for, or a tacit declaration of war. But He that sitteth in heaven, as we may humbly hope, laughs them to scorn; and, as he once defeated the counsel of Ahithophel, and came down to confound the language of those aspiring projectors, who would fain have built a tower, the top of which should reach even to heaven; so we trust (whatever dark providences may intervene) that he will in the end frustrate the devices of our adversary's most subtle politicians, and speak confusion to all their projects, who, by aiming at universal monarchy, are more than attempting to erect a second Babel.

I have heard, or read somewhere of a Turkish general, who, being called to engage with a christian army that had broken through the most solemn ties, stood up at the head of his troops, and then drawing out the treaty which they had broken out of his bosom, and holding it up in the air, thus addressed the throne of heaven: "O Almighty Being, if thou art, as they say thou art, these christians' God, thou lovest what is right, and hatest perfidy; look down, therefore, and behold this treaty which they have broken, and as thou canst not favor what is wrong, render their arms, O God, successless, and make mine victorious." He ended; immediately the sword was drawn. The two parties vigorously engaged, and the perfidious christians were beaten off the field. Thus may our Protestant generals, or at least their chaplains, deal with our enemy's forces, in respect to the treaty of Aix la Chapelle. They, not we, have broken it. They, not we, have been the aggressors: and therefore, notwithstanding we are looked upon as heretics, and they fight under the banner of one who styles himself His Most Christian Majesty; a righteous God, we trust, in answer to prayer, will humble France, and make the British arms, both by sea and land, more than conquerors through his love. It is true, (and God knows, with grief of heart I speak it,) praying is become too unfashionable amongst our people in general, and among our military men in particular; but wherein either the piety, and consequently true policy, of such a procedure consists, I believe will be very difficult to determine. If we have recourse to Mr. Rollin's Ancient History, I believe we shall find that neither Darius, Cyrus, Alexander, or indeed scarce any of the Egyptian, Grecian, Persian, or Roman generals, ever undertook any hazardous enterprise, without making some public acknowledgment of a deity. And if we consult that history of histories, that too much neglected book, (as Sir Richard Steele expresses himself,) emphatically called the Scriptures, we may always remark that those heroic worthies, who by faith subdued kingdoms, and put to flight the armies of the aliens, were men of prayer, as well as men

of valor. And if our researches descend forwards down to our own annals, we shall soon be satisfied, that the British arms were never more formidable, than when our soldiers went forth in the strength of the Lord, and with a Bible in the one hand, and a sword in the other, cheerfully fought under his banner, who hath condescended to style himself a Man of War.

Such an appellation as this, methinks, may sufficiently justify the lawfulness of bearing arms, and drawing the sword in defense of our civil and religious liberties. For if God himself is pleased to style himself a Man of War, surely in a just and righteous cause, (such as the British war at present is,) we may as lawfully draw our swords, in order to defend ourselves against our common and public enemy, as a civil magistrate may sit on a bench, and condemn a public robber to death. Our excellent reformers, sensible of this, in the thirty-second article of our church, after having declared "that the laws of the realm may punish christian men with death for heinous offenses;" immediately subjoins, "that it is lawful for christian men, at the commandment of the magistrate, to wear weapons and serve in wars." And therefore, what Bishop Saunderson says of study, may be likewise said of fighting: "Fighting without prayer, is atheism; and prayer without fighting is presumption." And I would be the more particular on this point, because through a fatal scrupulosity against bearing arms, even in a defensive war, his majesty hath been, and is not yet out of danger of losing that large, extensive, and that lately most flourishing province of Pennsylvania, the very center and garden of all North America. But whilst I see such very scrupulous persons grasping at every degree of worldly power, and by all the arts of worldly policy, laboring to monopolize and retain in their own hands all parts both of the legislative and executive branches of civil government; to speak in the mildest terms, we may honestly affirm, that they certainly act a most inconsistent, and if not prevented here at home, to thousands of their neighbors, I fear a fatal part. For, say what we will to the contrary, if we search to the bottom of things, we may soon be convinced, that civil magistracy and defensive war must stand or fall together. Both are built upon the same basis; and there cannot be so much as one single argument urged to establish the one, which doth not at the same time corroborate and confirm the other.

Far be it from me, who profess myself a disciple and minister of the Prince of Peace, to sound a trumpet for war: but when the trumpet is already sounded by a perfidious enemy, and our king, our country, our civil and religious liberties are all, as it were, lying at stake, did we not at such a season lend

our purses, our tongues, our arms, as well as our prayers, in defense of them, should we not justly incur that curse which an inspired Deborah, when under the immediate influence of the Holy Spirit, once uttered, "Curse ye, Meroz, curse ye bitterly the inhabitants thereof, because they came not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty!" Known unto God, and God alone, are all our hearts. Daily repeated experience convinceth us, that the greatest talkers are not always the greatest doers. How therefore any of us may behave when put to the trial, the trial itself can only prove. But, for my own part, whatever my future conduct may be, (and I know it will be downright cowardly, if left to myself,) yet, upon the maturest deliberation, I am at present so fully convinced of the justice of the British cause, that supposing it should be said of me, as it is of Zuinglius, cecidit in præleo; he fell in battle. I hope, if whilst the silver cords of life are loosing, I shall be attended by any who may be bewailing mine, as the friends of Zuinglius did his misfortune, I should like him to cry out, Ecquid hoc infortunii? Is this a misfortune? And not only so, but also with my expiring breath add, as he did, O faustum infortunium! O happy misfortune! For, surely, it is far more preferable to die, though by a popish sword, and be carried from the din and noise of war by angels into Abraham's bosom, than to be suffered to survive only to drag on a wearisome life, and to be a mournful spectator, and daily bewailer of one's country's ruin.

Awful and tremendous are the judgments that have lately been abroad. Twice hath the earth, on which this great metropolis stands, unable, as it were, any longer to sustain the weight of its inhabitant's sins, been made to tremble and totter under us. Since that, how amazingly hath the shock been extended! Africa, (nor hath America itself been exempted,) hath in a most destructive manner felt its dire effects. And what dreadful consumption it hath made in various parts of Spain, and, in a more especial manner, at Lisbon, the metropolis of Portugal, is beyond conception, and beyond the power of the most masterly pen to describe. It is to be questioned, whether the like hath ever been heard of since the deluge. Surely nothing was wanting to figure out and realize to that distressed people the horror of the last day, but the sound of the trump, and the actual appearance of the great Judge of quick and dead. But awful and tremendous as such phenomena of nature may be, yet, if we consider the consequences of things, were even the like judgment (which may God avert) to befall us, it would be but a small one, in comparison of our hearing that a French army, accompanied with a popish pretender, and

thousands of Romish priests, was suffered to invade, subdue, and destroy the bodies and substance, and, as the necessary consequences of both these, to blind, deceive, and tyrannize over the souls and consciences of the people belonging to this happy isle.

God forbid, that I should give flattering titles to any; for in so doing, I should provoke him to take away my soul. But surely we must have eyes that see not, and ears that hear not, as well as hearts that do not understand, if we do not know, and see, and feel, that in respect to our civil and religious liberties, we are undoubtedly the freest people under heaven. And I dare appeal to the most ungrateful and malicious malcontent, to produce any era in the British annals, wherein we have enjoyed such a continued series of civil and religious liberty, as we have been favored with for these twenty-eight years last past, under the mild and gentle administration of our dread and rightful sovereign king George. Surely he hath been a nursing father to people of all denominations; and however he may be denied it, yet he may, without a compliment, justly claim from the present, as well as future ages, the deserved title of George the Great. But notwithstanding this, such is the degeneracy of human nature, it must necessarily be expected, that in a nation grown wanton with liberty like ours, there is a great multitude of unhappy persons, who being men of lax principles, loose lives, and broken fortunes, may, and will be so abandoned, as to break through all restraints of gratitude, loyalty, and religion, and, like Cataline and his wicked confederates, be fond of joining in any change of government, whereby they may entertain the most distant prospect of bettering their fortunes, and gratifying their ambition, though it be at the expense of their country's blood. This hath been, and no doubt still continues to be, the fate of all civil governments in the world, and consequently is no more than what we may expect, in times of tumult and danger, will be acted over again in our own land by men of such corrupt minds. But, that any serious and judicious, much less religious and devout person, should be so stupid to all principles of self-interest, and so dead even to all maxims of common sense, as to prefer a French to an English government; or a popish pretender, born, nursed, and bred up in all the arbitrary and destructive principles of the court and church of Rome, to the present Protestant succession settled in the illustrious line of Hanover, must be imputed to nothing else but an awful infatuation.

Hear ye, (if there be any into whose hands this address may fall, that are desirous of such a change,) not to dwell entirely upon the many innumerable, civil, or temporal losses we should

sustain. Hear ye, I say, the mild and gentle language of one of his most christian majesty's late declarations concerning religion.

"Being informed, that there have sprung up, and still are springing up daily, in our realm, a great number of preachers, whose sole business is to stir up the people to rebellion, and to dissuade them from the practice of the Roman Catholic and apostolic religion; we do command that all preachers who shall call assemblies, preach in them, or discharge any other function, be put to death; the punishment appointed by the declaration in July, 1686, for the minister of the pretended reformed religion, which we would not, for the future have any one esteem a mere threatening, which will not be put in execution. We do likewise forbid our subjects to receive the said ministers or preachers, to conceal, aid, or assist them, or have, directly or indirectly, any intercourse or correspondence with them. We farther enjoin, on all those who shall know any of the said preachers, to inform against them to the officers of the respective places; the whole under pain, in case of trespass, of being condemned to the galleys for life, if men; and if women, of being shorn, and shut up the remainder of their days in such places as our judges shall think expedient; and whether they be men or women, under pain of confiscation."

After perusing this, read, read, I beseech you, the shocking accounts of the horrid butcheries and cruel murders, committed on the bodies of many of our fellow subjects in America, by the hands of savage Indians, instigated thereto by more than savage popish priests.* And if this be the beginning, what may we suppose the end will be, should a French power, or popish pretender, be permitted to subdue either us or them. Speak, Smithfield, speak, and by thy dumb, but very persuasive oratory, declare to all that pass by and over thee, how many English Protestant martyrs thou hast seen burnt to death in the reign of a cruel popish queen, to whom the present pretender to the British throne, at least claims a kind of a distant kindred!

Speak, Ireland, speak, and tell if thou canst, how thousands, and tens of thousands of innocent unprovoking Protestants were massacred in cold blood, by the hands of cruel Papists, within thy borders, about a century ago. Nay, speak, Paris, speak, (for though popish, on this occasion we will admit thy evidence,) and say, how many thousands of Protestants were once slaughtered, on purpose, as it were, to be served up as a bloody dessert, to grace the solemnity of a marriage feast. But

* See a pamphlet entitled, "A brief view of the conduct of Pennsylvania, for the year 1755."