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. It would be 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 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 lawgiver. All have their proper parts assigned to them, together with their proper stations; 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 easy 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 supe

riority, 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 made an ostentatious show of their rags. But whatever the abuses of Heathens might be, poverty among Christians is certainly a preparatory exercise of the mind for the reception of truth, and consequently for the belief of the Gospel. Thus then we are to make our estimate; that if the poor are rich in faith, and have laid a foundation for eternity, they have nothing to complain of: while the rich, on the other hand, have no reason to boast of that wealth or that honour, which will set them never the higher in the kingdom of heaven; and too often disqualifies them for a place there. Thus the ways of God are equal, where they seem, to us, to be unequal; and the several parts of society, like the several parts of the creation, serve in a wonderful manner toward the common good.

By a sort of writers, who call themselves moral philosophers, I have seen it lamented that there is such a thing in the world as exclusive property: and they think it a great pity that this evil cannot be prevented. But the poor, considered as a link in the chain of society, are of God's making; and to speak in the language of an apostle, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men ;"* that is, the ways of God, which seem most exceptionable, are so, only because they are superior to our wisdom, and higher than our thoughts. They who would make a better religion than God hath revealed, are tempted by their vanity to expose the shallowness of their reason: and the case is the same with those, who would alter that form of society which God hath ordained, and mend it; as if Providence had committed a mistake, where it has given us a demonstration of infinite wisdom and goodness. All this arises

1 Cor. i. 25.

from an affection toward high things, and an indisposition to condescend to men of low estate. Such is the error of man's imagination that it always inclines to the side of pride and haughtiness, the first sin that was infused by the author and father of pride. As the worldly-minded Jew could see nothing wonderful or necessary in the story of Bethlehem, and the manger, and the shepherds; so the haughty philosopher thinks the world would do better, if there were nothing low in human life, nor any thing higher than himself; as if the creation could be improved, by taking the sun, moon, stars, air, earth, and waters, and stirring them all together into one horizontal miscellany. If there had been no poor in the world, Christ could not have submitted to that state which was necessary to our salvation. He was born in poverty; of parents not thought good enough to be provided with room in a common inn, but shut out to make room for their betters, and lodge with beasts in a stable. Let us not wonder that the contemplation of this history of our Saviour's birth inspired many saints and hermits with the love of poverty. If all men were duly affected by it, and compared it properly with their own unworthiness, the proud would lay aside their plumes, the ambitious would be ashamed of their popularity, and kings would throw down their crowns and sceptres to the earth.

From the foregoing considerations, it appears to be a part in the plan of Divine Providence that we should have the poor always with us. To this plan the social laws of God are accommodated, which prescribe condescension, compassion, and almsgiving on the one side; contentment, industry, and submission on the other. Without this, the moral government of God, and the social duties of man, would have been imperfect; and it does not appear how the scheme of our salvation, by the birth and humiliation of Jesus Christ, could have taken effect. We have, therefore, every reason to conclude, that what is, in this respect,

is right; and that the poor do not exist by accident, but by preordination.

If this doctrine is important enough in itself to merit our serious meditation, it is still more so in the uses we are to make of it. The goodness of God could, and if it had been best, would have prevented, the wants of the poor; but now we see a reason why he did not. The poor have their wants, that the rich may be blessed with the opportunity of relieving them: a duty very earnestly enjoined in many places of the Scripture, and supposed in those words of the text-"Whensoever ye will ye may do them good." Too many have the ability without the will to do them good; others say, they are sure they should have the will, if they had the ability. But this will is amongst the other gifts of God, and is always most to be depended upon when it arises from a religious principle. It is then neither subject to be defiled by vanity and hypocrisy, nor defeated by capricious humour and partiality.

I do not mean to move you with an afflicting representation of the evils of poverty; I would rather apply myself to your reason and your consciences than to your imaginations: but my subject obliges me to mention them; because it requires me to shew how, and in what respects, we are to do the poor good according to their wants; after which, I shall endeavour to enforce the obligations we are under, and the encouragement we have to relieve them.

It is a common observation, that one half of the world knows but little what the other half is doing and suffering. While the licentiousness of the rich is studying how to provoke appetite with variety; the poor are either half filled, or satisfied with what the delicate would disdain to feed upon. While indolence is enjoying its ease, and proud of the contemptible privilege of having nothing to do; they are seeking bitter bread by severe labour. Their occupations expose them to all the varieties of the weather; at noon-day they are wasted with the heat, and at night

they are wetted with the dew of heaven. While others are spending their precious hours in a vain and fruitless adorning of their persons, they are too frequently exposing themselves to the air when they are heated with hard labour; and thence are subject to pains in their joints, stiffness in their limbs, and premature old age and decrepitude. Other hardships are brought upon them by the contempt and oppression of their superiors; I will not call such people their betters. Some men carry themselves with a lofty air toward the poor, as if they were of some lower species of animals: and as if contempt were not sufficient, others proceed to injury and oppression: nor are there wanting those who are said to "grind the faces of the poor;" that is, who are mean enough to make a property of them; extorting unjust and paltry gains out of a poor man who has nothing to part with; nothing but what is necessary to his life and being: so that their attempt has as little sense and as little mercy in it, as if they were to grind off something from the skin and the flesh of his face.

But the greatest wants of the poor, and those which I am directed by the present occasion chiefly to insist upon, arise from their ignorance, and their inability to procure necessary instruction. Whatever they may suffer from their bodily wants, the wants of the mind are of much greater consequence. It is one privilege of the rich, that they have it in their power to cultivate their understandings; though many of them neglect it, and are weak enough to think their wealth a substitute for education and improvement. But the poor, without the assistance of the rich, have no such opportunity. Some of them are, and some are not sensible of their loss; but it is very great to all those, who, for want of timely instruction, are not able to read the Word of God. When we meet with a poor family, in which neither the father nor the mother is

Isa. iii. 15.