where they have the prospect of an equivalent, they would be very unwilling never to hope for good but at the hands of such whom they had antecedently obliged.

If, from what hath been delivered, it appears to be agreeable to the wisdom and goodness of God to provide such a recompense for acts of charity, bounty, and lovingkindness, as might answer those great purposes which could not be served by a bare exchange of good offices, it will also be agreeable to his justice to deny this recompense to such who are influenced by any other principle than the hopes of it; for no one can have any pretence to a recompense from God for any actions but what are done because of his command, for his sake, and to his glory. But good deeds, performed barely in view of what we may receive from men, are so far from tending to the glory of God, that there can scarce be a greater dishonour to his name, than to prefer those frail and momentary rewards which our fellowcreatures can bestow, to that eternal weight of glory which our Almighty Creator hath prepared for those who are willing to wait upon him for a final recompense.

God hath indeed made our eternal and our temporal interest, in most cases, very consistent; but although God may in his abundant mercy join both, yet we cannot without breach of his holy commandment equally Matt. vi. 33. intend both; we must first seek the kingdom of God, and then we may hope that the blessings of this life shall also be added unto us. By the laws of nature and of the gospel, those who love their brethren have a just title to their reciprocal affection; but then, by the rules of the same divine law, it is made an essential property of Christian charity, that it should not seek its own. Our Saviour hath taught us that no man can serve two masters: if each acts by an independent power,

Ver. 24.

their commands may interfere; and although they should be subordinate one to the other, and both should enjoin the same duty, yet he who doth that thing in compliance with an inferior power which he is not prevailed upon to do by the authority of the superior, is guilty of more contempt to such higher power than if he did it not at all. He who thus observes what is acceptable to both, to God and to man, merely in regard to the latter, cannot perhaps be accused of loving the one and hating the other, but he is certainly guilty of holding to the one and despising the other; and therefore he must not hope for a reward from God for that service which he performs purely to gain the wages of mammon.

Now, if the proposal of a recompense from men for our charitable deeds cuts us off from all hopes of an eternal recompense for them at the hands of God; if one bears no proportion to the other; if he who promises himself the former is often defeated of that, and always sure to be excluded from the latter; if, on the other side, he who doeth good unto men in hopes of a recompense from God hath just grounds to expect the blessings of this life, and is sure to be crowned with the joys and glories of the next; nothing further needs to be added to enforce the duty of the text, or to show the reasonableness of doing good unto those who cannot recompense us, because for so doing we shall be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.

The promise of such a future recompense at the last day is the most ingenuous, the most prevalent, the only right motive to a liberal, constant, and disinterested exercise of all sorts and all measures of Christian charity; and therefore, amongst the many pious and wise institutions of our reformed ancestors for promoting and encouarging public charities, none was with greater pru

dence contrived, none hath been blessed with happier success, than their godly appointment, that these anniversary meetings of the magistrates of this city, and the governors of its hospitals, for carrying on the good work committed to their care and patronage, should be held on those solemn days of festivity which the church had before set apart for the memorial of our Saviour's resurrection. For they wisely foresaw, that when the minds of men were established in a firm belief of Christ's being risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept; whilst their thoughts were yet warm with a certain prospect of their own resurrection; whilst the voice of the last trumpet, summoning them to awake out of the sleep of death, to appear before the judgment seat of Christ, and there to receive sentence of eternal misery or bliss, according to their having been uncharitable or charitable to their brethren, was, by the ministry of God's word, still sounding in their ears, they would then be best prepared with gladness of soul to receive, with warmth of affection to embrace, with all cheerfulness of compliance to obey, these annual exhortations to charity. For it is observable, that the final recompense promised by our Saviour to acts of beneficence done to those who cannot recompense us, is not only deferred to a future state, but further reserved till the resurrection of the just.

It is an opinion in this age generally received, that the souls of departed saints are, immediately after their separation from the body, conveyed by the holy angels into the highest heavens, and forthwith admitted into the glorious presence of God, and there possessed of the same happiness and glory which they shall enjoy to all eternity. But it is more consonant to the word of God, and to the primitive doctrine of the catholic

church, to believe that the happiness of souls, whilst sequestered from their bodies, is, in the degree of it, less perfect before, than it shall be after the resurrection; that it consists rather in a total release from sin and misery, in a joyful retrospect upon their past labours and holiness of their lives, and a certain prospect of their future bliss, than in a full participation of their ultimate reward; that, as the pious and faithful are in scripture, even whilst they are in this world, said to rejoice with joy unspeakable, as often as they fix their eyes upon that ample recompense which they hope then to receive, when Christ shall come in glory; so the delight, which the assurance of this reward will afford them, when it is by death brought nearer, when they see it more clearly, when there are no fears of falling short of it, no doubts of obtaining it, when they have an earnest and pledge of it in that tranquillity of which they are already possessed, shall be still more ravishing and unconceivable; but that even this state, joyful and happy as it is, in comparison to the utmost felicity of which we are capable in this life, is as much inferior to that consummate bliss which glorified saints shall enjoy after the resurrection, as the expectation of a distant good is to the present enjoyment thereof, as hope is to actual possession.

We have not in the whole gospel a fuller and clearer account of the process of the last day than that which is given us by our Saviour in the xxvth chapter of St. Matthew. Now, according to the representation there made, Christ our Lord and Judge shall not on that solemn day ratify a sentence which he had before passed on each man severally, but shall then first pronounce sentence upon all nations gathered before him. The charitable shall be then invited to come, and inherit Matt. xxv. the kingdom, prepared indeed for them long before, but SMALRIDGE, VOL. II.

D

34.

45.

not till that time possessed by them. They are there represented as mightily surprised that the Judge should reward them for actions of which they were not at all conscious; they are not able to conceive how they had fed him whom they had never seen hungry, or given drink to him whom they had never seen thirsty; how they had clothed him whom they never found naked, or visited him whom they had never remembered to be sick or in prison; they do not appear to be as yet acquainted with his wonderful goodness and condeMatt. xxv. scension in esteeming what was done unto the least of his brethren as done unto himself. But now, how shall we account for this surprise, if the righteous had long since received their full recompense for these very acts of charity? Why do they at the day of judgment, after the general resurrection, stand before the throne of Christ's glory; why are their good works then displayed; why is their reward then allotted, if they are on that day admitted into the participation of no other glory than that with which they were before glorified? Do not then those persons expose the doctrine of an universal resurrection and judgment to unnecessary and unanswerable exceptions, who teach that men shall, immediately after death, receive a full recompense for all the actions they have done in the body, and that long afterwards they shall be formally judged, in order to receive that very recompense? Is it not a doctrine more consistent in itself, as well as more agreeable to the whole tenor of holy writ, to believe that there is a great deal of difference betwixt the measures of joy which those who die in the Lord shall taste of before and after the resurrection; that a great part of their happiness, in their intermediate state, shall consist in the sure hopes of a much more perfect happiness still in reversion; that after the resurrection