in their most Literal sense and shew that the Administration of this Service supplies the Necessities of the Saints such as are truly so It remains in the second place that it be abundant also in many Thanksgivings unto God and that in the former Method First by Ordering matters so that the Distributions of our Benefactors may be an Occasion of glorifying God and our Religion Secondly that We thank God for our Benefactors and Thirdly and lastly that We pray for them First We must order matters so that by the Distributions of our Founders the Name of God and Christ be glorified We live not indeed amidst the Jews or Gentiles now and consequently cannot either profit them by our Good or scandalize them by our Bad examples or glorifie God by their Conversion But it may be we live amidst as Sullen and Perverse and as Ill-natur'd a Generation as either of the former For notwithstanding what I said of the Judgment and Opinion of the World in general about our Happiness yet there want not Some that are weak and apt to be offended at Others rejoycing in our Failings and watching curiously for our Miscarriages some causelesly complaining of our Way of Education some of our want of Zeal and True Devotion one may guess what they mean some of our sheltering Ignorance and harbouring Idleness some of our Uselessness and Insignificancy to the Commonwealth most of them meaning all the while we are too Rich and Happy and calling for a Reformation to the Pristine Purity because they think 't will bring the Pristine Poverty along with it So that we have need to walk with all the Care and Circumspection in the World redeeming the Time for indeed the Days are evil losing no Opportunities but improving our Talents to all Advantages on all Occasions both fearing God and regarding Man approving our Selves to our Selves and providing things Honest in the sight of Others Letting our Light shine before Men adorning our Profession and Living up to the Rules of our Institution and by these Means when Men shall see us thus Industrious in our Way thus happily employed in Praising and in Practising the Rules of Wisdom Virtue and Religion our Selves in countenancing and teaching Others in cultivating watering and improving all those Generous and Noble Plants they send us hither and returning them Fair and Flourishing in all that is Good and Excellent when they shall find the benefit and comfort of those sweet Living Streams that overflow from this Immortal Spring they will be tempted sure to change their Minds discharge their Hearts of their Malignity glorifie God and Christ and bless the Bounty and the Hand that ministred to so much Good. Secondly We must be Thankfull to God for our Benefactors For thô the glorifying God both in our Bodies and Spirits which are Gods and reflecting Honour on his Holy Name by a Religious Sober Usage of their Benefits be both the Best and Truest way of Thanking him yet 't is not of it self sufficient We must express our Gratitude in ways befitting reasonable and honourable Creatures agreeable to God and usefull to the World such as Rejoycing Praising and Thanksgiving such as may also edifie the Hearers and the Standers by and may excite them to the Imitation of those Vertues and Excellencies they hear and see extoll'd in Others And thô I did in reckoning up the Benefits we receive lay down so many Grounds of our Thanksgiving and have already mentioned some peculiar Virtues of our Royal Patron yet I should scarce acquit my self of what I owe to my Society unless I offer in its Name peculiar Thanks and Praise Honour and Glory to the Eternal Inexhausted Spring of Bounty for all the Advantages we in particular receive and sure I should but ill become This Place answer but ill the Purpose of this Day if I should suffer Works of such Magnificence to lie in common Heaps of Charity and be content with General Commendations passing the Good King Henry over together with the Crowd and Multitude of Founders His Honors should no more be common undistinguish'd ones than were his Merits his Praises should at least equal his Private Virtues if they may not rise up to his Royal State and his Magnificence And thô each of them singly were a Task and when conspir'd and met in one might rather cause one to despair of being Just than fear the falling into servile Adulation or Extravagance yet not to pay down something were intolerable and to imitate the Iniquity of bad Debtors that choose to be unjust to all their Creditors for fear of being so to some And as for Fame I count a Parsimony of it here were next to Sin it can be never better spent it never can be better lost and no Good Man but will say as Mamertinus did to Julian Mallem eloquentiae Laudem quam Pietatem officiúmque meum desiderari In compliance therefore with the Text I thank the Immortal God for that Munificence by which Two Royal Great Societies were Founded and Endowed which notwithstanding all the Depredations they have undergone do yet subsist in Pair and Honourable manner and are if not the Envy yet at least Part of the Praise and Glory of their Neighbours for making a King a Young and Mighty King the Instrument of so much Good for Inspiring into his Soul such Christian and such Generous Purposes instead of all those vain ambitious towring Imaginations those wicked wanton and luxurious Thoughts that fill the Heads and Hearts of Common Princes for giving us a Founder whose Bounty makes Us not more happy Men than his Example would if followed happy Christians for the Advantage of all those excellent Graces and illustrious Virtues that adorn'd his Life and shone so eminently in Him for his early Zeal and Piety his ardent and unparallel'd Devotion towards God for his innocent and uncorrupted Youth for his Sanctity Sobriety and Temperance in every kind for his great Love to Learning and greater yet to good Morality and true Religion for the firm and steady Virtues of his Manhood for his Care of all his Life and that incredible Watchfulness over all his Thoughts and Words and Works insomuch that in Twelve Years time his Confessor found no occasion to injoyn Him any Sort of Pennance For his ready Resignation to the Will of God in all Conditions for his admirable Patience under all the Sorrows and Distresses the Dangers and the Difficulties the Exiles and Imprisonments with which his Life was exercis'd for One and Fifty years and lastly for his Holy End and Sufferings being found at his Devotions by that Inhumane Prince that stabb'd him to the Heart and lost expiring out his Soul amidst his Prayers These are the Virtues I can thank God for without a Blush or secret Check for fluttering or enlarging Rare and unseen in Kings and read by private Men with wonder and confusion so that I doubt if most of us were left to judge of them
therefore to this Necessity and strict injunction of this Duty hath God in his goodness made the pleasure and delight that constantly attends it There is that sweetness and complacency in doing good to those that want that even the bare desires and wishes of it when it is beyond our power to do it give us a good degree of peace and quiet and content within and we can satisfie our scruples with the sincerity of our designs and purposes but if we bring those purposes to good effect there is then such a spring of joy and contentation rising in the soul the spirits overflow so pleasingly and the heart swells with such sweet gayety and pride that it is hard to find a name for the delightfull passion and we can sooner feel than can express what 't is we mean. And though these extasies abate in time and languish by degrees yet the delights of doing good pursue a man as long as the remembrance of it lasts It is impossible to call to mind a mans good deeds or view the objects of his charity without abundance of content and solid satisfaction I make no doubt but the devout and humble soul returns God frequent thanks for his exciting and assisting grace but I doubt very much whether 't is possible in humane Nature not to reflect Honour and Pleasure on ones self withall they do so naturally flow so unavoidably result from the remembrance of those Acts of Charity and kind Beneficence And Seneca had never more reason then when describing this Virtue he said it was Actio benevola tribuens gaudium capiénsque tribuendo Thirdly 'T is agreeable to all Mankind We are frequently forc'd when we would recommend a Virtue to our audience to tell them 't is approv'd and practic'd by all the Wise and Good and sober Persons of the World which thô it is not so yet it may look like begging of the question because we are already prepossess'd in favour of that Virtue and consequently may be thought to call and judge those Persons Wise and Good and Sober barely from the practice of it But when a man can safely say that all the World approves a thing that high and low rich and poor young and old good and bad agree to it and have been always of the Opinion when they who cannot practice it still wish they could and they who do not are asham'd and make what shew they can as if they did when no mans confidence or wit hath ever carried him so far as to dispute its Excellence or praise its Opposite a man must be forsaken quite of sense and reason and good manners he must do strange violence to all the powers of his Soul whom the reverence that is due to the so general judgement of the world cannot impress upon or move to the belief and practice of this Noble Duty upon all occasions Fourthly 'T is acceptable in the sight of God it must needs be so he would not otherwise have charged it on us with such earnestness commanded it so positively and call'd upon us for performance so incessantly and threatned its neglect so terribly throughout the Scriptures It must needs be acceptable because we are thereby kind to Him himself in relieving his Friends for such is his goodness that he hath made the cause of those that want his Own and reckons up the good we do to them done to himself and will accordingly reward it It must needs be acceptable because we thereby exercise an act of faith and confidence in his truth and goodness we give him something sure and in possession for the reversion of rewards we know at present little of we give because He bids and trust because He says that He is faithfull And the Scriptures place a great deal of the merit of Abrahams faith in obeying when he was called to leave his Country and his Fathers house and going out althô he knew not whither he went that is in ready confidence and in implicit faith it must needs be acceptable because we thereby honour him in obeying his commands are just in owning him the Lord and true Proprietor of all we have and paying this acknowledgement and by shewing our selves gratefull and in some measure worthy of his mercies And to conclude in a great many other ways not needfull to recount at present But if the works of Charity are thus excellent and sweet thus acceptable both to God and man when exercis'd on those that only want they are yet more excellent and sweet and more agreeable when exercis'd on those that want and that deserve them at the same time It is a great improvement of the Argument when the administration of this service supplieth the want of the Saints Not but that to stand in need of Charity is strictly speaking to deserve it and is the first and most immediate cause and motive both of Giving and Receiving so that he that asks and receives upon presumption of his Want and yet wants not is at the best but a Deceiver and a Cheat and he that gives without Presumption of that Want may be munificent or liberal good natured vain or whatever else he pleases but not Charitable But when both Want and Merit meet the Practice of this Grace is much more satisfactory to ones Self and more agreeable to God and Man. It is a Complicated act of Goodness then it is approving and rewarding Virtue encouraging Religion Industry and Honesty and whatever else may be the merits of the Receiver as well as pitying and relieving his Distress Let us try said One of old with admirable reason how to make our Benefits most lasting and most serviceable and such as may never turn to Evil and that will be by carefully and wisely choosing where to place them most deservedly I will never give Mony to a Man qui adulterae numerabit I wont be so far accessary to his lewd acts or purposes I will if I can reclaim him but if not I don't intend to encourage or promote his Wickedness with a great deal more to good purpose and agreeable to the voice of right Reason which advise us to associate Prudence with Beneficence and whilst we are succouring Human Nature to discountenance Vice and Immorality withall to encourage Virtue and Religion and serve the Interests of the Commonwealth And to tie this Duty closer it is now become an Obligation of Reveal'd as well as Natural Religion and we must as we have opportunity do good to all Men but especially to those that are of the houshold of Faith. And amongst other Duties summ'd up in Rom. 12. one is Distributing to the Necessities of the Saints and St. Paul makes a journey on purpose to Jerusalem to minister to the Saints and raises the Character of the Mà cedonians from their making Contributions to and that of the House of Stephanas from addicting themselves to the Ministery of the Saints And thô in all those places by the Saints we are
to understand Believers Christians in general false as well as true yet we must understand withal that they were honour'd with that Name from the Sanctity of their Profession their holy Doctrine and their presumed holy Practice as well as in Contradistinction to the unbelieving Jews and the prophane unhallowed Gentiles So that as a Man must take all due care in the Choice of fit and proper Objects of his Charity and see that they be good and truly Saints if possible yet he must not abstain from doing Good purely upon the account of his Uncertainty whether his Works will be bestowed deservedly or no. A Man must not frequently make the Suspense of his Mind a ground for withholding his Hand The Pretence will always last and without great Care will prove a Snare to Virtue 't will put him upon little Tricks and disingenuous Shifts of pleading causelesly against mens Merits 't will make him argue nicely and ill-naturedly and subtilly distinguish the Poor out of Relief and himself out of Charity and engage him by degrees into Hardness of Heart and an inhuman Temper Let every One but do his Best and guide himself by the most probable Appearances and outward Shews of which he only can be judge and leave the Issue and Event to God To God who has made it a Duty to be Charitable but has not withall given us a Spirit of Discernment to sever Hypocrites from the sincere and honest Christians and ther fore cannot reasonably be thought to require this great Exactness at our Hands and is much too just and kind not to reward our good Intentions for the sake of anothers undiscoverable Malignity It is therefore good and necessary it shews our Hope and Confidence our Faith and our Obedience that we sow our Seed at peradventure but it is better that it fall on Good ground it is good that we intend it well but it is better those Intentions find their good Effects It is a great Commendation of Charity that it supplies the Necessities of such as want but 't is a greater yet when it supplies the Necessities of Saints and truly Good Christians But Secondly It is abundant also by many Thanksgivings towards God. Whiles by the Experiment of this Administration as St. Paul says in the following Vers they glorifie God First for their profess'd Subjection to the Gospel of Christ Secondly for their liberal Distribution to them and to all Men. And Thirdly by their Prayers for you If there wanted Arguments to advance the Praise and Honour of this most excellent and usefull Grace of Charity one might without being too minute and forcing things unreasonably deduce a very certain and well grounded one from hence that the works of Charity are here made the Marks of our profess'd Subjection to the Gospel of Christ That thô there are other ways of appearing Christians such as being baptiz'd into the Churches Faith frequenting its Assemblies Partaking of its Sacraments and Submitting to its Discipline yet that the clearest Tokens the certainest Indications the openest and most avowed Profession of our Christianity is the Practice of Good Works in Pursuance of its Holy Doctrine and Commands But since there is no great need of this I have only to observe at present First that their Charity administred occasion of Glorifying God and Honourring the Christian Religion Secondly that they who were and were to be Relieved were Gratefull to God by Returning him Thanks for the Liberality of their Benefactors and Thirdly Gratefull to their Benefactors by Praying to God for them First It occasion'd the Glorifying God and Honouring Christianity For as it is in Human Intercourses where when one Man by Counsel or Persuasion of another performs some brave and generous Action part of the Praise and Glory where 't is known will both deservedly and unavoidably result upon the Encourager and Setter on so is it in the case of Charity 'twixt God and Men. It must needs be that with Considering People the Merit and the Glory of those Benefits must fall especially on God who first inspir'd those Principles into the Souls of Men from whence those gracious Acts proceeded But farther their Works of Charity were Occasions of Honouring Christianity of preferring that particular Oeconomy to both the Gentile and the Jewish Dispensation Let Men contend never so long so warmly and so wisely about the Preference of the several Theologies about the Excellency of their Doctrines and the Properness of their Natures to exalt the Understandings to refine the Powers and Faculties of the Mind and raise the Souls of Men to a Nobler pitch and closer Union with the Godhead Yet after all that Doctrine that is fitted best for the general Wellfare of Mankind and best consults its publick Benefit and Interest in this World not excluding that of another will certainly prevail and carry it above the rest when once 't is truly scann'd and understood So that had the Christian Dogmata been as sutable to the Wisdom of the World and as agreeable to its way of reasoning as its practic Precepts were to the Convenience and Benefit of Human Life it had not stood in need of Miracles it had obtain'd that by its own Reasonableness and natural Force which it did by Supernatural and Divine Assistance it was so calculated for the general Good consulted so the Weal and Comfort of the World. Nay it dispos'd the Minds of Men so sweetly to the Practice of Humanity Compassion Charity Beneficence and in a Word to all Good Nature that even where Miracles were wanting both obstinate and sullen Jews and vicious hardned Gentiles were by them often charmed into Conversion and always into Admiration of those generous Doctrines And even in spight of all the indigestible Difficulties of the Christian Creed they could not choose but love the Christian Practice So that Doing good and multiplying Acts of Charity was the most natural and ready way of heaping Honours on their Institution of Conciliating the Esteem and Favour of the World of Winning Proselytes and Gaining upon those that were without and of Securing and Confirming those that were already in Secondly Those that were relieved were gratefull to God by returning Him Thanks for the Liberality of their Benefactors They glorifie God says St. Paul for your liberal Distributions to them and to all Men. However 't is that God impresses on the Minds of Men and moves them to good Works of Charity whether by stirring and impregnating those Seeds of natural Pity he hath sown in all our Hearts or moving us by Hopes or Fears by Promises or Threats Rewards or Punishments or by some special Act of quickning and exciting Grace some sudden sweet Illapses from above or some illuminating Vision and Divine Monition or whether Men are mov'd themselves by the Vanity of their own Hearts by the Decency and Comeliness of those Works by the Ambition of Fame and the Reputation of being called Benefactors by the delights of Praise whilst Living