all fubjected by their fins to the displeasure of the Almighty, but as all admitted to the bleffings of his favour, through the mediation of his Son. By fuch discoveries, mankind are reduced, both to a natural and to a moral equality. Even on the philofophic mind, they are calculated to produce ftronger impreffions of liberty than reason gives. They ftrike the minds of the multitude, with irrefiftible conviction. Wherefoever the pure doctrines of Christianity were preached, they fhook the pillars of tyranny. Wherefoever they took root, the tottering fabric was overturned.-After Henry VIII. finally broke with the See of Rome, his fierce and obftinate foul, pushed by its refentments, hurried him on to actions, of the confequences of which he was not aware. He fuffered a tranflation of the fcriptures to be made, and allowed his fubjects to perufe it. From the temper and from the conduct of that tyrant, we are fure the correction of the government, or the reformation of religion, were effects very remote from his views; and yet he unawares helped forward with both. Those who embraced the Proteftant doctrines, he condemned to the flames. Thofe who denied his fupremacy, he condemned to be hanged. But even the restraints which this capricious tyrant impofed on his kingdom, contributed in the end to the spreading of the reformed religion. Though its progrefs was, in a great measure, hid, yet, like the little leaven hid in the three measures of meal, it was hid only until the whole was leavened. For in the next reign, the Proteftant faith obtained the legal establishment. The fhortness of that reign, which was wholly occupied by inteftine broils and the ftruggles of faction, afforded but little fcope for the principles of liberty to operate. The object of both the contending parties, was, not to gain freedom, but to poffefs power. When Mary fucceeded to the crown, the

Catholic

Catholic fuperftition was replaced, on its old foundation. of barbarous tyranny. After Elizabeth afcended, the throne of England, the reformation was reftored, and men were again permitted to confult the facred oracles.

THE character of this princefs is juftly celebrated for fagacity, for wifdom, for vigour, for steadiness, and for magnanimity. She difcerned, and fhe profecuted the interefts of her kingdoms. Her political conduct, with refpect to the princes of Europe, thofe of Scotland excepted, is scarcely exposed to a single objection. She never suffered her inclinations, her prepoffeffions, or her paffions, to bias her meafures, in any of thofe tranfactions in which she was concerned. By her government, England rose in its military fame, in its commerce, and in its wealth. But the unbounded panegyrics bestowed on her domeftic administration, have proceeded from the total ignorance, either of liberty or of hiftory. Her fubjects extolled her government, because they knew not a better, and had been accustomed to a worfe. Since the eftablishment of a free conftitution, the fame praifes have been retailed without any abatements, and without any enquiry into the justice of the rule, by which they were given. Finding her character adorned with a profufion of flattery, many writers have adopted as genuine, the ornaments heaped on, by the adulation of men wholly ignorant of freedom. Were we to form an idea of the government in Turkey, or of the fultan's character, from the veneration of his subjects, who call him the fhadow of God, we would certainly conclude, that this empire had reached the fupreme excellence of human legislation. But when we come to be informed of the truth, it is with justice that we confider the praises beftowed upon their tyrants, as a proof of nothing but of the wretched flavery, both of body and mind, under which the natives groan. Liberty, according to the conceptions

we now entertain of it, is nearly as well understood in Turkey at prefent, as it was in England by the generality of the people, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth. In Turkey the freedom and the life of the fubject lie at the mercy of the emperor. To offend him, is to meet certain deftruction. He who became obnoxious to Elizabeth incurred a fimilar doom. Ruin is not more certain in the one cafe, than it was in the other. In the manner of it a small difference may be found. He who offends the first, is executed without the femblance of a trial. He who offended the laft, was infulted with the mockery of justice, and condemned under the form, though in oppofition to the fpirit of law. The judge or the jury might have redeemed the liberty or the life of an innocent man; but they must have redeemed it at the expence of their own. The examples of cruelty and injuftice exhibited in Elizabeth's reign are, perhaps, not more numerous than those which history records in the lives of the most tolerable defpots, and yet there are many inftances preferved, which, were they repeated in our times, would be ranked with the greatest enormities.A defpotic government muft exercise feverities. As its genuine principle is fear, it can only be upheld by rigour. It must triumph in the deftruction of every oppofer. When it ceases to be dreadful, its vigour is wafted, and its end approaches.-Elizabeth often affected the praife of clemency, but she never relaxed the fprings of defpotic power. By the Star-Chamber and High Commiffion Courts, fhe was able, more effectually to punish those who incurred her displeasure, than even by the perversion of criminal law. When the fountain of juftice was poifoned, an innocent man was not fuffered to linger under his pains. The executioner, by one stroke, fet him free from the chains of tyranny. But when the unhappy victim was carried to these tribunals,

this lenity was denied him. After fuffering the feverest corporal punishment, he was doomed to languish in fome folitary, gloomy prison, and, deprived of the light of the fun, to drag out a miferable existence, without a friend and without a comforter. And all this mifery he bore, not because he had tranfgreffed any law of his country, but because he had done fomething with which his fovereign thought proper to be offended. It is but juftice indeed to add, that the royal mercy often interpofed between the objects of its refentment and the horrors of a dungeon, and, without an examination, after the laudable example of Turkish mildness, inftantly difpatched them by military execution. Had any lover of liberty dared to oppose the current of abfolute power, the hope of this favour alone remained, to render his condition tolerable.

THESE methods of procedure, though inconfiftent with the most obvious principles of equity, were employed by Elizabeth to awe her fubjects into obedience. In thefe arbitrary and unjust measures, it is true fhe only exercised the ordinary powers of the antient government. She received the enfigns of royalty with that dangerous prerogative, and the love of power inherent in human nature would difpofe her carefully to preferve it. If we compare the violences of her reign with thofe of fome former fovereigns, they are neither fo numerous, nor fo atrocious. But it is with juftice that we pronounce her indebted for the fame of clemency and moderation, to the inhuman barbarities of her father, and of her fifter, and to the egregious blunders, more than to the increased tyranny of the two fuccceding princes. Had fhe lived but half a century later, when the minds of men were inflamed with the love of freedom, her wisdom might have guarded her throne again ft the inroads of the people, but her name would have been tranfmitted to pofterity with those of tyrants.

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tyrants. It is remarkable, that the rude sketches of our excellent conftitution were firft formed, in the reign of this haughty princefs. They were not drawn in the fchool of philofophy, but produced by the energy of religious doctrines. From the principles of religion they were first brought, and, under the fhelter of religion they were preserved for the enjoyment, and for the happiness of after-ages. When, by the re-establishment of the Pro teftant faith, the fcriptures were restored to the people, men had opportunity, and they foon found leifure, to examine the contents of the facred volume. Difdaining that implicit belief, which fo long had fupported the former fuperftition, many were determined to enquire into the goodness of their religious eftablishment. Of those enquirers there were fome who viewed it with the lefs admiration, in proportion as they viewed it with the greater attention. Though they were fatisfied that it comprehended the great doctrines of Christianity, they saw, or thought that they faw, many faults in its ecclefiaftical government, which defeated, in fome degree, the falutary effects of that divine religion. They therefore became the avowed patrons of a purer reformation.

ONE of the ftrongest barriers of an abfolute conftitution is, that religious awe, by which subjects are taught to gaze at their fovereign, with the reverence due to a fuperior nature. What their imagination confecrates, their reafon adores. They tremble to violate that authority, which they confider as derived from Heaven. This veneration, the oppofition of religious fentiments tends, of all things, the most to leffen, because it combats the principles of fuperftition on its own ground, and reprefents the perfon of the prince, with all the frailties of our common frame. The oppofite views of Elizabeth and the Puritans, had therefore a natural tendency to diminish in the minds of

the