1. "That they have nothing to spare," i. e. nothing for which they have not some other use; nothing which their plan of expense, together with the savings they have resolved to lay by, will not exhaust: never reflecting whether it be in their power, or that it is their duty to retrench their expenses, and contract their plan, "that they may have to give to them that need ;" or, rather, that this ought to have been part of their plan originally.

2.That they have families of their own, and that charity "begins at home." The extent of this plea will be considered, when we come to explain the duty of parents.

3. "That charity does not consist in giving money, but in bene"volence, philanthropy, love to all mankind, goodness of heart," &c. Hear St. James: "If a brother or sister be naked, and destitute of "daily food, and one of you say unto them, "Depart in peace; be "ye warmed and filled; notwithstanding ye give them not those "things which are needful to the body; what doth it profit ?" James, ii, 15, 16.

4. "That giving to the poor is not mentioned in St. Paul's de"scription of charity, in the thirteenth chapter of his First Epistle "to the Corinthians." This is not a description of charity, but of good-nature; and it is not necessary that every duty be mentioned in every place.

5. "That they pay the poor-rates."

They might as well allege that they pay their debts: for, the poor have the same right to that portion of a man's property which the laws assign them, that the man himself has to the remainder.

6. "That they employ many poor persons:"-for their own sake, not the poor's;-otherwise it is a good plea.

7." That the poor do not suffer so much as we imagine; that "education and habit have reconciled them to the evils of their "condition, and make them easy under it." Habit can never reconcile human nature to the extremities of cold, hunger, and thirst, · any more than it can reconcile the hand to the touch of a red hot iron: besides, the question is not, how unhappy any one is, but how much more happy we can make him.

8. "That these people, give them what you will, will never thank "you, or think of you for it." In the first place, this is not true: in the second place, it was not for the sake of their thanks that you relieved them.

9. "That we are so liable to be imposed upon." If a due inquiry be made, our motive and merit is the same: beside that, the distress is generally real, whatever has been the cause of it.

10. "That they should apply to their parishes." This is not al

ways practicable: to which we may add, that there are many requisites to a comfortable subsistence, which parish relief does not always supply; and that there are some who would suffer almost as much from receiving parish relief as by the want of it; and, lastly, that there are many modes of charity to which this answer does not reiate at all.

11. "That giving money encourages idleness and vagrancy." This is true only of injudicious and indiscriminate generosity.

12. "That we have too many objects of charity at home, to be"stow any thing upon strangers; or, that there are other charities, "which are more useful, or stand in greater need." The value of this excuse depends entirely upon the fact, whether we actually relieve those neighbouring objects, and contribute to those other charities.

Beside all these excuses, pride, or prudery, or delicacy, or love of ease, keep one half of the world out of the way of observing what the other half suffer.

CHAPTER VI.

RESENTMENT,

RESENTMENT may be distinguished into anger and revenge.. By anger, I mean the pain we suffer upon the receipt of an injury or affront, with the usual effects of that pain upon ourselves. By revenge, the inflicting of pain upon the person who has injured or offended us, further than the just ends of punishment or reparation require.

Anger prompts to revenge; but it is possible to suspend the effect, when we cannot altogether quell the principle. We are bound also to endeavour to qualify and correct the principle itself. So that our duty requires two different applications of the mind; and for that reason, anger and revenge should be considered separately.

CHAPTER VIL

ANGER.

"BE ye angry, and sin not;" therefore all anger is not sinful: I suppose, because some degree of it, and upon some occasions, is inevitable.

It becomes sinful, or contradicts, however, the rule of Scripture, when it is conceived upon slight and inadequate provocations, and when it continues long.

1. When it is conceived upon slight provocations: for, "charity "suffereth long, is not easily provoked.' "Let every man be slow "to anger." Peace, long-suffering, gentleness, meekness, are enumerated among the fruits of the Spirit, Gal. v. 22. and compose the true Christian temper, as to this article of duty..

2. When it continues long for, "let not the sun go down upon "your wrath.”

These precepts, and all reasoning indeed upon the subject, suppose the passion of anger to be within our power: and this power consists not so much in any faculty we have of appeasing our wrath at the time (for, we are passive under the smart which an injury or affront occasions, and all we can then do is, to prevent its breaking out into action) as in so mollifying our minds by habits of just reflection as to be less irritated by impressions of injury. and to be sooner pacified.

Reflections proper for this purpose, and which may be called the sedatives of anger, are the following: the possibility of mistaking. the motives from which the conduct that offends us proceeded; how often our offences have been the effect of inadvertency, when they were mistaken for malice; the inducement which prompted our adversary to act as he did, and how powerfully the same inducement has, at one time or other, operated upon ourselves; that he is suffering perhaps under a contrition, which he is ashamed or wants opportunity to confess; and how ungenerous it is to triumph by coldness or insult over a spirit already humbled in secret; that the returns of kindness are sweet, and that there is neither honour, nor use in resisting them:-for, some persons think themselves bound to cherish and keep alive their indignation, when they find it dying away of itself. We may remember that others have their passions, their prejudices, their favourite aims, their fears, their cautions, their interests, their sudden impulses, their varieties of apprehensions, as well as we. We may recollect what hath sometimes passed in our minds, when we have got on the wrong side of a quarrel, and imagine the same to be passing in our adversary's mind now; when we became sensible of our misbehaviour, what palliations we perceived in it, and expected others to perceive; how we were affected by the kindness, and felt the superiority of a generous reception and ready forgiveness; how persecution revived our spirits with our enmity, and seemed to justify the conduct in ourselves which we beforc blamed. Add to this, the indecency of extravagant anger;

how it renders us, while it lasts, the scorn and sport of all about us, of which it leaves us, when it ceases, sensible and ashamed; the inconveniences, and irretrievable misconduct into which our irascibility has sometimes betrayed us; the friendships. it has lost us; the distresses and embarrassments in which we have been involved by it; and the sore repentance which, on one account or other, it always costs us.

But the reflection calculated above all others, to allay that haughtiness of temper which is ever finding out provocations, and which renders anger so impetuous, is that which the Gospel proposes; namely, that we ourselves are, or shortly shall be, suppliants for mercy and pardon at the judgment-seat of God. Imagine our secret sins all disclosed and brought to light; imagine us thus humbled and exposed; trembling under the hand of God; casting ourselves on his compassion; crying out for mercy; imagine such a creature to talk of satisfaction and revenge; refusing to be entreated, disdaining to forgive; extreme to mark and to resent what is done amiss-imagine, I say, this, and you can hardly frame to yourself an instance of more impious and unnatural arrogance.

The point is, to habituate ourselves to these reflections, till they rise up of their own accord when they are wanted, that is, instantly upon the receipt of an injury or affront, and with such force and colouring, as both to mitigate the paroxysms of our anger at the time, and at length to produce an alteration in the temper and disposition itself.

ALL pain occasioned to another in consequence of an offence, or injury received from him, further than what is calculated to procure reparation, or promote the just punishment, is so much revenge.

There can be no difficulty in knowing when we occasion pain to another; nor much in distinguishing whether we do so with a view only to the ends of punishment, or from revenge; for, in the one case we proceed with reluctance, in the other with pleasure.

It is highly probable from the light of nature, that a passion, which seeks its gratification immediately and expressly in giving pain, is disagreeable to the benevolent will and counsels of the Creator. Other passions and pleasures may, and often do, produce pain

to some one; but then pain is not, as it is here, the object of the passion, and the direct cause of the pleasure. This probability is converted into certainty, if we give credit to the authority which dictated the several passages of the Christian Scriptures that condemn revenge, or, what is the same thing, which enjoin forgiveness. We will set down the principle of these passages; and endeavour to collect from them, what conduct upon the whole is allowed towards an enemy, and what is forbidden.

"If ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will "also forgive you but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, nei"ther will your Father forgive your trespasses.' -And his lord was "wroth, and delivered him to the tormenters, till he should pay all "that was due unto him: so likewise shall my heavenly Father do "also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his "brother their trespasses."" Put on bowels of mercy, kindness, "humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering; forbearing one "another, forgiving one another; if any man have a quarrel against "any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."- "Be patient "towards all men; see that none render evil for evil unto any man.' "Avenge not yourselves, but rather give place unto wrath: for "it is written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord. "Therefore, if thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him "drink; for, in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head. "Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good."*

I think it evident, from some of these passages taken separately, and still more so from all of them together, that revenge, as described in the beginning of this chapter, is forbidden in every degree, under all forms, and upon any occasion. We are likewise forbidden to refuse to an enemy even the most imperfect right; "If "he hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink;"† which are examples of imperfect rights. If one who has offended us, solicit from us a vote to which his qualifications entitle him, we may not refuse it from motives of resentment, or the remembrance of what we have suffered at his hands. His right, and our obligation which follows the right, is not altered by his enmity to us, or ours to him.

On the other hand, I do not conceive, that these prohibitions were intended to interfere with the punishment or prosecution of

Matt. Vi 14, 15; XViii. 34, 35. Col. iii. 12, 13. 1 Thess. V. 14, 15. Rom. Xii. 19, 20, 21.

† See also Exodus, xxiii. 4. "If thou meet thine enemy's ox, or his ass, going "astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him again: if thou see the ass of him, "that hateth thee lying under his burthen, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou "shalt surely help with him.”