A great light is come into the world to be the guide and directory of our charity. And to a Christian, who has that light, and who can only honour God in proportion as he takes it for his light, it should be as familiar a consideration that his neighbours are immortal, as it is that they are mortal men; and it should be as habitual with him, to be deeply anxious for them with reference to eternity, as it is to pity them, as conflicting with the trials and troubles of the world. Then consider that example of right judging and well-doing which your ancestors, as I need not go far to show, have bequeathed to you. In the mere existence of the one spacious and splendid fabric in which we are now met together; erected, I suppose, when the inhabitants of this town were not a fourth part in number of what they have at length become,-you have proof that your forefathers in this place looked at their fellow-creatures as taught of God to look at them; and that they had acquired the habit of regarding every man as really being what the Bible says he is, and of acting towards him in accordance with that book's representation of his case. All that I could desire is, that ye yourselves should be brought to judge and act in the same way. I mean, that should not be content, should ye be able to satisfy yourselves that your ye brethren in this great place are in no want of food or raiment; but that ye should be continually asking yourselves whether they do not want that other and better meat, which endureth unto everlasting life? Yea, and supposing them destitute of that, whether they would indeed be in any other than a most miserable condition, even if they should have every good imaginable which can flow from this world's abundance?— Has not our church taught us to pray for ourselves and others "in all time of our tribulation, and in all time of our wealth, Good Lord deliver And is there not a lesson in this prayer which ought to be ever grafted inwardly in our hearts, to bring forth in us the fruits of an enlightened charity to the honour and praise of God's name? And is not our charity blind; and will not its labours be ultimately useless, if this lesson be disregarded? us." The inhabitants of this town, I presume, are much like people in other places. There are likely to be, I mean, different sorts among them -godly and ungodly, with reference to eternity; as with reference to time, some prospering, and others in distress. Now let us look first at the case of one of the godly persons among them. What are such a one's necessities? Happy is he, so far at least that he is able himself to tell you: for he is hungering and thirsting after righteousness, and if you will seriously put the question to him, he can answer in the very language of the Psalmist-" One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple." And it does not satisfy his longing soul that it may be replied, Thou hast already "tasted that the Lord is gracious, and been taught of God the way to Zion;" for in proportion to the stedfastness with which "his face is thitherward," the more earnestly does he covet every advantage, that he may "join himself to the Lord by a perpetual covenant never to be forgotten." And if "God hath treated the man as he treated the spies that went to discover the land of promise-when he ordered the year in plenty, and directed them to a pleasant and a fruitful place, and prepared bunches of grapes of a miraculous and prodigious greatness;" then the "pleasures and first deliciousnesses of religion are to him what those fair fruits were to them, "meet arguments to invite him further."* And then shall he know, he thinks, if he may "follow on to know the Lord."† And more than this: "With the lowly is wisdom." Such a one hath not for* Bp. Taylor. + Hosea vi. 3. + Prov. xi. 2. gotten how it is said unto him, "Happy is the man that feareth alway;' "* and therefore, that he may hold fast that he hath. "As the eyes of servants look unto the hands of their masters, and as the eyes of a maiden unto the hand of her mistress, so must his eyes wait still upon the Lord his God." Whether, therefore, for this world, he decays or thrives, his wants—and, happily for him, his wishes also—are still the same; "his soul is athirst for God;" and he is ever conscious that his safety is in God's promise to his vineyard: "I the Lord do keep it I will water it every moment: lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day." Now if that spirit doth indeed inhabit our brother's soul which brought the queen of the south from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, shall not everything be done which may be done that its aspirations may be answered, when a "greater than Solomon is here?" And after Jesus Christ (for of him, of course, I speak) hath been evidently set forth crucified amongst us; and it hath been, on the one hand, proclaimed, that "the just shall live by faith;" and on the other hand, declared, "but if any man draw back, my soul shall have no pleasure in him ;"§-shall the word be forgotten which, in * Prov. xxviii. 14. + Ps. cxxiii. 2. § Heb. x. 38. proportion to each man's ability to act upon it, surely speaks to all: "If thou warn the righteous man that the righteous sin not, and he doth not sin, he shall surely live, because he is warned. Also thou hast delivered thy soul."* But of this hereafter. There may be ungodly persons among the many thousands of this great town. What, let it be inquired next, are their necessities? A man's necessities, you know, are one thing his knowledge, or consciousness of them, is another; and the two do not always go together as they ought to do. If, therefore, when you shall inquire of this party, the thriving man among them-for thriving persons there are in all classes-shall reply, as perhaps he may, that he is content and in need of nothingis he therefore in need of nothing? Or if the indigent shall make answer, that he will be content, let him but have bread to eat; is it therefore true that in such case he might worthily be content? Alas! these people's account of themselves is not to be depended upon; and that they speak as they feel makes the matter worse. The glorying of the one is not good; though, indeed, he hath cause enough, if he did but know it, to give glory to God: and the lamentations of the other are no better, true though it be, that the cry he utters is one against which we must * Ezek. iii. 21. |