and even changed the course of nature, and wrought a miracle for their relief. When the diseased leper cafts himself at his feet, and cries out in the language of paffion and distress, "if thou wilt, thou canft make me clean:" Benevolence itself replies, "I will; be thou clean and immediately his leprofy was cleanfed." When the despised beggar utters the piercing cry, "thou fon of David have mercy on me;" he graciously defifts from his prefent purpose, and, in spight of the remonftrance of his attendants, ftops to restore his fight. Whilft the poor paralytic is helplefs and forlorn, he hears those healing words of his physician, “arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine houfe." A third obfervation that I would make upon christian charity is, that it not only, like every other virtue, contributes to our eternal happiness, but the want of it seems particularly marked by the apoftie as a note of reprobation, and an impaffive gulph that separates between us and our God. "Whofo hath this world's good, faith St. John, and feeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compaffion from him; hów dwelleth A 4 dwelleth the love of God in him ?* And can we be faved without the love of God? and can the mercies of the benevolent Jefus be applied to the wretch, who is fo infenfible of his favours as to refuse his relief to a diftreffed fellow-creature; to one "for whom Chrift died" as well as for himself, notwithstanding their prefent difference of condition? No; the gofpel inference is very clear; "if God fo loved us, we must also love one another." It is impoffible for one that hath a deep and serious sense of his own loft estate by fin, and the advantages he hath gained by Christ, not to rejoice in an opportunity of returning his tribute of thankfulness, and relieving his fellow-finner, and fellowfervant in diftrefs. These are the motives which I have thought proper to make use of for the enforcement of christian charity; the commands of God, and the example of Chrift. They are but few, and may therefore be more eafily recollected, more fairly weighed, and, I hope, make the ftronger impreffion. Whether you will apply them to your confciences 1 John iii. 17, fciences or no, God, the fearcher of hearts, only knows. I know only that I have dif charged my duty in telling you of them, and that the time will come when you will be glad that you had discharged your's in performing them. "When the windows begin to be darkened, and the filver cord loofed;" when the symptoms of decay approach, and death ftands visible and near; then wilt thou wifh, O miferable man! that thou hadst beftowed thy wealth "where neither moth nor ruft doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through, nor fteal." In health, indeed, and strength, we are apt to smile at the mention of future calamity; or, however, to turn afide for relief to thofe various appetites that every where prefs upon, and furround us. But the time draws on when ease must give way to pain, and health and ftrength to sickness and debility; when our weeping friends fhall furround our bed, and in vain endeavour to charm away by their cares the rack of paffing nature. For, "we must all appear, fays the apostle, before the judgment feat of Chrift: that every one may receive the things done in his body, whether they they be good or bad." And when we stand unbodied before the God of purity, with nothing but our fins and follies for companions; in that hour, when "the righteous fcarcely fhall be faved," how dreadful must be the state of the ungodly and the finner? The fentence of our faviour upon the charitable and uncharitable is indeed particularly recorded, the process of which is too long to be related here, but whofe conclufion I defire you will remember, “these fhall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal." * I am now, as I proposed, to apply what has been faid, to the occafion of this difcourse. We are here affembled to promote the caufe of religion and virtue, in the maintenance and education of thefe children. And, if charity in general will be so highly rewarded, there is fomething peculiarly excellent and deferving in this branch of it, and in the case of the objects before us. I would obferve, in the first place, that though other charities may be very well cal culated * Matt. xxv. 46, culated for the relief of misery and distress; this alone claims the still more exalted merit of acting by way of prevention, and of deftroying unhappiness in the bud: this gives health to the conftitution that prevents disease, whilft the others are, at beft, only remedies when the infection has taken place. The virtuous education of poor children, and the storing their minds with principles for the proper conduct of their future life, prevents that poverty and intemperance which flow from idleness and vice; and, thereby, faves thefe our fellow-creatures, from experiencing their threatened wretchedness, and the public from feeling the bad effects of it. If they, therefore, are to be blessed, who feed the hungry, cloath the naked, and visit those that are fick and in prifon; much more furely those are entitled to this bleffedness, who apply their preventive prudent affiftance, and fo form the tender minds of these children of the unfortunate, that by the grace of God, and their own industry, they may never know the diftreffes of their fathers. In |
