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esteem belongs not to you in the measure you possess it. You must consider the right the person you have injured has to be esteemed what he is, and not what you have falsely described him; and you must tell the whole truth, though you expose yourself. Mortifying as this procedure appears, it is absolutely necessary, and the only sure proof you detest the falsehood and licentiousness of your tongue.

SUNDAY XXX.

CHAP. XXX.

On the Tempers of a Christian towards his Fellow-creatures.

SINCERITY and love of justice, in the extent above described, though the perfection of morality (as too many understand that term), are only two considerable branches which grow from faith in Christ. Where this lives in the heart, negative righteousness towards men will never be deemed sufficient, nor can a Christian rest satisfied with a base freedom from the offence of wilfully injuring or deceiving his fellow-creatures. To the conscientious observance of sincerity and justice, you will add the love of mercy. When Providence places the miserable before your eyes, as it did of old the - wounded traveller before the priest and Levite, you will not pass them by, but be moved to have compassion on them. Disease and pain of body, trouble of mind, pinching poverty, hard and cruel usage from men, and even ruin incurred by a profligate life, will excite in you grief and active pity. If you have much, like Job, you will, in the distribution of

your bounty, be eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the afflicted. The blessing of him that was ready to perish will daily come upon you, and you will make the widow's heart leap for joy.

If your scanty lot can enable you to give but very little, your heart will be large, friendly, and charitable, as if you had wealth to supply the wants of all in need. Though you have no bread of your own to deal to the hungry, neither know a man of affluence whom you can ask to relieve them, one way still remains to give vent to your merciful temper, a way pleasing to God, and profitable to men; you make your intercession with the Father of mercies, and the God of all consolation, to support them under the pressure of their troubles, in due time to deliver them, and make affliction a sovereign medicine to heal their souls.

In this way the rich and poor meet together, nor has any one pre-eminence, in a merciful, benevolent spirit, above the other.

Further, you will exercise mercy, if you are a real Christian, towards those who are in your power from injuries they have done to you, or debts for which they must answer. In such cases, where mercy to the offender will not prove injustice and cruelty to the public, you will wave the rigorous execution of the law, and without exception, where not idleness and vice, but the appointment of Providence, has disabled those indebted to you from answering your demands, you will abhor the thought of adding affliction to him whom God hath wounded. You will reject with indignation the common maxim, that you are to have some sort of satisfaction for your debt, by making the man who brings a loss upon you rot in a jail. From the same merciful temper, in every instance where the innocent must be deeply involved with the guilty, you will

sooner suffer yourself than bring many, for the fault of one, into great distress, by taking away the sup port of a whole family.

Besides these cases, there is one grand province in which a Christian's merciful temper shines with the greatest lustre; I mean, in tenderly regarding the spiritual miseries and dangers of the human race. It is, I confess, generous and noble to alleviate and remove the sufferings of the body, and to take a pleasure in doing good to them who are in adversity by liberal gifts. Yet how limited, how partial, how transient are the benefits! What can alms avail to comfort, where every distemper of the mind still rages? Pride, envy, hatred, wrath, malice, strife, or filthy lewdness in families, destroy all good, all enjoy ment of comfort. You relieve the family day by day, but the husband abuses his wife, beats and terrifies his poor children; or the proud imperious wife vexes to death her husband, driving him into drunkenness as a refuge from her assaults; or the children, after the bad examples they see at home, grow in wickedness as in stature, to do mischief, and increase the guilt and wickedness of the world by their evil tempers. In every station and walk of life, immortal souls are provoking their adorable Maker and Benefactor to jealously, spurning at his counsel and his salvation, and heaping up wrath against the day of wrath. These are the great objects which, louder than even widows or orphans, call for bowels of mercies, and the most active exertions of our pity.

If you are a Christian in truth, you will say, "I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved, because men kept not thy law." This compassion to the souls of men will inspire you with zeal to save them from impending ruin. You will watch for opportunities to do good by sound arguments and winning persuasions, by faithful and strong declarations of the

evil of sin and its consequences, where there is an ear to hear, ard a lucid interval in the midst of the wicked; by distributing heart-searching books, and aiding those who are engaged in the delightful work of spreading the knowledge of Christ.

The causes which excite and maintain in the Christian a temper, so extensively merciful, are, reverence of his Maker's command, trust in his pro. mises, a sense of his redemption by Christ, and the agency of the Holy Ghost on his heart.

The command of God to shew mercy is most frequent. "If there be among you a poor man, one of thy brethren, thou shalt not harden thy heart, nor shut thy hand from thy poor brother, but thou shalt open thy hand wide unto him. Beware that thine eye be not evil against thy poor brother, and thou givest him nought, and he cry unto the Lord against thee, and it be sin unto thee. Thou shalt surely give him," Deut. xv. 7. In every definition of right behaviour, a merciful temper bears a chief part. "He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?" Mic. vi. In this estimate, pure and undefiled religion manifests its efficacy "in visiting the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and in keeping the soul unspotted from the world." No duty is more frequently urged than this. "Be ye there.

*There are two venerable societies engaged in the glorious work of distributing Bibles, Testaments, and other good books. These societies are supported by subscription; and a guinea or two annually subscribed, is often productive of present peace and eternal salvation to the souls of men. To the first of these societies you may apply through the Reverend Mr. Broughton, secretary to the society for promoting Christian Knowledge among the poor. To the other, called, The society for promoting Religious Knowledge among the poor' you may apply through the Reverend Dr. Stennet, London. 1.

fore merciful, as your heavenly Father is also merciful," Luke vi. 36. "Be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another," 1 Pet. iii. These commands prove, no one destitute of a merciful temper can be acceptable to God.

Again, his repeated promises invite and encourage the Christian to abound in acts of mercy. For though these promises imply no worth in a merciful temper, when it subsists with love to sin, or prejudice against the glory of Christ; though these promises are not to be construed as if a merciful temper would be rewarded in derogation to faith in the Redeemer, or cover our iniquities, still they are of great use to remove objections made by our worldly hearts, if not by those around us, against doing liberally for the poor and needy. They fully assure us that all acts of beneficence, springing from faith and love to God, are highly pleasing to him, and, through his own amazing grace, shall be honoured with an everlasting reward. "Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy," Matth. 5. "He that converteth a sinner from the error of his way, shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins," James v. 20. "A new command. ment I give unto you, that ye love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples,

if

ye have love one to another," John xiii. Above all, the Redeemer will proclaim his high delight in this excellent temper, from his throne and glory, in the presence of the whole human and angelic race. Then will he reward every Christian exercise of mercy, as if it had been conferred on himself; as if the afflictions it relieved had been sustained in his person, and he only had received benefit and consolation from the mercy. "In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me," Matth. xxv. 40.

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