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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Holy Rules and Helps to Devotion both in prayer and practice in Two parts Written by the Right Reverend Father in God Bryan Duppa late Lord Bishop of Winton in the time of his Sequestration FINIS
THE BLESSEDNESSE OF BEING BOUNTIFULL OR Our Blessed Saviours usual PROVERB Opened Asserted and Practically Improved By SIMON FORD D. D. LONDON Printed for James Collins at the Kings Arms in Ludgate-street 1674. VIRO NATALIBUS ERUDITIONE Omnimodisque VIRTUTIBUS Nobilissimo GEORGIO Baroni de BERKELEY IN ALBUM CURATORUM HONORIFICORUM HOSPITII Vulgo DICTI DE BRIDEWELL Alteriúsque de BETHLEM DEMISSIONE SUI GRATIOSA NUPER ADSCRIPTO ET PROINDE IN HAC PAGELLA HONORIS ergô SEPARATIM NOMINANDO HUNC TANQUAM TESTI EXPERTO De BEATITVDINE BENEFICENTIAE TRACTATULUM Humillimè Offert OMNI OBSERVANTIAE GENERE ADDICTISSIMUS SIMON FORD TO THE RIGHT WORSHIPFULL Sir William Turner Kt. PRESIDENT With his Assistants the Governours of the two HOSPITALS of Bridewell and Bethlem Gentlemen IF as it hath of late in like cases been customary I should plead the Authority of your Court as that which hath without any inclination of mine own solely prevailed with me to print this Discourse I must ingenuously confess it would be no other than a modester kinde of dissimulation with you and the World For I must own that when I delivered the substance of it from the Pulpit in two Sermons the one at the Spittle before the Lord Maior then being and the Aldermen of this City on Wednesday in Easter-week 1672. and the other which was but the former at the Instance of some of you repeated with some suitable enlargements in your own Chappel of Bridewell at your late General Meeting 1673. I was not without thoughts of publishing it because my principal Design in preaching it being as in Duty I am bound having by your favour been elected and hitherto continued Preacher to one of them to promote the good of the two Hospitals under your Government I justly conceived that the more publick I made it the more effectually it was like to answer my end Only I must withall acknowledge that the general acceptance which it found from those of you that heard me in both Auditories and the testification of your Desires by an express Order of Court to have it printed concurring with mine own inclinations gave me a great additional encouragement to adventure it thus to the publick View Concerning the success of which undertaking I am not altogether out of hope that it may in some sort answer my desires considering the serious Importance of the weighty Argument it handles and the great suitableness of the matter contained in it to the blowing up those few sparks of Charity which notwithstanding these hard Times remain yet unextinguished in the breasts of many worthy Citizens and others into such Acts and Expressions as the great Exigences of this City and particularly of these your Hospitals do require However if my hopes of success upon others should unhappily fail me yet I have reason to believe that my Endeavours herein will meet with a favourable acceptance and compliance from you who have already given me so great a pledge of it in commanding its publication I shall not farther enlarge this Dedicatory Address to you because I shall thereby the longer detain you from the Discourse it self which I hope you had no other design in calling for than that you might read and practise it and thereby acquire that Blessedness to your selves unto which it directs Which also that you may obtain is and shall be the constant Prayer of Right Worshipfull Your Obliged Servant in the Work of our Lord Jesus Simon Ford. The Blessedness of being Bountiful c. Acts 20. 35. It is more blessed to give than to receive SUch hath always been the acknowledged Dominion of Proverbial Sayings over the Principles and Lives of mankind that some Etymologists have thence taken an Argument to derive the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 name of them from a Root which though it have another signification besides yet seems most of all to fit their purpose in that of ruling or commanding This Dominion besides what the worth and weight of their matter gives them is in a great degree conferred upon them by the great Reputation of their Authours who being ordinarily either wise or great or prosperous beyond the rate of other men contribute that veneration to their Speeches which is wont to be given to their Persons Which veneration also they obtain the rather because they are looked on by Posterity as the Abstracts of those grand Principles by the Practice whereof those eminent Persons arrived at that degree of excellency in which they were placed and are therefore esteemed the most certain and compendious measures by which the actions of all others can be governed who design to arrive at the same degree of eminency by their examples And hence probably it is that the wisdom of God thought meet to place a Book of such Sayings in the Canon of Holy Scripture with the great name of Solomon who was most eminently both wise and great and prosperous prefixed that the Principles of true Religion and Vertue of which that Book is composed might not be destitute even of that lower degree of recommendation superadded to their divine Authority which results from the credit of humane Testimonials To shorten this Preface It is upon this account that I chose at this time to speak from this Text which is much of the nature of a Proverbial Paradox which not only contains in it a great Truth and therein the most powerful motive to Works of Charity that can be couched in so few words but is withall recommended from the excellency of its Authour beyond any of that kind For supposing all those that are digested into that one Book of Holy Scripture before mentioned to be originally Solomon's which yet some question and only entitle him to the collection of the greatest part of them yet this Proverb is quoted from an Authour in all the mentioned respects far beyond both him and all other men one that was more truly than he wiser than all men ◠King 4. 31. 1 Cor. 1. 24. for he was the wisdom of God one that was infinitely greater than he or any other meer man for he was the Power of God and Psal 72. 8 9 10. of whose greatness even that of Solomon himself was but a Type or shadow and one that was also more prosperous than he and all the most successful men in the world seeing the greatest design that ever was undertaken in the World the redemption of mankind from all their greatest that is spiritual dangers and enemies prospered in his hand Is 53. 10. For it is the Lord Jesus Christ himself whom our Apostle having occasion to make use of this Proverb in his Visitation Sermon to the Elders of Ephesus of which my Text is a part avouches to be the utterer and frequent user of it Ye ought saith he to remember the words of the Lord Jesus how he said and it was his usual saying for so such forms of quoteing commonly import that it is more blessed or
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
averse is recommended as the way to blessedness Do I therefore say this of my self or saith not the Scripture the same also View the Text again and read there It is a blessed thing to give 3. Is it an inferiour and less effectual means to the attainment of that end than that which the general practice of mankinde seems more to recommend the way of receiving that is of getting and keeping the good things of this life to your selves Glance on it again and it tells you farther It is more blessed to give than to receive 4. Does this seem an hard saying to you a Paradox which you are difficult to believe without good Vouchers to assure you of the Truth of it Look on once more and you will finde it is quoted as the saying of the Lord Jesus an Authour beyond all exception especially to Christians as we all profess our selves and one who as I have before shewed you is the most competent Judge in this case of all men that ever were or shall be 5. Do you question whether he indeed said so or is rather quoted as if he had said it to give reputation to that which had its original from an obscurer Author Surely you cannot be of that minde when you look backward and there read that it is a saying attributed to our Saviour by the great Apostle St. Paul in a Solemn Visitation Sermon before the Elders of Ephesus whom he calls in as Witnesses to the Verity of his Quotation as I told you before and knew if he had falsifyed in that quotation they were able to have confuted him 6. Does it seem seeing it is only in this one place taken notice of to be a casual word dropped from him by the by as we sometimes throw out Paradoxes to maintain discourse without Premeditation and therefore used only once or twice by him not frequently much less constantly as an axiome of approved Verity The very form of the Apostles quotation confutes this conceit for it is quoted as Proverbs are wont to be with an implication that it was his familiar and constant word for which he was noted as governing his whole life by this Principle 7. Will you object as we are wont to be very inventive when we study excuses to ward off a Truth we have no minde to entertain that it was a saying indeed of his but hardly thought great enough to be quoted from him by any of those Apostles that heard him or recommended to Posterity by any one but him that heard him not in person they that did so not minding it so much as to commit it to memory The Text also confutes this fond conceit For it supposeth it to be famously known even as far as Ephesus and so noted that it needed only to be remembred by them actually as a constant motive to Beneficence which they had long before treasured up in their memories notionally as a saying of special note and eminency 8. Lastly will you suppose that the Apostle who then quoted it as he had occasion to stir up the Charity of Christians did as too many Preachers do press upon his Auditory a saying of our Lord Jesus which he and his Brethren did not so far value themselves as to practise it in their own Persons Look then a little farther backward of the Text and you will finde him there urging his own example and experience in the practical use of this Principle For he appeals to all their knowledges to attest that his own hands whiles he V. 34. preached the Gospel freely among them ministred by daily labouring to his and his companions necessities and that he exhorted them not only to follow their Saviours Doctrine but also his own example in conformity to it So that you see beloved no starting-hole is left by the prudent fore-sight of the holy Pen-man of this Scripture for infidelity to escape the force and authority thereof but every word and circumstance so ordered as to contribute more strength and efficacy to it And now what shall I say more what need I to say more upon this head If such a saying of such an Authour recommended to you by such an Oratour in such an Assembly in so solemn and affectionate a manner and preferred by him to that place in his discourse which was most likely to commend it to the special notice and remembrance of his hearers the very last close and concluding period of the last Sermon that ever he was to make among them I say if such a saying so circumstantiated will not bear weight with you it will be vain for me to imagine that any thing said by me superadded thereunto should be of any force or prevalency upon you And therefore for a close of this part of my Address to you I shall only recommend it to your own thoughts as a matter of serious consideration how you will answer it at the last day when that blessed Apostle that spake these words from the mouth of our Lord Jesus and that holy Evangelist who hath transmitted them on Sacred Record to us that I joyn not my self with them who have all this while been pressing them upon you shall take up the Prophets complaint against you and say Lord who hath believed our report Isa 53. 1. Yea when your blessed Saviour himself shall charge you with infidelity as those in whom his own words have no place How Joh. 8. 37. do you think you shall be able to look him in the face when it shall be objected to you before his terrible Tribunal that the dirty Principles and sordid Practices of a brutish sort of Worldlings and Muckworms have had more force with you for the government of your lives than his heavenly Doctrine and glorious Example that you never stuck at the gratifying your lusts with vast expenses whenever they called for them and never dropped half-pence or farthings so penuriously on any occasion as when you were called upon in his Name and for his sake to promote a good work that the Furniture of one room to beautifie your new dwellings the expense of one Treatment to entertain your riotous Guests the price of one Jewel or other costly Ornament to express your vain Pride the charge of one Moneths keeping for a cast of Hawks or a kennel of Hounds for your Countrey Recreation yea which is far worse the great stakes that you adventure upon one cast of a Die the value of one bribe to blinde the eyes of Justice and promote a wrongfull cause the Hire of an Harlot for one nights sinfull pleasure and the like rates of other costly Debaucheries toties quoties a mounted to more by far than all the summes put all together that all your lives long you have bestowed upon Religious and Charitable Uses Are these my friends are these the fruits that you desire may abound to your account at that Phil. 4. 1â— Day If they be I fear you will make but