fbalt find a ftay. It fhall preferve thee from all affiction, and fight for thee against thy enemies, better than a mighty Shield and a ftrong Spear.

The great inftability of temporal affairs, and conftant fluctuation of every thing in this world, afford perpetual occafions of taking refuge in such a security.

What by fucceffive misfortunes; by failings and crofs accidents in trade; by mifcarriage of projects:what by unfuitable expences of parents, extravagances of children, and the many other fecret ways whereby riches make themfelves wings and fly away; fo many furprising revolutions do every day happen in families, that it may not seem strange to fay, that the pofterity of fome of the moft liberal contributors here, in the changes which one century may produce, may poffibly find fhelter under this very plant which now they fo kindly water. Nay, fo quickly fometimes has the wheel turned round, that many a man has lived to enjoy the benefit of that charity which his own piety projected.

But befides this, and exclufive of the right which God's promife gives it to protection hereafter, charity and benevolence, in the ordinary chain of effects, have a natural and more immediate tendency in themfelves to rescue a man from the accidents of the world, by foftening the hearts, and winning every man's wishes to its intereft. When a compaffionate man falls who would not pity him? who that had power to do it, would not befriend and raise him up? or could the most barbarous temper offer an infult to his distress

without pain and reluctance? fo that it is almost a wonder that covetousness, even in spite of itself, does not fometimes argue a man into charity, by its own principle of looking forwards, and the firm expectation it would delight in of receiving its own again with ufury. So evident is it in the courfe of God's providence and the natural ftream of things, that a good office one time or other generally meets with a reward Generally, did I fay?-how can it ever fail? when besides all this, fo large a fhare of the recompence is fo infeparable even from the action itself.Afk the man who has a tear of tendernefs always ready to fhed over the unfortunate; who, withal, is ready to diftribute and willing to communicate: ask him, if the best things, which wits have faid of pleafure, have expreffed what he has felt, when, by a feafonable kindness, he has made the heart of the widow fing for joy? Mark then the expreffions of unutterable pleasure and harmony in his looks; and fay, whether Solomon has not fixed the point of true enjoyment in the right place, when he declares, "that he knew

no good there was in any of the riches or honours of "this world, but for a man to do good with them in his "life." Nor was it without reason he made this judgment.- -Doubtless he had found and feen the infufficiency of all fenfual pleafures; how unable to furnifa either a rational or a lafting scheme of happiness: how foon the best of them vanished: the lefs exceptionable in vanity, but the guilty both in vanity and vexation of Spirit. But that this was of fo pure and refined a na❤

ture, it burned without confuming; it was figuratively the widow's barrel of meal which wasted not, and cruse of oil which never failed.

It is not an eafy matter to add weight to the teftimony of the wifeft man, upon the pleasure of doing good; or else the evidence of the philofopher Epicu. rus is very remarkable, whose word in this matter is the more to be trufted, because a profeffed fenfualift; who, amidst all the delicacies and improvements of pleasure which a luxuriant fancy might strike out, still maintained that the beft way of enlarging human happinefs was, by a communication of it to others,

And if it were neceffary here, or there were time to refine upon this doctrine, one might farther maintain, exclufive of the happiness which the mind itself feels in the exercise of this virtue, that the body of man is never in a better state than when he is most inclined to do good offices:- that as nothing more contributes to health than a benevolence of temper, fo nothing gene. rally is a stronger indication of it.

And what feems to confirm this opinion, is an ob. fervation, the truth of which must be submitted to every one's reflection-namely-that a difinclination and backwardness to do good, is often attended if not produced, by an indifpofition of the animal as well as rational part of us:So naturally do the foul and body, as in other cafes fo in this, mutually befriend, or prey upon each other. And indeed, fetting afide all abftrufer reafoning upon the point, I cannot conceive but that the very mechanical motions which maintain

life must be performed with more equal vigour and freedom in that man whom a great and good foul perpetually inclines to fhew mercy to the miferable, than they can be in a poor, fordid, selfish wretch, whose little contracted heart melts at no man's afflictions; but fits brooding fo intently over its own plots and concerns, as to fee and feel nothing; and in truth enjoy nothing beyond himfelf: and of whom one may say what that great master of nature has, fpeaking of a natural fenfe of harmony, which I think with more juftice may be faid of compaffion, that the man who had it not,

What divines fay of the mind, naturalifts have ob. ferved of the body; that there is no paffion fo natural to it as love, which is the principle of doing good;and though inftances, like this just mentioned, seem far from being proofs of it, yet it is not to be doubted but that every hard-hearted man has felt much inward oppofition before he could prevail upon himself to do aught to fix and deferve the character: and what we fay of long habits of vice, that they are hard to be fubdued, may with equal truth be faid concerning the natural impreffions of benevolence, that a man must do much violence to himself, and fuffer many a painful fruggle, before he can tear away fo great and noble a

part of his nature. Of this, antiquity has preferved a ́beautiful inftance in an anecdote of Alexander, the tyrant of Pheres, who, though he had fo induftriously hardened his heart, as to seem to take delight in cruelty, infomuch as to murder many of his subjects every day, without cause and without pity; yet, at the bare representation of a tragedy, which related the misfortunes of Hecuba and Andromache, he was so touched with the fictitious diftrefs which the poet had wrought up in it, that he burst out into a flood of tears. The explication of which inconfiftency is eafy, and cafts as great a luftre upon human nature, as the man himself was a difgrace to it. The cafe feems to have been this: in real life he had been blinded with paffions, and thoughtlessly hurried on by intereft or refentment:but here, there was no room for motives of that kind; fo that his attention being firft caught hold of, and all his vices laid afleep; then NATURE awoke in triumph, and shewed how deeply she had sown the feeds of compaffion in every man's breaft; when tyrants, with vices the most at enmity with it, were not able entirely to root it out.

But this is painting an amiable virtue, and setting her off with fhades which wickedness lends us, when one might fafely truft to the force of her own natural charms, and afk, Whether any thing under heaven, in its own nature, is more lovely and engaging?To illuftrate this the more, let us turn our thoughts within ourselves, and for a moment let any number of us here imagine ourselves at this inftant engaged in