SER M. ture of goodness is to diffufe and communicate itself, CCXIII. and the more it is communicated, the more glorious

it is. And therefore knowledge and power may be in a nature most contrary to God's'; the devil hath these perfections in a high degree.

To receive good from others is no certain argument of virtue and merit, for the unworthy and unthankful often receive benefits: : but to be good and do good, is the excellency of virtue, because it is to refemble Gop in that which is the most amiable and glorious of all his other perfections. And therefore when Mofes defires "to see God's glory," Exod. xxxiii. 19. he tells him, that "he will cause all his goodness to

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pass before him." Without goodness the power and wisdom of GOD would be terrible, and raise great dread and fuperftition in the minds of men. Without goodness power would be tyranny and oppreffion, and wisdom would degenerate into craft and mischievous contrivance. So that a being endowed with all power and wisdom, and yet wanting goodness, would be a dreadful and omnipotent mischief. We are apt to dread power, and to admire knowledge, and to fufpect great wifdom and prudence; but we can heartily love and reverence nothing but true goodness. "It is not the infinite power and knowledge of God confidered abftractedly, and in themselves, but these in conjunction with his great goodness, that make Him at once the most awful and amiable Being in the World. Which is the reason why our SAVIOUR, Matt. v. 48. fpeaks of the mercy, and goodness, and patience of God, as the top and fum of the divine perfections; "Be'ye therefore perfect, as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." How is that? In being "good to the evil and unthankful, as God is, who makes ***** his fun to rife, and his rain to fall, not only on the

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" just, but unjust." And therefore St. Luke renders SERM. it, "Be ye therefore merciful, as your Father which " is in heaven is merciful." To be good and merciful as Gop is, is to be perfect as he is because it is to imitate him in that which is his chief perfection.

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Gratitude is one of the noblest virtues, and our goodness to men is gratitude in its to Gop. It is an acknowledgment of the blessings we have received from God; the best use we can make of them, and the best requital we can make to him for all his benefits. For we can give him nothing again, because he stands in need of nothing. But a truly grateful person, who hath a kindness done to him by one that is out of all capacity, and reach of requital, will require whe ther there be any of his family and relations to whom he may shew a kindness for his fake. Yea benefits have often been requited by thankful persons, upon those who did but resemble their benefactors, though they were no ways related to them. Though we can dơ nothing to Gop, yet we may do it to men, who are "made after the image of Gop" We may thew kindness to his relations, and to those of his houshold and family, to his creatures, to his fervants, to his friends, and to his children here in the earth. bar

Besides that our goodness to others like ourselves is an argument of great confideration, and prudence it is a sign that we know ourselves, and confider what we are, and what we may be, it shews, that we have a due sense of the indigence and infirmity of human na ture, and of the change and viciffitude of human affairs it is a just sense and acknowledgment of our 1state, that we are infufficient for our own happiness. and must depend upon the kindness, and good-will, and friendship of other men, that we all either do or may stand in need of others one time or other: for

SERM. he who is now in the greatest plenty and abundance of CCXIII. all things, and thinks "his mountain so strong, that

" he can never be moved," may by a sudden revolution of fortune, by a thousand accidents, be thrown down from his height of profperity, into the depth of misery and necessity.

And as it is an argument of confideration, so of great prudence. He that is good to others, apt to commiferate their fad cafe, and to relieve them in their straits, takes the wisest and fureft way that can be, to encline and engage others to be good to him, when it shall fall to his lot to stand in need of their kindness and pity. Upon this account our SAVIOUR Commends the prudence of the unjust steward, who laid in for the kindness of others, against himself should have occafion for it.

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And though it should happen otherwise, and that we should have an uninterrupted tenor of profperity (which few or none have) or that coming to stand in need of others, our kindness should meet with no equal returns, yet it would not be quite loft. For as Seneca truly says, delectat etiam fterilis beneficii confrientia, though our charity should fall upon stony and barren ground, and we should find no fruit of it from those whom we have obliged, yet there is a pleafure in being confcious to ourselves, that we have done well, what was worthy and generous, and what became wife and confiderate men to do, whatever the event and fuccess be: for fetting afide all felfish respects, purely out of humanity and charity, and a generous compaffion, we should be ready, as we have opportunity, to do good to all that stand in need of our kindness and help.

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So that a difpofition to do good is the beft and happielt temper of mind, because it is the nearest refemblance

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blance of the divine nature, which is perfectly happy: SERM it is a grateful acknowledgment of our obligations to GOD, and all that we can render to him for his benefits; it is an argument of great wisdom and confideration; it gives ease end fatisfaction to our minds: and the reflection upon any good that we have done, is certainly the greatest contentment and pleasure in

the world, anda felicity much beyond that of the greatest fortune of this world; whereas the spirit contrary to this is always uneasy to itself; the envious and malicious, the hard-hearted and ill-natured man carries his own torment and hell about him, his mind is full of tumultuous agitations and unquiet thoughts: but were our nature rectified, and brought back to its primitive frame and temper, we should take no fuch pleasure in any thing as in acts of kindness and compassion, which are so suitable and agreeable to our nature, that they are peculiarly called humanity, as if without this temper we were not truly men, but something else disguised under a human shape.

II. "To give," is an argument of a more happy state and condition, than " to receive." To receive from others is an argument of indigency, and plainly shews that we are in want and necessity; either that we stand in need of something, or that we think we do, and either of these conditions is far from perfect happiness: but to give, is an argument of fulness and fufficiency, that we have more than is necessary for ourselves, and something to spare.

To receive kindness from others, supposeth we stand in need of it; and to stand in need of it, is to be in a state of being obliged and indebted. Obligation is a dear thing, and a real debt which lies heavy and uneafy upon a grateful mind: so much obligation as any man hath to another, so much he hath lost of his own liberty

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SER M. Jiberty and freedom; for it gives him that hath obliCCXIII. ged us, a fuperiority and advantage over us. And what Solomon says of the borrower, that "he is a " servant to the lender," is in proportion true in this cafe, that the receiver is a servant to the giver.

But to be able to benefit others, is a condition of freedom and superiority, and is so far from impairing pur liberty, that it shews our power: and the happiness which we confer upon others, by doing them good, is not only a contentment to ourselves, but we do in some fort enjoy the happiness we give, in being confcious to ourselves that we are the authors of it. And could we but once come to this excellent temper, to delight in the good that others enjoy, as if it were our own (and it is our own, if we be the instruments of it, and take pleasure in it) I say, could we but once come to this temper, we need not envy the wealth and fplendor of the most profperous upon earth; for upon these terms the happiness of the whole world would in some fort be ours, and we should have a share in the pleasure and fatisfaction of all that good which happens to any man any way, especially by our means.

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To depend upon another, and to receive from him, and to be beholden to him, is the necessary imperfection of creatures: but to confer benefits upon others, is to resemble God, and to approach towards divinity. Ariftotle could fay, that by narrowness and selfisiness, by envy and ill-will, men degenerate into beafts, and become wolves and tygers to one another; but by goodness and kindness, by mutual compaffion and helpfulness, men become gods to one another. To be a benefactor, is to be as like Gop as it is poffible for men to be, and the more any one partakes of this divine quality and difpofition, the liker and the nearer he is to Gop, "who is good to all, and whose tender mercies

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" are over all his other works."

The