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magnificently to rescue their fellow-men from the mists of error, and from the bondage of the mind, that the young, the ignorant, and the silly, dazzled by these splendid pretensions, became ambitious of this distinction; and without examination, or conviction, became free-thinkers, in numerous instances, merely that they might have the honour of being united to this cluster of great men. The men themselves, finding that they had become great, in the estimation of others, by means of these lofty pretensions, went on, and became still greater by increasing their pretensions. By the mere dint of study and reflection, they claimed to understand, and teach, the Will of God concerning the duty and salvation of men; to explore the future designs of Omniscience; and to prescribe rules of justice, and propriety, according to which, if they were to be believed, God himself was bound to conduct his Administrations to mankind. The Scriptures they not only discarded, but loaded with every calumny, and every insult. The Redeemer of the world they insulted even more grossly, than the ancient Jews had done; stained his character with vice and infamy; and annihilated his Mediation. In the mean time, they poured out a torrent of immoral principles, which they dignified with the name of Philosophy; and which they proposed as proper rules to direct the conduct of men. By these principles the faith of mankind was perplexed; their morality unhinged; the distinction between virtue and vice destroyed; the existence of both denied; and the bonds of society cut asunder. Men, of course, were let loose upon each other without the restraint of moral precepts; without the checks of Conscience; without the Fear of God.

The late Revolution in France, that volcanic explosion, which deluged the world with successive floods of darkness and fire, had all its materials collected, and its flames kindled, by men of this description. It is not intended, that literary consequence was the only distinction, sought by those, who were the prime agents in producing this terrible shock of nature. The lust of power had undoubtedly its full share in bringing to pass this astonishing event. But the desire of fame had its share also. Had not the principles of the French nation been deeply corrupt

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ed, their morals dissolved, and their sense of religious obligation destroyed, by the pen of sophistry; it is incredible, that they should, at once, have burst all the bonds of nature and morality, transmigrated in a moment from the character of civilized men into that of wolves and tygers, and covered their country with havoc and blood.

In the career of political distinction, the progress is usually more rapid, and the change more astonishing. In this career, men of fair moral reputation, and decent life, when seized by the disease of Ambition, lose suddenly all their former apparent principles, and are changed at once into office hunters and demagogues. To obtain a place, or to acquire suffrages, they become false, venal, and treacherous; corrupt and bribe others, and are themselves corrupted and bribed; become panders to men of pow er, and sycophants to the multitude; creep through the serpentine mazes of electioneering; and sell their souls for a vote, or an appointment, in the dark recesses of a cabal.

Their rivals also, they calumniate with all the foul aspersions, which ingenuity can invent, malignity adopt, obloquy utter, or falsehood convey. The more virtuous, wise, and respected, these rivals may be; the more artful and incessant will be their calumnies; because from such men they feel the danger of defeat to be peculiarly alarming. Wisdom and worth, therefore, are pre-eminently the objects of their hatred, and persecution; and fall by the scythe of Ambition, as by the scythe of death.

The people at large, in the mean time, are duped by every false tale, which the cunning of these men enables them to invent; terrified by every false alarm; corrupted by every false principle; and misled into every dangerous and fatal measure. Neighbours in this manner are roused to jealousy, hatred, and hostility, against neighbours; friends against friends; brothers against brothers; the father against the son; and the son against the father. Truth and justice, kindness, peace, and happiness, fly before these evil genii. Anarchy, behind them, summons her hosts to the civil conflict. Battles are fought with unnatural rage, and fell violence: fields are covered with carnage, and drenched in blood; until there are none left to contend, and the country is

converted into a desert. Then despotism plants his throne on the ruins, and stretches his iron sceptre over the miserable reliques, of the nation. Such was often the progress of political ambition in the ancient and modern Republics of Europe; and such, there is no small reason to fear, may one day be its efficacy on our own happy land.

When, instead of the love of place and political distinction, the passion for power, and a determination to rule, has taken possession of the heart; the evils have been far more numerous, extensive, and terrible. These evils have been the chief themes of history in all the ages of time. It cannot be necessary, that they should be particularized by me. In some countries of Asia and Africa, the candidate for the throne secures his possession of that proud and dangerous eminence by imprisoning, for life, every heir, and every competitor; in others, by putting out their eyes; and, in others, by murdering them in cold blood. Thus nations are by this infernal passion shut out from the possibility of being governed by mild, upright, and benevolent rulers. Ambition knows no path to a throne, but a path of blood; and seats upon it none but an assassin. The adherents to an unsuccessful candidate, although supporting their lawful prince, and performing a duty, which God has enjoined, and from which they cannot be released, are involved in his ruin. Prisons are crowded with hundreds and thousands of miserable wretches, guilty of no crime, but that of endeavouring to sustain the government, and resisting usurpation. The axe and the halter, the musquet and the cannon, desolate cities, and provinces, of their inhabitants; and thin the ranks of mankind, to make the seat of the tyrant secure. Not one of these unhappy wretches was probably worse, all were probably better, men, than he, who bathed his hands in their blood. Cæsar fought fifty-six pitched battles, and killed one million two hundred thousand human beings, to secure to himself the Roman sceptre. More than three millions of such beings have been slaughtered to place the Modern Cæsar in the undisputed possession of his imperial greatness. To all these miserable sufferers, God gave life, and friends, and comforts, with a bountiful hand. Why were they not permitted to enjoy these

blessings, during the period allotted to man? Because Ambition was pleased to put its veto upon the benevolent dispensations of the Creator: because, to satiate one man, it became necessary to sacrifice the happiness of millions, better than himself: because such a being could be pleased to see himself seated upon a throne, although it was erected in a stall of slaughter, and environed by a lake of blood.

SERMON CXXXIII.

MAN'S INABILITY

ΤΟ

OBEY THE LAW OF GOD.

ROMANS viii. 7.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the Law of God, neither indeed can be.

IN a long series of discourses, I have examined the Law of God; or the Preceptive part of the Scriptures. This examination I have distributed into two great divisions: the first involving that Summary of the Law, which, Christ informs us, contains the substance of all, that is enjoined in the Old Testament: the second, including the Decalogue; in which this summary is enlarged from two precepts to ten; and the duties, which it requires, are more particularly exhibited. In both of these divisions I have considered, as I found occasion, those Comments, also, of Christ, the Prophets, and the Apostles, which explain and enforce the various requisitions. The importance of these Precepts does more than justify; it demands the extensive place, allotted to them in this system, and the attempts, which have here been made, to recommend them to the faith, and the obedience, of this Assembly. The end of all useful speculation is practice. The use of all truth is, ultimately, to regulate the conduct of Intelligent beings. Those, which are called the doctrines of the Scriptures, are necessary, and profitable, to

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