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SERMON XXIV.

PROVERBS, CHAP. XXIX. VERSE 2.

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice.

THAT the institutions of government owe their original, like other human actions, to the desire of happiness, is not to be denied; nor is it less generally allowed, that they have been perverted to very different ends from those which they were intended to promote. This is a truth which it would be very superfluous to prove by authorities or illustrate by examples. Every page of history, whether sacred or profane, will furnish us abundantly with instances of rulers that have deviated from justice, and subjects that have forgotten their allegiance; of nations ruined by the tyranny of governors, and of governors overborne by the madness of the populace. Instead of a concurrence between governor and subjects for their mutual advantage, they seem to have considered each other, not as allies or friends, to be aided or supported, but as enemies, whose prosperity was inconsistent with their own, and who were therefore to be subdued by open force, or subjected by secret stratagems.

Thus have slavery and licentiousness succeeded one another, and anarchy and despotic power alternately prevailed. Virtue has, at one time, stood

exposed to the punishments of vice; and vice, at another time, enjoyed the security and privileges of virtue. Nor have communities suffered more, when they were exposed to the passions and caprices of one man, however cruel, ambitious, or insolent, than when all restraint has been taken off the actions of men by public confusions, and every one left at full liberty to indulge his own desires, and comply, without fear of punishment, with his wildest imaginations.

Man is, for the most part, equally unhappy, when subjected, without redress, to the passions of another, or left, without control, to the dominion of his own. This every man, however unwilling he may be to own it of himself, will very readily acknowledge of his neighbour. No man knows any one, except himself, whom he judges fit to be set free from the coercion of laws, and to be abandoned entirely to his own choice. By this consideration have all civilized nations been induced to the enactions of penal laws, laws by which every man's danger becomes every man's safety, and by which, though all are restrained, yet all are benefitted.

Government is therefore necessary, in the opinion of every one, to the safety of particular men and the happiness of society; and it may be considered as a maxim universally admitted, that the people cannot rejoice, except " the righteous are in authority;" that no public prosperity or private quiet can be hoped for, but from the justice and wisdom of those, to whom the administration of affairs and the execution of the laws is committed: for corrupt governments operate with equal force and

efficacy to the destruction of a people, as good governments to their preservation.

But that authority may never swell into tyranny or languish into supineness, and that subjection may never degenerate into slavery, nor freedom kindle into rebellion, it may be proper, both for those who are entrusted with power, and those from whom obedience is required, to consider,

First, How much it is the duty of those in authority to promote the happiness of the people. Secondly, By what means the happiness of the people may be most effectually promoted.

Thirdly, How the people are to assist and further the endeavours of their governors.

First, How much it is the duty of those in authority to promote the happiness of the people.

If it be true in general that no man is born merely for his own sake, to consult his own advantage or pleasure, unconnected with the good of others; it is yet more evidently true of those who are exalted into high rank, dignified with honours, and vested with authority. Their superiority is not to be considered as a sanction for laziness or a privilege for vice. They are not to conceive that their passions are to be allowed a wider range, or their appetites set more free from subjection to reason, than those of others. They are not to consult their own glory at the expense of the lives of others; or to gratify their avarice, by plundering those whom diligence and labour have entitled to affluence. They are not to conceive that power gives a right to oppress, and to punish those who

murmur at oppression. They are to look upon their power and their greatness, as instruments placed in their hands to be employed for the public advantage. They are to remember they are placed upon an eminence, that their examples may be more conspicuous; and that therefore they must take care, lest they teach those vices which they ought to suppress. They must reflect, that it is their duty to secure property from the attempts of rapine and robbery; and that those whom they protect will be very little benefitted by their care, if what they rescue from others they take away themselves.

It appears from those struggles for dominion which have filled the world with war, bloodshed, and desolation, and have torn in pieces almost all the states and kingdoms of the earth, and from those daily contests for subordinate authority which disturb the quiet of smaller societies, that there is somewhat in power more pleasing than in any other enjoyment; and, consequently, to bestow upon man the happiness of ruling others, is to bestow upon him the greatest benefit he is capable of receiving. Nothing then can equal the obligation of governors to the people, and nothing but the most flagrant ingratitude can make them careless of the interests, or unconcerned at the misfortunes, of those to whom they owe that, for which no danger has been thought too dreadful to be encountered, no labour too tedious to be undergone, and no crime too horrible to be committed.

Gratitude is a species of justice. He that requites a benefit may be said, in some sense, to pay

a debt; and, of course, he that forgets favours received, may be accused of neglecting to pay what he cannot be denied to owe. But this is not the only sense in which justice may be said to require from a governor an attention to the wants and petitions of the people. He that engages in the management of public business, takes a trust upon him which it was in his power to decline, and which he is therefore bound to discharge with diligence and fidelity; a trust which is of the highest honour, because it is of the greatest difficulty and importance; a trust which includes not only the care of the property, but of the morals of the people.

It is with the justest reason that large revenues, pompous titles, and all that contributes to the happiness of life, are annexed to these high offices; for what reward can be too great for him, to whom multitudes are indebted for the secure enjoyment of their possessions? for him, whose authority checks the progress of vice, and assists the advancement of virtue, restrains the violence of the oppressor, and asserts the cause of the injured? These are, doubtless, merits above the common rate; merits which can hardly be too loudly celebrated or too liberally rewarded.

But it is always to be observed, that he only deserves the recompense who performs the work for which it is proposed; and that he who wears the honours, and receives the revenues, of an exalted station, without attending to the duties of his post, is, in a very high degree, criminal, both in the eye of God and man.

It is, therefore, the certain and apparent du ty of