Talent; and who have not quite forgot, who is the Giver of all good Gifts; I next addrefs myself earnestly entreating them to withdraw their minds, for one moment, from all other purfuits; and to confider their own fituation, and that of their Country and of the surrounding Nations. Where are now the Rank, the Honours, and the Wealth, of France, of Flanders, of Holland, and of Italy? And where must those of Britain fhortly be; if their poffeffors will neither take warning from the fate of others, nor from the Judgments of Heaven, just ready to fall on their own heads? It is yet in their power to fave their Country, and their own Souls; but not a moment must be loft. Let them inftantly quit the Dice Box, the Turf, and the Tavern; every wicked, and every trifling employment; and repair each to his proper Station. Let them reform, firft Themfelves, their Expenses, their Wives and Children, their Servants and Dependents; and then exert all their influence, as Landlords, as Magiftrates, as Friends, and as Neighbours; encouraging and protecting the fober and industrious;, difcouragC ing ing and punishing, with Candour, but with Vigour, the lawless and profligate. Few of thofe, to whom I am now fpeaking, are aware how much mischief they occafion, merely by being in a wrong Place; or how much good they must do, if they would only stay where their Lot has fallen. It was the obfervation of a man of much good fenfe and experience,-" That, if every Gentleman would refide on his Eftate, and every Clergyman on his Living, we should need no other Reformation." Let thofe, then, who fly to Towns and Cities, to public Places, or foreign Countries, in fearch of paltry amufements; or under a falfe pretext, or at beft a miftaken notion, of repairing their fhattered fortunes; no longer think themselves guiltless.Numberless are the ways in which their Country is injured by their abfence: If resident at their Family Seats, their Example, their Influence, their Fortune, every Talent they poffefs, dif penfes Bleffings on all around them. In any other place, they almoft unavoidably do Mifchief, by adding to the number of those, whom the Vices of Cities inevitably corrupt. But But if purer motives cannot prevail, let Fride plead the caufe of Patriotifm. It has been often faid, that an English Country-Gentleman is the First Character in the World and truly, when we view him feated in the Manfion of his Ancestors; furrounded by his Family, his Relations, his Servants, his Workmen, his Tenants, and his Neighbours; all, in their due proportion, partaking of his Hospitality and Benevolence !where fhall we find a more enviable object? But merely shift the scene, and place him in a dirty Lodging, in one of the long and gloomy streets of the Metropolis: where now are his Honours, his Influence, his Refpectability?-All vanished and gone! He becomes at once a mere Cypher, without ufe or value: his next neighbour knows him not and that Income, which before procured him and others fo much folid and fubftantial Comfort, will barely fupply what are deemed the neceffary Ornaments and Amusements of Life. Meantime, his Servants are tainted with the Vices of the Town; and it is. well if the Morals, even of his Wife and Daughters, are preferved uninjured :-their Health cer - tainly is not. Then the Sea is ordered: a paltry lodging at Brighton fucceeds a paltry lodging in London: his Manfion-house is deferted in Summer as well as Winter: habits of Indolence are acquired perhaps, habits of a worfe kind, if worfe can be and he (who was the Support and Qrnament of a confiderable District; the fond Parent; the indulgent Landlord; the hofpitable Neighbour; the liberal Benefactor; the respected Magiftrate;) finks into useless Infignificance and Contempt! Abandoned by their Owners, our Villages: might still have some hope left, if they were not alfo abandoned by their Paftors ;-by thofe, whose bounden Duty it is to take care of them; and whose breach of duty has this aggravation, that not by Defcent (as in the former cafe), but by their own folemn Acceptance, this duty attaches. Far be it from me to speak difrefpectfully of the Clergy: I reverence their facred Office I look up to them, as the most pious, the most learned, and the most useful Class of all. As Individuals, they muft of course vary; and while fome are ably and diligently perform ing ing their duty, others alas! notoriously neglect their's. It has too long been the falfe and fhallow policy of irreligious and worldly-minded Minifters, to deprive the Clergy of the exercise of thofe Rights, which they received not from Man; and which Man, therefore, cannot take from them. It seems almost forgotten, in thefe days of novelty, when every thing ancient and venerable is defpifed; that Chriftians are a regular Society, formed by CHRIST himself, under Rulers and Officers appointed by him, with authority to appoint others to fucceed them: and thus our prefent Bishops and Clergy derive their Authority by regular Succeffion from HIM to whom all Power was given, and who, if he had seen fit, could have invested them with temporal Authority alfo; but this he did not. On the contrary, HE and His Apoftles every where, in the moft explicit terms, enjoin. all Chriftians to fubmit like others to their lawful Governors. In Tem_ poral Matters, therefore, our Bishops and Clergy poffefs only fuch Powers as are given them by the Laws of this Land: but, in all Spiritual Con |