed God's law; and under the gospel Jesus Christ has the sole authority in religion, to whom man is accountable, and to no power besides. There is not a paragraph in all the New Testament which gives authority to civil rulers to interfere in religion, except in choosing their own; and this right they have in common with other subjects of the Lord Jesus Christ. They have a right by their office to take care that no man hurt another for the sake of his religion, and to see that no person give any disturbance to another for the sake of his creed; but Divine revelation gives them no right to prescribe what shall be the faith of a nation, or the form of worship they shall practise in serving God. When any nation gives its approbation to a power which enforces religion by civil penalties, it then forms a creature different from any thing that God has made. Civil authority is an ordinance and creature of God in all things that relate to the civil and political happiness of society, and every Christian is bound to obey it for conscience sake; but when it extends beyond that bound, this question is presently suggested, "Whether is it lawful to obey God or man, judge ye,

For

For the sake of being good Christians and good subjects, it is always necessary to know the difference between what is human and divine in all public institutions; for unless we perceive something divine in the apppointment, it will never so far reach the conscience as to make men observe it from the heart. This seems to have been the reason that princes, legislators, and politicians, in all ages, have endeavoured to make mankind believe that they received their power and authority from some divine original. This was, in the first instance, an acknowledgment that all authority ought to be consistent with such principles of conscience as render men accountable to the Deity as well as to the magistrate for their behaviour as citizens, or members of the state. Numa Pompilius, before he introduced his laws among the Roman people, retired to consult the deity Egeria, and introduced them as the laws of a divinity. There have been few legislators so hardy as to venture to issue laws and systems of government upon their own authority. There is something in mankind that requires an higher authority than any thing merely human to procure submission and obedience; for though fear of bodily punishment may have a strong influence, there are many cases in which this fear is overcome. Anger, and a strong desire of revenge, will often overcome all the fears of bodily punishment, when the idea of futurity and an after reckoning in another life will restrain and check these passions. And if we add a persuasion of being rewarded in the next world for suffering in this, it will make men suffer any torture whatever, rather than yield obedience to the mandates of government and state which appear unreasonable and sinful. The far greater part of legislators have always pretended to a divine authority to rule mankind, and have at least made use of the credulity of the people to procure their obedience. In ancient times lawgivers kept the secrets of government, which they pretended to receive from Heaven, in their own hands, and only gave their report for a security to the people, which ignorance and superstition received as satisfactory. But where men have divine revelation, these cheats will not pass; they are ready to examine that law book, and to compare the divine institution of government therein set forth with those forms that are pretended to be of divine authority. They thereby are able to dissinguish between those creatures of men and the ordinances of God which are binding upon the conscience. The power of princes and emperors to set up a priesthood with authority to direct the human conscience, is an old claim, but had never any foundation in reason or the will of God; for, as matters of conscience are between God and a man's self, no power whatsoever can lawfully interfere, while the person lives quietly, and does not disturb the government. Such a creature imposed upon society by regal authority as a Diocesan Bishop, to whom they must be subject in things religious, or lose some privileges which

'belong

belong to all good citizens, is a grievous burden, not easy to be borne. While a person lives soberly, obeys the laws of civil government, honours the king, and loves his country; is it not hard, that because he will not submit to a creature which God never made, he shall be refused the honour and privilege of serving his king and his country, according to that station and rank he holds in the community? Religious tests, to entitle men to be servants of a state, when their principles are known to be friendly to government, are creatures of men so unreasonable and oppressive, that it is strange that ever any government should have made them. To engraft religion upon civil government in any sense, is a creature of men and not of God; for neither our Saviour nor any of his apostles have given the smallest hint concerning it, but the contrary. It is making the supreme magistrate a very extraordinary creature, first, to give him a power of creating a character which shall have dominion over his own conscience, and then have a right of administering divine ordinances to him. It is plain, that in this country the sovereign is the maker of all the clergy that are in it, and yet he himself is but a creature. Nothing is better known now, than that a man cannot be a Bishop till he is created by the king; till then he can neither ordain deacons or priests, nor perform the act of coufirmation. All his after ministerial and episcopal functions have their original in that which gave him his first existence as a Bishop; whence it is manifest, that the orders of Priest and Deacon, which are indefeasibly handed down by Bishops, have their first rise in the crown, and are not derived from the apostles, unless it can be proved that the sovereigns of England are the successors of the apostles. The Papists upon this head have much the better of the English Episcopaliaus in point of argument; for they do not suffer kings to make Bishops, but can make them without any civil authority, which the English church cannot do. The strange palliatives which are used to colour over this inconsistency are like the Prophet's untempered mortar, that was very unfit for the purpose it was designed for. This power granted, or supposed to be lodged in a sovereign, makes him a very extraordinary sort of a personone that gives being and existence to a creature which afterwards becomes his counsellor, and, in a sense, the keeper of his conscience. But

II. A minister of the church with civil jurisdiction is not one of the creatures of God. Shew me, my Lords, any such creature in any one of the apostolic churches, as a minister of the gospel who was a civil magistrate. This is a strange amphibious sort of an animal; it has the charge both of men's souls and bodies; can banish men out of the earth, and also shut the gates of heaven against them. Some of these are very mischievous creatures, had need to have little occasion to exercise their power, otherwise they would do it with a vengeance.

It

is perhaps a problem not easily solved, why no men are ever so tyrannical and oppressive as clergymen who have power. Whether this proceeds from an abuse of the institution, or from the will of Providence suffering men to be wicked, who are unwilling to be subject to his laws, but assume offices and claim power he never intended to give them, I will not determine. But it is most natural to suppose, that none but wicked men will claim a power which Christ has given to no man. When they once assume such apocryphal offices, it is no wonder that they turn tyrants; for nothing but their manners or their natural tempers can render them tolerable. Conscience is out of the question; for had they consulted the proper rules of conscience, they never would have assumed power which the Lord has not authorized. There may happen here and there a clergyman with antichristian power, who does not exercise it in its full latitude; but this is a rare case, and proceeds more from some things that fall out in the chapter of accidents, than from the nature of the thing. If a man engage in an office which obliges him, if he fulfil it, to be an oppressor, he must upon the whole be either a very bud or a very inconsiderate man. I know there are some allowances to be made for the education of mankind, and the manner in which they have been tutored; but even those allowances must not be carried too far: for the word of God, being very plain, will instruct any man that is qualified to be a minis-. ter of the word, that he should assume no power except that which Christ bath given him; and it will never shew him, that a minister of the gospel can be a Lord Spiritual or a Justice of the Peace. The reason why clergymen abuse power, and are the greatest tyrants, is this-that they have no right to any, and as they claim an illicit authority, for want of good principles, Providence suffers them to expose their wickedness to all men. A good man, by engaging in an illicit business, may turn bad; and this is one of the ways that God punishes him for walking upon forbidden ground, namely, that he suffers him to expose his own folly. It is impossible for a man to be good while he is continually doing either what he has no authority, or what he is forbidden to do. Every man who seeks that power which does not belong to his character will abuse it, if he obtain it; for no good man will desire any such thing: and it will be as easy to make a man keep clean feet in mire, as make a good man keep a good conversation and a clear conscience in pursuing a duty which God has declared to be sinful.

I shall conclude by observing that the gospel has left nothing short in matters of duty, more than in matters of privilege. All things needful to direct high or low, rich or poor, are contained in it. When it is preached to every human creature, it shews all the duties they owe to God and society. Your Lordships will therefore do well to search the word of God, and F there