appointed a day of reckoning for you, and that on that day you must account, in an especial manner, for the treatment you have given to the poor and destitute. And you showed by this failure in your benevolence, that if the claimant on your bounty had appeared before you in the character of a claimant on your justice, backed by no positive law, and by no civil power or penalties, he would not have been more successful in obtaining what he demanded as a matter of right, than he was in getting what he supplicated as a token of mercy. In this instance, had you looked more to Christian principle, than to political economy-and more to the example of your Saviour, than to the selfish maxims and practices of worldly men—and more to the liberty which God has given you by the Gospel, to abound in good works, than to the liberty which men have left you to abstain from them,-you would not have sent away the unhappy brother who asked from you the meat that was necessary to sustain his body, or the instruction that was necessary to nourish his soul, and congratulated yourselves that you had preserved untouched your privilege of withholding help from the desolate suppliant, though, in the assertion of that privilege, you had allowed him to starve for want of bread, or to perish for lack of knowledge. But such having been your conduct, and that implying in it a forgetfulness or disregard of the obligation under which Christianity has laid you to be benevolent or to do good, you were guilty of a great sin. Repent, then, of that sin, for which, in the name of our divine Master, and for your correction, we administer this reproof; and "go, and sin no more, lest a worse

thing befall you.” But even though your memory does not recall any particular instance in which you literally acted as we have supposed, still, if your general views be as we have alleged, it is impossible but they must have had some influence on your social deportment; and, if you continue to hold them, they must, of necessity, be injurious to your character and to your doings as lovers of your kind. See, therefore, that you discard them. Embrace the holier and the better views that are enforced on you by the blessed Gospel. Consider, that it is as essential for you, in your Christian capacity, to be benevolent, as it is for you to be just. And often meditate on the various circumstances set before you, as constituting that obligation, in order that you may feel it habitually and strongly, and have your deportment adorned with all the beauties of charity and mercy.

2. It is a very common, but a very false maxim, that if we do good, it is of little or no moment from what motives we do it. This maxim is too generally adopted throughout the whole range of moral and religious duty. But we are particularly liable to be misled by it in the exercises of benevolence. Acts of kindness are of so amiable a nature, and so engaging an aspect; their effects are often so important and so striking; they frequently call forth so much gratitude from those on whom they are wrought, and so much admiration from those by whom they are witnessed-that we are apt to be contented with the bare performance of them, to set them down as quite sufficient in themselves, and never to think of inquiring into the reasons and

principles from which they have proceeded. And we congratulate ourselves, and are applauded by others, merely because we have done many things which are profitable to men, and although not one of them can be said to have originated in any piety of feeling or in any purity of intention.

This is a sort of mechanical view of the subject. It has no relation to us as rational and accountable beings. It degrades the physician to a level with the medicine by which he cures his patient. It gives no more praise to the benefactor himself, than to the bread with which he feeds the hungry, and the garments with which he covers the naked. Nay, it confounds the distinctions of character, and makes the only distinctions to be those of outward condition, conferring the praise of benevolence on the rich man, because he can give much relief to the distressed, and withholding it from the poor man, because he can give none. It is doubtless true, that the alms which we bestow will support the poor, whether the bestowal of them has been prompted by a good feeling or by a bad one. But when speak

ing of those actions which compose the Christian character, which our divine Ruler requires of us, and for which we are to be responsible to him at last, we must look, not to effects and consequences only, but also to principles and motives; we must take the moral, not the physical view of the subject; we must not so much consider the assistance we have actually imparted, as we must examine the state of mind under whose influence we inparted it. There is not a position in moral science, as taught in the Bible, and recognised by all enlightened men, more

indubitable or better established than this. We know what our Saviour said of the Pharisees, who gave alms that they might be seen and have glory of the world. Their alms, as to effect, were just as valuable and useful as the alms of holier men; and yet he condemned them for their almsgiving, as if it had been a sin, just because it had no counterpart in the affections of the heart. We know what the apostle Paul affirms of those beneficent deeds which do not flow from corresponding sentiments: "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing." And we know what we ourselves would think, were we to discover that the man to whom we had been indebted for any boon, had communicated it merely to serve some selfish or some wicked purpose of his own. We might be the better of his aid, but we could have no admiration of his virtue. And, while we would be thankful that he had been made instrumental in doing us good, we could not forbear reprobating him for his pretended kindness and his detected hypocrisy.

It will follow, indeed, that few, comparatively speaking, of those who are usually accounted benevolent, possess that character in its true and scriptural import; and that in the good which the really benevolent do, there will be no inconsiderable portion of alloy to debase its excellence and its worth. But the inference, though humbling to some, and mortifying to many, is yet instructive, and ought to awaken serious concern and self-examination. For amidst our benevolent works, let them be as numerous and as splendid as they may, it is neither

wise, nor holy, nor safe to forget, that while we are the subjects of God's government, and accountable to him for all our ways, he looks not merely to the outward deportment-that he is not satisfied with mere bodily service, however active and efficientthat he requires the homage and obedience of the heart-and that he will reject as a vain oblation every thing we say, and every thing we do, which does not emanate from the views and dispositions of a right and sanctified spirit." If our doing good be merely to attract the notice, and gain the approbation of perishing man; if it be to secure for ourselves a reputation as empty, as those by whom it is awarded are erring and corrupt; if it be to promote our acquisition of worldly patronage and secular gain; if it be to accomplish, more easily and smoothly than we could otherwise do, some base or unworthy purpose; if it be to comply with the prevalent and transitory fashion of the day, which, like other fashions, looks away from God and bows to the caprice of mortals; if it be to make atonement for a course of avarice, or for deeds of cruelty in our past life, which, with all our other demerit, can be atoned for only by the blood of Christ; if it be to impose ungenerously and selfishly a debt of gratitude on the objects of our bounty, which we are to exact as soon as our interest or our humour shall dictate; if it be to please ourselves with the affectation of a sensibility which we are conscious of not possessing, or to get up a story of romantic distress, and of romantic benevolence, with the rehearsal of which we may flatter our own vanity, and awaken the sympathies of our friends and acquaintances;-if it be for such ends as