humanity, and therefore reproach others with those misfortunes to which they are themselves equally subject; or they expect from the gratitude or applause of those whom they benefit, that reward which they are commanded to hope only from their Father which is in heaven.

Such are the rules of charity, and such the cautions required to make our alms pleasing to him in whose name they ought to be given; and that they may be now giver not grudgingly" or of "necessity," but with that cheerfulness which the apostle recommends as necessary to draw down the ove of God upon those by whom they are bestowed, let us consider,

Thirdly, The reasonableness of laying old on the present opportunity for the exercise of our charity.

It is just that we should consider every pportunity of performing a good action as he gift of God, one of the chief gifts which tod bestows upon man in his present state, nd endeavour to improve the blessing, that may not be withdrawn from us as a talent nemployed; for it is not certain that he, who eglects this call to his duty, will be permitd to live till he hears another. It is like

wise reasonable to seize this opportunity, because perhaps none can be afforded of more useful or beneficial charity, none in which all the various purposes. of charity are more compendiously united.

It cannot be said, that, by this charity, idleness is encouraged; for those who are to be benefitted by it are at present incapable of labour, but hereafter designed for it. Nor can it be said that vice is countenanced by it, for many of them cannot yet be vicious. Those who now give cannot bestow their alms for the pleasure of hearing their charity acknowledged, for they who shall receive it will not know their benefactors.

The immediate effect of alms given on this occasion is not only food to the hungry, and clothes to the naked, and an habitation to the destitute, but, what is of more lasting advantage, instruction to the ignorant.

He that supports an infant enables him to live here; but he that educates him assists him in his passage to a happier state, and prevents that wickedness which is, if not the necessary, yet the frequent consequence el unenlightened infancy and vagrant poverty.

Nor does this charity terminate in the persons upon whom it is conferred, but er tends its influence through the whole state.

which has very frequently experienced how much is to be dreaded from men bred up without principles and without employment. He who begs in the street in his infancy, learns only how to rob there in his manhood; and it is certainly very apparent with how much less difficulty evils are prevented than remedied.

But though we should suppose, what reason and experience sufficiently disprove, that poverty and ignorance were calamities to those only on whom they fall, yet surely the sense of their misery might be sufficient to awaken us to compassion: for who can hear the cries of a naked infant without remembering that he was himself once equally naked, equally helpless? Who can see the disorders of the ignorant, without remembering that he was born as ignorant as they? And who can forbear to reflect, that he ought to bestow on others those benefits which he received himself? Who, that shall see piety and wisdom promoted by his beneficence, can wish that what he gave for such uses had been employed in any other manner? As the apostle exhorts to hospiality by observing that some have entertained angels unawares, let us animate ourselves to this charity by the hopes of educat

ing saints. Let us endeavour to reclaim vice, and to improve innocence to holiness; and remember that the day is not far distant in which our Saviour has promised to consider our gifts to these little ones as given to himself; and that "they who have turned many to righteousness shall shine forth as the sun, for ever and ever."

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SERMON XX.

2 PETER, CHAP. III. VERSE 3.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, waking after their own lusts.

A VERY little acquaintance with human nature will inform us, that there are few men who can patiently bear the imputation of being in the wrong; and that there is no action, how unreasonable or wicked soever it be, which those, who are guilty of it, will not attempt to vindicate, though, perhaps, by such a defence as aggravates the crime.

It is, indeed, common for men to conceal their faults, and gratify their passions in secret; and, especially when they are first initiated in vice, to make use rather of artifice and dissimulation than audaciousness and effrontery. But the arts of hypocrisy are in time exhausted, and some unhappy circumstance defeats those measures which they had laid for preventing a discovery. They are, at length, suspected, and, by that