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before you, animated as we are with the pleasing expectation, that we shall effect our good defigns, if not with all, yet certainly with many. In fuch a frame of mind, in fuch delightful hopes, I meet you in this facred place to-day. I am to be the advocate, the interceffor, with you, for the poor, the friendless, and the wretched: I fhall apply to you in their name; in their name did I fay, I fhall apply to you in the name of Jefus Chrift, who owns these needy for his brethren, and in the most forcible manner recommends them to you, in the name of that exalted and beneficent Lord, our unalterable Saviour, I fhall intercede with you in their behalf. I fhall in particular recommend to you the encouragement of a very neceffary and ufeful institution mean, the provifion now fet on foot for the correction of the diffolute, and the maintenance of the poor in this place: certainly an honourable and agreeable employment! Happy fhall I be, happy will it be for you, if I execute it with that fuccefs I promise myself from your chriftian tenderness! Nay, I know that there are many compaffionate hearts among you, to whom discipline and order, religion and virtue, and the happiness of mankind arifing from them, are no indifferent things. I have on fimilar occafions addreffed you with fimilar petitions; and, to the honour of your christian profeffion, you have not been regardlefs of them. Why then may I not hope, under the bleffing of the Almighty, to reach my defign to-day? In the mean

time, though I prefume upon these beneficent and generous difpofitions in the generality of you, it will not be useless to employ the remainder of the time ufually allotted to these discourses in endeavouring to confirm them in our hearts, and to awaken them in those with whom they are still dormant. And how can we better do this, than by calling to mind the bleffedness of beneficence? To this end the confideration of the beautiful faying of our faviour in the text may greatly conduce: It is more blessed to give than to receive. We will first state to you the juftness of the affertion, and then reply to fome objections that may be brought against it.

It is more bleffed to give than to receive, is now become, as it were, proverbial among chriftians; so little is the truth of it in general called in queftion. Is it not then, may fome one probably think, is it not unneceffary to demonftrate a propofition which every one holds for proved and undeniable? No, my friend, that is by no means the cafe with fuch general propofitions and rules of conduct. In order that they should have a due influence on our behaviour, and on that everything depends, it is not enough that the truth of them is not doubted, the reasons should be often and forcibly stated why they are held to be true; we fhould examine the particular ideas they comprehend, or the obfervations. and experiences whereon they reft; we fhould bring home the application of them to ourselves; we should view them in a various and perfpicucus

light, in order to be convinced, affected, actuated by them. And this is the purport of my following

confiderations.

It is more blessed to give than to receive; fince the former in the first place implies a happier condition than the latter. To the former belongs a certain degree of power, of affluence, of independence; the latter has weakness, want, penury, dependence, for its foundation. I will not fay, that a man may not be happy in all stations. No, fear God; keep his commandments; maintain a good confcience; fecure to yourself the grace and loving-kindness of the Almighty; follow temperance and contentment ; think and live like perfons who have here no abiding city, and whofe country is heaven: fo will you never be deficient in true felicity, be you otherwise high or low, rich or poor, in abundance or in want. But certain as this is, so certain is it likewife, that he is still the happier who, with all these effential advantages, has also the means of doing good to others in a larger or smaller proportion. In what does the fupreme felicity of God confift? Undoubtedly in this, that his power of doing good is infinite, and that he continually exerts it in the best and most perfect manner. Undoubtedly in this, that, from his exalted throne, full ftreams of benefits and bleffings inceffantly flow down on every part of his immense domain, devolving light and life, joy, energy and blifs, on all the inhabitants of it. Wherein confifts the happiness of the righteous

in the future world? An enlarged capacity of doing good and of communicating with others in the most useful manner, will undoubtedly compofe a confiderable portion of it. Here, my friends, it not unfrequently happens, that men of the most humane, the most benevolent, the most patriotic fentiments, are deftitute of almost all the means for acting in conformity to them; and, if they had lefs veneration for the difpofals of divine provi→ dence, would probably be often tempted to complain of the narrow limits that are prescribed them in these particulars. Yonder, in that better world, all these limitations will not indeed be removed; they however will be confiderably enlarged. There will these generous fpirits unimpededly pursue their beneficent inclinations, and be able to apply in a far worthier manner all their faculties to the benefit of their lefs perfect fellow-creatures. As having been faithful in the administration of the little that was entrusted to them, they will be appointed to the management of much. They will reign with Christ, and share in his glory, his power of doing. good. The more therefore a man can difpenfe here on earth about him in any respect to the benefit of his brethren; the more ferviceable he can be to them; the less need he has to fet bounds to his generofity; the greater means he has of encreasing the fecular or the spiritual, the temporal or the eternal welfare of his neighbour, and of diffufing comfort, fatisfaction and joy around him: so much the

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nearer does he bring his condition to that of the bleffed in heaven; fo much more refplendent in him is the image of God and Chrift; nay, so much the greater part has he even in the felicity of the first and most perfect of beings.

It is more bleffed to give than to receive; the former being secondly combined with a various, with a truly godlike pleasure, whereas the latter is commonly connected with unpleasant and painful sensations. How extremely grating is it fometimes, even to the humbleft of those who fuffer penury and indigence, how diftreffing is it to them to make known their penury and their destitution, to ask for fuccour and relief, and thus to expose themfelves to the risk of harfh cenfures, of cutting reproaches, of bitter fcoffs, and at length to a blunt refusal of all pity and affistance! What wretchednefs, what mifery therefore do they often prefer to fuch humiliating treatment, which fills their fouls with grief and difmay! Never forget this, ye whom God has bleffed with the good things of this world, and thereby conftituted you in a manner the guardians and fathers of the' poor and needy. Render not the load that already oppreffes them still heavier by your unfriendly and cruel behaviour. They are already enough to be pitied, that they are obliged to be dependent on you, who are men as well as they. Oh let them not feel this dependence in a manner injurious to human nature, and offenfive to their creator! Beware

that