double fraud, export to you in illicit bottoms, as raw commodities of British growth though wholly alien to our foil, in order afterwards to fmuggle them back again into this country, manufactured after the newest Paris fafhion of an improved liberty.

The people of England will not ape the fashions they have never tried; nor go back to thofe which they have found mischievous on trial. They look upon the legal hereditary fucceffion of their crown as among their rights, not as among their wrongs; as a benefit, not as a grievance; as a fecurity for their liberty, not as a badge of fervitude. They look on the frame of their commonwealth, fuch as it ftands, to be of inestimable value; and they conceive the undifturbed fucceffion of the crown to be a pledge of the stability and perpetuity of all the other members of our conftitution.

I fhall beg leave, before I go any further, to take notice of fome paltry artifices, which the abettors of election as the only lawful title to the crown, are ready to employ, in order to render the fupport of the juft principles of our conftitution a task fomewhat invidious. Thefe fophifters fubftitute a fictitious caufe, and feigned perfonages, in whofe favour they suppose you engaged, whenever you defend the inheritable nature of the crown. It is common with them to difpute as if they were in a conflict with fome of thofe exploded fanatics of flavery, who formerly maintained, what I believe no creature

now

now maintains, "that the crown is held by di"vine, hereditary, and indefeasible right.”—These old fanatics of fingle arbitrary power dogmatized as if hereditary royalty was the only lawful government in the world, juft as our new fanatics of popular arbitrary power, maintain that a popular election is the fole lawful fource of authority. The old prerogative enthufiafts, it is true, did fpeculate foolishly, and perhaps impiously too, as if monarchy had more of a divine fanction than any other mode of government; and as if a right to govern by inheritance were in ftriétnefs indefeafible in every perfon, who fhould be found in the fucceffion to a throne, and under every circumftance, which no civil or political right can be. But an abfurd opinion concerning the king's hereditary right to the crown does not prejudice one that is rational, and bottomed upon folid principles of law and policy. If all the abfurd theories of lawyers and divines were to vitiate the objects in which they are converfant, we fhould have no law, and no religion left in the world. But an abfurd theory on one fide of a question forms no juftification for alledging a false fact, or promulgating mischievous maxims on the other.

The fecond claim of the Revolution Society is "a right of cafhiering their governors for misconduct." Perhaps the apprehensions our ancestors entertained of forming fuch a precedent as that" of cashiering for misconduct," was the caufe that the declaration of the act which implied the abdication of king James,

D 3

was

was, if it had any fault, rather too guarded, and too circumftantial. But all this guard, and all t is accumulation of circumftances, ferves to fhew the fpirit of caution which predominated in the national councils, in a fituation in which men irritated by oppreffion, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt to abandon themfelves to violent and extreme courses: it fhews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the Revolution a parent of fettlement, and not a nursery of future revolu tions.

No government could ftand a moment, if it could be blown down with any thing fo loofe and indefinite as an opinion of "misconduct." They who led at the Revolution, grounded the virtual abdication of King James upon no fuch light and uncertain principle. They charged him with nothing less than a defign, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts, to fubvert the Proteftant church and state, and their fundamental, unquestionable laws and liberties: they charged him with having broken the original contract between king and people. This was

"That King James the Second, having endeavoured to jubvert the conftitution of the kingdom, by breaking the « original contract between king and people, and by the

advice of Jefuits, and other wicked perfons, having violated "the fundamental laws, and having withdrawn himself out of "the kingdom, hath abdicated the government, and the throne is thereby vacant."

more

more than misconduct. A grave and over-ruling neceffity obliged them to take the ftep they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that most rigorous of all laws. Their truft for the future preservation of the conftitution was not in future revolutions. The grand policy of all their regulations was to render it almost impracticable for any future fovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again recourse to thofe violent remedies. They left the crown what, in the eye and estimation of law, it had ever been, perfectly irrefponfible. In order to lighten the crown ftill further, they aggravated refponfibility on minifters of ftate. By the ftatute of the ift of King William, feff. 2d, called "the act for declaring the rights and liberties of the 'fubject, and for fettling the fucceffion of the "crown," they enacted, that the minifters fhould ferve the crown on the terms of that declaration. They fecured foon after the frequent meet. ings of parliament, by which the whole government would be under the conftant infpection and active controul of the popular reprefentative and of the magnates of the kingdom. In the next great conftitutional act, that of the 12th and 13th of King William, for the further limitation of the crown, and better fecuring the rights and liberties of the fubject, they provided, "that no "pardon under the great feal of England "fhould be pleadable to an impeachment by the "commons in parliament." The rule laid down for government in the declaration of Right, D 4

the

the conftant infpection of parliament, the practical claim of impeachment, they thought infinitely a better fecurity not only for their conftitutional liberty, but against the vices of adminiftration, than the refervation of a right fo difficult in the practice, fo uncertain in the iffue, and often fo mifchievous in the confequences, as that of cashiering their governors."

Dr. Price, in this fermon, condemns very properly the practice of grofs, adulatory addreffes to kings. Inftead of this fulfome ftyle, he proposes that his majefty, fhould be told, on occafions of congratulation, that "he is to confider "himself as more properly the fervant than "the fovereign of his people." For a compliment, this new form of addrefs does not seem to be very foothing. Those who are fervants, in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their fituation, their duty, and their obligations. The flave, in the old play, tells his mafter," Hæc commemoratio eft quafi exprobra"tio." It is not pleafant as compliment; it is not wholesome as inftruction. After all, if the king were to bring himself to echo this new kind of addrefs, to adopt it in terms, and even to take the appellation of Servant of the People as his royal ftyle, how either he or we fhould be much mended by it, I cannot imagine. I have feen very affuming letters, figned, Your most obedient, humble fervant. The proudeft domination that ever was endured on earth took a title of

P. 22, 23, 24.