the first, I need only say, that men who live in ease and opulence are not apt to wish for changes, much less are they likely to be the active promoters of revolutions, in which their fortunes are to be staked at very uncertain game with those who have none: however, there are bubbles in this sort of game as well as that of hazard; and I will by no means promise for all our estated gentlemen, that they will have sense enough to consider the difference between a certain and a very precarious fortune, which latter is, all they can hope for upon the promises of the pretender, in case a revolution should take place.

As to the commanders and officers of the fleet and army, they too have all they can desire, and more a great deal than they could expect by a change, though it were of their own making. Should they take money for treason, what could they do with it in a ruined country and under an arbitrary power? Is it to be supposed they will listen to promises of promotion from one, who comes out of the very mint of dispensations, or that they can hope to be trusted by a person to whom they have betrayed their former bountiful master?

As to both the gentry and the officers, they have long eaten the bread of a delightful country, and enjoyed in it a series of golden days; is it to be supposed they have no gratitude, no love for such a country, no desire to continue in so happy a condition? or is it to be supposed they have no regard to their honour, or the solemnity of their oaths? The pretender, in expecting any assistance from them, makes them the compliment aloud to tell them, they are the most despicable of all fools, and the most low and detestable of all knaves. But I hope he shall find in every single man of them the great soul and the heroic spirit of colonel Gardiner, who like a good man, and in that I comprehend a wise one, chose to fall in the cause of God and his country, rather than to protract a wretched life, made infamous by the character of a coward and a traitor, till some fever or worse disorder should put an end to it with the agonies of a month or a year.

But if through the extreme decay of religion in all sorts and orders of men, honour alone, as it usually happens, should prove too slender a tie to keep the conduct of such men within the bounds of duty, it affords a melancholy sa

tisfaction to foresee, that they themselves must reap the first-fruits of their own perfidy.

Again, the pretender reckons to his party, and not without reason, the bulk of those who are dissatisfied with the present administration. There are in all communities, though ever so well governed, numbers of people, who are not so near the head of affairs as they could wish, nor promoted according to their own opinion of their abilities: others who are well enough pleased to see our trade en. larged and protected, and our enemies humbled, are nevertheless not so well pleased to share in the necessary expenses previous to the doing this, as in the profits arising from it; and therefore not only grumble at all sorts of taxes, but have a thousand objections to the application of the funds arising from thence; they would have a great deal done, but they would have it done for nothing.

These economists, in the reign of queen Anne, made a prodigious outcry about the expenses of that glorious war she carried on with France, and at length prevailed so far by their representations, as to procure us a separate peace, which saved indeed the expenses of another campaign, but left us to pay ourselves about sixty millions, and an ocean of blood expended on that war, which France must have paid us, had we gone on but another summer, and given us a much better peace into the bargain.

As all men are politicians, every one passes his censure on what is a doing by those at the helm; and without understanding in the least, either the posture of our domestic and foreign affairs, or the springs and motives of the public conduct, are seldom satisfied, unless things go to their own minds. It is true, continual prosperity and success are all they desire from their governors; but they do not consider how much their own meddling humours and clamours contribute to frustrate their expectations; how often accidents, which there was no foreseeing, and the contrary pursuits of our allies, whom on some occasions there is no reducing either to our interest or their own, make the wisest measures, the very worst that could have been employed. These sort of political maggots, are always engendered in the greatest numbers, where the sunshine of freedom is warmest. No country ever swarmed

more with them than our own, in which there are crowds of hireling writers, who scribble in the pay of France, and feed them with pamphlets and weekly scraps of disaffection, which they purchase for more by the year than they pay in taxes, as suicides buy poison from the apothecary for their own use. They may be justly compared to men in a fever, who ascribe that uneasiness which arises from within themselves, to the bed or the posture they are in, and therefore can never be a moment quiet, but are always turning from side to side, and always find themselves less at ease in every new situation. If these men, by the assistance they are disposed to lend the pretender, should enable him to new model our affairs, they will find themselves, to their unspeakable disappointment, in the same condition with those, who in the days of Cromwell, being unable to endure the government of-a good king, plotted and fought till they had given themselves a tyrant; after whose death, having an opportunity of trying their own skill in the art of governing, they soon became more impatient of their own tyranny, than they had been of his, and were forced to call home the king.

As to the nonjurors, who sacrifice all to conscience, although on political considerations, they may think themselves obliged to stand on the pretender's side, yet when they consider that this cannot be done, without helping to introduce Popery, if they have not totally divested themselves of all regard for the Reformation, they will hardly desire to set so rigid a Papist on the throne; but if their consciences are only political, and so little regulated by Scripture as not to obey the powers that be, that are ordained of God, they will join the party of the pretender, to which, however, for our comfort they will add but little weight or influence, for they are few, they are poor, they are but parsons.

"Tis no small cause of satisfaction to all, who regard either our country or our religion, that no man can be of the pretender's party, without at the same time declaring against common sense or common honesty. It is to be the sink of other disappointed pretenders to places, which no one but themselves ever thought them fit for; of villains who could not get leave to rob the nation under the shelter

of its constitution; of bankrupts who have no other way to pay their debts but by revolutions; of thieves and vagabonds, who hope under him to rise from picking of pockets to plundering of houses and cities; of felons spewed out of their country by transportation, and returning like evil spirits to haunt the house out of which they have been exorcised by the law; of murderers who were forced to fly for blood, which having tasted, their infernal minds are athirst for more; of Deists, and Atheists, and rakehells, who having made a wild waste of conscience, character, and fortune, fly to Popery to salve the first, and to rebellion, to repair the other two; of the tools in short of France, of Rome, of tyranny and superstition, who have no views nor interests to push at, but such as they share in with the author of all evil. Such is the goodly muster about the standard of the pretender, from whom an honest man would be ashamed to accept of even a kingdom, if they had it to give but I hope this rebellion will prove only a purge to our body politic, and work out the noxious, but latent humours, which the law was not able to throw off.

Would to God I could say, that the next and last hope of the pretender, which I shall take notice of, were as ill founded as those I have already considered! Although he hath no reason to hope for success from the merits of either his title or his party, which summed up all together, amount to nothing; yet from our demerits, from our corruption both in principle and practice, he hath but too great cause of hope. We have, it is true, a form of godliness, a reformation of religion, established among us by law; but (I tremble when I utter it) that form and that reformation are hardly to be found, but in books, and on paper. Look into men, and you will find it either, generally speaking, contemned or hated. It is a lamp in a deserted path, where few or none care for walking. It is a treasure of coin no longer current, for the image and superscription it bears, is now esteemed of little or no value, and the metal is regarded as base or counterfeit. In the name of common sense, what do they mean who talk as if they feared the encroachments of Popery, and the abolition of our religion, although they are, or may be sensible they have no religion to lose, nor any inlet for another? I see much said

in general terms by the present occasional writers, about our sins against God, and the necessity of a speedy repentance; but no man ventures to point particularly to those sins, and to our national vices. This is a deadly symptom, and looks as if we were so sore and tender in all parts, as not to bear a touch, nor to be able to state the case of our own disorders, or hear them traced to their true causes.

The great ones, to whom God hath given a sabbath every day, while he asks but one in seven for himself, have refused him that, and deserted his house and table; so that unless it is to qualify for some place of profit, he seldom receives the honour of a visit from them: but this is not all, their conversation and their lives in general, speak an utter contempt for all religion; these are followed by the lower ranks of men; so that irreligion is now extending itself down to its own natural station among the poor and ignorant. For a long time the apostles for libertinism and Deism, sowed their tares with great caution and art, as it were in the night, and even those who saw their art, being glad to be deceived, sucked in with greediness their delicious poison: at length their principles having taken sufficient root, they openly ventured to inculcate the consequences, and have published invectives against Christ and virtue, which have been honoured with many editions, and the author's pictures have found a place in the closets of the great.

Infidelity hath also had its full share of encouragement and promotion. I believe it would be a strange thing when any considerable place is filled in the state, the army, or the church itself, to hear it asked by the promoters, whether this or that candidate be a sound Christian or not; this is not inquired after as a necessary qualification even in a divine, by which means many have got into high places in the church, who have made no other use of their situation, but to propagate loose principles, and lay by great fortunes for their families; a mere market hath been made of holy orders, and all the emoluments to which orders can be made a stepstone: our creed, articles, and rubric have been openly attacked by those who subscribed them, and solemnly engaged at the altar of God to defend them; while others who disapproved of this conduct, have pru