famy of France. O my country! read the horror of thy own deed in this recent heightened imitation! lament and weep

that 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-our 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!

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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.

VOL. III.

APPENDIX

TO 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