fociety which standeth, both in heaven and on earth, in tenderness of affection, a will to “ dó "good, and communicate, for with fuch facri"fices GOD is well pleased."

It is not easy to fix the ftandard of generofity, or fhew by written precepts or rules where proper industry and œconomy may end, and covetousness begin. But it is to be remembered, that this fin, as well as many others, against which we are warned in the most earnest manner, will not be judged, in the day of final account, by any common maxims of men, either found written in books, or held in common esteem.,

We are to be determined in our conduct by another rule, and a law of more facred obligation, which no reasonable and accountable being is without, in the consciousness of his own mind. In this matter the ancient declaration remains in all its force: "It is fhewn " unto thee, O man, what is good, and what "doth the LORD thy GOD require of thee, but "to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly "with thy GOD."

Now

Now it is divinely declared, that "it is more "bleffed to give than to receive:" therefore the giving, and communicative difpofition, is more acceptable in the divine estimation, than the defire of receiving, wherever the object is restricted, as in the matter before us it is, to outward and temporal things.

It becomes then a duty connected with the divine bleffedness-with our own present happiness-and the general good of society, to be ever ftudious of the measure, in which every man should be found rightly generous; which is, to be found merciful by the supreme omnifcient judge.

Covetousness may have small, and almost imperceptible beginnings, and may be one of the most liable of all the paffions, to wear, in its infancy, as well as progrefs, a false name: the name of prudence, the title of provident economy, are most natural and eafy qualifications of its deformity.

But prudence and œconomy generally remain the names for the most confirmed covetouf

nefs,

nefs, till death itself break up the difguife; not indeed, to the amazement of others, (for better men behold and lament the depravity of the paffion) but to the amazement, fhame, and distress, of the covetous person himself!

Shame and mifery in death, must be the conclusion of fuch a life, if the awful doctrines of a final judgment, and a righteous retribution, be not false: yea, if but the doctrine of being rewarded with all the happiness which men are prepared to receive, be true.

The present state of being is largely declared to be a ftate of probation-a ftate in which the foul is to acquire, by the purity and benevolence of its affections, and the refined strength of its defires, a fitness for the very regions themselves of purity, benevolence, and Godlike affection.

The man, therefore, whose days shall have been spent in the predominance of defire after accumulation-exacting the utmost farthing, perhaps, from laborious indigence-withholding fuccour from affliction-grafping at thou

fands

fands more than his needs require—or relieving with a scanty and ineffectual hand, the various miseries of those who paffed mourning and languishing before him!

Such a perfon must be an unfit inhabitant for fuch a place-can have no part or inheritance in fuch a kingdom, because he has no preparations of affection for the enjoyment of it. As he poffeffed not on earth any refemblance of the divine love, and the unmixed charity of heaven, he can acquire none of these merely by paffing through the agonies of death; and confequently must appear, in the world of good fpirits, the fame fordid and miferable being, as when wallowing in his covetousness among men; or if there be a difference, it must be fo much the more against him, by how much the more confpicuously his state differs from the exalted love and benevolence of angels!

This is not only true with regard to the ultimate state, into which the foul is preparing to enter, when it shall be unclothed at once of its body, and all the falfehood and disguise of

its covetoufness; but all its affections here on earth are so contaminated with selfishness, and the whole foul fo darkened from the perception of divine good, (which is univerfal sympathy and kindness) that it can have no part in that liberality, that diffufion of divine charity and love, which is the fenfible kingdom of CHRIST in this world.

Such a foul has it's fuperior good, in the poffeffion of temporal things, and the hoarding up of the perishable things of a perishable world, in preference to divine treasures; but this fuperior good it holds in open defiance of the supreme authority of Him, who, cloathing the lilies, and feeding the ravens, with their proper food and ornament, by conftant returns of fruitful feafons and good upon the earth, is calling men to a dependance on the fufficiency of his providence-which, having fupplied, can ever fupply, with all needful things.

Love is the continual riches of GOD's kingdom: loving-kindness the very element of the existence of the divine power; and therefore it can never fail!