As Free; and not using Your Liberty for a Cloke of Malicioufnefs; but as the Servants of GOD.

"T

HAT the best Things are at once the most liable to be abused, and attended with the worst Confequences when they are fo," is a Complaint which human Affairs give us frequent Occafion to make; but never perhaps more juft Occafion than in the Inftance fuggested by the Words before us. To distinguish the exact Boundary between Liberty and Licentiousness, and to fay precisely where the one ends and the other begins, requires more Discernment than we are often Masters of even in our cool Deliberations; much less can so much Accuracy be expected from Men engaged in the Eagerness of Purfuit, and the D 2 Heat

Heat of Action. And yet the Former is not more valuable, than the Latter is dangerous. When once Men have paffed the Line between them, the farther they pursue Liberty, the farther they remove from it; till they find themselves in those Depths of Slavery, which they imagined they were taking the most fpeedy Course to avoid.

For an Inftance of what is here obferved, we need go no farther, than to the Times which brought on, and immediately followed, the Tragedy of this Day: Times, not more distinguished in their Beginning by a paffionate Zeal for Liberty, than they were in their Progrefs by a moft malicious Abufe, and in their Conclufion by a moft deplorable Want of it, with regard to Religion as well as Civil Government. The Effects of an uncontrollable Licenfe were then feverely felt; when this deluded Nation too late discovered, that it had been exchanging a well-regulated, Legal, Liberty, in one of the best Conftitutions of Government, and under one of the moft pious of Princes, for lawless Tyranny in every Shape, under a Succeffion of infolent Ufurpers; and a decent and edifying Form of Worship, under an Order of Church-Governours Primitive and Apoftolical, for numerous

wild and monftrous Productions of Enthufiafm, agreeing in nothing but Superftition and Blindnefs, made ftill lefs fupportable by wearing the venerable Names of Liberty and pure Re ligion.

Such an Example as this ought certainly to be a standing Admonition to all fucceeding Generations: And without Question it has been, and, so long as it is duly remembered, always will be, a confiderable Check upon that Spirit of Licentiousness, to which we of this Nation seem to have too powerful a Tendency. Senfible of this, and (as it should seem) in order to prevent any fuch Impreffions as a just Notion and proper Remembrance of those Times might be apt to make, Some have endeavoured to destroy the Credit of our most faithful Accounts of them, and to fubftitute others better calculated for the Purpose of Difguifing. The Succefs of fuch Attempts among rational and impartial Men has not, I prefume, been much to be boafted of. Yet,

as in Calumnies of all Kinds numerous Accufations, which fingly taken would be ineffectual, often force their Way merely by being boldly repeated; fo it feems to have happened with the, otherwife feeble, Efforts of Libertinifm in the Cafe before us. The large AdD 3

vances

vances we have for fome Time been making towards a Disregard to all Order and Authority, both in Matters Civil and Sacred, under the specious Appearance of Liberty in the one, and Free-thinking in the other, are fuch as can hardly be otherwise accounted for, than by fuppofing us to have in a great Measure loft the Remembrance of those Diftractions, which the like Pretences, not quite a Century ago, introduced into this Church and Nation.

An Attempt to adjust the Extent of Religious and Civil Liberty, and to suggest the deftructive Confequences of Exceffes in either of them from the Experience of our Fore-fathers, may not at such a Time as this be wholly unfeasonable; nor will it be thought foreign to the Design of this Appointment, by which We are particularly directed to recommend and enforce the great Duty of Submiffion to Go

vernment.

There were, it feems, fome among the earliest Converts to Christianity, who misunderstood the Nature of their Chriftian Liberty, and perverted it to very unjustifiable Purposes. To remedy this Inconvenience, we find the first Preachers of the Gospel scarcely ever mentioning the Name of Liberty without fubjoining fome Caution against the Abuse of it.

To

To omit other Inftances, the Apostle in my Text addreffes thofe to whom He wrote, in Terms of great Significance and Propriety upon this Subject. He admits their Claim to Freedom; but then He fails not immediately to warn them against thofe mifchievous Defigns, to which that Claim would probably be made Subfervient; He reminds them, that their Christian Freedom, whatever might be meant by it, was certainly a bounded Freedom that it left them, as it found them, Servants to GOD; and by no means exempted them from the Observance of any of His Institutions; that Civil Government came particularly entitled to their Veneration under That Character: and that therefore, however the Forms of Government might be Ordinances of Men, they were bound to fubmit themfelves to every one of them, which as Strangers and Pilgrims they fhould happen to live under, for the LORD's fake. As Free indeed; yet not using their Liberty for a Cloke of Malicioufnefs; but as the Servants of GOD.

The Caution before us feems to have had a special Regard to those wrong Notions of Chriftian Liberty, by which Order and Government were chiefly threatened in the Infancy of Christianity. There is however no

Occafion