ti, in which he defcribes his charity in feveral heroic instances, and with a noble heat of fentiments, mentions that verse in the proverbs of Solomon, He that giveth to the poor, lendeth to the Lord: "There is more rhetoric in that one fentence (fays he) than in a library of fermons; and indeed if thofe fentences were underftood by the reader, with the fame emphafis as they are delivered by the author, we needed not thofe volumes of inftructions, but might be honeft by an epi

tome."

This paffage in fcripture is indeed wonderfully perfuafive; but I think the fame thought is carried much farther in the New Teftament, where our Saviour tells us in the most pathetic manner, that he shall hereafter regard the clothing of the naked, the feeding of the hungry, and the vifiting of the imprifoned, as offices done to himself, and reward them accordingly. Purfuant to thofe paffages in Holy Scripture, I have fomewhere met with the epitaph of a charitable man, which has very much pleafed me. I cannot recollect the words, but the fenfe of it is to this purpose: What I spent I loft, what I poffeffed is left to others; what I gave away remains with me.

Since I am thus infenfibly engaged in facred writ, I cannot forbear making an extract of feveral paffages which I have always read with great delight in the book of Job. It is the account which that holy man gives of his behaviour in the days of his profperity, and if confidered only as a human compofition,is a finer picture of a charitable and good-natured man than is to be met with in any other author.

O that I were as in months pafi, as in the days when God prejerved me; when his candle shined upon my head, and when by his light I walked through darkness: When the Almighty was yet with me children were about me; rwhen ; when I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured out rivers of oil.

my

eye

When the ear heard me, then it bloffed me; and when the Jaw me, it gave witness to me. Because I delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. The bleffing of him that was ready to perish came upon

me, and I caufed the widow's heart to fing for joy. I was eyesto the blind, and feet was 1 to the lame; I was a father to the poor, and the caufe which I knew not I fearched out. Did

not I

weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my foul grieved for the poor? Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity. If I did defpife the cause of my man fervant, or of my maid fervant when they contended with me, what then fall I do when God raiseth up? And when he vifiteth, what shall I answer him? Did not he that made me in the womb, make him? And did not one fashion us in the womb? If I have withheld the poor from their defire, or have, caufed the eyes of the widow to fail, or have eaten my morfel myfelf alone, and the fatherless bave not eaten thereof: If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering if his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my heep: If I have lift up my hand against the fatherless, when I faw my help in the gate; then let mine arm fall from my shoulder-blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone. If I have rejoiced at the destruction of him that hated me, or lift up myself when evil found him : (Neither have I juffered my mouth to fin, by wishing a curfe to his foul.) The stranger did not lodge in the freet; but I opened my doors to the traveller. If my land cries against me, or that the furrows likewife thereof complain: If I have eaten the fruits thereof without money, or have caused the owners thereof to loje their life; let thiftles grow inftea of wheat, and cockle inftead of barley.

SPECTATOR, Vol. III. No. 177.

GOSPELS.

DR. Tillerfon, in his difcourfe concerning the dan

ger of all known fin, both from the light of nature and revelation, after having given us the defcription of the last day out of holy writ, has this remarkable paffige.

"I appeal to any man, whether this be not a reprefentation of things very proper and fuitable to that great day, wherein he who made the world fhall come to judge it? And whether the wit of man ever devifed any thing fo awful, and fo agreeable to the majesty of

God, and folemn judgment of the whole world; the defcription which Virgil makes of the Elyfian Fields, and the infernal regions, how infinitely do they fall fhort of the majefty of the Holy Scripture, and the defcription there made of Heaven and Hell, and of the great and terrible day of the Lord! So that in comparifon they are childish and trifling, and yet perhaps he had the most regular and moft governed imagination of any man who ever lived, and obferved the greatest decorum in his characters and defcriptions. But who can declare the great things of God, but he to whom God Jhall reveal them

This obfervation was worthy a most polite man, and ought to be of authority with all who are fuch, fo far as to examine whether he spoke that as a man of a just taste and judgment, or advanced it merely for the fervice of his doctrine as a clergyman.

I am very confident whoever reads the Gospels with an heart as much prepared in favour of them as when he fits down to Virgil or Homer, will find no paffage thare which is not told with more natural force than any episode in either of thofe wits, which were the chief of mere mankind.

The last thing I read was the XXIVth chapter of St. Luke, which gives an account of the manner in which our bleffed Saviour, after his refurrection, joined with two difciples on the way to Emmaus, as an ordinary traveller, and took the privilege as fuch to inquire of them what occafioned a fadness he obferved in their countenances; or whether it was for any public caufe: The wonder that any man fo near Je rufalem fhould be a stranger to what had paffed there their acknowledgment to one they met accidentally that they had believed in this prophet; and that now, the third day after his death, they were in doubt as to their pleafing hope which occafioned the heaviness he took notice of, are all reprefented in a file which men of letters call the great and noble fimplicity. The attention of the difciples when he expounded the Scriptures concerning himfelf, his offering to take his leave of them, their fondness of his day, and the manifeftaVOL. II.

L

tion of the great gueft whom they had entertained while he was yet at meat with them, are all incidents which wonderfully please the imagination of a Chriftian reader, and give to him fomething of that touch of mind which the brethren felt, when they faid one to another, Did not our hearts burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures?

I am very far from pretending to treat thefe matters as they deferve; but I hope thofe gentlemen who are qualified for it, and called to it, will forgive me, and confider that I speak as a mere fecular man, impartially confidering the effect which the facred writings will have upon the foul of an intelligent reader; and it is fome argument, that a thing is the immediate work of God, when it fo infinitely tranfcends all the labours of man. When I look upon Raphael's picture of our Saviour appearing to his difciples after his refurrection, I cannot but think the juft difpofition of that piece has in it the force of many volumes on the fubject: The evangelifts are eafily diftinguished from the reft by a paffionate zeal and love which the painter has thrown in their faces; the huddle groupe of thofe who ftand moft diftant, are admirable representations of men abafhed with their late unbelief and hardness of heart. And fuch endeavours as this of Raphael, and of all men not called to the altar, are collateral helps not to be defpifed by the minifters of the Gofpel.

'Tis with this view that I prefume upon fubjects of this kind, and men may take up this paper, and be catched by an admonition under the disguise of a diverfion.

All the arts and feiences ought to be employed in one confederacy against the prevailing torrent of vice and impiety; and it will be no fmall ftep in the progrefs of religion, if it is as evident as it ought to be, that he wants the best tafte and beft fense a man can have, who is cold to the beauty of holiness.

As for my part, when I have happened to attend the corpfe of a friend to his interment, and have seen a graceful man at the entrance of a church-yard, whe

became the dignity of his function, and affumed an authority which is natural to truth, pronounce I am the refurrection and the life, he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet fhall be live; and whosoever liveth and believ eth in me shall never die : I fay, upon fuch an occafion, the retrofpect upon past actions between the deceased whom I followed, and myfelf, together with the many little circumftances that ftrike upon the foul,and alternately give grief and confolation, have vanished like a dream; and I have been relieved as by a voice from Heaven, when the folemnity has proceeded, and after a long paufe I again heard the fervant of God utter, I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall and at the latter day upon the earth; and though worms deftroy this body, set in my fiefh fhall I fee God, whom I shall fee for myself, and my eyes fhall behold, and not another. How have I been raised above this world and all its regards, and how well prepared to receive the next fentence which the holy inan has fpoken, We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out; the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.

There are, I know, men of heavy tempers without genius, who can read thefe expreflions of Scripture with as much indifference as they do the rest of these loofe papers: However I will not despair but to bring men of wit into a love and admiration of facred writings; and, as old as I am, I promise myself to see the day when it fhall be as much the fathion among men of politenefs to admire a rapture of St. Paul, as any fine expreffion in Virgil or Horace; and to see a well dreffed young man produce an evangelift out of his pocket, and be no more out of countenance than if it were a claffic printed by Elzevir.

It is a gratitude that ought to be paid to Providence by men of diftinguished faculties, to praife and adore the Author of their being with a spirit fuitable to thoïe faculties, and roufe flower men by their words, actions, and writings to a participation of their tranfports and thanksgivings.

GUARDIAN, Vol. I. No. 21.