selves wings, and flown away; and thereby taught the world, that to get and to thrive are not always the same thing.

Besides, that poverty very frequently is the direct effect and consequent of sin and vice. The drunkard drinks off his estate, like his cups, to the very bottom, and leaves nothing behind. The vainglorious man wears his fortunes upon his back, till at length he has worn them out. The contentious man follows the law against his neighbour, for the gratification of his revengeful humour, so long, that in the end the very obtaining of the cause does not defray the charges, or remove the poverty contracted by its prosecution.

But now, certainly, such a poverty can be no more recommended by our Saviour than the sinful causes of it. For Christ commands no man to be luxurious, ambitious, or revengeful, in order to his making of himself poor. He who is the one will undoubtedly be the other. gion and virtue is not concerned, that a man should be either.

But the interest of reli

In a word, poverty is usually the effect of sin, but always a temptation to it. For it provokes the corrupt heart of man to discontents, murmurings, and repinings, to sinister and base courses for his relief, unless there be a predominant principle of grace, to compose and quiet the dissatisfactions of nature. This therefore cannot be the thing to which Christ pronounces a blessing. For whatsoever renders a man blest may be the proper object of his prayers: but none surely ought to pray for a temptation, or to petition Heaven for a great calamity. But,

2. The poverty of spirit here spoken of is not a

sneaking fearfulness and want of courage; for there is nothing base in nature that can be noble in religion. Cowardice is neither acceptable to God nor man; it neither promotes the honour of one, nor the good of the other: it being indeed the portal and broad gate through which most of the unworthy and vile practices that are seen in the world enter upon, and rifle the consciences of men. So that in the Revelation, ch. xxi. 8, St. John, reckoning what kind of persons shall be cast into the lake that burns with fire and brimstone, amongst murderers, whoremongers, sorcerers, and idolaters, ranks the fearful. And why? Because fearfulness betrays a man almost to all other sins. So that the fearful person is uncapable of making good any relation of common life, whether in the capacity of a subject, a friend, or a servant; for a man's fear will make him speak, swear, or do any thing, to rescue himself from an impendent danger.

And if this had been the proper virtue and qualification of a Christian, there would never have been any such thing in the world as martyrdom; as owning of Christ in the face of tyranny and torment, and holding fast the Christian faith upon the rack and in the flames. And therefore it is the righteous man only, who, Solomon tells us, is as bold as a lion; and who carries in his breast an heart too big to fear those who can only kill the body. In many passages and circumstances of life, it requires no ordinary pitch of courage for a man to dare to be good: and he must be a valiant as well as a conscientious man, who can and will choose duty, when it is beset with the greatest danger, and can defy the powers

Wherefore, since the poorness in spirit here spoken of by our Saviour is neither to be understood of meanness or timorousness of spirit; it is much that some should make the badges and characters of such a pitiful temper the proper indications of piety, and the marks of a more improved Christianity. For do not many, by a sneaking look and a whining voice, affect the reputation of pious and devout persons? Do not many behave themselves so, as if there were no going to heaven but by creeping, no passing through the strait gate but upon all four? But such persons understand not the nature of the Christian religion, if they think that such ignoble qualities can be any parts of it. Christianity is a superstructure upon, and an addition to the excellencies of nature and there fore, if a pusillanimous spirit debases and degrades a man, considered but as a man, it can neither adorn or improve him in the capacity of a Christian.

Having thus, by a negative consideration, shewn what this poverty of spirit is not, I come now, in the next place, to shew positively what it is, and wherein it does consist. In order to which, we are to observe, that poverty, or want, is properly a privation of fulness, or abundance, and consequently opposed to it. Now a man may be said to be spiritually full, when he abounds in a confident opinion, both of his own righteousness, and his happiness thereupon: and therefore poverty of spirit, which is its direct opposite, may be said properly to consist in these two things:

1. An inward sense and feeling of our spiritual wants and defects; and,

2. A sense of our wretched and forlorn condition by reason of those wants.

1. And first, it consists in an inward sense of that deplorable want of holiness, which we are in by nature. We are born into the world destitute, and surrounded with innumerable infirmities; and, in the phrase of the apostle, in the Revelation, chap. iii. 17, poor, miserable, blind, and naked. All the powers of our souls are crippled and disordered, and rendered strangely impotent to the prosecution of good. Our judgments are perverted, our wills depraved, and our affections misinclined, and set upon vile and unworthy objects. This is the portion and inheritance which we derive from our first parents: these are the weaknesses and evils we labour under; and the first step to a deliverance from them, is to be sensible of them: for we shall never attempt to be what we are not, till we come to dislike what we

are.

Self-opinion and self-love are the great strong holds which the gospel sets itself to beat down; for by nature we are as prone to overvalue as to overlove ourselves; but in both of them there is a kind of spiritual fulness and repletion, which must be removed and carried off, before the gospel can have its effect upon us. For Christ comes with a design to infuse his gifts and graces into the soul; but there is no pouring of any thing into a vessel which is full already. And therefore a man must be emptied of all his vain and fond conceptions and principles, and, in a word, of himself too, before he can be prepared and qualified for the infusions of the Spirit.

He who thinks himself holy and righteous enough, is a most unfit subject for the gospel to work upon :

indeed he is scarce fit for repentance; for Christ came not to call the righteous, that is, those who thought themselves so, but sinners to repentance: sinners, who in their consciences stood convict of their sinful estate, who beheld the plague of their own hearts, the sores and leprosy of their souls; these were the men who stood in the next disposition for the reception of mercy, for the alms of heaven, and the compassions of a Saviour: for these are such as Christ properly calls the heavy laden, and upon that account invites to himself. As for the Pharisees, and the opinionators of their own holiness, the spiritually proud, confident, and disdainful, they were men of another dispensation: the gospel knows them not, nor justifies any such ; .it finds them standing upon their own bottom, and so also leaves them to fall.

That soul, upon which the spirit of regeneration has truly passed, is utterly of another temper; it is still apt to bemoan, and to condemn itself; it sees its own scars and deformities, and upon the sight of them falls down, and wallows in the dust before the pure eyes of God. The true Christian temper shews not itself upon the mountains of pride and selfopinion, but dwells low in the valleys of humility, self-denial, and spiritual dejection.

And as it behaves itself thus towards God, so it demeans itself with a proportionable condescension to men too. He who has this evangelical poorness of spirit, is still apt to think others better and holier than himself; for his conscience teaches him to think the worst of his own heart, and his charity prompts him to judge the best of his neighbours.

Upon a due consideration of which, I have often