ed in former ages, of which they had no means of obtaining more than was derived to them by an imperfect, disjointed tradition, disguised in the dress of fable, and destitute of any authority to recommend and gain it credit. They erected the best fabric they could with the materials in their hands; and it would be unreasonable to expect brick from artificers to whom straw was not given. But in us, who have the Scripture history before us, it would be something worse than unreasonable, to overlook the information with which that supplies us, and have recourse to romantic schemes which owed their being to the want of it. On the other hand, let us suppose a colony, upon its migration, to have settled itself in a warmer climate, where men would find little or no occasion for clothes, houses, or the preparation of food by fire; and where they were cut off from all communication with the rest of the world. In this situation, they would not concern themselves about the conveniences, much less the elegances of life. Naked, or nearly so, living upon the fruits of the earth, and such other provision as the chase, or the net would procure, and strangers, for want of commerce, to arts and learning they must continue in the deepest intellectual poverty, retaining only some of those superstitious customs and diabolical rites derived from their idolatrous ancestors, and imported with them. And thus degenerating, as they must of necessity do, every day more and more, they would come at last into that deplorable state of ignorance and barbarism in which some nations are indeed found at this day. But is this a state of nature? Was this the state in which the Lord of all things placed the noblest of sublunary beings, the heir of glory and immortality, when his own hands had formed and fashioned him, and he had breathed into him the breath of life? No, surely, it is a state the most unnatural in which rational creatures, made in the image of their Creator, can be conceived to exist; a state into which, through apostasy from revealed truth, and consequent loss of all knowledge, by the just judgement of God upon them, some nations were permitted to fall, and are suffered to continue, in terrorem to others. And does a master of reason, an enlightened philosopher in an enlightened age, send us to learn the first principles of government from Floridians, Brasilians, and Cherokees, because it is said that they have no kings, but choose leaders as they want them in time of war? Though such is the force of primeval institution, such the necessity of government, and such the voice of nature concerning it, that even in America. upon its discovery, some nations, as the Mexicans and Peruvians, were found in the state of the larger governments, which arose by conquest, while others, in the form of the lesser, were subject to the chiefs of their respective clans and tribes. Savages themselves cannot live in a state of absolute equality and independence. In civilized communities, a ship cannot be navigated, a regiment cannot march, a family cannot be holden together, without a subordination established and preserved. And was all government once dissolved, and the world really reduced to that state out of which civil polity is sup posed to have originally sprung, it would be a scene of uproar and confusion, and a field of blood, till the day of the consummation of all things. A long and uninterrupted enjoyment of blessings, is apt to extinguish in us that gratitude towards the author of them which it ought to cherish and invigorate; and justice is the less regarded, when she maketh these her awful processions through the land, preserving peace and tranquillity in our borders, because she maketh them periodically and constantly. Far different would be our sensations at such times, had sad experience ever taught us what it was to see government unhinged, to want the protection of regal power, and the due execution of laws by those to whom that power is delegated, "for the punishment "of evil-doers, and the praise of them that do well." The course of nature often glides on unobserved, when there are no variations in it; and the sun himself shineth unnoticed, because he shineth every day. "Since the time that God did first proclaim the edicts "of his law," says the the excellent Hooker, "heaven "and earth have hearkened unto his voice, and their "labour hath been to do his will. But if nature "should intermit her course, and leave altogether, though it were but for a while, the observation of "her own laws; if those principal and mother ele ments, whereof all things in this lower world are "made, should lose the qualities which now they "have; if the frame of that heavenly arch, erected 66 over our heads, should loosen and dissolve itself; "if celestial spheres should forget their wonted mo"tions, and, by irregular volubility, turn themselves 66 any way, as it might happen; if the prince of the lights of heaven, which now, as a giant, doth run his unwearied course, should, as it were, through "a languishing faintness, begin to stand, and to rest himself; if the moon should wander from her "beaten way, the times and seasons of the year "blend themselves by disordered and confused mixture, the winds breathe out their last gasp, the "clouds yield no rain, the earth be defeated of heavenly influence, and her fruits pine away, as children at the withered breasts of their mother, no "longer able to yield them relief; what would be"come of man himself, whom these things do all 66 now serve?" and how would he look back upon those benefits, for which, when they were daily poured upon him in boundless profusion, he forgot to be thankful? While, therefore, we partake, in so eminent a degree, the benefits of civil polity, let us not be unmindful of our great Benefactor. Let these solemn occasions serve to remind us, that there is an intimate connexion between religion and government; that the latter flowed originally from the same divine source with the former, and was, at the beginning, the ordinance of the Most High; that the state of nature was a state of subordination, not one of equality and independence, in which mankind never did, nor ever can exist; that the civil magistrate is "the "minister of God to us for good;" and that to the gracious Author of every other valuable gift we are indebted for all the comforts and conveniences of society, during our passage through this turbulent |