Page images
PDF
EPUB

SER M. false Honour, or the Humour of a partial XIII. Affection: But he has alfo the folid Prize of true Happiness in Heaven. Here is the Competition; for by chufing the former, he refuses the latter. And, it is true, unless his Faith be feigned, he cannot prefer fuch Tinfel and painted Glafs to an eternal Weight of Glory. By this Means the Principle of his Actions will be fecured, and his Juftice and Mercy done for the Sake of the God of Justice and Mercy, whofe Rewards are appropriated to those that act in View of them; while the Men, who do their Works for vile temporal Ends, are left to find vile temporal Rewards; and often mifs of them

too.

Secondly, The fame Faith in God, as a Rewarder of them that diligently feek him, which compels us to feek him and not our felves in the Exercife of charitable Deeds, operates with equal Strength to perfect our Obedience; to keep a Confcience void of Offence towards God as well as towards Men. The Believer is thorougly inftructed, that the Bleffings of a future Life are loft to all that perfift unreform'd

in any Article of Duty. One Corruption SERM. not mortified (he knows) is fufficient to XIII. corrupt his whole Soul, and vitiate all his Services. And he is yet an Infidel, who is not affured, that without Holiness no Man fhall fee the Lord. But the entire and unfeigned Faith of Chrift and his Gofpel most certainly worketh by Love, and as certainly performs its Works of Love with unpolluted Hands. For with what Heart or Hope can a Man of this Faith ever think of appearing in other Condition before the great Judge and Distributor of Rewards? whom he knows to have been himself the pure Pattern of doing Good, and to that Effect an exemplary immaculate Sacrifice? Under Defilement of Guilt and Impenitence, he underftands well, that far from an obedient Follower of this great Exemplar, a genuine Doer of Good; he must appear before that Tribunal, an ungrateful Fruftrator of infinite Goodness, the Goodness of the Saviour, and on that Account now liable to the dreadful Justice in the fame Perfon of the Judge of, Mankind.

The

SERM.

The Thing yet to be difcourfed upon XIII is, how the Charity we have described, according to the Text, is the End of the Commandment; and fome Inferences from it worthy of our Confideration. But it requires another Opportunity.

SERM. XIV.

SERMON XIV.

Of Christian Charity.

PART II.

I TIM, i. 5.

Now the End of the Commandment is Charity, out of a pure Heart, and of a good Confcience, and of Faith unfeigned.

[blocks in formation]

Confideration, what the

Apostle affirms, that Cha

rity is the End of the

Commandment, and what Inferences of chief Use are thence to be made. The

End

SERM. End of the Commandment is the Defign XIV. or Purpose, for obtaining which God gave it; or, (which comes much to the fame) it is that Perfection, that principal and most excellent Effect of all, that the Commandment produces among Men. This being apply'd to Charity, we find the Character upon it of a Dignity ineftimable: That the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospel itself, all that we have in Charge from our God and Saviour in his gracious Revelations of himself and Will; were framed and executed, given and continued, in the prime View of planting and increafing Charity in the World, as the main Scope and Confummation of them all.

[ocr errors]

Concerning the Truth of this, we may fatisfy ourselves firft, out of the Scriptures, 42 and then employ our own Meditations on the Nature and Reafon of the Thing. The anWords of our Saviour, St. Matth. vii. 12. are, All Things whatfoever ye would that Men should do to you, do ye even fo to them; for this is the Law and the Prophets. Whatfoever we can defire Men to do to as, is compréhended in Juftice and Kind

nefs,

« PreviousContinue »