trines and observing its precepts; for wisdom cannot be inconsistent with itself, cannot prescribe in similar circumstances opposite rules of conduct. Yet we see that expectations many degrees more improbable than what has been here supposed, are universally esteemed sufficient, in the common course of our lives, to determine the choice of a reasonable man; and even to engage him in a long course of care and labour and selfdenial. Should any one decline an undertaking of apparent advantage for no other reason but because he could not demonstrate its success, he would be esteemed an ideot or a madman. But indeed we have no reason to indulge our adversaries in a supposition so unfavourable to our cause. True wisdom, whilst it prevents an ill-grounded confidence, is always found to produce a just and rational assent to the great truths of religion; — and surely real probability is a better and safer support, both of our faith and practice, than illusive and fanciful demonstrations. If these should be subverted (as there is perpetual danger) by clearer views and deeper researches, the religion which is built upon them must fall to the ground; but a religion 1 founded on wisdom, the result of a careful, deliberate, impartial inquiry, is a firm and steady principle of action: though “the rains "descend, and the floods come, and the "winds blow, it will stand unshaken, for it " is built upon a rock." * * Mat. vii. 25. DISCOURSE IV. ON THE RESTORATION OF KING CHARLES 11. 2 SAM. xix. 10. Yea, let him take all, forasmuch as my lord the king is come again in peace unto his own house. THESE words of Mephibosheth seem to express with singular propriety the sentiments of the English Nation on the return of their banished sovereign. The joy they felt from a revolution so long wanted, so impatiently desired, made them prodigal of their rights and privileges. They were ready, at * Preached on the 29th May, 1763. one stroke, to give up all, that they might satisfy the demands, and even outrun the expectations, of greedy courtiers. No matter what burthens fell on them or their posterity, no matter what they lost or what they suffered, "forasmuch as their lord the king was "come again in peace unto his own house." It was happy for us as well as them, that these overflowings of loyalty soon subsided, and the dispositions of the people returned into their natural channel. Indeed they went farther than this; and extreme distrust succeeded to extreme confidence. Very few years had passed, after the accession of this popular monarch, when an alarm began to be sounded thro' every corner of the nation, as if both religion and liberty were at their last gasp. It may not be unsuitable to the design of our present solemnity, I. To enquire what foundation there was for that extraordinary joy which our ancestors expressed on the return of their so-. vereign. II. To make some reflections on the folly they were guilty of in expressing their joy, like him in the text, by unlimited conces sions. III. To discern the foundation of this joy, we must recollect the state and circumstances of the times immediately preceding; and the alterations either produced or expected from the return of the royal family. 1. For many years past, this unhappy nation had drunk deep of the calamities of war ; of war attended with every circumstance that could make the poisonous draught either more bitter or more deadly. The scene of this war was England. The bloodshed was at our own doors, in the hearing and in the sight of our wives and children. The contending parties were Britons. Every man's hand was against his neighbour and his brother. And to cut off all possible consolation from the unhappy sufferers, the issue of the conflict could not but be fatal; for it was the conflict of tyranny on the one part, of anarchy on the other; of governors who ruled by will, not by law; of subjects who would not suffer the law itself to controul |