money; when he trusts upon God's care, his fears and dread of want are suppressed, and when he takes his neighbour into his heart, pity renders him. liberal. If therefore you would know the true standard of your distributions, see that you love God and not money; see that you can trust yourselves and all your affairs to God's care; see, finally, that you be possessed with a tender compassion towards your distressed brother, kindled in you by the compassions of Jesus towards yourselves, and then whether you have much or little to give, you shall need no direction how to open your hands.

Thus now I have laid out what I hope may serve to make you advised sufficiently concerning the nature of Christian charity, as it relates to the matter of helping the distressed. Herein my design hath not been to discourage liberality upon any principles, but to undeceive any who may have unduly judged of themselves that they were charitable, and to make it evident what true Christian distribution is.

I shall detain you once again, if God permit, with setting before you the necessity of Christian love.

Meantime, let us labour to improve the subject of this day. Go, my brethren, try your hearts. Ye are living amidst much prosperity, see if ye do not grudge and envy the prosperous estate one of another. Yet with your prosperity, objects of distress are with you always: consider how you carry it towards them; if they have a place in your thoughts, your pity, your your purse, your prayers. It is not enough to give,

you must have compassion on them.

This will make

you think for them, and fall upon effectual means for

their relief. "Blessed is the man that provideth for the poor and needy;" it is a gracious employment. But of all sorts of liberality that is the most gracious, which is laid out in the useful and religious education of children. See to it if these be cared for. Possibly their parents are bringing them up in vice and idleness. They demand your attention; and God hath blessed you; ye are well able; and O that ye would remember how riches make themselves wings and flee away! O that ye would "make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness, that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” "While ye have time then, do good unto all men."

SERMON V.

Above all these things, put on charity: Col. iii, 14.

WE are now to conclude these discourses upon love, a grace in which I fear we come very short, yet a grace than which I can desire to see nothing more among you. Do we regard every man another's weal; are our souls precious in each other's eyes; do we rejoice over the least appearance of a religious state in any; are we unwilling to believe any thing evil one of another; are mutual infirmities endured, and failures pitied; are we ready to every good work of love, to help the souls and the estates of our brethren; are animosities, resentments, distances not known among us? Have we no envyings one of another; no hatred; no wrath ; no clamour; no evil-speaking; no selfish covetousness, the root of them all? When will it be that we shall put on charity, and be merciful, kind, humble, meek, long-suffering, forbearing, forgiving one towards another? When will that faith be in us, which shall unite us all as one soul to Christ, and love, the fruit of it illustrate and dignify our faith? When shall we love as brethren, as members one of another? I know not when; but I hope you wish for such a day; I wish you to pray for it; I pray God to hasten it among you. May his blessing, on what I have now to offer concerning the necessity of Christian love,

render it an effectual means of enlarging that gracious spirit in all our hearts.

The necessity of Christian love may appear from these three considerations.

I. That the honour of Christ demands that we love one another.

II. That we are no real disciples of Christ unless we do so.

III. That without this there can be no such thing as communion of saints. Which last I purpose mostly to speak of, as particularly suited to the ordinance before us.1

I. Then, the honour of Christ demands that we should love one another. How so? Why hereby he is manifested to be the Saviour of the world, the powerful and sufficient Redeemer of mankind. But how doth love shew this? You shall hear. You know (because I have spent a whole discourse upon that point) that in our natural estate, being under the guidance of our selfish and worldly hearts, we are at variance with each other, and that it cannot be otherwise, while every one expects to have his own will, and all are seeking pre-eminence in worldly goods, as we all naturally are. How may love and peace be restored? It was said that it could not be done any other way, than by taking away that self-will and love of the world, which is natural to our hearts, by disposing us to submit to God's will rather than to follow our own, and to set our affections on God and heavenly things, rather than upon the things of this world. If this be effected, variance must cease, and

1 The Lord's Supper.

love must take place. Now this turning men's hearts, being entirely the work of God, was, from the fall, promised to be done by the seed of the woman, and if Jesus doth this, and he only, it is evident that he, and he only, is the Redeemer of the world. He undertakes, as he says, to sanctify men's hearts by faith of him, for he was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. But how shall it appear that he is able to do this, and consequently that he is the person God hath promised, and sent to be the Saviour of the world? It will appear very plainly, when his disciples lay aside their selfish earthly regards, and love one another with a mutual respect to each other's interests as to their own. Then it will be manifested that their hearts are turned back again to God, without which it were not possible they should so love one another. But who by this means shall know that Jesus is the Saviour of the world? Why, the whole world that see his disciples loving one another, and the only ones that do so, or can do so, in the whole world. The world cannot but see that a mighty change is wrought upon them, and thereby confess that Jesus is the Son of God, that Saviour that should come into the world. The force of the argument lies here, that the true disciples of Christ by means of their love are singular. While all the rest of mankind are living in malice and envy, hateful to, and hating one another, neither malice, envy, or hatred should be found among them, but they should be seen to exercise all manner of tenderness, forbearance, delight, and mutual regard every one towards his brother. This must be both a confounding and convincing ar