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gdes farther, and both explains and enforces these duties on the subject. To shew us what obedience we must "render unto Cæsar," it acquaints us with his character whose Image he bears, and whose person he represents "that it is God that made him and not we "ourselves." And therefore, that the laws which he decrees, and the power by which he acts, are not to be received as a creature of the people, but to be reverenced, and submitted to, as the "ordinance of God." By the same Religion also may Cæsar be instructed in the extent of his commission; and the subjects directed in the measures of their obedience. In all things lawful we are, readily, to obey him, "not only for wrath, "but also for conscience sake."

But little will the patrons of rebellion find in the doctrine of our Saviour, of the practice of His followers, to support those principles, which the text alone, not to mention any other, has abundantly confuted.

The Sovereign Christ there commands them to submit to, was a Prince, we may observe, of a different religion, and of another country. The Pharisees, to whom He enjoins it, a people of all others most impatient of his empire, and who, if any, might have pleaded an exemption from his government. With better grace than others since have done, those saints might have insisted on the rights and privileges of a free-born people: For sure, if any nation under heaven can

think it hath whereof" in this respect "to glory, "they more: Of the seed of Abraham," which had never, as they boasted, "been in bondage unto any "man," and of the stock of the "Messias," whom all men should obey: they too might have insisted on the righteousness of the sect by which they were distinguished,

VOL. III.

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distinguished, on the strictness of their purity, and the measure of their holiness; on their fellowship, as they termed it, and communion with their God, and on the titles they delighted to be familiarly called by, of His precious, and elect.

But our Lord, by His behavior on this occasion, has abundantly convinced us, that neither the wickedness of the prince, nor the godliness of the people, neither the liberties of nature, nor the privileges of Grace, can give unto subjects a dispensation from allegiancemuch less, as some have argued, a title to dominion.

What then must we think of that unruly spirit, which so outrageously prevailed in the "children of "disobedience," till from one degree of wickedness to another, it went on at last to make itself drunk with the spoils of God's Church, and with the blood of his Anointed? A spirit, which, if any the strongest ties of nature, of allegiance, or of gratitude-if the virtues of a prince, or the happiness of a people, if oaths, or Vows, or protestations, could have restrained, eventhese would have restrained it.

Indeed, when we reflect on so prodigious an event, so far beyond the examples of former ages, and the imitation, we hope, of those that are to follow; where the guilt was almost as universal as the misery, in sogeneral a concurrence of wickedness in some, and of infirmities in others, what one particular sin prevailed above the rest, is not easy to determine. But whatever might contribute to the progress of those mischiefs, the original of them all may too justly be ascribed to an irreverence for Majesty, and too great a disregard to the duties of submission. Here, here it was, in the ruins of Religion, and those good old principles of

Christian

Christian Allegiance, and of English Loyalty, so long the glory of our Church, and the safety of our Government, that "these workers of iniquity," had too skilfully established the beginnings of their guilt, and the foundations of our misery.

"No sooner had they broke these bonds asunder, "and cast away the cords from them," but they found themselves at liberty to "take counsel together against "the Lord and against his Anointed." When once they had persuaded themselves and others, that to resist was lawful, they more easily convinced them that to rebel was necessary. From poisoning their principles, they successfully went on to corrupt them in their affections; possessing the minds of the fearful with danger, and the jealous with discontent, and applying with much artifice to their passions and credulity, those suggestions which might render them most impatient of the old government, and most eager for a new one.

Here, therefore, let us fix the rise of their rebellion, not, as some, from the date of their commission, to a general, but from the moment that they began to be disloyal upon principle. The guilty arms they came afterwards to engage in, were taken up to maintain that treason in the field, which they had practised in thẹ Senate; were taken up to make good the style of their petitions, and the tumults of their remonstrances, and not to be laid down, till they had destroyed that power, which, by repeated usurpations, they had insulted and oppressed.

Even the crimes, and the parricide of this execrable day, this, the master-piece of their treason, and the consummation of their villanies, even this was too naturally the consequence of those principles, which they

appeared betimes less tender to conceal, and were grown, by degrees, even forward to discover. War, and an army they had raised upon their Sovereign, even then, when they presumed to style themselves his subjects: They had fought him in his name, and defeated him by his authority: What followed after this will more easily be accounted for: To imprison him, when subdued, was but the right of conquest; to insult him in his chains, was but the rudeness of their victory; to murder him, when deposed, for treason against their majesty, was but an act of their prerogative, and no immoderate exercise of the sovereignty they had assumed.

So fatal is the tendency, and so natural the progress, of those mischiefs, which arise from what our forefathers called the doctrines of rebellion, but what others. in our days have not 'scrupled to enjoin as the duties of resistance. The duty of resistance! A sound not heard before by English ears, or in a Christian country. A language this, from which the most barbarous of subjects had hitherto abstained, under the smart of oppression, and in the heat of their resentments. Force, extremity, necessity they may have called it, but duty is a name of more modern application, and never, till of late, suspected to belong to it. "A new command

ment, therefore, have we from" them in the room of another, which they have long ago transgressed, and "made void by their traditions;" but a needless commandment sure, if not dangerous, to a people not forgetful of their liberties, and of themselves, we know, but too ready to fulfil it.

So gave they unto Cæsar the things that were Cæsar's; and to shew, how to their blood-guiltiness

they

they added sacrilege, and to their rebellion, hypocrisy, it may not be improper to consider, in the next place, how they gave" unto God also the things that were "God's."

And here, after what hath already been observed, concerning the guilt of their rebellion, and the heinousness of their parricide, it seems needless to enquire, by what spirit they were actuated, and in whose cause they were engaged. "The wrath of "man," when transported to such violence, "work"eth not," we may believe," the righteousness of "God."

But though murder and rebellion are sins in themselves most hateful unto God, and instruments, of all others, most inapplicable to His service, a zeal for His glory was pretended to accomplish them, and the color they made use of to justify them, when accomplished.

For God against the King was the style of their engagements: For God against a King, Defender of His Faith, and most jealous of His honor: For God against a Church which acknowleged Him in truth, and worshipped Him in purity.

By the title of their arms, one would have thought they were religious; and by the zeal of their soldiers, that they were marching against Infidels in defence of the cross, or to the rescue of the sepulchre.

Which, therefore, of God's rights had the Government oppressed, or to which did these reformers restore Him by subverting it? Was it to re-instate Him in the possession of his attributes? Our Church, we know, assumed not to be infallible. Was it to