But the knowledge, the conviction of the value of liberty, fhould not lie dormant in our breafts; it fhould have an influence on our conduct.

If ye confefs and feel the value of liberty, my pious hearers, patronize and protect it wherever it fubfifts; enjoy your own happiness, but feek not to destroy or circumfcribe the freedom of others. He that by any means undermines or diminishes liberty; he that forges fetters for his brethren, or brings them under a yoke, or prevents them from breaking and cafting it off; is an enemy of mankind, a traitor to the human race, an ignominious flave, who would fain reduce and debafe all men to the fame fervile difpofitions with himself. No, the liberty of our brother should be just as facred to us as his property, as his honour, as his life, as his sum of happiness; fince, that once gone, all the others lofe frequently the whole of their value. Of all criminals, the tyrant is the most atrocious, the little tyrant as well as the great, the fervant of the prince as well as the prince himself; and no crime muft draw after it more humiliation and fhame and torment, in the future world, than this, as none is more manifeftly in direct oppofition to the will of God, to all his views and commands, to the spirit of true religion and christianity, to the whole of human happiness, than this.

This, however, is not enough. If you confefs the value of liberty, then alfo promote and advance

it,

it. Do fo especially, you who fhine in polished circles, who fill the higher stations, you that are in the claffes of the learned, who are teachers and guides of the people, who as fine writers influence the taste and the principles of the times, or are diftinguished above others by fuperior talents, and more generous fentiments. It is an indispensable duty incumbent on you to support and advance the cause of liberty. You are the curators of the nation, the guardians of its conftitution, the interpreters of its laws, the arbiters between the government and the fubject; and fad is your cafe if you do not employ the deference and respect and authority you poffefs, to the ends for which the Father of mankind, the Judge of the world, has invested you with them! Maintain then and protect the unalienable rights of mankind; defend and fupport the equally facred rights of conscience. Neither degrade yourselves by a blind and flavish obedience, nor by a fuperftitious fubmiffion, to the ordinances and traditions of men. Beware of becoming, either in one respect or the other, the fervants of men. In both respects try all things, and cleave to that which, according to the foundeft dictates of your judgment, is the best. Shew refpect to the great and mighty of the earth; but flatter them not; fhrink not in their prefence, as if they were creatures of a fuperior order. Judge of their actions with discretion; but judge of them by the felf-fame laws as you pronounce

upon

upon the actions of other men; and neither applaud nor approve of any thing merely because it has been faid or done by a man that is furrounded by particular pomp. Reverence the religion of the realm, and its teachers, and its rites. But decline not to examine the doctrines of that religion, to discuss the decifions of those teachers, and to judge of the propriety or impropriety of thofe rites. Allow full fcope to the progrefs of human knowledge; difcountenance no decent investigation of received maxims and doctrines, be the confequence what it may. Truth can at length be no lofer by it; and one perfpicuous thought, thoroughly understood and deeply felt, is of more value, and does more good, than ten others, heard of one man and repeated to another, and understood of neither from principle and conviction.

Laftly, the more liberty ye enjoy, the more let it effect that good which it is able and ought to produce. If you may worship God after your own principles, then worship him with fo much the greater chearfulness and ardour; adore him fo much the more in spirit and in truth, with understanding and fentiment. Are you allowed to think and to judge for yourselves in religious matters; then reflect fo much the more on thofe important concerns; let it be fo much the more your most pleasant employment to explore and to know them; then endeavour the more to affure yourself of your faith by reafon.

reafon. Woe to him whom freedom to think, whom liberty of religion and confcience, renders indifferent to religion and truth, or inattentive to the voice of confcience! Inftead of being free, and of being better and happier by liberty, he only barters to his lofs one flavery for another; and though he be not oppreffed by man, yet is he in bondage to his own lufts and paffions. No, he who would not render himself unworthy of the privilege of feeing with his own eyes, and of pursuing his object in the way he has chofen for himself, fhould use his eyes with fo much the more affiduity, and walk on his way with the greater circumspection. — Do you enjoy civil liberty; then obferve the laws of the state and of the fociety to which you belong, with fo much the readier and ftricter obedience; for the maintenance and obfervance of the laws is the ground of all freedom. Promote the welfare of that state, of that fociety, with so much the more zeal, as it is the more intimately connected with your own, as you have and may have fo much the more influence on its profperity, as you find and enjoy in it so much the more protection and peace, fecurity and happiness. Think and act in all respects with so much the more liberality and public fpirit, the farther you are exalted above the state of flavery. Strive all of you, in the last place, my dear brethren, after that greater, that ftill more effential liberty of the wife man and the christian, of

him who governs himself, who controuls his defires and paffions, feeks his happiness, not fo much in externals as in his intrinfic perfection, forgets not his dignity, fupports it in every condition, uninterruptedly follows the precepts of his reason and his confcience, and wills nothing but what God wills, and does nothing but what is in conformity to the will of God. Yes, this is the liberty which will compenfate the want of any other, and will be conftantly bringing us nearer to the mark of our high

vocation.