My brethren -- I call you by this title because we are all truly brethren; not, as some of the heathens imagined, of different races, sprung, some of them from the earth, and others deriving their origin from the gods; but being all descended from one earthly father, namely Adam, and all created by one heavenly father, namely the one only God of the Universe. I have called these Sermons. A Sermon is a discourse. Your cattle cannot discourse; they like each other's company, they herd together, they have a variety of tones by which they can make each other sensible when they are pleased, angry, or in pain, but they cannot discourse. To discourse is to communicate ideas, that is thoughts, to compare -- to reason upon them. This is the privilege of man. It is by this faculty that he is above the brutes, and it is to persuade you to use this faculty that these discourses are chiefly written. Many seem to think that poor people, or those who work to maintain themselves, have not this faculty and that you ought to be led and governed like the brutes, without knowing why or how. But this is worse than sinking you from your station, it is degrading you from your species. Judgment depends upon good sense and information. Good sense is born with us, and is found in every rank of life, in one as much as another. There are many in the highest classes who are deficient in it, and who for that reason are led, and often imposed upon by others; and many in the lowest employments, who from possessing a remarkable share of it, are consulted and looked up to by those about them. This you cannot but have observed. With regard to information, the case is different; that is not given by nature; and if a man is destitute of it, certainly he cannot judge of those things in which he wants it. But there is none of you so low as that he may not acquire a competent degree of information, even in matters of general importance, if he earnestly desire and seek for it. You can all of you get information enough concerning your respective trades and handicrafts, and yet many of them are very difficult and full of mystery to those who have never taken the pains to enquire into their principles. The clay that is wrought into shape under the hands of the potter, seems to the stander-by to be swelled, and rounded, and touched into form, as it were by enchantment. The dextrous throwing of the shuttle, and the web of cloth that grows beneath the fingers of the weaver, is gazed at with admiration by the fine gentleman or fine lady, who saunter through your busy manufactories, and they see colours mingle, and flowers and figures start into the work, without being able to comprehend how they are produced there. Yet it is not because their capacity is not equal to such knowledge, for you comprehend these things, because you think it your duty and interest so to do, and you have taken pains to learn them. The principles of Government, which is one of the noblest subjects for the understanding of man to employ itself about, and which I now wish to recommend to your attention, are not more difficult than the principles of the arts by which you get your bread; you may certainly understand them if you think it worth you while to take the pains.

But many people will tell you, you have nothing to do with Government; that you are like sheep, who ought to follow the shepherd; like the feet and hands, which ought to obey the head without having yourselves any choice or will in the business. You may desire these people to look at a sheep, and then at a shepherd; to examine the feet and hands, and then the head, and they will find that the one is by Nature formed quite differently from the other. You cannot take a sheep from the flock, and by giving him a crook, and putting on him a certain garment, turn him into a shepherd. You perceive at once, on looking at the feet and hands, that they are designed for different purposes from the head. In all these instances, the intention of nature is written in such plain and forcible characters, that no one can mistake it. If, therefore, you see any men born amongst you as different from yourselves as you are from sheep, and as much superior, you may safely take it for granted that it is the will of Heaven that you should obey them, but as no one will pretend that there are any such men, the son of a king being born into the world the same naked, helpless, ignorant creature that your own children are, it will be proper to enquire why some men are set over and govern other men. And as to what these people say with regard to your having nothing to do with Government, I will tell you what Government is, and then you will judge whether you have any thing to do with it or no.

Government is the art of managing the affairs of a community. Our community consists of nearly twelve millions, of whom I suppose about nine millions maintain themselves by some kind of manual labour. If, therefore, you of the lower classes have nothing to do with Government, three millions are allowed to manage as they please the affairs of nine millions. Government is not the art of managing the affairs of the moon, but your own affairs. It is not true therefore that you have nothing to do with it. Ask those who tell you that Government is nothing to you, whether it is nothing to you how much of your wages and hard earnings are taken from you in taxes -- how much of your corn you may put into your own barns, and how much you must put into the barns of other people -- for what things you may be put in prison, and for what things your life may be taken away -- by what means you may obtain redress if you have suffered wrong from any one -- to which of your children your little property will go after you are dead, or whether to any of them? -- on what occasions you may be obliged to go into other countries to fight and kill people whom you never quarrelled with, or perhaps to be killed yourselves. I think you will hardly say, that these things are nothing to you; yet all these things belong to Government, and are determined by it. You may fairly suspect of those who give you such advice, that Government is a great deal to them, and that they find it very convenient to manage your affairs; but look around you and you will easily see that no one's affairs in any business whatever are well managed, except he himself has some knowledge and care about them.

Some are pleased to say, that if you understand Government, you will not obey it. I should rather think the contrary; and that finding, upon examination, Government to be a noble art, an excellent contrivance, an invention to secure peace and order and plenty in a kingdom; to refrain bad men and protect good; not a plot and conspiracy against you, but a plot for your welfare and happiness formed by wise and honest men, who have watched while you slept, and been careful for you before you could be careful for yourselves -- finding this, I say of Government, and good Government is this, you will love and revere it almost beyond any thing else, and be ready to lay down your lives to preserve it to you families. In bad Governments, such as Turkey, Government is a plot against the people, and therefore in all probability they will not obey it when once they come to find out the plot; but no one, I hope, will presume to say it is so in this kingdom. That which is good is more loved the more it is known and studied. The bees have reason to be thankful to the man who invented glass hives, because now that we can see the ingenuity of their contrivances, and their industry and their economy more fully than before, our admiration of their skill is so much the greater. Whoever, therefore, says you will not obey, if you understand, slanders the Government; he calls it unjust, weak and calculated to make you wretched; why else will it not bear to be looked into? Besides, you are at this time particularly called upon by the proclamation of you King, which tells you that there are divers wicked and seditious writings industriously dispersed, and correspondencies entered into to forward criminal and wicked purposes, which writings and purposes you are solemnly warned to guard against. It is therefore highly incumbent upon you to know what Sedition is; and to know whether the purposes for which any correspondencies are entered into are wicked and criminal, otherwise, through your ignorance, you may be guilty of calling by these bad names, practices and writings which are very harmless and lawful. Some men, it is plain, have got wrong notions of Government; it is the more necessary for you to get right ones. And that you may have some rule to go by, in judging of these writings and practices, the Proclamation further tells you, that they tend to vilify and bring into contempt provisions made for the security of your rights and liberties; and the security of which rights and liberties, both civil and religious, together with the public peace and prosperity, your Governors assure you that they desire more earnestly than any thing else. It becomes therefore highly necessary that you should enquire what these rights and liberties are, and what things tend to promote the peace and prosperity of a kingdom. These are high matters, but you see you are called upon to examine, you are expected to understand them. You will not be allowed to plead; I do not know what Sedition is, I do not know what our rights are. You are further enjoined to discourage all proceedings tending to promote riots and tumults. That there have been such things you know very well; I suppose few of you can be ignorant, that little a while ago, wicked and seditious men, misled I suppose by some of these wrong notions which you are warned against, assembled at Birmingham, and pulled down the houses, destroyed the goods, and endangered the lives of quiet and worthy citizens, to the very great shame and disgrace of this kingdom; the more so as they have not yet received any adequate indemnification for their property so destroyed. Now the men who did this mischief wanted to be informed what the rights of their neighbours were, and what sort of behaviour Government required of them; for want of this knowledge, they called themselves, all the while, the Friends of Government, and mistook the matter so far as to think, that pulling down of houses was promoting the peace and prosperity of the kingdom. You are further desired to place a just confidence in the wisdom and integrity of Parliament. You will do well to observe the propriety of this expression. The figure of Justice, you know, is represented with a balance to weigh out to every one his due, with nice and scrupulous exactness, so much and no more. You are not desired to place a blind confidence, but a just confidence, that is, a confidence in in their wisdom and integrity, just so much as will arise from what upon examination they shall be found to possess of those qualities.

You are invited, therefore, by those who with the welfare of their country, and your welfare, to gain just ideas of what concerns it; for, by having false ideas, you may do much harm: but do not mistake me, you are not all invited. You who are dissolute, idle, intemperate, savage in your manners, profligate in your principles, without care for yourselves, or for those who depend upon your labour; who prey upon the honest industry of others; who are ignorant, not merely from want of information, but from a debased and besotted understanding -- to you I do not speak, you must be governed like brutes; for you are brutes. You who own no law, cannot judge of laws. You must be slaves, not thro' the appointment of men, but by the eternal law of nature. A King, with such dispositions, cannot govern; he may prowl about for a time, and tear in pieces and destroy; but he cannot govern. You too may break loose, and do mischief to others, but you cannot do good to yourselves; you never did, nor ever can. You rush over, and devour, and trample down; but when your wild fury has spent itself, you are sure to slink back, hungry and tired and sore with wounds, to crouch as before, and lick the hand that is held over you. To you Government is known by its restraints, and Religion by its terrors. All that Government can do for you is to soften and alleviate the miseries you bring upon yourselves, by your thoughtlessness and your vices. While to others it secures from you the property they have taken pains to acquire, for you, with sterner kindness, it builds hospitals, workhouses, and prisons; but it does not call you to the assemblies of Citizens, nor submit its awful regulations to you untutored fancies. But you, in whatever rank of life you are, who are sober, industrious, and thoughtful; you who respect the property and rights of your neighbour, and therefore demand and deserve that your own rights and property should be respected; you who have a home, and therefore have a country; you who have a love of order, a sense of ingenuous shame, a relish for the conveniences and decencies which civilized life affords; you who have a provident care for your families; who are accustomed to say to yourselves, I will not buy a strong drink to-day, because my children will have no bread tomorrow -- you are worthy to consider the affairs of a community, which, tho' more complicated, are not materially different. Come then, when the business of the day is over, and leaning over you counters, or by your clean fire-sides; or sitting under your spreading trees, or in the porch covered with honey-suckle before your door, steal a little leisure to turn over these things in your minds, in which, if I can assist you, it will give me great satisfaction. You need not chide away your children, and press about you to climb upon your knees; they will give a spirit and edge to your meditations. It is for THEM: it is for YOURSELVES.

For the present farewell, and God bless you!

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