Tyrants sometimes in Revolutions fall, Though their destruction's not design'd at all; So hasty showers, when they from heav'n flow down, Are sent to fructify, and not to drown; And, in the torrent, if a drunkard sink, 'Tis not the flood that drowns him, but the drink, Yet who would say, because a sinner's slain, For fear of drowning, we must have no rain. {163} It's doubtful who live most unnatural lives, The subject that his liberty survives, Or kings that trample law and freedom down, And make free justice truckle to the crown. Law is the master-spring of government-- The only Right Ditine that heaven has sent, * It forms the order of the world below, And all our blessings from that order flow. * The tyrant Henry VIII., by making himself the head of the Church, clearly begat the Right Divine. The King could give bishoprics, and the Bishops could give opinions. "Your Majesty is the breath of our nostrils," said Bishop Neil to James I., and speaking of himself and brethren as to worldly advantages, he certainly spoke the truth. Before the Kings of England were heads of the Church we heard little of divine right, and some-times the Church itself was seen on the side of freedom; since that time, never. The doctrine in England, that the King can do no wrong, supposes the positive responsibility of his Minis-ters. But, that it is a dangerous licence of language, is wit-nessed iu a Right Reverend exposition of this kingly privi-lege in regard to Adultery. The Bishop leaped from political to moral delinquency, with a casuistry worthy an admirer of the royal power of translation. The Abbe de Choisy, a Priest of the same school as the British Father in God, though not of the same church, dedicated an edition of Thomas à Kempis, on the 'Imitation of Christ' to Madame de Maintenon, a courtesan and mistress to Louis XIV., prefixing this motto: "Hear oh! daugh-ter, and consider, and incline thine ear; forget also thine own people, and thy father's honse; _so shall the King greatly desire thy beauty!_" Psa. xlv. 10,11. The Court's a golden but a fatal circle, Upon whose magic skirts a thousand devils In crystal forms, sit tempting innocence, And beckon early virtue from its ceutre. Anon, quoted by Dr. Watts. {164} Law is the life-blood of the social state; Subordinate to law is magistrate, To set the magistrate above the law, Would all to error and confusion draw, He's not a king that's not prescribed by laws-- King's, the effect, but government's the cause Of all authority for Right Divine, Custom's the worst, for every royal line.