as they become fit for them So that they being as well Taught as Fed are not only in an Excellent way to be inabled comfortably to provide for themselves but also to Relieve others To be useful in the World and great Blessings to their Country Nay by your Charity to this Hospital you no less contribute to poor Orphans eternal Happiness than to their temporal Well-fare To their Souls no less than to their Bodies and Charity to the Souls of our Fellow-Creatures I need not say is incomparably the most Worthy and Excellent in it self and therefore the most Grateful to God and the most highly Rewardable And in the Hospital of Christ's Church I am well assured no means are neglected for the well Principling its Children in the True Religion all Care is taken for the Training of them up in the Way that they should go in Piety and Devotion Vertue and Goodness God Almighty reward those as most certainly He will who so faithfully discharge this greatest of Trusts And give the Poor Children His Grace to be duly affected with and carefully to improve so inestimable a Blessing In the Hospitals of S. Bartholomew and S. Thomas you bestow your Charity on the Sick Lame and Wounded who must inevitably perish and while they live lie in great Misery without the help of Charity And as you have now heard from the Paper there are such great Numbers of these Miserable People received into these Houses that they must be very large Contributions that will defray their Charges And these Objects of Charity you shall not need to be told are sad Ones indeed 'T is a lamentable thing to be destitute of Food Fire and Cloathing but over and above these Wants to want Health too or the Vse of Limbs which Wants render uncapable of supplying the other and to have excessive Pain added to extreme Poverty Oh what a pitiable Case is this What is given to the Hospital of Bridewell contributes to the Maintaining of Poor Youths and fitting them for Trades and putting them out to them which are much like Objects of Charity with those in the Hospital of Christs Church It farther contributes towards the Reducing of Vicious People to Sobriety which whatever the success be is never the less Acceptable Charity Endeavour being our Work and not success And what is bestowed here helps also to the Relieving of indigent miserable People and to the sending of poor Vagrants to the Places which ought to be their Homes that are bound by Law to take care of them and to their Relief and Subsistence in the mean time And though many I fear of these last do much more need than deserve your Charity yet this is so far from being a good Objection against giving to them that it carrieth with it a no small Motive thereto viz. that this is imitating the Charity of our Heavenly Father who is kind as our Saviours Words are to the Vnthankful and to the Evil. And if those should want the Charity of Heaven who are far from deserving it we should all go without it But I am not now encouraging you to any great Liberality towards our street Vagrants and much less to such of them as are not by Age or loss of Eyes or Limbs disabled from Working The Truth is the so swarming and I doubt daily encreasing of Common Beggars is a great temptation to reflect upon our Government And Lastly As to the Hospital of Bethlem Lord how deplorable is the Condition of those for whom your Charity is here desired Of those who have lost their Reason and so are rendred as Vnuseful to themselves as to the World and have left them but little more to make them distinguishable from Brute Creatures than the Shapes and Tongues of Men and Women But the Case of Lunaticks is too Lamentable to need Aggravation for the raising of Compassion Those therefore can be no less void of Sense than these poor Souls who need to be told that what is given towards the reducing of such as are destitute of other help to their right Minds is extraordinary Charity And now let me commend those Words of the Author to the Hebrews Ch. 13.3 to your very serious consideration Remember them that are in Bonds as bound with them and them which suffer Adversity as being your selves also in the Body That is as being liable your selves whilst you are in this World to the same Adversities The Richest man among us hath no Assurance but that he may be as poor as Iob. The Healthiest and Soundest of us all cannot promise himself that he shall not Live to be as full of Sores as was that Good man and Lazarus in the Parable or as miserably Diseased as the most languishing People in either of our Hospitals The Ripest Wits and best Parted in our City do little know but that they may end their days in Bedlam And the best Security we can have from such like Calamities is to Sympathize with and extend what Relief we are able to such-like Sufferers As on the other hand 't will be most just with GOD so to abandon us by His Providence as to permit our falling into very miserable Circumstances if we have little Compassion for our Fellow-Christians or Fellow-Creatures in Misery And whensoever this may happen as God only knows what a day or what an hour may bring forth How must then our Consciences needs upbraid us as Ioseph's Brethrens did them When they said one to another we are verily Guilty concerning our Brother in that we saw the Anguish of his Soul when he besought us and we would not hear Therefore is this Distress come upon us I doubt I have tired your Patience but I can't however conclude till I have Addressed my Self in a few words to those of you whose Hearts and Souls are in doing Good Who chiefly value your Riches upon the account of the Good you are inabled by them to do in the World Who cheerfully Embrace all Opportunities of expressing a Compassionate and Charitable Temper The Great S. Paul who next to our Blessed Saviour was the most wonderful Example of Charity the World hath known though he was not in Circumstances to be so of that part of it which consists in Alms-giving S. Paul I say assures such as you that God is not Vnrighteous to forget your Work and Labour of Love And that You who sow bountifully shall reap bountifully And therefore as it follows Every man according as he purposeth in his Heart so let him give not grudgingly or as of necessity or as being constrained by importunity for GOD loveth a Cheerful Giver 2 Cor. 9.6 7. And give me leave to read what follows to the End of this Chapter And God is able to make all Grace abound towards you that ye alwaies having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every Good Work or may still have plenty for all Charitable Works As it is Written he hath dispersed abroad he hath given to the Poor his Righteousness remaineth for ever Or his Charity And therefore he hath ever wherewithal to be Charitable Now he that ministreth Seed to the Sower both minister Bread for your Food and multiply your seed sown and Encrease the Fruit of your Righteousness or of your Charity Being inriched in every good thing to all Bountifulness or having enough to be liberal at all times which causeth through us Thanksgiving to God. Or gives us Occasion to Bless GOD for all His Blessings bestowed on you For the Administration of this Service not only supplieth the want of the Saints but is abundant also by many Thanksgivings unto God. Or causeth mighty Thankfulness to God from those that are Relieved by you and those that are Beholders of your Charity While by the Experiment of this Ministration they glorifie GOD for your professed subjection to the Gospel of Christ and for your liberal distribution to them and to all men And by their Prayer for you which Long after you or are in Love with you for the exceeding Grace of GOD in you Thanks be to God for His Vnspeakable Gift Or for this His Great and Unspeakable Gift of Charity THE END Psal. 37.35 Eccle. 8.8 Ch. 9.3 Ch. 5.15 Ch. 6.4 Ch. 9.12 Deut. 32.29 See Dr. Hammond's Note on this place 1 John 4.16 Esay 28.21 Iam. 3.33 Jer. 9.24 Stromat Lib. 1 p. 313. Hicrocles Jam. 2.10 Mat. 25.30 Ch. 3.10 2 Cor. 8.12 Gal. 6.10 2 Cor. 9.6 Prov. 11.24 Luke 6.35 Gen. 42.21
Christians But it is necessary to add That it becomes us not to be desirous of more for ours than that they may live comfortably according to their Education and the Rank and Quality of Our Children Nor ought we to covet Great things for them since by this means we may endanger their being deprived of what is infinitely better than any thing we can leave them viz. God's Blessing And He hath made Promises enough to put us out of all doubt that the best Course we can possibly take to have our Children blest in the World is to be mighty cautious while we retain enough for their comfortable Subsistence of making the Poor and Needy fare the worse for them And now Fourthly and Lastly Since we have such abundant Evidence of the Absolute necessity of Making to our selves Friends of the Mammon of Vnrighteousness if we would when we fail and are turned out of these mouldering Cottages be received into everlasting Habitations Since if we are not Infidels we must needs be convinced that there 's no Duty whatsoever but will as easily be dispensed with as this Duty and that 't is every whit as indispensable as Faith in Christ's Merits and Righteousness for the Remission of our sins And since we have not the least shadow of Reason to hope be we never so observant of other Precepts that Christ's Undertakings for Sinners will in the least avail us while we live in disobedience to his so often repeated Precepts of Charity and have none or but little fellow-feeling of the Distresses and Calamities of our poor Brethren Let us considering these things be perswaded to make as much Conscience every whit of this as of any other Duty to which our Religion does oblige us And in order to the still more effectually exciting you hereunto I might present you with as many Promises relating to this Life as well as the other as your hearts can wish for And I might shew particularly from not a few Texts of Scripture that to be Rich in good Works is the surest way to encrease your Riches to add to your Treasures on Earth as well as to secure and augment your Treasures in Heaven But as these Promises are forreign to my Text so you were on Monday minded of many of them As also had many bright and shining Examples of Charity the more to quicken you to this great Duty laid before you But yet I must not wholly wave this Great Topick but shall confine my self to those Examples which our own City hath been and God be thanked is still Blest with Examples enough to shame all Miserly People out of their excessive Backwardness to Works of Charity and more than enough to make our Adversaries ashamed of their Nick-naming Protestants Solisidians although they were wholly unacquainted as 't is impossible they should be with our Principles Which by the way are no more reconcileable with Solisidianism than is the Doctrine of the Bible For The Bible as Mr. Chillingworth saith The Bible is the Religion of Protestants Which if it were of another sort of Christians who call us Biblists it could not be one of their Avowed Doctrines That Good Works do Vere mereri augmentum Gratiae aeternam vitam augmentum Gloriae Truly or properly merit an Encrease of Grace Eternal Life and an Encrease of Glory Which are the words of the Council of Trent Nor would their Greatest Motive to Good Works be that which divers of them have frankly acknowledg'd is not in the Bible and which we are certain is a meer Figment and the very Dream of a Shadow And Serves to no better purpose than to spoil Charity and make it a thing forced and extorted by slavish fear I need not tell you I mean their Doctrine of Purgatory But to proceed I say we have had many Noble Examples among our selves and have at this day to encourage us to be Charitable And great instances of the Charity of our Fellow-Citizens for the most part are commended to your Imitation in this Paper A True Report c. HEre are Five Eminent Hospitals which you may be satisfied by what hath been now a third time read are such Treasuries for Charity as there are no where to be found better And which withal give us such Patterns of it as the like to them are not easily to be met with As these Hospitals have had of late years far more Liberal Contributions than heretofore so a very great part of their Revenues being consumed by the late dreadful Fires and the greatest part of three of them and the whole Stock of the Hospital of Bethlem exhausted by the Building of a far more Commodious House which cost above 17000 l. besides paying Interest for several great Summs for the finishing thereof they would since have signified nothing to what they now do without such Contributions Now certainly those whom God hath blest with Estates and who want not Hearts to be liberal with them cannot want Encouragement to Liberality towards these Houses of Charity For as in these they cannot fear depositing their Alms either in Unfaithful or Imprudent hands their Governours and Treasurers having so great a Reputation for their Excellent managing and improving of Charity so they cannot be bestowed on People whose Case is more compassionable than theirs is who are received into these Houses I mean among our own Country-men I thus limit it because the French Protestants for whom I must take all opportunities of being an Advocate must necessarily be acknowledg'd to be the most inviting Objects of Charity in the World Both in regard of the not to be parallel'd Greatness of their Sufferings and the Blessed Cause for which they suffer But if God's Stewards as all that have Estates will one day be convinc't they were and that GOD never parted with His Propriety in them would be but as just as He is bountiful to this City and Kingdom neither these distressed Forreigners nor our own Poor would have cause to complain of the want of Charity Our good GOD hath given among us enough and to spare for the Supply of both and no one be in ever a jot the worse Circumstances But to return to our business In the Hospital of Christ's-Church the Receivers of your Charity are poor Orphans who might have been cast upon the Wide World had they not here been taken in And whose begging about our Streets could only have been prevented by the hand of Charity And Who would not Covet being of their number whose Hearts are now rejoiced at the Lovely Shew now before us of Fatherless Children well Fed which is seen in their Countenances and as well Cloathed by the help and Assistance of their Charity But they are next under God obliged to their Benefactors for a far greater Blessing than mere Food and Rayment viz. a Liberal Education which is fitting them for good Callings suited to their several Genius's and Capacities and to which they are placed
truth and shall assure our hearts before him c. Or We cannot desire a more certain Evidence a more infallible Mark of our being upright-hearted Christians than such a temper of mind as shall be on all occasions engaging us in such Works as these 3. By Works of Mercy and Charity we are made more and more Capable of being received into these everlasting Habitations more and more meet to be partakers of the Inheritance of the Saints in light which principally consists in a Likeness to God and a Complete Enjoyment of Him. There is nothing whereby we can so Resemble GOD and therefore that can put us into such a Capacity of Enjoying Him as our being habituated to these Works The Divine God-like Nature must needs most eminently appear in these since Mercy and Goodness Benignity and Loving Kindness are the Perfections by which the Best of Beings doth above all other Recommend himself to us as might be largely shewed from the Holy Scriptures Therefore the Definition which S. Iohn gives us of God is Love. God is Love saith he and he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in Him. The Lord is good to all saith the Psalmist and his tender mercies are over all his Works Nothing is so natural to Him as Doing Good. The Prophet Isaiah calls his Iudgments and Acts of Severity his Strange Work. And the Prophet Ieremiah tells us that He doth not afflict willingly nor grieve the Children of men The Divine Severity is not an Effect of Choice but of Necessity for the maintenance and upholding of God's Government of the World. It proceeds from a Necessity of Sinners making But He hath thus declared by the now nam'd Prophet I am the Lord which exercise Loving-Kindness and Righteousness in the Earth for in these things I delight saith the Lord. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 'T is as natural to God to do good as to Fire to warm and to Light to enlighten saith S. Clemens of Alexandria Those therefore who do most good and are most delighted therein are most like to God whereas those who most Resemble Him in Power and Knowledge if void of Goodness the Devils for instance are most unlike Him. And those who are most like to God are best qualified for enjoying Him and capable of enjoying most of Him. And such as by their Likeness to God are fitted to Enjoy Him shall not fail so to do I may truly say cannot 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 There cannot be a separation betwixt God and his Likeness said the Philosopher excellently The Application NOW from what hath been Discoursed we learn First Wherein lieth the Goodness and Desirableness of a plentiful Fortune If we give any Credit to our Blessed Lord we must believe that it doth not lie in its inabling us to Lay up but to Lay out the more and that upon Pious and Charitable Designs not upon our Selves or Families and much less to gratifie Pride or Luxury and the better to promote by that means the Great Business for which we were sent into this World to make our selves so much the greater Blessings to it and more to glorifie our Creator and Redeemer by Good Works than we are capable of glorifying them without Plentiful Estates and to attain to the Higher degrees of Blessedness and Glory in the World to come I say we are abundantly satisfied from what our Lord hath declared to us in our Text and other places and from what hath been discoursed that herein alone consists the Advantage of being Rich. And he is a Person not sufficiently purged from Worldliness and Sensuality who endeavours or can desire to be Rich for other Ends or to make his Children so for any other reason than that by this means they may be the more serviceable to their Fellow-Creatures may bring the more Glory to GOD and gain the larger Proportions of Bliss and Happiness in the other Life In Comparison of which this Life is nothing worth and truly all things considered not worth any thing in it self nor at all desirable but as 't is a State of Probation for the fitting and preparing us for an infinitely better And if we considered how far a large Estate is from making the Owners of them Happy in this life nay how it involves them in innumerable anxious Cares and distracting Troubles and a World of Misfortunes which those are secure from who possess but just so much as not to stand in need of the Charity of others we should think it the most desireable thing for our selves and ours to have no whit more than Agurs with viz. a Competency except for the foresaid Purposes And especially considering the Dreadful Account which those shall be called to who have not Hearts to imploy their Riches to such purposes and withal what our Lord hath said of the extreme difficulty of Rich mens entering into the Kingdom of Heaven in regard of the difficulty of their not trusting in their Riches and of their not being made Covetous or Proud or Sensual by them one would think that all who have any serious Concern for the Souls of their dear Children should tremble at the thoughts of venturing them with Great Estates and be under no Temptation upon their account of not being liberal And I cannot imagine but that every truly-Good man must needs dread for his Childrens sake as well as for other reasons being backward to Works of Charity Nothing being more commonly observed than that the Children of Covetous Close-handed Parents do either as prodigally fling away what they scraped together for them or prove mere Mammonists and Muck-worms like them and so have their Portion like them too in this Life Which no man that really believes the other Life shall need to be told is an Evil to be dreaded unspeakably more than their going a Begging from door to door Secondly We learn from our past Discourse that 't is not in the least disbecoming a Christian Spirit nor at all inconsistent with that Ingenuity which Christianity requires to have Respect with Moses to the Recompence of Reward in the Good we do or to be excited thereby to Well-doing Many Charitable and Good Souls have perplex't themselves with doubts that their Good Works are not of the true Christian kind because they think they are Conscious to themselves of not being principally moved to them by Love to GOD but by self-Love being perswaded that the onely spring and principle of Evangelical Obedience is Divine Love and Gratitude and that neither Hope nor Fear is so But since so very many Promises and Threats are to be found in the Gospel 't is evident they are greatly mistaken and that they fear where no Fear is For is it to be thought that we should be stirred up to Good Works by such Motives as these by Our Blessed Saviour Himself if their having their designed influence upon us would so spoil them as