ed and dignified by noblest puritanic piety, now
publicly declare there is no law of God above the fugitive slave bill.
Nay, a distinguished American minister boldly proclaimed his readiness
to send his own Mother (or "Brother") into eternal bondage! Thus
modern history explains the old; and the cheap bait of a republican
bribe can seduce American dissenters, as the wealthy lure of royal
gifts once drew British churchmen into the same pit of infamy. Alas,
hypocrisy is of no sect or nation.

Gentlemen, the Government of England once decreed "that every
clergyman, four times in the year, should instruct his parishioners in
the Divine right of Kings, and the damnable sin of resistance."[75] No
Higher Law! America has ministers who need no act of Parliament to
teach them to do the same; they run before they are sent.

[Footnote 75: 2 Campbell, 460; 1 Rushworth, 1205.]

6. After the head of one Stuart was shorn off and his son had
returned, no wiser nor better than his father, the old progress of
despotism began anew. I pass over what would but repeat the former
history, and take two new examples to warn the nation with, differing
from the old only in form.

In 1672, Charles II. published a proclamation denouncing rigorous
penalties against all such as _should speak disrespectfully of his
acts_, or _hearing others thus speak should not immediately inform the
magistrates_! Nay, in 1675, after he had sold himself to the French
king, and was in receipt of an annual pension therefrom, he had this
test-oath published for all to sign: "I do solemnly declare that _it
is not lawful upon any pretence whatever to take up arms against the
king_, ... and that _I will not_, at any time to come, _endeavor the
alteration of the government_, either in Church or State."[76]

[Footnote 76: Carroll's Counter Revolution (Lond. 1846), 99, _et
seq._]

An oath yet more stringent was enforced in Scotland with the edge of
the sword, namely, to defend all the prerogatives of the crown, "_never
without the king's permission to take part in any deliberations upon
ecclesiastical or civil affairs; and never to seek any reform in
Church or State_."

Notwithstanding all that the Charleses had done to break down the
liberty of Englishmen, still the great corporate towns held out,
intrenched behind their charters, and from that bulwark both annoyed
the despot and defended the civil rights of the citizen. They also
must be destroyed. So summons of _q