contract or lessen them without a very probable

reason.

8. Let a man frequently and seriously by imagination place himself upon his death-bed, and consider what great joys he shall have for the remembrance of every day well spent, and what then he would give, that he had so spent all his days. He may guess at it by proportions: for it is certain, he shall have a joyful and prosperous night, who hath spent his day holily; and he resigns his soul with peace into the hands of God, who hath lived in the peace of God and the works of religion in his life-time. This consideration is of a real event, it is of a thing that will certainly come to pass. "It is appointed for all men once to die, and after death comes judgment;" the apprehension of which is dreadful, and the presence of it is intolerable, unless by religion and sanctity we are disposed for so venerable an appearance.

9. To this may be useful, that we consider the easiness of Christ's yoke, the excellences and sweetnesses that are in religion, the peace of conscience, the joy of the Holy Ghost, the rejoicing in God, the simplicity and pleasure of virtue, the intricacy, trouble and business of sin; the blessings and health and reward of that: the curses, the sicknesses and sad consequences of this; and that if we are weary of the labours of religion, we must eternally sit still and do nothing for whatsoever we do contrary to it, is infinitely more full of labour, care, difficulty, and vexation.

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10. Consider this also, that tediousness of spirit is the beginning of the most dangerous condition and estate in the whole world. For it is a great disposition to the sin against the Holy Ghost: it is apt to bring a man to back-sliding and the state of unregeneration, to make him return to his vomit and his sink, and either to make the man impatient, or his condition scrupulous, unsatisfied, irksome and desperate and "it is better that he had never known the

way of godliness, than after the knowledge of it, that he should fall away." There is not in the world a greater sign that the spirit of reprobation is beginning upon a man, than when he is habitually and constantly, or very frequently, weary, and slights or loathes holy offices.

11. The last remedy that preserves the hope of such a man, and can reduce him to the state of zeal and the love of God, is a pungent, sad, and a heavy affliction; not desperate, but recreated with some intervals of kindness, or little comforts, or entertained with hopes of deliverance: which condition if a man shall fall into, by the grace of God he is likely to recover; but if this help him not, it is infinite odds but he will "quench the Spirit."

SECTION VIII.

Of Alms.

LOVE is communicative as fire, as busy and as active, and it hath four twin-daughters, extreme like each other; and but that the doctors of the school have done something to distinguish them, it would be very hard to call them asunder. Their names are, 1. Mercy, 2. Beneficence, or well-doing, 3. Liberality, and 4. Alms; which by a special privilege hath obtained to be called after the mother's name, and is commonly called Charity. The first or eldest is seated in the affection, and it is that which all the other must attend. For mercy without alms is acceptable, when the person is disabled to express outwardly, what he heartily desires. But alms without mercy are like prayers without devotion, or religion without humility. 2. Beneficence, or well-doing, is a promptness and nobleness of mind, making us to do offices of courtesy and humanity to all sorts of persons in their

need, or out of their need. 3. Liberality is a disposition of mind opposite to covetousness, and consists in the despite and neglect of money upon just occasions, and relates to our friends, children, kindred, servants, and other relatives. 4. But alms is a relieving the poor and needy. The first and the last only are duties of Christianity. The second and third are circumstances and adjuncts of these duties: for liberality increases the degree of alms, making our gift greater; and beneficence extends it to more persons and orders of men, spreading it wider. The former makes us sometimes to give more than we are able ; and the latter gives to more than need by the necessity of beggars, and serves the needs and conveniences of persons, and supplies circumstances: whereas properly, alms are doles and largesses to the necessitous and calamitous people, supplying the necessities of nature, and giving remedies to their miseries.

Mercy and alms are the body and soul of that charity, which we must pay to our neighbour's need: and it is a precept, which God therefore enjoined to the world, that the great inequality, which he was pleased to suffer in the possessions and accidents of men, might be reduced to some temper and evenness; and the most miserable person might be reconciled to some sense and participation of felicity.

Works of Mercy, or the several kinds of corporal Alms.

The works of mercy are so many, as the affections of mercy have objects, or as the world hath kinds of misery. Men want meat, or drink, or clothes, or a house, or liberty, or attendance, or a grave. In proportion to these, seven works are usually assigned to mercy, and there are seven kinds of corporal alms reckoned. 1. To feed the hungry1. 2. To give drink to the thirsty. 3. Or clothes to the naked.

1 Matt. 25. 35.

4. To redeem captives. 5. To visit the sick. 6. To entertain strangers. 7. To bury the dead'. But many more may be added. Such as are, 8. To give physick to sick persons. 9. To bring cold and starved people to warmth and to the fire ; for sometimes clothing will not do it; or this may be done when we cannot do the other. 10. To lead the blind in right ways. 11. To lend money. 12. To forgive debts. 13. To remit forfeitures. 14. To mend highways and bridges. 15. To reduce or guide wandering travellers. 16. To ease their labours by accommodating their work with apt instruments, or their journey with beasts of carriage. 17. To deliver the poor from their oppressors. 18. To die for my brother. 19. To pay maidens dowries, and to procure for them honest and chaste marriages.

Works of spiritual Alms and Mercy are,

1. To teach the ignorant. 2. To counsel doubting 3. To admonish sinners diligently, prupersons. dently, seasonably, and charitably: To which also may be reduced, provoking and encouraging to good works 2. 4. To comfort the afflicted. 5. To pardon offenders. 6. To succour and support the weak. 7. To pray for all estates of men, and for relief to all their necessities. To which may be added, 8. To punish or correct refractoriness. 9. To be gentle and charitable in censuring the actions of others. 10. To establish the scrupulous, wavering and inconstant spirits. 11. To confirm the strong. 12. Not to give scandal. 13. To quit a man of his fear. 14. To redeem maidens from prostitution.

To both these kinds a third also may be added of a mixed nature, partly corporal, and partly spiritual, Such are, 1. Reconciling enemies; 2. Erecting publick schools of learning: 3. Maintaining lectures of

1 Matt. 26. 12. 2 Sam. 2. 5.

2 Heb. 10. 24. 1 Thess. 5. 14,

divinity; 4. Erecting colleges of religion, and retirement from the noises and more frequent temptations of the world; 5. Finding employment for unbusied persons, and putting children to honest trades. For the particulars of mercy or alms cannot be narrower than men's needs are: and the old method of alms is too narrow to comprise them all; and yet the kinds are too many to be discoursed of particularly : only our blessed Saviour, in the precept of alms, uses the instances of "relieving the poor," and "forgiveness of injuries;" and by proportion to these, the rest, whose duty is plain, simple, easy and necessary, may be determined. But alms in general are to be disposed of according to the following rules.

Rules for giving Alms.

1. Let no man do alms of that which is none of his own for of that he is to make restitution; that is due to the owners, not to the poor: for every man hath need of his own, and that is first to be provided for; and then you must think of the needs of the poor. He that gives the poor, what is not his own, makes himself a thief, and the poor to be the receivers. This is not to be understood, as if it were unlawful for a man that is not able to pay his debts, to give smaller alms to the poor. He may not give such portions, as can in any sense more disable him to do justice but such, which if they were saved could not advance the other duty, may retire to this, and do here what they may, since in the other duty, they cannot do what they should. But generally, cheaters and robbers cannot give alms of what they have cheated and robbed, unless they cannot tell the persons whom they have injured, or the proportions; and in such cases they are to give those unknown portions to the poor by way of restitution, for it is no alms: only God is the supreme Lord, to whom those escheats devolve, and the poor are his receivers.

2. Of money unjustly taken, and yet voluntarily