II.

SER M. affairs are allowed to run into confufion. Oeconomy and good order are neglected, The innocent, in great numbers, fuffer materially through their mifmanagement: And all the while they affume to themselves the praise of being generous and good-hearted men. This furely is not that charity which the Gospel enjoins; and which, in its very eflence, involves good confcience and integrity. He who pretends to do good to his brethren, without firft doing them juftice, cannot be accounted their real friend. True charity is not a meteor, which occasionally glares; but a luminary, which, in its orderly and regular courfe, difpenfes a benignant influence.

THE third and laft adjunct connected in the text with charity is, that it be of faith unfeigned. Faith, in the fcripture. fense of it, includes the whole of religious principles respecting God, and refpecting Chrift. Good principles, without good practice, I confefs, are nothing, they are of no avail in the fight of

God

II.

God, nor in the estimation of wifes ER M. men. But practice not founded on principle is likely to be always unstable and wavering; and, therefore, the faith of religious principles enters, for a very confiderable fhare, into the proper discharge of the duties of charity.

pro

It will be admitted that, without faith, our duties towards God cannot be perly performed. You may be affured that your duties towards men will always greatly fuffer from the want of it. Faith, when pure and genuine, fupplies to every part of virtue, and in particular to the virtue of charity, many motives and affiftances, of which the unbeliever is deftitute. He who acts from faith acts upon the high principle of regard to the God who hath made him, and to the Saviour who redeems him; which will often ftimulate him to his duty when other principles of benevolence become faint and languid, or are croffed by oppofite interefts.

When he

confiders

II.

SER M. confiders himself as pursuing the appro-
bation of that divine Being, from whom
love defcends, a facred enthusiasm both
prompts, and confecrates, his charitable
difpofitions. Regardless of men, or of
human recompence, he is carried along
by a higher impulfe. He acts with the
spirit of a follower of the Son of God,
who not only has enjoined love, but has
enforced it by the example of laying
down his life for mankind. Whatever
he does in behalf of his fellow-creatures,
he confiders himself as doing, in fome de-
gree, to that divine Perfon, who hath
faid, Inafmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the leaft of thefe my brethren, ye have
done it unto me*. Hence charity is with
him not only a moral virtue, but a Chrif-
tian
grace. It acquires additional dignity
energy from being connected with
the heavenly state and the heavenly in-
habitants. He mingles with beings of a
higher order, while he is discharging his
duty

and

3

Matth. xxv. 40.

II.

duty to his fellow-creatures on earth; S ER M. and by joining faith and piety to good works, he completes the character of a Christian.

THUS I have endeavoured to explain the full sense of that comprehenfive view of religion which is given in the text. I have shown in what refpects charity joined with the pure heart, the good conScience, and faith unfeigned, forms the end of the commandment. Let us ever keep in view thofe effential parts of a virtuous character, and preferve them in their proper union. Thus shall our religion rife into a regular and well-proportioned edifice, where each part gives firmness and support to another. If any one of those material parts be wanting in the structure; if, out of our fyftem of charity, either purity, or justice, or faith, be left, there will be cracks and flaws in the building which prepare its ruin.

This is indeed one of the greatest and moft frequent errors of men, in their

moral

SER M. moral conduct. They take hold of vir

II.

túe by pieces and corners only. Few are fo depraved as to be without all sense of duty, and all regard to it. To some moral qualities, which appear to them amiable or estimable, almost all men lay claim; and on these they reft their worth, in their own eftimation. But thefe fcattered pieces of virtue, not uniting into one whole, nor forming a confiftent character, have no powerful influence on their general habits of life. From various unguarded quarters they lie open to temptation. Their lives are full of contradiction, and perpetually fluctuate between good and evil. Virtue can neither rise to its native dignity, nor attain its proper rewards, until all its chief parts be joined together in our character, and exert an equal authority in regulating our conduct.

SERMON