our this black French treason should have found its example in the crime of thy unnatural sons! Our contrition for our guilt that stained our land, gratitude to God, whose mercy so soon restored our church and monarchy, our contrition for our own crime, and our gratitude for God's unspeakable mercy, will be best expressed by us all, by setting the example of a dutiful submission to government in our own conduct, and by inculcating upon our children and dependants a loyal attachment to a king who hath ever sought his own glory in the virtue and prosperity of his people, and administers justice with an even, firm, and gentle hand, - a king who in many public acts hath testified his affection for the free constitution of this country, - a king, of whom, or of the princes issued from his loins and trained by his example, it were injurious to harbour a suspicion that they will ever be inclined to use their power to any other end than for the support of public liberty. Let us remember, that a conscientious submission to the sovereign powers is, no less than brotherly love, a distinctive badge of Christ's disciples. Blessed be God, in the church of England both those marks of genuine Christianity have ever been conspicuous. Perhaps, in the exercise of brotherly love, it is the amiable infirmity of Englishmen to be too easy to admit the claim of a spiritual kindred. The times compel me to remark, that brotherly love embraces only brethren: the term of holy brotherhood is profaned by an indiscriminate application. We ought to mark those who cause divisions and offences. Nice scruples about external forms, and differences of opinion upon controvertible points, cannot but take place among the best Christians, and dissolve not the fraternal tie: none, indeed, at this season, are more entitled to our offices of love, than those with whom the difference is wide, in points of doctrine, discipline, and external rights, those venerable exiles, the prelates and clergy of the fallen church of France, endeared to us by the edifying example they exhibit of patient suffering for conscience sake: but if any enjoying the blessings of the British government, living under the protection of its free constitution and its equal laws, have dared to avow the wicked sentiment, that this day of national contrition, this rueful day of guilt and shame," is a proud day for England, to be remembered as such by the latest posterity of freemen," with such persons it is meet that we abjure all brotherhood. Their spot is not the spot of our family; they have no claim upon our brotherly affection: upon our charity they have, indeed, a claim miserable men! "they are in the gall of bitterness and in the bond of iniquity:" it is our duty to pray God, if perhaps the thought of their heart may be forgiven them. APPENDIX ΤΟ THE PRECEDING SERMON. It is much less from any high opinion of the importance of Calvin's authority to confirm the assertions of the foregoing discourse, that reference has been so frequently made in the notes at the bottom of the page to his " Theological Institutions," than from a desire of vindicating the character of Calvin himself from an imputation which they who think it ill-founded will be concerned to find revived in a late work of great erudition, and for the ability of the execution, as well as for the intention, of great merit,the "Jura Anglorum" of the learned Mr. Francis Plowden. In a matter in which the sense of the Holy Scriptures is so plain as it certainly is upon the questions which are treated in the foregoing discourse, the preacher esteems the additional weight of any human authority of little moment: but he cannot allow himself not to take advantage of an occasion spontaneously as it were arising from his subject, of rescuing the memory of a man, to whom the praise of conspicuous talents and extensive learning must be allowed by all, from unjust aspersions ; the injustice of which lies not properly, however, at the door of the learned author of the "Jura.” Calvin was unquestionably in theory a republican: he freely declares his opinion, that the republican form, or an aristocracy reduced nearly to the level of a republic, was of all the best calculated in general to answer the ends of government. So wedded, indeed, was he to this notion, that, in disregard of an apostolic institution, and the example of the primitive ages, he endeavoured to fashion the government of all the Protestant churches upon republican principles; and his persevering zeal in that attempt, though in this country through the mercy of God it failed, was followed, upon the whole, with a wide and mischievous success. But in civil politics, though a republican in theory, he was no leveller. That he was not, appears from the passages cited in the notes upon the foregoing discourse; and will be still more evident to any who will take the trouble to peruse the whole of the last chapter of the last book of his "Institutions of the Christian Religion." In that chapter, he professedly treats the question of the consistency of civil government with the scheme of Christianity; which he maintains against the fanatics of his times. He shows that submission to the magistrate is under all forms of government a religious duty +: he declares his preference of a republican aristocracy to any other form but this declaration is prefaced with an express protest against the futility of the question, what form is absolutely and in itself the best : he affirms, that the advantage of one government above another depends much upon circumstances §; that the circumstances of different countries require different forms; that government under every form is a Divine ordinance ¶; that the variety of governments in the different regions of the earth is no less conducive to the general benefit of mankind, and no less the work of Providence, than the variety of climates **: and with respect to monarchy in particular, (by which, it is to be observed, he means absolute monarchy,) he remarks, that submission to monarchical governments. is particularly enjoined in holy writ; for this especial reason, that monarchy was the form which in the early ages * Institut. lib.iv. cap. xx. sect. 1, 2, 3. † Sect. 8. § Ib. ¶ Sect. 4. ** Sect. 8. was the most disliked. Whatever preference, therefore, in speculation, he might give to the republican form, he could not, with these principles, be practically an enemy to the government of kings. This last chapter of his "Institutions," in which he expressly treats the general question of government, must be supposed to contain the authentic exposition of his deliberate opinions upon the whole of the subject, the confession of his political faith; and by reference to this, any passages in other parts of his writings, in which subordinate questions are incidentally touched, ought in candour to be interpreted. The passages in which he has been supposed to betray the principles of a leveller lie widely scattered in his comment on the book of Daniel. They shall be briefly examined, nearly in the order in which they occur. If it should be found that they bear a different sense from that which hath been imposed upon them, it will necessarily follow, that they will not justify the reflections which have been cast. In the thirty-ninth verse of the second chapter, " And after these shall arise another kingdom, inferior to thee," this difficulty presents itself: with what truth could the prophet say, that the kingdom which was to arise next after Nebuchadnezzar's, namely, the Medo-Persian, should be inferior to his; when, in fact, in wealth and power it was greatly the superior of the two?- for Nebuchadnezzar's Chaldean kingdom, with its appendages, made a part only of the vast empire of the Medes and Persians under Cyrus. Calvin's solution of the difficulty is this, whether it be the true one or no, is not the question; but it is this, that the Medo-Persian empire was in this respect inferior to Nebuchadnezzar's, that it was worse in a moral sense; the condition of mankind being more miserable, and the manners more degenerate: the cause of which he refers to this general maxim, — that the more monarchies (i. e. empires, under whatever form of government) extend themselves to distant regions, the more licentiousness rages in * Sect.7. |