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him in truth and goodness; and shall send those with the author of evil, who resemble him in sin and deformity, to regions of darkness, and everlasting despair.

This is that sort of knowledge, which God hath taught us in his word; which we could not have known, without revelation; which the world hath not known;' which the natural man receiveth not;' and 'to which not many wise men after the flesh, not many noble or mighty, are called ;' which, nevertheless, is absolutly necessary to the well-being of society, and the salvation of souls.

This knowledge represents God to us as our Father, our Saviour, our Comforter; as the most compassionate, the most amiable, the most excellent of all beings. Can we behold him, thus gracious and beautiful, and not love him more than the whole world, than life itself, and even being?

This knowledge also displays him to us as an all-knowing witness, as an impartial judge, as an almighty king, who can reward with celestial kingdoms, and punish with infernal fires. Can we behold him in this awful light, and not fear him?

Or can we love and fear him, and yet disobey him? No; the true knowledge of God is the only spring of all duty and virtue, and virtue the only road to true and real happiness.

As to any other sort, or higher degree, of knowledge concerning God, as it would be useless, so would it be impossible and unattainable. Our faculties are not calculated to extend much farther than our wants. If we look impartially and carefully into our nature, we shall find our knowledge so cramped behind us, by the weakness of our memory; cut so short in respect of what is to come, by want of foreknowledge; reduced to so scanty bounds all about us, by the narrowness of our senses, and the shortness of our lives; and so broken, by the infirmity of human reason and judgment, that persons of the most improved capacities seem to direct themselves in the knowledge of even temporal things, through a general darkness, by a faint taper, that enlightens a few paces round them, and moving with them, leaves it dark at a very small distance, both before and behind them.

How unequal must faculties, so deficient in teaching us the nature of things we converse with every day, be, to the

knowledge of an infinite and almighty object, so far removed from our observation! Since so it hath pleased God to form us, we ought to know, and humbly acknowledge, our own infirmity; and, in the spirit of modesty and lowliness, approach the Divine Being, rather with awe, than curiosity; confessing our own weakness, not talking presumptuously of his perfection.

He knows God best, who feels the deepest impressions of his majesty and goodness on his heart; who praises his works indeed aloud, but adores the author in silence and astonishment; whose notions of God are too great for utterance, too wonderful for words to represent; who dares not approach too near to pry into the nature of so awful and terrible a Being; who dares not stand before him, but removes out of the way of him, 'who hath his way in the whirlwind, and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of his feet;' who worships at a respectful distance from the fire that devours before him, and the tempest that is stirred up round about him.

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To whom, in the unity of the Farther, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be all honour, and glory, and worship, for ever. Amen.

DISCOURSE XLV.

HE ONLY SAVES WHO WISELY GIVES AWAY.

ACTS xx. 35.

It is more blessed to give, than to receive.

If we consider, that the word blessed, in this saying of our Saviour, signifies the same as happy, we shall conclude the saying itself must appear a perfect paradox to the world. What, will the generality of mankind say, is he more happy who gives away his substance to others, than he who receives from them? How can this be true, if the necessaries and comforts of life are not reckoned in the number of evil things? If they are good, surely it cannot be an happiness

to part with them, nor less than a means of happiness to receive them.

Thus reasons the understanding, prejudiced by a selfish and narrow heart, which ranks all, that avarice or luxury can grasp at, among the necessaries and comforts of life; because it cannot be happy, nor even easy, without a treasure to gaze at, or wanton in. What comes to the happiness arising from such a turn of mind, when extravagance, accidents, losses, law-suits, wars, or death, disperses all its riches? The answer to this question will shew, that the happiness of a rational, not to say a religious creature, ought to be founded on somewhat else, than the possession of wealth. It is not self that says, receive and keep. Self only bids me consult my happiness. It is gross ignorance, and bad habits, that persuade me receiving or keeping can make me happy.

But can the giving away make a man happy? I answer, either wealth is no way concerned in our happiness, or, so far as it is, happiness must arise from a judicious manner of parting with it. He is worse than an idiot, who heaps up riches with no other view than to increase and keep them. The man who reasons at all on the subject, desires them only that he may use them. The question is, how they are to be used? I say, they cannot be used at all, unless they are parted with. But some men part with them for one purpose, and some for another. Our Saviour, who knew best how they ought to be expended, extols the wisdom of giving them away. But the world cannot see wherein the happiness of such a disposal consists; and the truth is, our Saviour does not mean we should part with them for nothing, but only that we should traffick with them for better things than this world can exchange for them. It were better indeed for many a man to throw his riches into the sea, than either to keep or abuse them as he does. But our master, who trusts us with any share of his treasures, proposes to us a wiser and more profitable application of them, than this, or even than laying them out on sensual pleasures, or worldly grandeur. This he expresses, by the blessedness or happiness of giving, as superior to that of receiving. The text acknowledges an happiness in the one, as well as in the other, but gives the preference to the first. Let us see what

each consists in, that we may the better apprehend his reasons for a preference, so little likely to be seconded by the world.

As a man may be presented, either with what is barely necessary to his natural wants, or with what the acquired wants of avarice, ambition, or luxurious appetites, may crave; so his happiness must bear proportion to the greatness of those wants, so revealed, and to the degree of relief afforded.

Now, in relieving the distresses of the poor, or such as are naturally in want, the pleasure of comfort of the receiver, being proportioned to the degree of relief, is seldom perfect; because the relief is usually too much stinted to remove his wants intirely. And as he is not at present fully supplied, so he cannot help apprehending the danger of being soon again in as great want as ever. Besides, if the borrower is servant to the lender,' the receiver, in this case, must be still more inferior to, and dependent on the giver. If he hath any pride or spirit (and who hath not?) this will give him proportionable uneasiness, which, together with his fears as to future supplies, will considerably lessen the satisfaction he finds in the present. From hence it may appear, that a poor man, thus relieved, is far enough from being in a very blessed or happy condition; although it is some degree of happiness to him, that he feels his present necessity less sensibly than he did.

On the other hand, the unnatural wants, proceeding from a covetous, an ambitious, or a luxurious turn of mind, are always insatiable, and therefore can never be fully relieved. If one plain dish will not satisfy a man, neither will two, nor ten, unless they are of the most sumptuous and delicious kinds. If a coarse coat will not content him, neither will a fine one, unless it is laced. If an estate of fifty pounds a year is not sufficient for him, it is in vain to give him one of a hundred, or a thousand; it is in vain to present him with a lordship, or a kingdom. The whole world would be too little to make him happy. It is found, by universal experience, that, in all men of this kind, every additional gratification is but an incentive to new and greater desires. All the happiness then, of such a receiver, consists in a short fit of pleasure, immediately devoured by wants, ten times greater than the former.

The happiness of the giver must be very moderate indeed, not to outweigh that of the receiver in either of these instances. But what his happiness is we shall now proceed to shew, by opening those better treasures, which our Saviour invites him to purchase with the superfluities of his worldly wealth.

To make a man a giver, in our Saviour's meaning, he must have a lively sense of humanity and religion. Without either or both of these, he is not likely to be a considerable giver, at least to the poor; to the relief of whom I shall confine myself in what I intend to say farther on this subject.

Of all men in this world, there is none who bids so fair for happiness here, as he who is blessed both with wealth and true humanity. But when I said blessed with wealth, I needed not to have added, with humanity; because wealth without it is a curse of the severest kind. Every man enjoys his riches according to his sense of those satisfactions, that may be purchased with them. The man of pleasure lays out his wealth on wine and women; but shame, guilt, and diseases, prove him in the end a losing purchaser. The man of grandeur lays out his on figure; but finds in the conclusion, he hath been all his life only treating the mob of gapers, at an immense expence, with a vain and senseless pageant. The covetous lays out his to bring in more; but finds, when he is a dying, that he never had any; that he was always a beggar; and that wise and selfish as he thought himself, he nevertheless spent his miserable days in labouring for another, who hovers over him in his last moments with no other sentiments those of a hungry vulture, watching for the carcase of a dying beast.

The man of humanity plans his happiness on a nobler principle, which can neither deceive him in the progress, nor disappoint him in the end; a principle, which, continually exerted, gives him an high, an exquisite, and continual delight, and, at the last, entertains his departing soul with reflections as sweet as the music of angels.

This man, not content with doing justice in his dealings, to the rest of mankind, considers them, through a more elevated sense than that of honesty, as connected with him by the tender ties of one common nature. They are bone

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