even lose my self in that crowd of Mer- Serm. 4. cies with which God crowns Charity; How almost innumerable, how great and magnificent are the Promises of God made to this Vertue: Promises Temporal and Promises Spiritual. I will cull out two or three from the vast store of the Old and New Teftament. Ifai. 58. 10, 11. If thou draw out thy Soul unto the hungry and Satisfie the afflicted Soul, then Shall thy light rife in obfcurity, and thy darkness be as the noon day, and the Lord fhall be thy reward, and guide thee continually, and fatisfie thy Soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a watered Garden, and like a Spring whofe waters never fail: And Proverbs 3. Honour the Lord with thy fubftance and with the first fruits of thine encreafe, fo fball thy barns be filled with plenty, thy preffes fball burst out with new wine: So faith our Bleffed Lord, Matt. 6. 19, 20. Lay not up for your felves treasures upon Earth, where moth and ruft do corrupt, and where Thieves break through and steal, but rather lay up for your felves treasures in Heaven, where neither moth nor rust do corrupt, nor can Thieves break through and Steal: But what can be added to what St. Paul teaches us, 1 Tim. 6. or our Saviour Matth. 25. who make eternal Life the Vol. I. the Reward of Charity: what comfort must these Promifes give us in these times of War and Danger; 'tis a Reflection full of delight, that this City has fo often been the Sanctuary and Refuge of the Miferable and Needy, that it is a never failing Spring of Bounty and Liberality; and I hope will never grow weary of being fo; when I think on this, I cannot but perfwade my self, that the Prayers and Praises of thofe vaft numbers that have been, and are year. ly relieved and fuccoured by her, will drown the Cry of that Wickedness and Impiety, which cannot be denied to be in her too; That the Zeal a great many exprefs for promoting good Works amongst us, will make an Atonement for that Looseness and Atheism which reigns amongst us too. In a word, when I call to mind that ten Righteous Perfons would have refcued Sodom and Gomorrah from deftruction, I have no reason to doubt but that the Righteoufnefs, the Mercy and the Bounty of fo many thoufands I hope in this City, will render it not only fafe but always rich and powerful enough to be the Sanctuary of its diftreffed Friends, and the Envy and Terror of its Enemies; And as Charity is a publick Comfort at this day, fo what con confolation muft it fill the Minds of cha- Serm. 4. ritable Men with, in the day of ficknefs and death? Oh! how pleafant will be your reflection then on those works to which eternal Life you know is promifed? Oh! what a Satisfaction must it be to you then, when you are bidding adieu to this World, that you have laid up your treasure in Heaven, made a good provision for the time to come, and furnifhed our Lord and Master with Arguments enough for your Abfolution and Juftification in the great Day of Judgment? I have nothing more to add, but to put you in mind, that the Motives in the Old and New Teftament to Charity are fuch, that nothing can blunt the force of them, but what will certainly damn the Man that is guilty of it: namely Infidelity and Luxury; none whom God has enabled to do good and to communicate (and the number of these, blessed be God, is very great in this City) will refuse to do fo, but fuch who either have no faith for the Promises of God made to Alms, or fuch whofe indulgence to Pride and Vanity, Riot and Excefs, leaves no room for Mercy or Liberality to the Diftreffed. Ah! I wonder not, if Chrift be as deaf to their cries in the Day of Judgment, as they are now to their poor Vol. I. poor Brethren in the Day of their Calamity; if he fend them away with a depart ye Curfed who fend away their afflicted Brethren, naked and deftitute, abandoning fhall I fay or condemning them to lafting mifery, with a fcornful look and relentlefs heart; Ah! may God of his infinite Mercy deliver every one that hears me this day from this Guilt and from this Sentence. The The Christian Race. 135 Serm. 5. HEBR. XII. 1. Wherefore, feeing we also are compaffed about with fo great a Cloud of Witneffes, let us lay afide every weight, and the fin which doth fo easily befet us, and let us run with patience the Race that is fet before us. T O confront Atheism with the Re furrection of Jefus, and Immorality with the Lives of Saints, demonftrating the Power of God in the one, and of Faith in the other, is a way of arguing, which if it do not Reclaim the Infidel and Sinner, if it do not utterly filence the Objections of the one against the Truth, and of the other against the Poffibility of Religion, muft yet needs ruffle and difturb the Confcience of both, and fill it with an uneafie Shame and Fear; but how much more must this way of Reasoning prevail where ever there are any Principles of Na tural |