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I am sometimes very uneasy when I revolve these things in my mind: yet under all these difficulties, I have two considerations on which to repose myself. I have lived long enough in the world to know, that however sincerely a man may wish to have every body do what is right, he must be content to see much evil which he cannot prevent, and to hear many falsehoods which he can never hope to silence. If it is his desire to resist prevailing evils, they will not be imputed to him, though he should not succeed: let those look to it, who might forward his good intentions and do not. The other consideration, with which I comfort myself, is this, and a very common one it is; that if we cannot do as much as we would, we must still be willing to do as much as we can. If some advantages are denied to us, others will always be left to us. I can instruct the children of my parish; I can visit the sick, and comfort those who have no comforter but God and myself; I can help the poor in some of their occasional distresses; (and with God's help) I can preach the Gospel freely; and if my labours should not prosper here so much as might be wished, and my evening lectures should not be so well attended as when novelty recommended them, I must then consider my country as my parish, if it will give me leave; I must hope that what I speak here, will be better attended to somewhere else, and be doing some good, when I can speak no longer. In the mean time I shall not be discouraged: this sermon may do more good than I can yet foresee, and may stir up some others to be like-minded with myself. God send it God send it may do so; the advantage will not be to me, but to us all: and as the time is approaching, when some yearly regulations are to take place, I trust you will all remember what has now been said to you. I have only to tell you farther, that

the time is short; and that all worldly interests and worldly considerations will soon be of no value to any of us but that the zeal we exercise for the honour of God, and the benefit of the place in which we live, will follow us into the grave, and rise with us again to judgment; when they that have done good shall go into life everlasting.

SERMON IX.

YE HAVE THE POOR WITH YOU ALWAYS, AND WHENSOEVER YE WILL, YE MAY DO THEM GOOD. MARK XIV. 7.

WHEN we enquire into the economy either of the

natural or the moral world, we are anxious to account for the origin of evil; so in the political world, a like question may be raised concerning the origin of poverty; how it comes to pass, that, as the text asserts, we have the poor with us always? Why could not all men have been born in the same station, and lived together on terms of equality, like the oaks of the forest, or . the lillies of the field, or the cattle which feed upon a thousand hills? When we see but a little way into the constitution of things, we may perplex and distress ourselves with such questions: but when we see farther, we shall discover, that the general form and condition of society in civilized states, is as much the appointment of God, as the form and structure of the human body; and that the several orders of which it consists, are as necessary and useful to each other, and as fully display the wisdom of God, as the head of all government, and the author of all regularity; as the limbs, and members, and faculties of the body demonstrate his power and goodness as the Creator of the world.

Man without society, would be what the world was in its chaos, when it was dark, and void, and formless and He who brought it out of that state, and divided the lights of the firmament, the clouds, the air, the waters of the ocean, and fixed the body of the earth, into their several distinct regions; hath with equal wisdom brought men out of their barbarous state, such as they would be in by nature, to be divided into classes, offices, and employments; each in due subordination, and all serviceable to one another; for there is no plan of God's establishing, in which all the parts do not work together for the good of the whole.

Two societies were certainly formed under God's immediate direction, the common-wealth of Israel, and the Christian church; and in neither of these did he set men in a state of equality. The apostle St. Paul enforces a comparison between the body natural and the body ecclesiastical; shewing how God hath tempered all the members together, and that those which seem to be more feeble* are necessary to the

rest.

We can all see that the strong are necessary to the weak, and the rich to the poor: but that the poor are also necessary to the rich, does not appear so immediately yet they certainly are so, both in a civil and in a religious capacity. Many offices must be performed, and much work must be done for the service. of society, which will never be done, either by the proud or the indolent, or the effeminate. as reasonable to expect, that those works should be executed by the hands of men, which are proper to horses and bullocks, appointed by God's providence

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for such ends, and furnished with strength and patience to fit them for the business they were intended to perform. So much for the civil capacity of men when we consider them in their religious capacity, it appears that they have works to do for the service of God, and for the benefit of their souls; as they have other works to be performed for the ends of common life. In human society, men are related to one another, and work for one another; in religious society, they are all related to God, and are to work, in another way, for his glory, and the salvation of their own souls; approving themselves, in their several orders and degrees, as the subjects of that community, of which God is the head, and in which he is the only law-giver. All have their proper parts assigned to them, together with their proper stations; and all are to do their duty in that state of life unto which it hath pleased God to call them. The poor are to be contented with their lot, as being the appointment of God; and the rich are to be careful of the poor, as holding of God in trust for that purpose, and accountable to him as stewards and overseers. They could not approve themselves to God by giving such an account, if there were no poor. In such a case, one general scheme of selfishness and independence would prevail, useless to man and dishonourable to God.

It would be casy to shew, that there is perfect justice as well as wisdom in this distribution of things; no partiality, no respect of persons. The rich have a.. sort of superiority, which is temporary, transient, and dangerous: the poor, with their low station, have health, and safety, and a better disposition to receive the Gospel. Heathens could see, in ancient times, that poverty was the school of virtue; and many of them on that ground affected voluntary poverty, and

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