tation in the legislature-a right inestimable to them, and formidable to tyrants only. He has called together legislative bodies, at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depositories of their public records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his meas ures. He has dissolved representatives houses, repeatedly, for opposing, with manly firmness, his invasions on the rights of the people. He has refused, for a long time after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the legislative powers, incapable of annihilation, have returned to the people at large for their exercise; the state remaining, in the mean time, exposed to all the danger of invasion from without, and convulsions within. He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these states; for that purpose obstructing the laws for naturalization of foreigners; refusing to pass others, to encourage their migra tion hither, and raising the conditions of new appropriations of lands. He has obstructed the administration of justice, by refusing his assent to laws for establishing judiciary powers. He has made judges dependent on his will, alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and pay. ment of their salaries. He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance. He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies, without the consent of our legislatures. He has affected to render the military independent of, and superior to, the civil power. He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his assent to their acts of pretended legislation, for quartering large bodies of armed troops among us; for protecting them, by a mock trial, from punishment for any murders which they should commit on the inhabitants of these states; for cutting off our trade with all parts of the world; for imposing taxes on us without our consent; for depriving us, in many cases, of the benefits of trial by jury; for transporting us beyond seas, to be tried for pretended offences; for abolishing the free system of English laws in a neighbouring province, establishing therein an arbitrary government, and enlarging its boundaries so as to render it at once an example, and fit instrument, for introducing the same absolute rule into these colonies; for taking away our charters, abolishing our most valuable laws, and altering fundamentally the forms of our governments; for suspending our own legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever. He has abdicated government here, by declaring us out of his protection, and waging war against us. He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burned our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people. He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries, to complete the work of death, desolation, and tyranny, al ready begun, with circumstances of cruelty and perfidy, scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the head of a civilized nation. He has constrained our fellow-citizens, taken captive on the high seas, to bear arms against their country, to become the execu tioners of their friends and brethren, or to fall themselves by their hands. He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare is, an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes, and conditions. In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms. Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.-Nor have we been wanting in attention to our British brethren. We have warned them, from time to time, of attempts made by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them., by the ties of our common kindred, to disavow these usurpations, which would inevitably interrupt our connexions and correspondence. They, too, have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity We must therefore acquiesce in the necessity which de nounces our separation; and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind,--enemies in war,-in peace, friends. advances towards eternity; and tell, as they thicken on the path we leave, how soon we reach the close of our pilgrimage, and enter upon unknown worlds. We have another constant memento of the fact, again, in our inability of prolonging our continuance in the world. We have constant notices around us of our frailty, and inability to continue to ourselves our present privileges for the future. Even in the city of our privileges below, do we see ourselves hurried on, by an unseen hand we cannot control; the almighty Guide who conducts us seems unwilling we should stay; the God of our spirits, who goes with us, designs we should have our settled dwelling in eternity; and soon he will bring us to the gates of the city, and, at the bidding we cannot resist, must we take our leave of it for eternity. Around us, every thing is be tokening his design of our departure and our inability to prolong our stay. The frail hold we take of every earthly possession tells that our grasp on none is for eternity. We are hurried on from object to object, before we can call any thing ours. We meet friends, but, while we cling to them, the unseen hand of Providence tears us away from their embrace. Beauty we would linger here to admire, but, while we look, the grace of the fashion of it perisheth. Power just takes us by the hand, and bids us adieu to greet a successor. Fame crowns us. with her wreath, but, while we feel the rising flush of joy, she plucks it off to sport with others. Wealth comes to feast us, and roll us in his car of pleasures, and, while accepting his proposals, he dismisses us to tempt some other pilgrims on their way to eternity. The unseen hand of Providence thus tears us away from object after object, to show that here is not our rest, and that our hold on earth is frail and giving way. Around the city of our habitation, too, are the messengers he sends to warn us of this approaching departure. Decay Stands with tottering limbs and feeble breath, and lisps to us, with dying life, that we draw nigh the gates of our habitation, and soon will leave it for eternal worlds. Diseases busy messengers-fly here and there, to tell us of our frail abode, and whisper in our ears "eternity." Death, armed with resistless power, stands with his commissions, and their unknown dates, to lead us out of our residence below, and bar on us its gates forever. Every where in the city of our abode are we reminded that we have not the power to prolong our stay in it, and that soon we shall leave its privileges, its dwellings, its streets, its sanctuaries, its Scriptures, its busy throng, for eternity. There is another means reminding us constantly of this fact, the voice of God. In the city of our habitation below, God has published his glories, his statutes, his offers of pardon and assistance, for our use as sojourners here, who are passing to eternity. He, the infinite Being, who is from everlasting to everlasting himself, has conferred on us an existence, that is to continue and grow up by the side of his, through everlasting ages. He has beheld us, in the first stages of our being here, engaged in unrighteous rebellion against his authority, and bent on neglect of his glories; and, moved with pity, sent his everlasting Son to atone for our guilt, and to call us to repentance, and his Holy Spirit to indite his will, and influence us to obedience. In our habitation we have his word; here temples are erected for his service; a day is appointed by him for men to assemble; ministers commissioned to teach; and they who love his name speak to one another and to their fellowmen of his designs. Wherever we go, then, the voice of God is reaching us, and re-echoing the truth, that we are beings whose final dwelling-place is eternity, and who have here no continuing city. The Bible, wherever it meets our eye, reiterates the voice of God, that we must die and rise again in other worlds. In each reproof of conscience, his awful voice is heard to speak a reckoning day in eternity. In each act we do for God or for his kingdom here, his voice of love whispers of eternal joys. Each revolving Sabbath, with its pealing bells, and open sanctuaries, and solemn rites, bears on its hours his voice, that warns us of an abode in heaven or hell. Each sermon is the call he makes to hear his voice to-day. In each season of prayer we hear him say, that we have not reached our homethat we are pilgrims here. From the throne of glory, on which he will sit in judgment, and assign us our dwelling in eternity, the Saviour now sends down the voice of mo nition; and, while it rolls round the world we dwell in, tez thousand messengers echo back the voice to our ears, that "here we have no continuing city." Description of the Preaching of Whitfield.→ THERE was nothing in the appearance of this extraor dinary man, which would lead you to suppose that a Felix could tremble before him. "He was something above the middle stature, well proportioned, and remarkable for a native gracefulness of manner. His complexion was very fair, his features regular, and his dark blue eyes small and lively in recovering from the measles, he had contracted a squint with one of them; but this peculiarity rather rendered the expression of his countenance more rememberable, than in any degree lessened the effect of its uncommon sweetness. His voice excelled, both in melody and compass; and its fine modulations were happily accompanied by that grace of action, which he possessed in an eminent degree, and which has been said to be the chief requisite for an orator." To have seen him when he first commenced, one would have thought him anything but enthusiastic and glowing; but, as he proceeded, his heart warmed with his subject, and his manner became impetu ous and animated, till, forgetful of every thing around him, he seemed to kneel at the throne of Jehovah, and to be seech in agony for his fellow-beings. After he had finished his prayer, he knelt for a long. time in profound silence; and so powerfully had it affected the most heartless of his audience, that a stillness like that of the tomb pervaded the whole house. Before he commenced his sermon, long, darkening columns crowded the bright, sunny sky of the morning, and swept their dull shadows over the building, in fearful augury of the storm. His text was, "Strive to enter in at the strait gate; for many, I say unto you, shall seek to enter in, and shall not be able." "See that emblem of human life," said he, pointing to a shadow that was flitting across the floor. - “ it |