our own wishes, and defires, and expectations from others, a law and rule to ourselves. And this is pleasant, to follow our nature, and to gratify the importunate dictates of our own reafon. So that the benefits we do to others, are not more welcome to them that receive them, than they are delightful to us that do them. We eafe our own nature and bowels, whenever we help and relieve those who are in want and neceffity. As, on the contrary, no man that hath not divested himself of humanity, can be cruel and hard-hearted to others, without feling fome pain in himself. There is no fenfual pleasure in the world, comparable to the delight and fatisfaction that a good man takes in doing good. This Cato, in Tully, boasts of as the great comfort and joy of his old age, "That nothing was more pleasant to him than the "confcience of a well-fpent life, and the remembrance "of many benefits and kindneffes done to others." Senfual pleasures are not lafting, but presently vanish and expire: but that is not the worst of them; they leave a fting behind them: as the pleasure goes off, to us. Succedit frigida cura; fadness and melancholy come in the place of it; guilt, and trouble, and repentance follow it. But the pleafure of doing good remains after a thing is done; the thoughts of it lie eafy in our minds, and the reflexion upon it afterwards does for ever minister joy and delight In a word, that frame of mind which inclines us to do good, is the very temper and difpofition of happinefs. Solomon, after all his experience of worldly pleafures, pitches at laft upon this as the greatest felicity of human life, and the only good ufe that is to be made of a profperous and plentiful fortune, Eccl. iii. 12. I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice and do good in his life. And a greater and a wifer than Solomon hath faid, that it is more blessed to give, than to receive. 3. To employ ourfelves in doing good, is to imitate the higheft excellency and perfection. It is to be like God, who is good, and doth good; and to be like him in that which he esteems his greatest glory; and that is his goodness. It is to be like the Son of God; who, when when he took our nature upon him, and lived in the world, went about doing good. It is to be like the blessed angels, whofe great employment it is, to be miniftring Spirits for the good of others. To be charitable, and helpful, and beneficial to others, is to be a good angel, and a Saviour, and a God to men. And the example of our bleffed Saviour more efpecially is the great pattern which our religion propounds to us. And we have all the reafon in the world to be in love with it; because that very goodness which it propounds to our imitation, was fo beneficial to ourfelves. When we ourfelves feel and enjoy the happy effects of that good which he did in the world, this fhould mightily endear the example to us, and make us forward to imitate that love and kindness, to which we are indebted for fo many bleffings, and upon which all our hopes of happiness do depend. And there is this confiderable difference between our Saviour's charity to us, and ours to others: he did all purely for our fakes, and for our benefit; whereas all the good we do to others, is a greater good done to ourfelves. They indeed are beholden to us for the kindnefs we do them, and we to them for the opportunity of doing it. Every ignorant person that comes in our way to be inftructed by us, every finner whom we reclaim, every poor man we relieve, is a happy opportunity of doing good to ourfelves, and of laying up for ourselves a good treafure against the time which is to come, that we may lay hold on eternal life. By this principle the best and the happiest man that ever was, governed his life and actions; efteeming it a more blessed thing to give than to receive. 4. This is one of the greatest and most fubftantial duties of religion; and, next to the love and honour which we pay to God himself, the most acceptable fervice that we can perform to him. It is one half of the law, and next to the first and great commandment, and very like unto it; like to it in the excellency of its nature, and in the neceffity of its obligation. For this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God, love his brother alf. The first commandment excels in the dignity of the object; but the fecond hath the advantage in the reality of its effects: For our righteousness extendeth not Dd 3 to to God, we can do him no real benefit; but our charity. to men is really useful and beneficial to them. For which reafon, God is contented, in many cafes, that the external honour and worship which by his pofitive command he requires of us, fhould give way to that natural duty of love and mercy which we owe to one another. And, to fhew how great a value he puts upon charity, he hath made it the great teftimony of our love to himfelf; and, for want of it, rejects all other profeffions of love to him as falfe and infincere: If any man fay, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar. For he that loweth not his brother whom he hath feen, how can he love God whom he hath not feen? 5. This is that which will give us the greatest comfort when we come to die. It will then be no pleasure to men, to reflect upon the great eftates they have got, and the great places they have been advanced to; because they are leaving these things, and they will ftand them in no ftead in the other world: Riches profit not in the day of wrath but the confcience of well-doing will refresh our fouls even under the very pangs of death. With what contentment does a good man then look upon the good he hath done in his life? and with what confidence doth he look over into the other world, where he hath provided for himself bags that wax not old, a treafure in the heavens that faileth not? For though our estates will not follow us into the other world, our good works will; though we cannot carry our riches along with us, yet we may fend them before us, to make way for our reception into everlasting habitations. In fhort, works of mercy and charity will comfort us at the hour of death, and plead for us at the day of judgment, and procure for us at the hands of a merciful God a glorious recompence at the refurrection of the juft. Which leads me to the 6. Laft confideration I fhall offer you; which is, the reward of doing good, both in this world, and the other. If we believe God himfelf, he hath made more particular and encouraging promises to this grace and virtue, than to any other. The advantages of it in this world are many and great. It is the way to derive a lasting blessing upon our eftates. Acts Acts of charity are the best deeds of fettlement. We gain the prayers and blessings of those to whom we extend our charity; and it is no small thing to have the blessing of them that are ready to perish to come upon us: for God hears the prayers of the deftitute, and his ear is open to their cry. Charity is a great fecurity to us in times of evil; and that not only from the fpecial promife and providence of God, which are engaged to preferve from want those that relieve the neceffities of others; but likewife from the nature of the thing, which makes way for its own reward in this world. He that is charitable to others, provides a fupply and retreat for himself in the day of distress: for he provokes mankind, by his example, to like tenderness towards him, and prudently beIpeaks the commiferation of others against it comes to be his turn to stand in need of it. Nothing in this world makes a man more and furer friends, than charity and bounty, and fuch as will stand by us in the greatest troubles and dangers: For a good man (fays the Apoftle) one would even dare to die. It is excellent counsel of the fon of Sirach, Lay up thy treafure according to the commandment of the moft High, and it fhall bring thee more profit than gold. Shut up thy alms in thy storehouse, and it shall deliver thee from all affliction; it shall fight for thee against thine enemies, better than a mighty fhield and ftrong pear. It hath fometimes happened, that the obligation that men have laid upon others by their charity, hath, in case of danger and extremity, done them more kindness than all the reft of their eftate could do for them; and their alms have literally delivered them from death. But what is all this to the endless and unspeakable happiness of the next life, where the returns of doing good will be vastly great, beyond what we can now expect or imagine? For God takes all the good we do to others, as a debt upon himself; and he hath estate and treasure enough to fatisfy the greatest obligations we can lay upon him. So that we have the truth, and goodness, and fufficiency of God for our fecurity, that what we scatter and fow in this kind, will grow up to a plentiful harveft in the other world; and that all our pains and expence in doing good for a few days, will be recompenfed and crowned with the joys and glories of eternity. SER. 320 SERMON XIX. Before On the fifth of November, 1678. LUKE ix. 55. 56.. But he turned, and rebuked them, and faid, Ye know not what manner of fpirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to deftroy mens lives, but to fave them. A : Mong many other things which may juftly recommend the Chriftian religion to the approbation of mankind, the intrinfick goodness of it is most apt to make impression upon the minds of ferious and confiderate men. The miracles of it are the great external evidence and confirmation of its truth and divinity but the morality of its doctrines and precepts, fo agreeable to the best reafon and wifest apprehenfion's of mankind, fo admirably fitted for the perfecting of our natures, and the fweetening of the fpirits and tempers of men, fo friendly to human fociety, and every way fo well calculated for the peace and order of the world; thefe are the things which our religion glories in, as her crown and excellency. Miracles are apt to awaken and aftonifh; and, by a fenfible and overpowering evidence, to bear down the prejudices of infidelity: but there are fecret charms in goodnefs, which take faft hold of the hearts of men; and do infenfibly, but effectually, command our love and esteem. And furely nothing can be more proper to the occafion of this day, than a difcourfe upon this argument, which fo directly tends to correct that unchriftian fpirit and mistaken zeal which hath been the caufe of all our troubles and confufions, and had fo powerful an influence upon that horrid tragedy which was defigned, now near upon fourfcore years ago, to have been acted as upon this day. And that we may the better understand the reafon of our |