course of life but Begging or Thieving would be endangered to an almost inevitable ruine both of Body and Soul All of whom may through Gods blessing on your endeavours though like the guests in our Saviours Parable they be many of them gathered up by your Officers from the High-wayes and Hedges and brought into your Government by necessary compulsion prove as divers of them have done who to their own Honour as well as that of your City and to the Glory of God principally that directed and enabled you to make such provision for them have appeared and will hereafter no doubt Annually continue to appear in publick to give proof thereof honest and substantial Citizens A mercy for which next under God and the general influence of the Lord Maior and Aldermen of this famous City they must acknowledge themselves infinitely obliged to the Fatherly care and diligent inspection of a publick spirited prudent vigilant and active President whose larger character I must forbear at present in tenderness to his modesty together with the worthy Governours his Assistants All that I have more to adde concerning both Hospitals at this Time is That it is to be hoped the blessedness you have already according to my Text found in your past Beneficences will encourage you beyond all the Rhetorick which if I had it I could bestow on such an Argument to go on and effectually promote such further designs as shall be suggested to you for the rendring them more usefull to the ends of these several Foundations And here give me leave I beseech you first of all to recommend to you the New-Building among all the famous Structures that your City hath raised for publick uses since the last dreadfull fire of your Hospital of Bethlem which I doe upon this consideration that those who have the particular Inspection of that Hospital and especially that learned and diligent Physician who can hardly be valued sufficiently for his great skill fidelity and industry in that employment have declared that they judge it very convenient if not necessary considering the great numbers that are continually sent thither for cure that their strait Accommodations of Lodging should be enlarged both as to Capacity and Conveniency but are discouraged in the pursuance of those thoughts by the prospect of the great charge thereof far exceeding the proportion of its small Revenues the smallest of any Hospital in London except they be assisted by some worthy Persons particular Munificences And next on the behalf of your other Hospital of Bridewell it is not unknown to the most of you that a very great part thereof was restored out of its ruines and rubbish since the late dreadfull Conflagration at its own charge whereupon their whole Stock being exhausted and the Building for a great part remaining likely to be left unfinished they must for ever acknowledge the seasonable Assistance of the Right Honourable the Lord Maior and the Court of Aldermen towards the perfecting of the Edifice out of the publick Purse without which those Wastes were like to have been Desolations of many Generations But yet when that great work is throughly finished which is now near done there will there also be farther need of additional private Charities First in order to the endowing a School already as to the case built for the improvement of the young Nurselings of your Charity the Blew Boyes in Reading Writing and casting Account c. at such hours as shall be assigned by the Governours with the least intrenchment that may be upon their Masters occasions Which if it were once effected it is not to be doubted but some of them that are of riper Capacities having their education thus heightened would when they come out of their time be enabled to apply themselves to more beneficial and advantageous imployments than they can expect the mean Manufactures they are there bred to will afford them And secondly in order to the more liberal rewarding of the most honest and industrious of them when they have faithfully served their Apprentiships with such an concouraging Stock to set up withall as might enter them into their new Callings with an hopefuller prospect of carrying them on in a thriving and creditable way Upon which expectation they would doubtless more generally be induced to acquiesce in the services allotted to them more contentedly follow their business more diligently and carry themselves in hope of their good word at parting to recommend them to your Bounty to their Masters more dutifully and not be tempted as too many daily are by the difficulties of getting a livelyhood by their Labours when they are free-men to run away and return again to the worse Trade they were first bred in These particulars I have presumed to suggest to your wisdoms not to limit them to my conceptions as if I knew better how to manage your Governments than your selves but only as probationers for your approbation and effectual concurrence in case upon due consideration you finde them worthy thereof Now the Lord give you all so affecting a sense of the Truths I have delivered concerning the blessedness of Giving above Receiving that you may be desirous of making experiment of it your selves and then give you to finde it every way as I have taught you in your Persons in your Houses in your Trades in your Memories in your Posterities and principally in your Souls and their everlasting Concerns in the last and great day of our Lord Jesus To whom c. FINIS Some Books Printed for and sold by James Collins at the Kings Arms in Ludgate-street 1673. OBservations upon Military and Political Affairs by the most Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Fol. price 6 s. A Sermon Preached by Seth Lord Bishop of Sarum at the Funeral of the most Honourable George Duke of Albemarle Quarto price 6 d. Philosophia Pia or A Discourse of the Religious tendencies of the Experimental Philosophy to which is added a Recommendation and Defence of Reason in the Affairs of Religion by Joseph Glanvil Rector of Bath Octavo price 2 s. The Way to Happiness represented in its Difficulties and Encouragements and cleared from many popular and dangerous mistakes by Joseph Glanvil A Prefatory Answer to Mr. Henry Stubbs the Doctor of Warwick by Jos Glanvil Octavo price 1 s. 6 d. The Life and Death of Mr. George Herbert the Excellent Authour of the Divine Poems Written by Is Walton Octavo price 1 s. 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an experiment in our selves expresseth the inanimate Creatures themselves as Instances of rejoycing in acts of beneficence to Mankinde For thus the outgoings of the Ps 65. 8 Morning and Evening are said to rejoyce when in their constant vicissitudes they refresh us thus the Sun when he ariseth to enlighten the world is described as a Bridegroom coming out of his Ps 19. 5. Chamber and a Giant rejoycing to run his race thus in Jothams Parable the Olive and the Vine and the Fig-tree are represented as unwilling to forgoe the pleasures of bearing sweet fruit to furnish divine Sacrifices and humane Treatments to obtain a Monarchy Judg. 9. 9 11 13. among the Trees and thus lastly the Pastures when they are covered with Grass and Flocks to Ps 65. 13. crop it and the Valleys when laden with Corn to be reaped by us are said to shout and sing for joy As on the other side the Heavens are said to be black with Jer. 4. 28. 12. 4. Is 24. 4 7. 33. 9. grief and the Earth to mourn and the Vine to languish as it were with sorrow when in a barren year their wonted fertility is restrained In summe therefore to close up this head too whether we take measure of the delight and pleasantness that is in Acts of Giving beyond Receiving either from God or Christ or good Angels or Christians or Heathens or inanimate Creatures themselves which distribution takes in almost all Beings but Devils whose delight indeed is only in doing mischief we finde that the felicity that accrews from Pleasure is greater from giving than receiving 3. The third and last thing that contributes to blessedness is Profit And my next business is to shew that in that respect also Giving hath the advantage of Receiving as being of the two the more profitable And so it is both in reference to the Benefit that thereby is attained in this World and in that which is to come 1. In reference to this World There is a threefold Concern to be regarded wherein the advantage I speak of evidently appears 1. In Life 2. In Sickness and Death 3. After Death 1. In Life this Life wherein Ps 17. 14. the Worldlings portion principally lies mans portion of this Worlds good things is by acts of Bounty 1. Best Secured 2. Most Comfortably enjoy'd 3. Most plentifully Improved 1. This Portion is hereby best secured Insomuch that no Deeds or Evidences or Bonds or Mortgages or Baggs or Chests or Walls or Forts or Locks or Barres or Bolts or Guards afford us like Security for what we have as charitable Giving bestows upon us And that not only in reference to a Security of Equivalency in which notion St. Ambrose handsomly Rhetoricates with the rich man in the Gospel who was sollicitous to pull down his old Lu. 12. 18. Barns as not big enough to receive his increase and build bigger when he tells him that the course he took was the way to pull down rather than to build and addes that he will direct him to a better course to secure and lay up his Goods by making the houses of the Widows the Stomachs of the Poor and the Mouths of the Orphans his Barns and Granaries And our Saviour before him when he tells us of laying Mat. 6. 19. up our Treasure by laying it out where rust or moth doth not corrupt and where thieves cannot break through and steal and to put our money into baggs that Lu. 12. 33. will not wax old c but also in reference to that temporal Security in kinde which the worldling most looks after in whose Hearts as well as in his Deeds to have and to hold is the clause of principal respect and esteem Let us see therefore how even this Security may be chiefly attained by Giving And here besides the rational conducibleness of the Principles of Generosity and Bounty to the preservation of mens temporal Estates from the general Friendship which such a Temper procures a man whiles every mouth is open for him every hand is ready to be lifted up in his defence and every mans Power and Interest is engaged to preserve him as a publick benefit and the very worst of men that are wont vivere rapto to live by cheating and robbery have a great awe of injuring such an one as judging such a Crime to be of a guilt little inferiour to Sacrilege I say besides this rational Security the munificent man hath the far greater Religious Security of divers Promises of Divine Protection If thou deal thy bread to the hungry saith the Prophet Isaiah and satisfie the afflicted soul if thou bring the poor that are cast out of their own to thy house and when thou seest the naked thou cover him and hide not thy self from thine own flesh i. e. any one that is partaker of common humanity with thy self c then shall thy righteousness goe before thee as thy Avantguard and the glory of the Lord as the presence of God to the Israelites in their march out of Egypt shall be thy Rereward And the Lord shall guide thee continually into wayes of safety and security and satisfie thy soul in drought and make fat thy bones and thou shalt be like a watered Isa 58. 7 8 9 10 11. Garden and like a Spring whose waters fail not when publick calamities destroy the estates of others as the scorching Sun doth the fruits of the earth in a dry season Which Promise is the same in substance abating the high Metaphors with what in plainer and more intelligible words according to the Language of those Times we finde elsewhere thus expressed that the righteousness of him that is bountifull shall endure for ever i. e. he shall never be other than a giver he shall alwayes have wherewithall to give and wealth and riches shall Psal 112. 3. 9. as constant inhabitants be in his house I could heap up many places of Scripture more to the same purpose That of the Prophet before mentioned that by Isa 32. 8. liberal things the liberal man shall stand when others fall to decay That of the same Prophet that he that walketh righteously of 33. 16 17. which righteous walking Almes-giving as I told you before is a part shall dwell on high the proper situation for strength his place of defence shall be the munitions of rocks not to be stormed or undermined bread shall be given him and his waters shall be sure so as not to be starved or famished out of his fortification placed in the Divine Protection c. But I forbear that I be not too tedious in so copious an Argument In a word by this means that Quicksilver-wealth that is so volatile that ordinarily it makes it self wings to fly away by offering Pro. 23. 5. Temptations to the owner to waste it in riots and debaucheries or to the Robber to take it away by fraud and violence is fixed and kept
tells us of a certain good Bishop is very proper to this purpose The good man upon a journey being compassed about by a crowd of poor people who knowing his charitable minde begged his Almes commands his servant that managed his expences to give them three Crowns which fell out then to be all he had in Purse The servant considering the many occasions that in travelling fall out thought it good husbandry in his present circumstances to curtail the Charity of his Master and save one of the three withall telling his Master how thrifty he had been for him They had not travelled much further when certain great Personages meeting them and knowing formerly the Bishops bountifull disposition gave the same Servant for his Masters use 200 Crowns Which Bounty when his Master understood he presently expressed his displeasure thus to his Servant for his former unseasonable Providence Thou saith he hast clearly lost me an hundred Crowns For thou gavest the Poor but two Crowns when I bade thee give three and now God hath sent me but two hundred si autem tres dedisses trecentos accepisses if thou hadst given the third Crown too these two hundred had been three Be the credit of the story with the Author or Relater but I am sure the Moral of it if it be a fable is good and fully to our present purpose to shew how mans Bounty engageth God's and we never lose more than by what we think we save from pious and charitable Uses to adde to our own Estates And the Reason upon which this great Truth is bottomed is this that as Solomon tells us he that hath pity upon the Poor Prov. 19. 17. doth in the rendring of the Vulgar out of the 72. Domino foenerari he lends upon usury to the Lord who is the best Creditor and sure in such cases to repay the Principal Money with ample Interest even to an hundred fold in this life as his promise Mat. 19. 29. runs verified in the former story besides the Interest upon Interest accumulated in life everlasting Whereas on the other side the hoording receiver as St. Ambrose again tells the Rich man in the Gospel nescit struere divitias is indeed ignorant of the true Art of thriving which he professeth for he takes the wrong way to Riches whiles he deals only with men that may break by a thousand accidents as well as which too often falls out through a dishonest Design and so often loseth the Interest with the Principal and refuseth to trust God for his Creditor who can never fail by casualty and to be sure never will by deceitfulness and cousenage And thus have you seen by what I have said that even in this Life the Concerns of the Giver as to point of Profit are in a better Condition every way than those of the Receiver And they are no less so 2. In Sickness and Death For whereas the sordid Receiver usually hath a dolefull and uncomfortable Time of it and receives the sentence of death in himself with a great deal of horrour whiles partly the omission of the good that was in the power of his hand to have done pursues him with guilt and partly the consideration that he and his beloved Mammon must now eternally part company and nothing of all that he enjoyed can descend into the grave after him afflicts him Ps 49. 17. with grief and partly the settlement of what he hath unconscionably gathered distracts him with cares and lastly the uncertaintie of his Eternal Estate which he hath formerly neglected oppresseth him with just and deserved fears the bountiful Giver if at least he hath managed his Charities with Religious Principles either hath or hath cause to have an easie and peaceable Passage out of this world a true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in all respects Whiles he is assured by Gods Promise that he will strengthen him upon Psal 41. 3. his bed of languishing and make all his bed in his sickness whiles the leaving his earthly goods lies not near his heart having continually kept the cares of keeping them at a distance from it and the Conscience of his good deeds in this world and the comfortable assurance of the Friendships he hath made in another world dismiss him hence with that applause which the vain Emperour Augustus apud Suetonium once fondly called for of those friends which assisted him in his last Agonies 3. After Death whereas there are are two things in reference still to this world which commonly men when they come to die are concerned for their Memory and their Posterity both these also are secured to the bountifull Giver I. His Memory which Solomon Eccles 7. 1 tells us is better than precious oyntment to embalm and keep Men from putrefaction when they are dead the same holy Author tells us shall be blessed All men Pro. 16. 7. will speak of such an one with just commendations and bury his Infirmities in his Grave as thinking themselves obliged to have his good deeds only in everlasting remembrance The good woman that spent her Box of precious oyntment upon our Saviours feet received from him another oyntment far more precious in the assurance he gave her that where-ever that Gospel should be preached Mat. 26. 13. in the world that good deed should be told in memorial of her But of the tenacious Receiver whom in opposition to the liberally righteous the wise man calls Prov. 16. 7. suprà the wicked he sayes withall that his memory shall rot i. e. not only perish but also stink and be offensive whiles it is perishing in the nostrils of Posterity and though he take as great care as Absalom 2 Sam. 18. 18. did in his life-time to raise himself the most magnificent Monuments to preserve his Name when he is dead yet they shall serve only as they say his Pillar doth to invite Survivors to cast stones at in detestation of his Memory 2. His Posterity and remaining Relations enjoy an entayled Blessing on the Estate which the liberal man leaves behinde him and that in the largest extent that can rationally be desired And no wonder For by his Charity he hath engaged God to be the Executor of his Will the Husband of his Widow and the Guardian to his Fatherless Children And under his Tuition the Psalmist assures us both by Promise and answerable Experience to back it they shall be well looked to For saith he the man who is mercifull and lendeth sometimes Psal 37. 25 26. lending is as true a Charity as giving his seed shall be blessed And he makes it good by an Experimental Observation of his own I have been young and now am old but I never saw the charitably righteous forsaken nor his seed begging their bread Whereas the Posterity of the sordid Receiver have no such provision made for them but as to any Divine Promise are left to the wide world without any assurance of
being thus cared for by him So that however they fare when the Parent is gone upon the account either of common Providence or if they prove better than their Ancestor by Divine Benediction as the reward of their personal Piety yet the comfort hereof can no way lighten the cares and fears of his dying Bed because he hath no warrant to expect any better event to befall them than the Prophetical Curse bestowed upon Judas to be continually Vagabonds Psal 109. 10 11 12 13 14 15. and begge c. And Experience too often proves that Curse to extend farther than the Person it was principally meant for even to the Children of all those who like him remembred not to shew mercy It being a thing of common observation that the more the covetous Father leaves his Posterity the more certain Prey they become to as covetous Tutors and Guardians or if they escape them are too often worse handled by their own prodigal Lusts which before the third Generation scatter all that with the forke which the carefull Predecessor gathered with the Rake So that frequently within one mans Memory a great Estate in one and the same Family is both gotten and spent and spent in fewer moneths it may be than it was years in getting It is an handsome Memento that one of the Ancients before mentioned gives the sordid gatherer Thou takest care saith he to oblige thy Heir by employing the contrivances of thy gray head to augment the Estate thou intendest to leave him Alas Wretch saith he thou art mistaken Thy young Spark odit incrementa haereditatis suae ad damna festinat thinks thou art getting too long and would fain have thee make an end of thy Trade of gaining that he may begin his of spending what thou hast already gained And thus have I shewn you the advantage that in point of Profitableness Giving hath beyond Receiving in reference to this world and the Concerns thereof both in Life in Death and after Death But the greatest Instance of the Profit that comes thereby is 2. In reference to the World to come For although there be no proper Merit in Bounty how large soever or however well qualified to purchase everlasting happiness no far be such a thought from the breast of any charitable man for our good in this life be it what it will extends not to God as it must if it Ps 16. 2. properly deserve any thing at his hands yet whiles we extend our bounties to the Saints that are on earth with such dispositions as God requires we come under a capacity of being rewarded with eternal felicity by vertue of his Promise who hath assured us that he will not forget our work Heb. 6. 10. and labour of love in this kinde and if we thus sow to the Spirit Gal. 6. 7 8. by taking opportunities of doing good we shall of the Spirit reap life everlasting Upon the account of which security of Divine Promises a good man by his Charities may have a stock going in another world while he lives and when he comes to die may transport by Bills of Exchange as it were that cumbersome wealth which no man can as the Psalmist Ps 49. 17. saith carry with him in kind and thus do our good works follow Apoc. 14. 13. us into Heaven which we did upon Earth and the more they here abounded to the relief of others the more will they abound Phil. 4. 17. there as Fruits of the Spirit to our account When God and the truely charitable man come to reckon O happy reckoning with what infinite satisfaction shall he finde all his great and numerous Debts to Gods Justice by the blood and merit of Christ eternally cancel'd and his good deeds only booked by God acknowledging himself by his gracious Promise his debtour to be everlastingly rewarded and that so punctually that not so much as a cup of cold water bestowed upon Matth. 10. 41. a charitable account shall be forgotten In this respect it is that our Bounties are said to make us Luk. 16. 9. friends to receive us into everlasting habitations to wit such as in Gods name and for his sake receive from us who as they assist us whiles they live here by their prayers to obtain them and by acknowledging the receipt of what we bestow on them in their thanks to God for us do as it were give us those Bills of Exchange which I before spake of to draw upon God for them so when they die and arrive at the same place of happiness themselves they personally attest to those Charities they have received to make good our Title to those Blessed Mansions And thence it is that our Saviour acquainting us with the form of the Proceedings in the last Judgement doth not only tell us that our Charities will then be the great matters on which we shall be tryed but also not obscurely intimates that the Testimonials of his poor members then present will stand us in great stead as our witnesses for so that phrase seems to import Forasmuch as ye have done it Mat. 25. 40. for the least of these my Brethren who are here ready to attest it ye have done it unto me Whereas on the contrary the sordid and tenacious Receiver as he in his life-time loved his wealth too well to lay it out though for the good of his Soul amator mammonae potiùs quam animae in St. Cyprians phrase and therefore hath no good works there recorded no seed sown in that Countrey to yield him any fruit towards his account so he hath never a friend there to open his mouth for him and give him a friendly Testimony in that Judgment And by consequence how rich soever he was in this world he must needs be poor and naked and every way miserable in another having had all his good things in this life as the rich Glutton in Hell is told to his â—u 16. 25. eternal discomfort he hath nothing to lay claim to in the next Yea which is infinitely worse as he hath shewed no mercy upon Earth so in the other world he shall have Judgment without mercy Jam. 2. 13. and not receive a drop of comfort there who denyed his very crums to his necessitous Brother here And thus have I justified the Doctrine of my Text fully by the foundations of Reason it self upon which it stands and so dispatched the second part of my intended Discourse upon it I come now to my third and last undertaking to give you an account of III. The Inferences or practical Vses which it affords us by way of deduction from it In five Particulars 1. It hence follows that God hath put every mans present Blessedness at least in a great measure in his own power For you see the Acts by which it is very much to be promoted in this Life are within the reach of his own choyce such the Acts of Giving