this fault, like many others, arises from pride, and from the desire of temporal rewards. Men either forget the common nature of 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 given not "grudgingly" or of 66 necessity," but with that cheerfulness which the apostle recommends as necessary to draw down the love of God upon those by whom they are bestowed, let us consider,

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

It is just that we should consider every opportunity of performing a good action as the gift of God, one of the chief gifts which God bestows upon man in his present state, and endeavour to improve the blessing, that it may not be withdrawn from us as a talent unemployed; for it is not certain that he, who neglects this call to his duty, will be permitted to live till he hears another. It is likewise 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 caunot 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 of unenlightened infancy and vagrant poverty.

Nor does this charity terminate in the persons upon whom it is conferred, but extends 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 cer tainly 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 hospitality by observing that some have entertained angels unawares, let us animate ourselves to this charity by the hopes of educating 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."

89

SERMON XX.

2 PETER, CHAP. III. VERSE 3.

Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking 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 effroutery. 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 curiosity which suspicion always excites, closely pursued and openly detected. It is then too late to think of deceiving mankind by false appearances, nor does any thing remain but to avow boldly what can be no longer denied. Impudence is called in to the assistance of immorality; and the censures which cannot be escaped must be openly defied. Wickedness is in itself timorous, and naturally skulks in

coverts and in darkness, but grows furious by despair, and, when it can fly no further, turns upon the pursuer.

Such is the state of a man abandoned to the indulgence of vicious inclinations. He justifies one crime by another; invents wicked principles to support wicked practices; endeavours rather to corrupt others than own himself corrupted; and, to avoid that shame which a confession of his crimes would bring upon him, calls "evil good, and good evil, puts darkness for light, and light for darkness." He endeavours to trample upon those laws which he is known not to observe; to scoff at those truths which, if admitted, have an evident tendency to convict his whole behaviour of folly and absurdity; and, from having long neglected to obey God, rises at length into rebellion against him.

That no man ever became abandoned at once, is an old and common observation, which, like other assertions founded on experience, receives new confirmation by length of time. A man ventures upon wickedness as upon waters with which he is unacquainted. He looks upon them with horror, and shudders at the thought of quitting the shore, and committing his life to the inconstancy of the wea ther; but, by degrees, the scene grows familiar, his aversion abates, and is succeeded by curiosity. He launches out with fear and caution, always anxious and apprehensive, lest his vessel should be dashed against a rock, sucked in by a quicksand, or hurried by the currents beyond sight of shore: but his fears are daily lessening, and the deep becomes less formidable. In time he loses all sense of dan,