cognize as its fupreme head on earth! How important is it, that the Prince, charged with fuch an unexampled trust, fhould feel its weight, fhould understand its grand peculiarities, and be habitually im preffed with his own unparalleled refponfibility. To mifemploy, in any inftance, the prerogative which this trust conveys, is to leffen the stability, and counteract the ufefulness of the fairest and most beneficial of all the vifible fabricks, erected in this lower world! But what an account would that Prince, or that minister have to render, who fhould fyftematically debase this little lefs than divine inftitution, by deliberately confulting, not how the Church of England may be kept high in public opinion, influential on public morals, venerable through the meek yet manly wisdom, the unaffected yet unblemished purity, the energetic yet liberal zeal of its clergy;-but, how it may be made fubfervient to the trivial and tem

porary interefts of the prevalent party, and the paffing hour?

Befides

Besides the distribution of dignities, and the great indirect influence which this affords the Prince, in the difpofal of a vast body of preferment; his wifdom and tenderness of confcience will be manifefted alfo in the appointment of the chancellor, whofe church patronage is immense. And in the dif charge of that moft important truft, the appointment of the highest dignitaries, the monarch will not forget, that his refponfi bility is proportionably the more awful, be cause the exercise of his power is lefs likely to be controlled, and his judgment to be thwarted, than may often happen in the cafe of his political fervants.

Nor will it, it is prefumed, be deemed impertinent to remark, that the just adminiftration of this peculiar power may be reasonably expected as much, we had almost faid even more, from a female, than from a monarch of the other fex. The bishops chofen by those three judicious Queens, Elizabeth, Mary, and Caroline, were gene rally remarkable for their piety and learn

ing. And let not the writer be fufpected of flattering either the Queen or the Bishop by obferving, that among the wisdom and abilities which now adorn the bench, a living prelate high in dignity, in talents, and in Christian virtues, is faid to have owed his fituation to the difcerning piety of her present Majesty.

What an ancient Canon, cited by the judicious Hooker, suggests to bishops on the fubject of preferment, is equally applicable to Kings. It exprefsly forbiddeth them to be led by human affection in bestowing the things of God.

The Ecclefiaftical Polity.

VOL. II.

CHAP.

CHAP. XXXVIII.

Superintendence of Providence manifefted in the Local Circumftances, and in the Civil and Religious Hiftory of England.

AMONG the various fubjects on which the mind of the royal pupil fhould be exercised, there is none more appropriate, than that which might, perhaps, be moft fitly denominated, the providential history of England. That it has not hitherto engaged attention, in any degree fuitable to its importance, is much more an apology for its being, in the prefent inftance, fpecially adverted to, than a reafon for its being any longer neglected.

The marks of divine interference, in the general arrangement of states and empires, are rendered fo luminous by the rays which Scripture prophecy has fhed upon them, as to strike every mind, which is at once at tentive and candid, with a force not to be refifted.

refifted. But, while this indifputable truth leads us neceffarily to infer, that a like fuperintendence to that which is over the whole, acts likewife refpecting all the feparate parts; the actual tracing this fu perintendence, in the occurrences of particular nations, muft, in general, be matter of difficulty and doubt, as that light of prophecy, which falls fo brightly on the central dome of the temple, cannot reafonably be hoped for, when we turn into the lateral receffes...

There are inftances, however, in which God's providential works fhine fo clearly "by their own radiant light," as to demonftrate the hand which fafhioned, and the fkill which arranged them. And though others are of a more doubtful nature; yet, when the attainments of any one particular nation become matter of general influence, fo that what was, at firft, the fruit of merely local labour, or the effect of a peculiar combination of local circumftances, becomes, from its obvious utility, or intrinfic excel