Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

more noble and exhilarating: and the peace, the comfort, the delight, you will experience in a retirement fuch as this, can only be exceeded by thofe pure, celeftial joys hereafter, to which they will be a prelude and an introduction.

[ocr errors]
[blocks in formation]

SERMON XVII.

PROVERBS iii. 27.

WITHHOLD NOT GOOD FROM

THEM ΤΟ

WHOM IT IS DUE, WHEN IT IS IN THE

POWER OF THINE HAND TO DO IT.

W

HEN we reflect on that general turn to acts of charity and humanity which is fo obfervable in this country, it may perhaps appear perfectly needlefs to recommend to our hearers the injunction contained in the text. If they are fo well difpofed, as it should seem they are, to do good, to what purpose are they exhorted not to withhold it from them to whom it is due? And, indeed, if there was no other way of doing good but that of relieving the indigent, there would not often, it must be owned, be much occafion to urge the practice of this duty. But we must not flatter

A a 4

flatter curfelves, that when we have diftributed to the neceffitous all the wealth we can spare, we have done every thing that the love of our neighbour requi:es at our hands. At the best, we have only performed one part, and that a fmall part, of the great, the ROYAL LAW*, (as it is called) of CHRISTIAN CHARITY, which involves a great variety of most important and ufeful acts of kindness to our fellow-creatures. Several of thefe, though extremely eafy and obvious, are for that very reafon, perhaps, apt to be overlooked. Some of them, therefore, I fhall beg leave, at prefent, to fuggest to your thoughts, from whence the two following good confequences, among others, may arise. The great and the wealthy will fee, that to be truly benevolent, fomething more is neceffary than liberality to the poor. And they who are in a humbler ftation of life, and who on that account are apt to lament their inability to do good, will find that there are many roads to beneficence ftill open to them; and that fcarce any one, however low or indigent, can want opportunities of doing good, if he will but honeftly make use of them.

• James ii. 8,

I. First,

I. First, then, there is a negative kind of benevolence, which it is most certainly in every man's power to exercise if he pleases; and that is, ABSTINENCE FROM MISCHIEF. As the first step towards wifdom is to avoid error, and towards happiness to feel no pain, so the first advance towards benevolence is to do no harm. It may feem, perhaps, a great impropriety of expreffion to dignify this with the name of benevolence. But if benevolence confifts, as it certainly does, in contributing to the comfort and happiness of our fellow-creatures, there is not any one act of humanity that will operate fo effectually and extensively to this end, as refraining from every thing that can offend, distress, or injure others, By far the greatest part of the mifery we see in the world, arifes not fo much from omitting acts of kindness, as from committing acts of unkindness and cruelty; and were all these to cease at once, the effect on the general happiness of mankind would be fomewhat fimilar to that inexpreffible comfort we experience in ourselves on the removal of fome violent pain, Think only what infinite mischief arises from peevishness, ill-nature, and pride; from de

traction,

« AnteriorContinuar »