that have often enchanted my ears and warmed my heart, will be incessantly employed in the praise of our common Lord. In hope of this immortal joy, you may well be patient in your hardships, and wait till your change comes.

And now may the peace of God, that passeth all understanding, dwell richly in all your hearts. Amen.

THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE, &c.

There are four principles contended for, as the foundation of civil government, viz., birth, property, grace, and compact. The first of these is practised upon in all hereditary monarchies, where it is believed that the son of a monarch is entitled to dominion upon the decease of his father, whether he be a wise man or a fool. The second principle is built upon in all aristocratical governments, where the rich landholders have the sole rule of all their tenants, and make laws at pleasure which are binding upon all. The third principle is adopted by those kingdoms and states that require a religious test to qualify an officer of state, proscribing all non-con. formists from civil and religious liberty. This was the error of Constantine's government, who first established the Christian religion by law, and then proscribed the Pagans, and banished the Arian heretics. This error also filled the heads of the Anabaptists, in Germany, who were re-sprinklers. They supposed that none had a right to rule but gracious men. The same error prevails in the See of Rome, where his holiness exalts himself above all who are called gods, (i. e., kings and rulers,) and where no Protestant heretic is allowed the liberty of a citizen. This principle is also pleaded for in the Ottoman empire, where it is death to call in question the divinity of Mahomet, or the authenticity of the Alcoran.

The same evil has entwined itself into the British form of government, where, in the state establishment of the church of England, no man is eligible to any office, civil or military, without he subscribes to the thirty-nine articles and book of common prayer; and even then, upon receiving a commission for the army, the law obliges him to receive the sacrament of the Lord's supper, and no non-conformist is allowed the liberty of his conscience without he subscribes to all the thirty-nine articles but about four. And when that is done, his purse-strings are drawn by others to pay preachers in whom he puts no confidence, and whom he never hears.

This was the case in several of the southern states, until the revolution, in which the church of England was established.

The fourth principle, (compact,) is adopted in the American states, as the basis of civil government. This foundation appears to be a just one, by the following investigation.

Suppose a man to remove to a desolate island, and take a peaceable possession of it, without injuring any, so that he should be the honest inheritor of the isle. So long as he is alone, he is the absolute monarch of the place, and his own will is his law, which law is as often altered or repealed as his will changes. In process of time, from this man's loins ten sons are grown to manhood, and possess property. So long as they are all good