hath got poffeffion of them. They erect themselves into Controllers of the conduct of their Governors; they prefcribe laws to the Legislature; and rife in tumults against the fentence of public Juftice. In profperity, they are infolent; in adversity, outrageous. A People turbulent and servile; mutinous and corrupt; impatient in want; improvident in abundance; and equally unawed by the uplifted hand of Heaven and the Magistrate.

That Parfimony and fimplicity of manners, which had long fupported their station in ease and credit, are now loft in the diftreffes attending luxury and riot. Hence, mad factions, and criminal affociations, which shake, and threaten to overturn, the very foundations of Society.

And now, wherewith fhall this unfavoury Body be falted? They are ready to tell you, with that air of Sovereignty which they have affumed By their large and extenfive Commerce; that fpring-tide of Riches; which they believe (if they believe in any thing) will set the shattered Veffel

of the Commonwealth, now ftranded by these wretched Pilots, once again on float.

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But this gilded pageant will only add to our disorders. For a flow of wealth, which, regulated by the effential qualities of a virtuous People, would have fet all to rights, will ferve only to extend the luxury, to encourage the diffipation, and to enflame the infolence and riot, of a lawless crew of mifcreants.

II. The MINISTERS OF RELIGION acquire their honoured character from their LOVE OF TRUTH, manifefted in the cultivation of GOOD LETTERS. And none have furpaffed the English clergy in the glorious exercise of these effential qualities. They rofe to that diftinction, and, indeed, they could rife no otherwife, by the mutual aid which thofe two qualities imparted to one another.

Now if ever the Salt of this facred order should become vapid (which Heaven avert!) by a coldness for Truth and an indifference. for Letters, one may easily guess what contrivances will be employed, and to how

little purpose, to preserve appearances, wher the virtue and efficacy of things are loft.

An affected MODERATION will try to soften, when it cannot warm, that rigid coldness; and a blush of MODESTY will be affumed to animate that lifeless indifference. But these painted virtues will not bear the weather this moderation will fade, and betray the pallid hue of IGNORANCE; and this modefty foon appear to be only the varnifh of SCEPTICISM.

Now though counterfeits do, in the very act, bear teftimony to the excellence of the genuine qualities they ufurp (and we know that MODESTY commonly attends, and always adds a luftre to Truth; and MODERATION best recommends the Teachers of it to the world); yet counterfeits can never fupply the place of thofe Virtues they have difpoffeffed.

III. MINISTERS OF STATE, next to Minifters of Religion, deferve our highest reverence. Their Salt, or effential qualities, äre WISDOM and GOOD FAITH. On these the fuccefs as well as juftice of public meafures

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measures depend. These make them beloved at home, and confided in abroad. have been thofe Pilots of the Commonwealth, who, from time to time, have fafely fteered the public veffel through all those dangers to which the ftormy and tempestuous nature of our Free Constitution perpetually expose it.

Now whenever it shall happen, that this Minifterial Salt fhall have loft its favour, is become infipid or corrupt, no expedients (though EXPEDIENTS be the Statesman's Afylum) will afford us its Virtue. Yet CUNNING and CIRCUMVENTION have been fo long employed to hold the place of Wifdom and good Faith, that it, at length, became a question, which of these two kinds was the native and genuine Salt of the Politician; though the History of Mankind had amply explained the difference; and long experience had fo fully convinced the Statefman himself, of the small use of cunning and circumvention in the conduct of public affairs, that he had learned to turn them, with more fuccefs, for the advancement of his own; in evading the force of

that opposition he was unable to withstand and in engroffing more power than he knew how to use.

IV. But now, from the partial and subordinate stations in Society, let us come to the whole Community itself; and see what is the Salt, and what are the effential qualities of this vaft Body, this Leviathan, of whom it is faid-upon Earth there is not his like*, in whofe parts and power and comely proportion + (to use the language of the facred Writer) are contained two Societies, the civil and the religious: to each of which, every individual, in a different capacity, belongs. The effential quality of the civil, is the love of man, manifested by the service of the Public: the effential quality of the religious, is the love of God, manifested in the practice of virtue and piety.

1. For, in the first part, individuals affociating to obtain those worldly bleffings which civil policy only can beftow, the genuine and most natural concern of each

* Job, xli. 33.

↑ Ver. 12.

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