It yet remains that governors cooperate with their laws by their own examples, and that as, by their height of place, they are always conspicuous, they exhibit to those eyes which are turned upon them" the beauty of holiness."

The present state of the world, however, affords us little hope that virtue can, by any government, be so strongly impressed, or so widely diffused, as to supersede the necessity of suppressing wickedness. In the most diligent cultivation of the happiest soil, weeds will sometimes appear among fruits and flowers; and all that vigilance and labour can do is to check them as they rise. However virtue may be encouraged or rewarded, it can never appear to all minds the shortest means of present good. There will always be those who would rather grow rich by fraud than by diligence, and who will provide for vicious pleasures by violence rather than by labour. Against the attempts and artifices of such men, whence have simplicity and innocence their defence and security? Whence but from the lex armata, the vindictive law, that stands forth the champion of the weak and the protectress of the innocent.

Nor is quiet and security in danger only from corrupt minds; for honest and beneficent men might often, were not the law to interpose, disturb society, and fill the country with violence. Two men, both of them wise, and both of them virtuous, may lay claim to the same possession, with pretensions, to the world specious, in their own thoughts just. Such disputes can be terminated only by force or law. Of force, it is apparent that the exertion of it is an immediate evil, and that pre

valence at last will be no proof of justice. Of the law, the means are gentle and inoffensive, and the conclusion not only the confirmation of property, but the establishment of right. For this power of the law virtue itself will leave employment; for though crimes would hardly be committed but by predominance of passion, yet litigation must always subsist while there is difference of opinion. We can hope but faintly for the time when all men shall be honest; but the time seems still more remote in which all men shall be wise: and until we may be able to settle all claims for ourselves, let us rejoice that there is law to adjust them for us.

The care, however, of the best governor may be frustrated by disobedience and perverseness; and the best laws may strive in vain against radicated wickedness.

It is therefore fit to consider,

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

As all government is power exerted by few upon many, it is apparent that nations cannot be governed but by their own consent. The first duty, therefore, of subjects is obedience to the laws; such obedience as is the effect, not of compulsion, but of reverence; such as arises from a conviction of the instability of human virtue, and of the necessity of some coercive power, which may restrain the exorbitancies of passion, and check the career of natural desires.

No man thinks laws unnecessary for others; and no man, if he considers his own inherent frailty, can justly think them unnecessary for himself. The

wisest man is not always wise; and the best man is not always good. We all sometimes want the admonition of law, as supplemental to the dictates of reason and the suggestions of conscience: and he that encourages irreverence in himself or others, to public institutions, weakens all the human securities of peace and all the corroborations of virtue.

That the proper influence of government may be preserved, and that the liberty which a just distribution of power naturally supports may not operate to its destruction, it is always to be remem bered, that even the errors and deficiencies of authority must be treated with respect. All institutions are defective by their nature, and all rulers have their imperfections like other men: but, as not every failing makes a bad man, so not every error makes a bad government; and he that considers how few can properly adjust their own houses, will not wonder that into the multiplicity of national affairs deception or negligence should sometimes find their way. It is likewise necessary to remember, that as government is difficult to be administered, it is difficult to be understood; and that where very few have capacity to judge, very few have a right to censure.

The happiness of a nation must arise from the combined endeavours of governors and subjects. The duties of governing can be the lot of few, but all of us have the duties of subjects to perform; and every man ought to incite in himself and in his neighbour, that obedience to the laws, and that respect to the chief magistrate, which may secure and promote concord and quiet. Of this, as of all

other virtues, the true basis is religion. The laws will be easily obeyed by him who adds to human sanctions the obligations of conscience; and he will not easily be disposed to censure his superiors, whom religion has made acquainted with his own failings.

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SERMON XXV.

Written by Dr. Johnson for the Funeral of his Wife.

JOHN, CHAP. XI. verse 25, 26 (foRMER PART.)

Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live;

And whosoever liveth, and believeth in me, shall never die.

To afford adequate consolations to the last hour, to cheer the gloomy passage through the valley of the shadow of death, and to ease that anxiety to which beings prescient of their own dissolution, and conscious of their own danger, must be necessarily exposed, is the privilege only of revealed religion. All those to whom the supernatural light of heavenly doctrine has never been imparted, however formidable for power or illustrious for wisdom, have wanted that knowledge of their future state, which alone can give comfort to misery or security to enjoyment; and have been forced to rush forwards to the grave through the darkness of ignorance; or, if they happened to be more refined and inquisitive, to solace their passage with the fallacious and uncertain glimmer of philosophy.