any fault, rather too guarded, and too circumflantial. But all this guard, and all this accumula tion of circumstances, ferves to shew the spirit of caution which predominated in the national councils, in a fituation in which men irritated by oppression, and elevated by a triumph over it, are apt to abandon themselves to violent and extreme courses: it shews the anxiety of the great men who influenced the conduct of affairs at that great event, to make the revolution, a parent of fettlement, and not a nursery of future revolutions. No government could stand a moment, if it could be blown down with any thing fo loose and indefinite as an opinion of "misconduct." They who led at the revolution, grounded their virtual abdication of king James upon no fuch light and uncertain principle. They charged him with nothing less than a defign, confirmed by a multitude of illegal overt acts, to fubvert the Protestant church and state and their fundamental, unquestionable laws and liberties: they charged him with having broken the original contract between king and people. This was more than misconduct. A grave * " That King James the Second, having endeavoured to fub"vert the conftitution of the kingdom, by breaking the original "contract between king and people, and by the advice of jefuits, " and other wicked perfons, having violated the fundamental " laws, and having withdraren himself out of the kingdom hath ab"dicated the government, and the throne is thereby vacant." and 1 and overruling neceffity obliged them to take the step they took, and took with infinite reluctance, as under that most rigorous of all laws. Their trust for the future preservation of the constitution was not in future revolutions. The grand policy of all their regulations was to render it almost impracticable for any future sovereign to compel the states of the kingdom to have again recourse to those violent remedies. They left the crown what, in the eye and estimation of law, it had ever been, perfectly irresponsible. In order to lighten the crown still further, they aggravated responsibility on ministers of state. By the statute of the ist of king William, feff, 2d, called " the act for declaring "the rights and liberties of the subject, and for fettling "the fucceffion of the crown," they enacted, that the minifters should ferve the crown on the terms of that declaration. They secured foon after the frequent meetings of parliament, by which the whole government would be under the constant inspection and active control of the popular reprefentative and of the magnates of the kingdom. In the next great constitutional act, that of the 12th and 13th of king William, for the further limitation of the crown, and better fecuring the rights and liberties of the subject, they provided, " that 66 no pardon under the great feal of England " should be pleadable to an impeachment by the " commons in parliament." The rule laid down for government in the declaration of right, the constant inspection of parliament, the practical claim of impeachment, they thought infinitely a better security not only for their conftitutional liberty, but against the vices of administration, than the reservation of a right so difficult in the practice, so uncertain in the issue, and often fo mischievous in the consequences, as that of " ca"shiering their governours." Dr. Price, in this fermon,* condemns very properly the practice of gross, adulatory addresses to kings. Instead of this fulfome style, he proposes that his majesty should be told, on occafions of congratulation, that " he is to confider himself as " more properly the servant than the fovereign of "his people." For a compliment, this new form of address does not seem to be very foothing. Those who are servants, in name, as well as in effect, do not like to be told of their situation, their duty, and their obligations. The flave, in the old play, tells his master, “Heç commemoratio eft quafi "exprobatio." It is not pleasant as compliment; it is not wholesome as instruction. After all, if the king were to bring himself to echo this new kind of address, to adopt it in terms, and even to take the appellation of Servant of the People as his royal style, how either he or we should be much mended by it, I cannot imagine. I have seen very affuming letters, signed, Your most obedient, humble servant. The proudest domination that ever was endured on earth took a title of still greater humility than that which is now proposed for fovereigns by the Apostle of Liberty. Kings and nations were trampled upon by the foot of one calling himself " the Servant of Servants;" and mandates for deposing sovereigns were sealed with the signet of " the Fisherman." I should have confidered all this as no more than a fort of flippant vain discourse, in which, as in an unfavoury fume, several persons suffer the spirit of liberty to evaporate, if it were not plainly in support of the idea, and a part of the scheme of " cashiering kings for misconduct." In that light it is worth fome observation. Kings, in one sense, are undoubtedly the fervants of the people, because their power has no other rational end than that of the general advantage; but it is not true that they are, in the ordinary sense (by our constitution, at least) any thing like servants; the essence of whose situation is to obey the commands of fome other, and to be removeable at pleasure. But the king of Great Britain obeys no other perfon; all other persons are individually, and collectively too, under him, and owe to him a legal obedience. The law, which knows neither to flatter nor to infult, calls this F4 this high magiftrate, not our servant, as this hum. ble Divine calls him, but " our fovereign Lord the " King;" and we, on our parts, have learned ta speak only the primitive language of the law, and not the confused jargon of their Babylonian pulpits. As he is not to obey us, but as we are to obey the law in him, our constitution has made no fort of provision towards rendering him, as a fervant, in any degree responsible. Our conftitution knows nothing of a magistrate like the Justicia of Arragon; nor of any court legally appointed, nor of any process legally fettled for fubmitting the king to the responsibility belonging to all servants. In this he is not diftinguished from the commons and the lords; who, in their several publick capacities, can never be called to an account for their conduct; although the revolution society chooses to assert, in direct opposition to one of the wifeft and most beautiful parts of our constitution, that " a "king is no more than the first servant of the " publick, created by it, and responsible to it." Ill would our ancestors at the revolution have deferved their fame for wisdom, if they had found no security for their freedom, but in rendering their government feeble in its operations, and precarious in its tenure; if they had been able to contrive no better remedy against arbitrary power than civil confufion. Let these gentlemen state who |