Dr. Beaumont, therefore, finding that
he could not withhold Eustace from the temptations which surrounded him,
had only to counsel him to resist them.
He did not commence his instructions with general invectives against a
court-life; but admitted that good and wise men were often called to it
by duty. He observed, that injunctions against entering into that or any
other public station, savoured more of monastic or puritanic austerity
than true piety. The concerns of government must be performed by human
agents, and in representing eminent stations as incompatible with
honesty, what do we but leave public business in the hands of
unprincipled persons, and thus really encourage the depravity and
knavery we affect to deplore. A nation must suffer, as well in a
political as in a moral sense, when its rulers are weak or wicked; and
how dare we pray that the will of God may be done upon earth, when we
discourage those from directing worldly affairs, who feel a true zeal
for his glory? This is, indeed, to accomplish the lying boast of Satan,
who said that the kingdoms of the world were his, and he gave them to
whom he chose.
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