that at the very time when you are granting the fuccours they implore, you degrade and infult them; and attach not your benefactions to fuch conditions as deprive them of all their value. Though they be benefactions in regard to thofe to whom you fhew them; they are not fo in regard to God, who has impofed them as a duty upon you. Though your neceffitous brethren cannot demand them of you as their due, yet God, from whom you have received whatever you poffefs, has a right to demand them of you, and he actually does demand them. But the mere act alone cannot fatisfy him, the Omniscient, only the manner in which you perform it can procure you his approbation. Give therefore freely; give liberally; give in pure and good intentions; give in a generous and engaging manner; give as one friend gives to another, as a father gives to his children: then, and not till then, will you tafte the pleasure which is connected with fuch bounty. And how diverfified, how great, how fublime, is that pleasure! You know it, christians, you who exercise yourselves in beneficence with genuine christian fentiments; you know what your hearts enjoy, what pure and heavenly transports pervade them, when you weep with them. that weep, and are fo happy as to dry up the tears of the mourner; when you can take the forlorn to your care, and can administer help to the deftitute; when you have an opportunity to refcue the innocent, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirty, VOL. II. X of thirsty, to alleviate the diftreffes of the poor, tô mitigate the pains of the fick and to affuage the anguish of the afflicted foul; when you can compenfate as much as in you lies, the widow for the lofs of her spouse, and the orphan for the privation of his parents; when you convey fome rays of light, of comfort, of hope, of fatisfaction, into the abodes where darkness, difmay and wretchedness, prevailed. You know the feelings of your heart, what streams pure, celestial transports rufh into it, when you are able to contribute fomewhat to the advancement of discipline and order, of the glory of God' and of religion, to the instruction, to the improvement, to the correction, to the fpiritual and everlafting happiness of your brethren; and then represent to yourselves the bleffed consequences these labours of love may have, and, under the bleffing of the Moft High, infallibly will have, in all the generations to come. Oh then it is you truly feel. the exquifite worth of the earthly goods wherewith God has bleffed you; then you thank him with tears of joy for the honour and happiness of being permitted to occupy as it were his place among mankind, and in his stead to revive them with what his providence has been pleased to grant you; then your heart expands, as fcarcely able to contain the heavenly rapture that pervades it. Where, my friends, where is there an earthly, fenfual pleasure to be found, that can be brought into comparifon with this! It is laftly more bleffed to give than to receive; it having, when properly performed, the most glorious retributions to expect both in the present and in the future world. Already the pleasure that is connected with it, and which I have now rather pointed at than defcribed, fince it admits of no defcription; this pleasure alone, to a fenfible and generous heart, is reward enough. But the merciful God, to whom beneficence is fo highly grateful, has decreed it ftill greater advantages and bleffings. Hear how the pfalmift defcribes them: "Unto the upright," fays he, particularly to the humane and bountiful, there ariseth light in the darkness; he is merciful, loving and righteous: he that fills the earth with his mercies comforts him in his afflictions, and delivers him out of them all." "Happy the man who pitieth and lendeth, and guideth his words with discretion; for he fhall never be moved: the righteous fhall be had in everlasting remembrance. He will not be afraid at any evil tidings, for his heart ftandeth faft and trufteth in the Lord. heart is stablished, and will not fhrink. He hath difperfed abroad and given to the poor: his righteousness remaineth for ever;" the blessing of his be neficence abides ever upon him; "his welfare fhall be exalted with honour." And all this, my friends, is but little in comparison with the glorious rewards which the bountiful man may promise himself in the future world. Represent to yourselves that awful day, the day of judgment and cf retribution which X 2 His fhall fhall decide our lot for ever; and admire the glory and felicity that will then be the portion of chrif tians who have here employed themselves in acts of beneficence. The judge of the world, the son of God, will fay to them, before the whole assembly of angels and of mankind: "Come, ye bleffed of 'my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the beginning of the world. For I was hungry, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; I was naked, and ye cloathed me; I was fick, and ye vifited me; I was in prison, and ye came to Verily I fay unto you, inasmuch as ye have me. done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Oh transporting scene! oh inexpreffible reward! Let us then do good, my brethren, and never be weary, that we may also reap in due time this glory and this felicity. Let us not reckon that for loft which we give to the poor and needy, but for gain; fince certainly it is far more bleffed in all refpects to give than to receive. Unhappy men, by whom this is neither felt norunderstood, who start objections against the performance of that duty which of all others is the most agreeable and blissful! However, we will hear your objections; we will try them; perhaps we may be fo fortunate as to convince you of the weakness and futility of them. It is true, you probably imagine, it is more bleffed to give than to receive. But, if we guide our felves by this maxim, if we follow our propensity to beneficence, we shall injure ourselves and our families; instead of increasing our property, we fhall diminish it. Yes, my friends, fo you would, if the prefervation and the augmentation of your fubftance depended folely on yourselves; folely on your diligence, on your ability, on your frugality, your objection would be well founded. But if, as both reason and scripture affure us, moft, if in some fort all depends on the bleffing of the Higheft; if without it the most affiduous application, the utmost ability, the ftricteft frugality, are utterly fruitless; and if this bleffing be annexed to beneficence: the objection lofes all its force. And, for the confutation of it, may I not venture to appeal to your own observation and experience? Do you know any perfon, who, merely by beneficence duly allied with prudence, has fallen into indigence or poverty? May you not on the contrary be acquainted with feveral, who have conftantly fought their fatisfaction in beneficence, and yet, by the bleffing of heaven, have not only preserved, but confiderably augmented their property? No, "he that giveth to the poor," fays the wife man, "fhall not lack." "There is that scattereth, and yet increaseth; and there is that withholdeth more than is meet, but it tendeth to poverty." Suppofe however that it should not feem good to the Moft High to reward your beneficence with worldly profufion; fuppofe, that you leave you no great riches for your children; is it behind |