Theocracy was the government of the Jews, by God himself, as lawgiver, monarch, and judge. They neither made nor changed laws. This form of government lasted from the Exodus to the advent of Christ, about 2,000 years, and never existed among any other people.

Monarchy is a government exercised, laws made and executed, by the authority and will of an individual.

Aristocracy is a government by nobles, and generally prevails in a regency, where the hereditary governor is a minor, or under age.

Democracy is a government administered by representatives, chosen by the people at large : it is violent, indecisive, and fickle, often enacts without wisdom, executes without foresight, and is generally hasty and erroneous in all its measures.

The British government consists of three estates-it is monarchical, because it acknowledges the king as supreme head. It is aris

tocratical in its house of lords, where the nobles possess a legislative capacity. In its house of commons, where representatives chosen by the people possess the same power, it is an enlightened and ennobled democracy. These three estates are perfectly mixed by the constitution, they counterbalance each other, each having an equal legislative authority, and this government possesses every excellence. In its nature and regular operation, it secures the prerogative of the monarch,-it preserves the honour and property of the nobility-and respects and defends the rights of the people.

There is something in the constitution of our nature, which leads men to expect, and even claim as much independence as the ends of society, and the form of government, under which they live, will permit.

Agreeably to these instincts, or conclusions of reason, call them which you will, the gospel, both in its genius and precepts, invites its professors to the love and cultivation of liberty. It allows the freedom of private judgment, in which the essence of

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religious liberty consists, and it indulges our natural love of civil liberty, by giving an express preference to it, before a state of slavery, when by just and lawful means it can be obtained. But this great indulgence of heaven, like every other privilege, is liable to be misused, and was, in fact, so misused, even in early times, when this indulgence of the gospel to the natural feelings of men, was with the gospel itself, first notified and declared. For the zealous Jews, full of the idea that they ought not to submit to any other governor, than one raised up from among their own brethren, were forward to conclude, that their privileges absolved them from obedience to civil government, especially at those seasons when the revenue was collected; and the believing Gentiles were willing to think that the gospel freed them from domestic slavery, the lamentable, but too general condition of converts in the heathen state.

Those notions, as they were not authorised by christianity, (which made no immediate and direct change in the political and personal condition of mankind) so if they had not been opposed and discountenanced,

would have given great offence to the ruling powers, in every country where the christians resided, and have very much obstructed the propagation of the christian faith.

The Holy Spirit, therefore, to guard the rising church from these mischiefs, saw fit by the apostle Peter, to admonish both the Jewish and Gentile converts, to conduct themselves as free men, so far as they could honestly become free; but not as misusing the liberty they had, (which every principle of their religion, as well as prudence, forbad) "as free (says he) and not using your liberty for a cloak of maliciousness," as if he had said,―be careful to observe a due mean, in this matter, maintain your just liberties; yet so as not to gratify your malignant passions, under pretence of discharging that duty; and the better to secure the observance of this precept, he adds, but as the servants of God, that is, remember ye are so to employ your liberty, as never to forget the service ye owe to God, and the civil magistrate, whom ye are bound to obey, not only "for wrath, for fear of punishment, but for conscience sake."

This caution, so guarded by religious as well as moral considerations, was most important, because no word is so fascinating to the common ear, as that of liberty; while the virtuous and peaceable subject knows what it means, the seditious and licentious often mistake it for licence, for free thinking, free speaking, and free writing, libertinism in principle, and corruption in practice.

For the full establishment of our civil and religious rights, we are indebted, in some degree, to the restauration, but chiefly and fully to the revolution.

From that memorable period, we became, in every sense of the word, a free people; conscience was secured in the exercise of its just rights, by a legal toleration, and the civil constitution was restored to its integrity here, then, let us pause-and having before us what the nation so long suffered, and what it so late acquired-the horrors of superstitious tyranny on the one hand, and the blessings of established order and freedom on the other, let us enquire dispassionately, whether it is advisable to dis