man and the chriftian. Difpell by thy holy fpirit every prejudice that may weaken these good effects of truth; and hear our prayer, through Jesus Christ, by whom thou haft called us to the glorious liberty of the fons of thee, our God. With filial confidence we implore it of thee, as his difciples, and address thee farther in his name: Our father, &c.

THE

I COR. vii. 23.

Be not ye the fervants of men.

'HE fpirit of christianity is a spirit of liberty. Of this its doctrines, its precepts, as well as the character of its founder, and the whole temper it communicates to its true profeffors, allow us no room to doubt. Where the spirit of the Lord is, says the apostle, there is liberty. Christianity promotes liberty of each kind, civil as well as religious, among mankind. If it any where is not so apparently favourable to it; if any where it seems to require of its followers an unlimited and implicit obedience towards magiftrates and governors; this was extremely neceffary in the primitive times for the confirmation and extension of it. The chriftian doctrine must have been clear of every thing that might excite

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excite fufpicion of worldly aims, or fear of civil commotion. It must first diffeminate more inftruction and morality among mankind, before it had need to give incitement and encouragement to the vindication of their rights. A vigorous and lively sentiment of liberty in men, who are but little cultivated, and have no firm principles, is often, generally speaking, more prejudicial than useful. But the fpirit of chriftianity, the whole system of thought and temper it inculcates, has indisputably the advancement of both kinds of liberty in view. No doctrine whatever causes a man to feel more forcibly his natural équality with all others; none more expressly preaches to him humanity and brotherly love, univerfal kindnefs and beneficence and generofity; none infpires him with a livelier fentiment of his dignity as a man; none is more fertile in great, generous, and elevated thoughts and fentiments of mind and heart; none teaches a man to confider death with greater compofure, and to meet it with inore firmness; none makes him readier to die for his brethren and for the public good, as Jefus died for mankind: and who fees not that no difpofitions can be more manifeftly at variance with flavery and bondage, and none more favourable to freedom than these? Oh were they but more general among christians, and that even rulers and governors would but learn to think in a more chriftian manner! How much advantage would accrue to the cause of freedom, and confequently of Luman happiness! Far be it from me to preach

preach disorder in the ftate, or difunion and fchifm in the church! But to preach and to promote liberty, and to render the greater or the fmaller proportion of it you enjoy the dearer to you, is a duty of mankind, a chriftian duty! and to contribute fomething to the discharge of this duty is the fcope of my prefent difcourfe. In it I fhall inquire into the value of liberty, civil and religious, and its influence on human happiness, and therein lay before you the importance of the apoftolical admonition in our text: "Be not ye the fervants of men." In this defign, I shall, first, make a few observations for ascertaining the true notion of liberty and its real value; then examine into the peculiar value of the two kinds; and laftly fubjoin some suggestions in regard of our behaviour towards it.

Civil liberty is there in its greatest perfection where we are only subject to the laws, and chufe our own reprefentatives in enacting those laws. In other conftitutions of government there exifts always fo much the greater or lefs degree of freedom as the laws more or less bear fway, and as even the arbitrary will and power of the ruler is circumfcribed by them. So likewife religious liberty is there in its greatest perfection where a man is fubject in religious matters, to no other laws than the precepts of reason and his own conscience, and unimpededly may follow their impulfes and injunctions. And when likewife here limitations are fet, then does fo much more or less liberty of this kind obtain as fuch limitations are more

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extensive or confined, as they relate to essential or uneffential matters.

That we may rightly estimate the value of this liberty, it is neceffary to make several remarks, and accurately to distinguish it from what is often called, but is not, liberty.

Liberty, in the first place, is not licentiousness, not anarchy. To be free, does not imply, to act without principles, without views, according to the dictates of unbridled inclination; not to break through and despise all restraints; not to reckon every law as a violent impofition and burden, and to reject it as foon as we think or feel it in the least degree inconvenient to us; not to fet afide all that is fit, and to get over all that is decent; not to exift and live barely for oneself, without regard to others. No, laws, accurately defined, inviolable, obligatory on all ftates and conditions of men, on princes and magiftrates as well as on fubjects, are the first and firmest foundation of liberty. Wouldst thou enjoy a liberty controuled by no law, limited by no authority, in the full power of doing merely what thou art pleased to do; then get thee from the fociety of men; return to the woods, to the pretended state of nature; live among the animals thy relations, the beafts of the field; or lead the life of a hermit, divest thyself of all the privileges, and renounce all the comforts of focial life. For, where men live together, and would live fecurely and happily together, there must be law, there muft law bear fway, there must every

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one facrifice a part of his natural liberty to the peaceful poffeffion of what he retains. No, the greater the freedom of the citizen; so much the more facred should all the laws of the state, the first as well as the last, be to him. The more freely the worshiper of God may think, the lefs he is tied to forms and confeffions; fo much the ftricter and more confcientioully fhould he conform to the eternal and unchangeable laws of reason, and be guided by the preof a revelation which he confeffes to be divine. Farther. The love of liberty is not a querulous difpofition, is not a fpirit of oppofition to all laws and ordinances, to all received notions and doctrines, a repugnance to all institutions, establishments, and ufages, introduced into civil life and the public worfhip. No, the more fenfible a person is to the value of his own liberty; the lefs will he be difpofed authoritatively to fet bounds to the liberty of others. The more unmoleftedly he may follow the dictates of his own confcience; fo much the more does he respect the conscience, even the erroneous conscience, of his brother. The lefs he is tied down to opinions and formularies of doctrine himself, and the more fenfibly he is hurt when his faith and his perfuafions are made the objects of derision; fo much the more indulgent is he to the opinions and perfuafions of others, and the lefs will he allow himself to controvert or to rectify them otherwise than by argument, and in the spirit of humility and meekness. The unfeasonable reprover, the biting fcoffer in this way,

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