the life and manners, as no other principle | ble sinners!" But as we have no deserts of has any power to do. But many are possess-our own, no works of righteousness by which ed of this truth, without applying it to their to claim his favor, and are entitled only own advantage. Let them, however, bear in through the sufferings and satisfaction of mind, that, "without holiness no man shall Christ, let us beseech HIM to intercede for us, see the Lord:" none of the world's dross or and plead his merits with the Father: "0 impurity will be suffered to continue in his God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have sight. And in this he is no hard master, mercy upon us miserable sinners!" And reaping where he has not sown, and requir- since the benefits of his merits are applied, ing the fruit of good works, without giving us and our pardon sealed, and ourselves enabled strength and ability to bring them forth. He to render an acceptable service, only by the has provided for us the assistance of his Holy operations and assistance of the Holy Spirit, Spirit, that we may be enabled to serve that let us implore HIS aid also: "O God the Holy true and living God in whom we believe. If Ghost, proceeding from the Father and the we are purged by HIM, we shall be clean; if Son, have mercy upon us miserable sinners!" he washes us, we shall be whiter than snow; Yet remembering, that, how various soever and when the kingdom of God shall come, the economy may be, salvation is the one and his glory shall appear, we shall be pre- sole undivided end and work of all; therepared to behold his face in righteousness.* fore to ALL let us address our earnest prayers and invocations, as to the Great Power to whom we have consecrated ourselves and services: "O holy, blessed, and glorious Trinity, three Persons, and one God, have mercy upon us miserable sinners!" The sum of the whole matter, as St. Paul has wonderfully expressed it in a single verse, is this "Through Christ we have an access by one Spirit unto the Father." To the Father, with a due sense of this great honor and privilege, as sons of God, let us therefore address ourselves for pardon and admission to our heavenly inheritance: "O God, the Father of heaven, have mercy upon us, misera *It has been asked, of what importance the doc And, thou, almighty and everlasting God, who hast given unto us thy servants grace by the confession of a true faith to acknowledge the glory of the eternal Trinity, and in the power of divine Majesty to worship the keep us steadfast in this faith, and evermore Unity; we beseech thee, that thou wouldst trine of the Trinity can be to the state. We answer, Much, every way; as it is a doctrine of the Scrip- defend us from all adversities; who livest and tures, and as it is a doctrine pregnant with the no-reignest one God world without end. blest motives to Christian love and obedience. It To this one God, for the means of grace therefore requires and demands the support of every vouchsafed to us in this life, and for the hopes state wishing to enjoy the favor and protection of that God who, for such gracious purposes, hath re- of glory in another, be ascribed, as is most due, all honor, majesty, and dominion, all praise and adoration, both now and for ever. vealed it. † Ephes. ii. 18. DISCOURSE LXXV. CHARITY RECOMMENDED ON ITS TRUE MOTIVE. 1 JOHN, IV. 11. If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. cease among nations, dissensions of every kind among lesser societies, and the individuals that compose them. All must be peace, because all would be love. And thus would every end of the incarnation be accomplished; good will to men, peace on earth, and to God on high glory from both. In the farther prosecution of the subject, your attention is requested to a few observations on the motive proposed by St. John for the duty of charity; and the best manner of perforining the duty upon that motive. GREATER injustice cannot be done to the ful? It will comfort him. Is he in prison? doctrines of Christianity, than to suppose It will go to him, and, if possible, bring him them barren speculations, subjects intended out. Upon this ground, wars must for ever only for the meditations of the pious in their closets, or the controversies of the learned in their writings, and issuing in no conclusions for the benefit of society, and the comfort of mankind. The contrary is happily evinced by the words just read, in which allusion is made to the incarnation of the Son of God, as the great instance of divine love towards us; and that love proposed as the principle and the pattern of our love toward our neighbor. "If God so loved us," that he "sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins," such are the words immediately preceding the text-then," we ought also to love one another." We might ask him in whom zeal for the welfare of his fellow-creatures burns with the brightest and most ardent flame, what his patriotic and generous heart could wish more, than that men might be brought to this blessed temper of mind? Did it but prevail in its full extent, it would reform the world at once. Transgression would cease, and with it much of our misery and trouble. The reign of righteousness and happiness would commence, and paradise be, in great measure, restored upon earth. St. Paul assigns the reason in very few words, "Love worketh no ill to its neighbor ;"* it can work him no ill; it can never injure him in his person, his bed, his property, or his character; it cannot so much as conceive a desire for anything that belongs to him. But it resteth not content with negatives. It not only worketh him no ill, but it must work for him all the good in its power. Is he hungry? It will give him meat. Is he thirsty? It will give drink. Is he naked? It will clothe him. Is he sick? It will visit him. Is he sorrow-ral character, and laying circumstances toge Rom. xiii. 10. Many seem to think, that if charity be but shown, the motive is a matter of indifference. It may be so to the party receiving, but not to the party bestowing. A sick person is equally benefitted, whether he who sits by his bed-side sits there from real affection, or with design to make a will in his own favor. Nothing can determine the sterling worth of an action, but a knowledge of the motive upon which it is performed. Here, then, we should be very careful not to deceive ourselves. We should deal fairly, and search our hearts to the bottom. In the day of inquisition and retribution, he who made them, and therefore knows what is in them, will certainly do so. Men and angels, on that day, will be made acquainted not only with all we have done, but with the true reasons why we did it; and the transactions of human life will be found far other than they seem. Nay, there are, even now, men of the world, endowed with sagacious and penetrating minds, who judging partly from what they have observed in others, are not easily imposed upon. By knowing a person's gene ther, they will give a shrewd guess at what is passing within, and not be led to take the ostensible motive for the real. Some French because they do not obtrude upon the signt, authors, and, after them, some English ones, and awaken the tenderness of immediate symwriting upon this plan, have given a very un-pathy. This is a sort of mechanical charity, favorable representation indeed of human na- which requires springs and wheels to set it a ture. Their maxims are by no means uni- going.” * versally true; but might be rendered serviceable, if we made use of them, not to censure others, but to examine ourselves; not to judge our neighbors, but to let our own consciences plead, Guilty or Not Guilty. In the case before us, some information is necessary for us all, lest, after performing actions of charity, by performing them upon wrong and sinister motives, we become exposed to the mortification of losing their reward. We may perform them merely because there is a decency and propriety in so doing; others perform them, and we should be thought meanly of were we to omit them: we may perform them out of vanity, to acquire the character of benevolent; a character to which, perhaps, upon the whole, we have no good title: we may perform them out of envy, lest a rival bear off the honor from us: we may perform them to become popular, and serve by them some secular and political interest; we may perform them in the way of commutation for a favorite sin, in the practice of which we have determined to continue, and hope thus to buy off the punishment due to it. In this last article we shall find ourselves grievously mistaken. In all the rest may be applied the words of our Lord; "You have your reward:" you sought the praise of men; you obtained it: you sought not the praise of God; you obtained it not. There is yet another motive, concerning which the determination is more difficult when we perform an act of charity, to escape from the pain we fell at the sight of misery. We relieve the object; but it is to relieve ourselves. We hear much of these fine feelings, from persons who reject with disdain the influence of a higher principle. God forbid we should depreciate humane and exquisitely tender sentiment, which the beneficent Author of our nature gave us, as a spur to remove the distresses of others, in order to get rid of our own uneasiness. But it has been justly observed, that "where not strengthened by superior motives, it is a casual and precarious instrument of good, and ceases to operate, except in the immediate presence, and within the audible cry, of misery. This sort of feeling often forgets that any calamity exists which is out of its own sight; and though it would empty its purse for such an occasional object as rouses transient sensibility, yet it seldom makes any stated provision for miseries, which are not the less real Not so the real Christian charity recommended in the text to be performed upon another motive-" If God so loved us "—as he hath done-" we ought also to love one another" a motive at once rational, pure, and permanent. I say, a rational motive. There is indeed a feeling and an affection in the case; but they are founded on the highest truth and the strongest reason: they are fixed and directed by the judgment. A friend has done me the greatest service in the world; to his kindness I owe every good that I possess, every comfort that I enjoy. His kindness I will therefore return through life, in every_instance which falls within my power. This is the principle: it is, in short gratitude; a principle, destitute of which, in social intercourse, the world itself scarce allows to any person more than the name of a man. Such is the idea universally entertained of ingratitude to a friend, a benefactor, a master, a parent, a prince. But does ingratitude, then, change its nature, and put off its deformity, when the object is the best of friends, the most generous of benefactors, the most indulgent of masters, the tenderest of parents, and the most gracious of princes? God has made us, and redeemed us; he has given grace, and promised glory. He asks no other return, but that we love him; and, as we can bring no advantage to him by so doing, that we transfer such love, for his sake, to our brethren; and he places it to his own account. In these circumstances if we love not them, we cannot be deemed to love him. In the whole compass of our knowledge there exists not, surely, a truth which, while it speaks so warmly to the human heart, approves itself so completely to the human understanding. The motive is likewise pure. It originates from all that is liberal, generous, and noble in the soul of man. It has been said, there is a reward promised, and therefore it is mercenary. But they who say this, seem not sufficiently to have considered the nature of the reward. I love my friend, and desire, of course, to be with him, to enjoy his company and conversation, and to live in his presence. In all this there is nothing mercenary, nothing sensual or selfish.† Of such *Thoughts on the Manners of the Great, p. 64. "The self-love, which aims at the rewards of another life, is perfectly consistent with social; the rewards being promised to those only who love their neighbors as themselves." See p. 203 of the Rever a kind is the reward promised by our heavenly Friend. The desire of it is no sign of the depravity, but of the exaltation and perfection of our souls. The body indeed will have its share, but not in the present state. It will be refined, it will be spiritualized, by the working of an almighty power, able to subdue all things to itself; it will be changed into the same image, from one degree of glory to another, and fashioned like unto that of its great Saviour and Redeemer. The reward is intellectual and divine; and would be no reward to a person who was not himself become so. The motive, therefore, notwithstanding the reward, is as pure as it is rational. It voluntary contributions of well-disposed persons, and must drop if they are withholden. But it can never be-In this respect, without incurring the charge of self-adulation, we may say, that all nations must yield the palm to Englishmen. At the first call of the kind, they readily" put their hands to the plough ;" and when they have so done, it is not their custom to "look back." That it deserves support, you will all be convinced, when it shall have been briefly stated to you, that the objects relieved by it are poor; that they are women; that they are married women, in the most painful and perilous situation; and that the relief is brought home to them in their own houses. And it is as permanent as it is pure. Is God could have ordained that all should vanity our motive for charitable actions? have been rich. But he has not so ordained. may cease. Is worldly interest? It may Poverty, with every other evil, came in upfail. Is fashion? It may vanish away. Is on man's transgression. The alteration which a feeling of compassion and sympathy? Such then took place in the earth rendered labor temperaments may change, and often do so. necessary. If none were poor, none would But the argument deduced from the love of labor; and if some did not labor, none could God towards us can never fail, any more than eat. Difference there must be in rank and that love on which it is founded. It meets order; and the rich are not of more service us when we arise in the morning, and when to the poor, than the poor to them. Equalwe go to our repose at night; when we be-ity of condition could not subsist by the conhold the heavens, and the earth, and all the stitution of nature, as the case has stood since hosts of them, serving our necessities, and ministering to our enjoyments; when we find ourselves surrounded by our families and and our friends; when we go out, and when we come in; above all, when, as now, we visit his temple, and hear, from his blessed word, the history of those wonderful works that he has wrought, and of the felicity he has prepared for us in another world, when thi in which we now live shall be passed away, and gone into perdition. Often as we acknowledge these favors, and praise him for the mercy which endureth for ever, the question should occur, How can I acknowledge them, with what force can I praise him for them, if, after so much given, I am not ready, upon this principle, to give to others? Verily, our praises, as well as our prayers, will rise up in the judgment against us, and condemn us. No-if we hope for final acceptance with our God, let us always, in our life and at cur death, remember the inference in the text, and act upon it-" If God so loved us, we ought also to love one another." The strength of this inference, and the hold it has taken upon your minds, will appear this day, by the support afforded to an institution which needs support, and deserves it. It needs support, as relying solely on the end Mr. Whitaker's Sermons on Education, which well deserve the attention of ali who are concerned in that useful and honorable employment. the fall. It must be effected by a new way; But it is peculiarly afflictive when it falls upon the weaker sex. At the sight of them in distress, few hearts are so hard as not to relent and show mercy and compassion. Formed originally from man, to man they of course look up for support. It is his duty, and in all civilized nations it has ever been * Deut. xv. 11. his glory, to afford it. Their claim upon us | cries have been heard by the Lord of Sabaoth, is indeed a just one. They were created as and he hath raised up friends to their assishelp-mates, and through life are found to be tance. They have obtained mercy from God such. From the cradle to the grave, from the swaddling-clothes to the winding-sheet, we are indebted to their good offices: offices which can with propriety be perform ed by them alone. By them is the burden of cares domestic and œconomical taken off from us. The tenderness and sympathy of their nature alleviate our sorrows, their affections and fidelity double our joys. to be "saved in child-bearing;" they should obtain it from you. If it be true, as the wise man has observed, that " by a woman came the beginning of sin, and through her we all die ;" no less true it is, that when the Saviour was born, "by a woman came the beginning of righteousness, and through her we all live." "I am come," says the Saviour himself, "that ye might have life: and that ye might The persons assisted by our benevolent in- have it more abundantly." Evil is swallowstitution are married women. For those in ed up by good; and it must be through our a single state, whom thoughtless, unfeeling, own fault, if we do not become gainers by our cruel profligacy had seduced, and over whom loss. Sublime and beautiful is the exultation savage, brutal lust had tyrannized for a time, of Mary, upon the occasion, over the great and then cast them, destitute and forlorn, enemy "My soul doth magnify the Lord, upon the public, where there was none to and my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Sahelp; for such, I say, when sufferings and the grace of God co-operating had led them to repentance, and to seek forgiveness, where we must all seek it, at the hands of a Redeemer-for such, a house of refuge has been opened, and ample provision made in it, of all the assistance requisite for the purpose. And a noble charity it is. "There is joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth;" there is a joy peculiar to the circumstance of the sheep that is found, which cannot happen, uniess that sheep has been lost. But let us not, therefore, in the mean time, forget the wants sustained by such of the flock as, having not wandered, require attention and provision in the fold. "Marriage is honorable :" God has pronounced it to be so, and man cannot render it otherwise. By its offspring come the strength of kingdoms, the establishment of thrones, and the upholding of the world. Among the Romans, more than four ages elapsed, from the foundation of their city without any complaint or process on account of adultery; and it was not till the year 521, that they saw the first divorce; when, though the cause was specious, the indignation of all Rome pursued the divorcer to the end of his days. These men were heathens; but their morals put Christians wofully to the blush! Let us not be wanting in our endeavors to roll away the reproach which lies so heavy on the present generation, by this instance of regard shown to the honest and faithful married. viour. For he hath regarded the low.iness of his hand-maiden. For behold from henceforth, all generations shall call me blessed. For he that is mighty hath magnified me, and holy is his name: and his mercy is on them that fear him throughout all generations." Lastly, the persons for whom your benevolence is this day entreated, are not of the number of those wandering and professional mendicants, who meet you, at every turn, with their clamorous and importunate petitions. Sober and laborious, they are to be found at home; quiet, though wretched; visited only by that charity, which, like the influence of heaven's great luminary, penetrates into the deepest recesses, and "nothing is hidden from the heat thereof." Thither our institution goes to find them, and carries to their own houses the best medical, and every other necessary assistance. By the subscription of a generous public, hospitals have been erected, and are supported, for the same purpose. Without in the least depreciating them, or detracting from their utility, it may yet be truly said, that there are some superior advantages attending the present plan. The wife is not absent from her family, where, though, for a time she cannot herself do much, yet she can direct what is to be done; the husband can go forth to his labor, not an hour of which can well be spared; he is not induced to spend his evenings abroad in public houses, which may occasion his ruin and that of his family; being an eye-witness to the sorrows of his wife, the love between them is increased; and affection for the new-born offspring will stimulate It is shown at a time when they most need it-a time of distress and anguish, when they are suffering under the sentence passed from the beginning; when pains of body, sorrows of heart, and terrors of imagination, as- him afresh to industry.* sail them with combined forces; when the enemy compasses them round about, and # See an account of the Benevolent Institution for the sole purpose of delivering poor married women poverty has set all help at a distance. Their at their own habitation, printed in the year 1786. By |