YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 3 9002 07223 7606 .^1 ki .'"3SJ,» ^^ Cii 19 'J/^ivt.the/e Sobkp^^lA. kJprthe/aMniiiniifa-Cioikee^^^^ BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE Society of the Cincinnati Fund BISHOP DOANE'S ORATION BEFORE THE CINCINNATI OP NEW JERSEY. 4!tftj(l (Robenmient a sacreti srrust front ©ot«: THE ANNIVERSARY ORATION THE NEW JERSEY STATE SOCIETY THE CINCINNATI, AT TfiENTON, JULY i, M DCCC XLV ; THE RIGHT REV. GEORGE WASHINGTON DOANE, D.D., LL.D., mSUOP OF HEW JKHSET. 3Sui-Ifnflton: EDMUNO Monms, imitTEIl. 1845. Ck\5 Trenton, July 10, 1845. Bisaop DoASE, Burlington, New Jersey; Dear Sir : The undersigned, a Committee on behalf of the Citizens of Trenton, would most respectfully request a copy, for publication, of the Oration delivered by you, on the 4th, before the Society of the Cincinnati. An earnest desire that the noble and patriotic sentiments contained in your truly eloquent discourse should have a more extended circulation, induces this appli cation : and trusting that you will accede to our request, we remain your obedi ent servants, Samuel R. Hamilton, Samuel Dickinsost, Ralpq M. Shuete, Richahd Beakdt, John S. Laikd, William Boswell, Lewis P. Higbee, Committee of Arrangements, To Samuel R. Hamilton, Esq., Samuel Dickinson, Esq., and others, a Committee on behalf of tho Citizens of Trenton; Gentlemen : I cheerfully comply with the request conveyed to me in your note of the 10th instant, that I would furnish for publication, a copy of my Oration before the Society ofthe Cincinnati. I am for use; and to be made useful is my highest aim on earth. A native Jerseyman, and one to live and die, I desire nothing, that is human, more than the confidence and ap probation of Jerseymen. I deeply feel, and shall fondly cherish, the kind ex pressions you have used ; and am, most faithfully and respectfully, your friend and servant, G, W. DOAKE, Siverside, 14 July, 1846. To THE BONOUnABLE GARRET D. WALL, THE FniEND OF MT FATHEH, AND MY OWN FEIENB ; A KIND PAHISHIONEH, A WISE AND FAITHFUL COUNSELLOR : WITH THUE AFFECTION AND SINCERE BESPEGT. Riverside, 14 July, mdcco ilt. ORATION, It was the height of plowing.^ Upon a farm of scarce four acres,^ across the Tiber, just opposite to where the navy-yard was afterwards, a man was at his work. In liis shirt-sleeves,^ his long, crisp hair"* upon his shoulders, covered with sweat and dust,^ he was bending at the plow;* when deputies approached •"Medium erat lempus forte sementis, quum patricium virum innixum aratro suo, liclor in ipso opere deprehendit." — L. Anncei Flori, i. 11, 2 " Spes uriica imperii populi Romani L. Quintius trans Tiberim, contra eum ipsum locum, ulii nunc navulia sunt, quatuor Jiifferum colebut agrum," — T. Livii, iii. 26. " He was a frugal man, and did not care to be rich ; and his land was on tlie other side of the Tiber, a plot of four jugera, where he dwelt with his wife Racilia, and busied himself in the tilling of his ground." — Arnold, His- tory of Rome, i. 204. 3 " The deputies went over the river, and came to his house, and found him in his field, at work, without his toga or cloak." — Ai-nold, i. 204. The tunica, Becker says, "was worn underthe toga, and was a sort of shirt." — Gallus, Zii. Before receiving the message of the Senate, he sent to his cottage for his toga, or outer garment. " Togam propere tugurio proferre uxorem Raciliam jubet." — Livii, iii, 26, 4 Hence his name of Cincinnatus ; as if it were curly-headed Lucius Quinc- tius. " This Lucius Quinctius let his hair grow, and tended it carefully ; and was so famous for his curled and crisped locks, that men called him Cincinnatus, or t/te crisp-haired." — Arnold, i. 204. 5 " Qua simul," (^sc. toga) " absterso pulvere ac sudore, velaius processit." — Livii, iii. 26. 6" Hie dictator ab aratro." — FloH,i,il. See also above. Livy, however, hesitates between digging and plowing. " Seu fossam fodiens pate innisus, seu quum araret ; operi certe, id quod constat, agresti intentus." — iii. 26. " Here Cincinnatus passed, his plough the while " Left in the furrow, — Rogers, Italy, 143. 8 him, before sun-rise, from the Roman Senate,* to ap prize him, that the Consul, with his army, was sur rounded, in the country of the /Equi; and that he, chosen Dictator, must march at once, with all the force that could be levied, to their rescue. Before the sun went down that day, his line of march was taken up. And the slant rays of the next sunset gilded the banners with which he entered Rome, in triumph.^ Prevailing plowman, as the Roman an nalist well calls him. The campaign ended, he went back to his oxen. And with such rapidity, by all the gods, that one might say, he hastened home, to get his plowing done !^ — Such was the man — of such simplicity, of such alacrity, of such integrity, modest in peace, as he was masterly in war — whom those, whose sweat and blood atchieved the independence of this nation, held so high in honour, as to resolve to follow his example, and adopt his name." Such ' " So, in the morning early, the Senate sent Deputies to Lucius." — Dr. .Ir- nold, i. 204. ''¦ " AU was done so quickly, that he went out on one evening, and came home the next day at evening, victorious and triumphant." — i. 208. 3 " Sic expeditione finita, rediit a J boves rursus, triumphalis agricola. Fidem numinum ! Qua velocitate !" •' Prorsus ut feslinasse Dictator ad relictum opus videretur." — Flori, i. 11. 4 The following minule is the best and most authentic statement ofthe origin and piinciples ofthe Society of the Cincinnati. " Tuesday, .May 13, 1783. " The representatives of tbe American Army being assembled, agreeably to ad journment, the plan for establishing a society, whereof the ofBcers of the Ameri can Army are to be m,;mbers, is accepted, and is as follows, viz : •'It having pleased the Supreme Governor of tlie Universe, in (he dispo sition of human affairs, to cause the separation of the colonies of North America from the domination of Great Britain, and, after a bloody conflictof eight years •was Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus. If there be no bler name, for peace or war, than his, on any human record, purer in patriotism, steadier in disasters, cooler in trials, calmer in conquest, is it not the Cin cinnatus of our commonwealth? Is it not George Washington ? Mr. President, and Gentlemen ofthe Cincinnati: I took no second thought as to my duty in regard to your appointment for this day. I felt no right to do so. There is a growing tendency to se parate between things sacred and things secular, in point of obligation ; to run out, on the field of human life, a line of higher, and a line of lower duties ; to adopt a sort of "sliding scale" in morals. It is ac cording to this fashion, that religion should become a thing of Sundays, and of sermons, and of sacra ments, alone; and not of every day's concern, and of our universal life. Man seems a creature of two at mospheres: the higher, for his soul to float in, to wards God ; the lower, where his body is to labour, to establi^ them Free, Independent, and Sovereign States, connected, by alli ances founded on reciprocal advantage, with some of the great princes and powers ofthe earth. "To perpetuate, therefore, as well the remembrance of this vast event, as ths mutual friendships which have been formed under the pressure of common dan ger, and, in many instances, cemented by the blood of the parties, the ofiicers of the American Army do, hereby, in the most solemn manner, associate, consti tute and combine themselves into one Society of Friends, to endure as long as they shall endure, or any of their eldest male posterity, and, in failure thereof, the collateral branches who may be judged worthy of becoming its supporters and members. "The officers of the American Army having generally been taken from th* citizens of America, posscis high Tcneration for tha character of that illuatriwu 2 10 among men. Religious men are only for the other world : the men of this world, by an inference most natural, without the slightest need to be religious! Civil government confined to this life, and for men ; a thing apart from God ! God's ministers, disfran chised, but for heaven ; scarcely so much as citizens of earth ! I stand against all this, as false in princi ple, and dangerous in practice. We are brethren all, the children of one Father. One common life, the breathing and the blessing of His love. One com mon home, the earth which He hath made, and gar nished for our use. One common rule. His pure and perfect law of righteousness and peace. One com mon end. His glory in the mutual good of all our kind. One common blessed hope, to be with Him forever, as we are like Him now. It follows, by a necessary consequence, that we are intercorporated with each other, in inseparable union. What the Apostle teaches of the Church, holds of our human Roman, Lucius Quintius Cincinnatus, and being resolved to follow bis exam. pie, by returning to their citizenship, they think they may with propriety de nominate themselves the Society of the Cincinnati. "The following principles shall be immutable and form the basis of the So ciety of the Cincinnati. "An incessant attention to preserve inviolate those exalted rights and liber ties of human nature for which they have fought and bled, and without which the high rank of a rational being is a curse instead of a blessing. " An unalterable determination to promote and cherish, between the respec tive States, that union and national honour, so essentially necessary to their happiness, and the future dignity ofthe American empire. "To render permanent the cordial affection subsisting among the ofBcers- this spirit will dictate brotherly kindness in all things, and particularly extend to the most substantial acts of beneficence, according to the ability of the So ciety, towards those officers and their families, who unfortunately may be un^ der the necessity of receiving it." 11 kind, "we are members one of another.'" The hea then knew it, when he said,^ "I am a man: and have a heart for every human thing." The Chris tian knew it, when he said; "none of us liveth to himself, and no man dieth to himself"^ And it fol lows, by a consequence as necessary, that our mutual obligation, our religion, so to speak — our bounden- ness,^ that is, to God, and to each other — must run alike through every level, and through every line of life, imbue them and pervade them all, fill them with light and love and loveliness; in one word, with the present God : as Paul, that greatest human master of morality that ever taught, has plainly said, and with as much of truth as plainness; "Whether, therefore, ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God,"^ " that God in all things may be glo rified, through Jesus Christ our Lord."° Upon these simple dictates of my duty, I accepted your appoint ment, as Orator, to-day. And, standing on this broad, this high, this solid ground — broad as the field of human life, high as the destiny of man, and solid as the throne of God — I feel that I may claim, what I am sure that you will grant, your candid hearing, for that which I have chosen, from the thoughts and themes, with which my spirit labours, as worthiest of ' Romans, xii. 4. 2 Terence. " Homo sum ; nil humani alienum mihi puto.*' 3 Romans, xiv. 7. ¦'I Corinthians, x. 31. 5 1 Peter, iv. 11. SRe- ligion, from the Latin religio. The most probable etymology is a religando : the word religio seeming emphatically to express the reciprocal bond or obli gation of man to man ; and also the obligation or duty of man to God. Sec Richardson's English Dictionary. How can there be a better definition of it than the Catechism furnishes 1 " What dost thou chiefly learn from these commandments? I learn two things; my duty towards God, and my duty towards my neighbour." 12 you, and of myself, and fittest for the presence, and the day : Civil Government a sacred trust fr«m God. Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Cincinnati, Fel low Citizens — It is an easy thing to speak in glowing terms, and with a sounding voice, of our republic, of the nation al independence, of civil freedom, and the like. It is an easy and a natural thing to boast us of the spir it which demanded for the thirteen colonies, a place among the nations of the earth ; and of the blood which bought it, and cemented them as one. It is an easy and a natural thing, and most entirely to be held to, and be had in honour, to kindle with un wonted fire, as the day dawns, which celebrates the going forth of those brave, burning words, to which we now have listened,' whose echoes fill the world, and are the battle-cry of liberty in every land ; to feel that swelling of the heart, which only freemen know, when first the morning drum roils out reveille, in the ears of twenty millions ; to rally, as one man, around the stars and stripes, when their unfolded beauty blazes in the beams of that returning sun, to which they owe the matchless magic of their power. But these are symbols all, mere tokens or mere words signs oi an inward life; which, if it be not, if it bear not fruit, if it bestow not life and health and blessings on mankind, godlike in glory and in goodness, has but a name to live ; is but an outer seeming, to be- iThe Declaration ot Independence had been read by the President of the Cincinnati, tbe Hon. J. Warren Sootf. 13 guile and to deceive; a Sodom apple, varnish upoiH dust;^ a hectic flush, painting the cheek on which it preys. Do we remember what these tokens stand for? Do we think what a nation is? Do we con sider the origin, the nature, the uses of civil govern ment ? A nation is a fearful thing. If there were any thing on earth to fill God's eye, it would be that. A mighty moral mass, immortal in mortality ! So much of weakness to be helped. So much of igno rance to be taught. So much of misery to be reliev ed. Such high intelligence, so dwarfed. Such vast capacities, so dwindled. Organizations so exquisite, deranged. Such folly. Such madness. Such crime. This, in beings made like God ! This, in beings for whom God ordains enjoyment ! This, in beings for whom God, through Jesus Christ, hath opened hea ven ! Can there be any human measure of national responsibility ? Can there be any thing, short of cre ation, so pregnant in results as the national organiza tion ? What hand, unequal to the one, could have been trusted with the other ? Who that refers the first to God, will, in the other, stop with man? Where is the wisdom, short of God's, that shall de vise ? Where are the sanctions, short of God's, that shall authenticate ? Where is the power, short of 1 Since the above was written, I have met with what follows, in Eliot War burton's graphic sketch, " The Crescent aiid the Cross :" — " On resuming our desert path, we picked up some apples of Sodom, that lay strewn upon the de sert, without apparent connection with any stem; they were of a bright gold- green, about the size of an orange, but perfectly round and smooth : they gava the idea of being swelled out with the richest juice, that when bitten, must gush forth to meet the thirsty lip : you crush this plausible rind, however, and a cloncf of fetid dust bursts forth, which leaves only a few cinders as a residue." 14 God's, that shall sustain ? The state of nature, which men talk of, never has existed. The social compact, which men talk of, was never entered into. When God made man, He made him for society; and where there is society, there must of course be government. God is the universal Governor. The governments that are on earth, are delegations all from Him. There is no power but of God. Whether they spring direct from His ordaining hand, or whether they grow up by permission of His providence — what ever be their form or name, a monarchy or a repub lic; a patriarch, a king, a president — ^the powers that be, are ordained of God. They are His ministers. They govern in His place. They bear the sword for Hitn. They are His ordinance for human good. Therefore, must every soul, as he owes sovereignty to God, " be subject unto the higher powers ;"^ ren dering to all their dues. " The governments which now^ are," says Bishop Horsley, "have not arisen from a previous state of no-government, falsely call ed the state of nature ; but from that original govern ment under which the first generations of men were brought into existence, variously changed and modi fied, in a long course of ages, under the wise direc tion of God's over-ruling providence, to suit the vari ous climates of the world, and the infinitely varied manners and conditions of its inhabitants. And the principle of subjection is not that principle of com mon honesty which binds a man to his own engage ments, much less that principle of political honesty which binds the child to the ancestor's engagements; 1 Romans, xiii. 1. 15 but a conscientious submission to the will of God. The principles which I advance," he still continues, " ascribe no greater sanctity to monarchy than to any other form of established government; nor do they at all involve the exploded notion that all or any of the sovereigns of earth hold their sovereignty by vir tue of such immediate or implied nomination on the part of God, of themselves personally, or of the stocks from which they are descended, as might con fer an endless, indefeasible right on their posterity. In contending that government was coeval with man kind, it will readily be admitted that all the particu lar forms of government which now exist are the work of human policy, under the control of God's over-ruling general providence ; that the Israelites were the only people upon earth whose form of gov ernment was of express divine institution, and their kings the only monarchs who ever reigned by an in defeasible divine title : but it is contended that all government is in such sort of divine institution, that,. be the form of any particular government what it may, the submission of the individual is a principal ¦ branch of that religious duty which each man owes to God."^ Nor does the doctrine thus laid down leave out of sight the possibility of necessary changes, or fail to make provision for them. " In governments, of whatever denomination," he goes on to say, " if the form of government undergo a change, or the established rule of succession be set aside by any violent or necessary revolution, the act of the nation itself is necessary to erect a new sovereignty, I Sermon 44, Rivington's Edition, 1824. 16 or to transfer the old right to the new possessor. The condition of a people in these emergencies bears no resemblance or analogy to that anarchy which has been called the state of nature. The people become not in these situations of government, what they would be in that state, a mere multitude. They are a society, not dissolved, but in danger of dissolution: and, by the great law of self preservation, inherent in the body politic, no less than in the solitary animal, a society so situated has a right to use the best means for its own preservation and perpetuity. A people therefore, in these circumstances has a right, which a mere multitude unassociated would never have, of appointing, by the consent of the majority, a new head for themselves and their posterity : and it will readily be admitted, that, of all sovereigns none reign by so fair and just a title as those who can derive their claim from such public act of the nation which they govern." " In all these cases, the act of the people is only the means which Providence employs to advance the new sovereign to his station. The obligation to obedience proceeds secondarily only from the act of man, but primarily from the will of God, who has appointed civil life for man's condi tion ; and requires the citizen's submission to the sovereign whom His providence shall by any means set over him."' "The reason why we should be subject to magistrates," says Calvin, " is because they are appointed by the ordinance of God. Since it has pleased God so to administer the government of the world, he who resists their power, strives against ' Ibidem. 17 the divine ordinance, and so fights against God. Be cause, to disregard His providence, who is the author of civil government, is to go to war with Him.'" " That all lawful dominion, considered in the ab stract," Archbishop Bramhall says, " is from God, no man can make any doubt." But the right and application of this power and interest, in the concrete, to this or that particular man, is many times from the grant and consent of the people. So God is the principal agent ; man, the instrumental. God is the root, the fountain of power ; man, the stream, the bough by which it is derived. The essence of pow er is always from God ; the existence, sometimes from God, sometimes from man."^ Fellow citizens, however theorists may speculate, the only safe reliance of a nation is the reference of civil government to God, as a divine and sacred trust, for human good. Nations are men. And men are equals. And, of equals, none can govern. No man, as man, can claim obedience from his fellows. The very primal element of all authority, the first exem plar of a government on earth, the father in his fam ily, is only such, as he reflects the image of the great Original of governments, the universal Parent, and is as God to them. Whether the governors be thought of, or the governed, this is the true idea. In this, alone, is perfect reason. In this, alone, is per fect right. In this, alone, is peace and liberty and happiness. Where are the stores of water for the world ? Not in the deepest wells. Not in the full est fountains. Not in the leaping streams. Not in ' On Romans xiii. 1. -Serpent Salve. Archbishop Bramhall's works, an Library of Anglo-Catholit Theology, iii,. 317. 3 18 the gushing springs. These serve their temporary turn. These are convenient reservoirs, for common use. But for the world's great wants — to float its na vies, or to turn its mills, to keep its vallies like the emerald in beauty, and to feed the cattle on its thou sand hills — the storehouse of the rain must be poured out from heaven. The drought will bow the world to God. And so with man, in his religious, moral, civil, interests. The great machinery, in which we live, and move, and have our being, is so ingeniously constructed, and so graciously sustained, that the Creator's hand is never seen. The wheels, the springs, the weights, seem all instinct with life. A child accounts of them as living. And so proud men, boasting of wisdom, with the very breath that proves them fools, would leave out God from His creation, or make a god of some created thing. But water never flows above its source. Its utmost struggle is to reach the level of its native summit. And, when the broken cisterns, which the art of man has sought to substitute for living fountains, in God's heaven, have done their best, they miserably fail, and leave their mad artificers, and the poor fools that follow them, to gasp and perish in their thirst. How can it fail to be so? Whoever set himself with safety against a law of nature ? Who would stand still up on the shores of Fundy, when that sweeping tide, of sixty feet, or more, comes rolling in ? Who would leap in, when the fierce furnace has attained its ut most glow, to bathe him in its sea of flame ? Can such things be, and men exist ? Will the tide make an eddy, and sweep round the maniac, while the wa ters stand up, as a wall, upon his right hand and his 19 left, and leave him dry ? Or will " the midst of the furnace" be, " as it had been a moist whistling wind,'" so that " the rushing fire-flood seem " Like summer breeze, by woodland stream V^ It was so once, indeed, that God might prove His laws by the one rare exception, when He went with His people through the sea, and walked with His ho ly children in the flame. But only madmen look for it; and they, to perish in their madness. And shall the laws of nature stand, and He who set them, change ? Shall it be less safe to contend with fire and flood, than with the God who gave them their fierce mastery of human life ? Shall it be safer for a nation to desert Him than a man ? If none of us can take a step but through His power, or draw a breath but of His goodness, can there be more of safe ty for the multitude of helpless ones, or greater strength in the accumulation of the weak? Surely, an infant child, forsaken of his mother, is an unde fended and a desolate thing. But, when a nation casts off God, and is cast ofl" by Him, there is a des peration in its helplessness that can present no par allel. " The law is broken, nature is disobeyed, and the rebellious are outlawed; cast forth and exiled from this world of reason, and order, and peace, and virtue, and fruitful penitence, into the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion, and una vailing sorrow."^ ' Song of the three children, 27. ^ Keble, Christian Year, nineteenth Sun day after Trinity. ' Mr. Burke, Eeflections on the Eevolution in France, iii, 120. Little and Brown, 1839. 20 To admit that tivil government is a divine and sa cred trust, as it is essential and unchanging truth, so is it, for the governors, the true idea. It is true as it confers on them true dignity, invests them w?ith real power, and entitles them to actual confidence. No one has summed this up so briefly and so faithfully, as that great moral master of mankind, the apostle Paul : "he is the minister of God to thee for good.'" Men aro alike, in their mortality, their misery, their selfishness. And yet, there must be governors and governed. The child that played with us at mar bles, the boy that bathed with us at noon, the man whose infirmities, whose necessities, whose errors, whose vices, were known to us as no others but our own could be, succeeds, by his hereditary title, or is called, by popular suffrage, to administer the govern ment, and govern us. Where is his right to that su periority? In what, but in that arbitrary thing, is he our equal? On what grounds shall we defer? To what claim shall we submit? By what obligation shall we obey? Is it his title to succeed his father? But what better was his father ? Is it the suffrao-e of the State ? But who made the State our master ? He might be chosen by a bare majority of one. How is that one lord over us ? There is no end to these unsettling questions. They are the elements of in subordination and discontent. They involve per petual anarchy. They entail an indiscriminate con fusion. They break up the fountains of the great deep of self-will in man ; and they must drown the ' Romans, xiii, 4, 21 universe in tears and blood. But, no! There is a God in heaven. He is the universal Lord. To Him all things, in heaven, on earth, and under the ^arth, do bow and obey. The powers that be are ordained of Him. He putteth down one, and setteth up ano ther. We see His face in them. Their brightness is the shadow of His light. In reverencing them, we reverence Him. In obeying them, we are obedient to Him. "They are God's ministers, attending con tinually upon this very thing.'" We render, there fore, unto God the things which are God's, when we render unto Csesar the things which are Ceesar's. We are subject, not "for wrath," so much, because we fear thetr power, as "for conscience' sake," be cause we own His sovereignty; submitting ourselves "to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake."^ "Considering," says the profoundly philosophic But ler, " that civil government is that part of God's gov ernment over the world which He exercises by the instrumentality of men, wherein that which is op pression, injustice, cruelty, as coming from them,8is under His direction necessary discipline and just punishment; considering that all power is of God, all authority is properly of divine appointment; men's very living under magistracy might naturally have led them to the contemplation of authority in its source and origin, the one supreme authority of Al mighty God; by which He doeth according to His will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabit ants of the earth ; which He now exerts visibly and 1 Romans, xiii, 6. 2 1 Peter, ii, 13. 22 invisibly by diff'erent instruments, in different forms of administration, different methods of discipline and t/uuisiiment; and which He will continue to exert hereafter, not only over mankind, when this mortal life shall be ended, but throughout His universal kingdom; till, by having rendered to all according to their works. He shall have completely executed that just scheme of government which He has already begun to execute in this world, by their hands, whom He has appointed for the present punishment of evil doers, and for the praise of them that do well.'" And this is the true idea for governors, not merely as it conveys, authenticates and executes their power, but as it holds them to the most severe account. They are God's ministers, not masters of mankind. They are God's ministers for good, not for the increase or the exercise of power. They are God's ministers for others' good, and not their own. The lust for lord ship is a natural appetite of man. It seems as if He sought forgetfulness of his own meanness and misery, in making others meaner and more miserable. There cannot be conceived a thing more fearful than the authorized conviction, in a mortal man, that he posses- es arbitrary power. " He have arbitrary power," says Mr. Burke, in one of the finest bursts of his indignant rage, upon the trial of Warren Hastings, "he have ar bitrary power ! My lords, the East India Company have no arbitrary power to give him ; the king has no arbitrary power to give him ; your lordships have not; nor the Commons; nor the whole Legislature. 1 Sermon before the House of Lords, Edinburgh edition, 1883, ii. 359. 23 We have no arbitrary power to give, because arbi trary power is a thing which neither any man can hold, nor any man can give. No man can lawfully govern himself according to his own will ; much less, can one person be governed by the will of another. We are all born in subjection, all born equally, high and low, governors and governed, in subjection to one great, immutable, pre-existent law, prior to all our devices, and prior to all our contrivances, para mount to all our ideas, and all our sensations; ante cedent to our very existence, by which we are knit and connected in the eternal frame of the universe, out of which, we cannot stir. This great law does not arise from our conventions or compacts ; on the contrary, it gives to our conventions and compacts all the force and sanction they can have." "All do minion over man is the effect of the divine disposi tion. It is bound by the eternal laws of Him that gave it, with which no human authority can dis pense; neither he that exercises it, nor even those who are subject to it. And if they were mad enough to make an express contract, that should release their magistrate from his duty, and should declare their lives, liberties, and properties dependent, not upon rules and laws, but his mere capricious will, that covenant will be void. The acceptor of it has not his authority increased, but he has his crime doubled. Therefore, can it be imagined, that he will suffer this great gift of government, the greatest, the best that was ever given by God to mankind, to be the plaything and the sport of the feeble will of a man, who, by a blasphemous, absurd and petulant usurpa- 34 tion, would place his own feeble, contemptible, ri diculous will, in the place of the divine wisdom and justice?'" But, no; it cannot be. All civil govern ment is in the nature of a trust. The Heavenly Fa ther makes provision for His minor children, till He take them to Himself He leaves them here, at school. He leaves them here, to grow and fit for heaven. But He forsakes them. He forgets them not. He leaves them in His world. He superintends them by His providence. He gives them all things richly to enjoy. He appoints trustees and guardians, for their instruc tion and protection. He estabhshes their governors, to be His ministers to them for good. It is a high, a holy, a tremendous trust. It sets them on the throne, with God. They are His vice-roys upon earth. If they are faithful, heaven has nothing that He will not lavish on them, through eternity. If they are faithless, there is no pit in hell too deep and dark for their eternal exile, from all peace, all rest, all joy. Forever mindful, then, they should be of their sacred trust. Forever mindful, that they hold it for God's children upon earth. Forever mindful, that they hold it under most severe accountability to Him. They are to govern by the law. They are to seek no good but theirs who are entrusted to their care; no other glory than His, who put them thus in trust. "Law and arbitrary power," says Mr. Burke, "are in eter nal enmity. Name me a magistrate, and I will name property ; name me power, and I will name protec tion. It is a contradiction in terms ; it is wickedness ' Woiko, vii, 116, Little & Brown, 1839. 5>5 in politics; it is blasphemy in religion, to say that any man can have arbitrary power. In every patent of office, duty i>< included. For what else does a mag istrate exist? To suppose, for power, is an absurdity in idea. Judges arc guarded and governed by the eternal laws of justice, to which we all are subject We may bite our chains, if we will ; but we shall be made to know ourselves, and be taught that man is born to be governed by law : and he that will sub stitute W27(J, in the place of it, is an enemy to God."^ To admit that civil government is a divine and sa- fcred trust, is as much the true idea for the governed, as it can be for the governors. Indeed, the one are -'. ^¦ l\ ,5 '