SERM.III.

But I have already difcourfed often on this Subject: One Thing more however I beg leave to mention. You are, most of you, regular Attendants on the Service of the Church: Take Care, that your Deportment out of Church, be correspondent to your Behaviour in it: Otherwise, you will do Religion more Differvice, than if you were it's open and avowed Enemies. For, pray obferve: Though Piety be the most valuable. Thing in itself, the Bulk of Mankind are not capable of forming fine abstract Ideas of it in itself; they must confider it, if at all, as it lies before them in the Lives and Converfation of Men reputedly pious. And when they see thofe who have that Character, laying Stress upon Trifles, as if the whole of Religion confifted in them, and neglecting Effentials; when they fee them prying into the Secrets of Families, or encouraging and liftening to thofe that do fo, addicted to Cenforioufnefs and Supercilioufnefs; the little low defpicable Notions, which they form of Perfons profeffing Piety, they will unjustly annex to Piety itself, and hold it ever after cheap and contemptible.

2dly, Let therefore your Piety to God, SERM.III. be joined with, what ought to be infeparable from it, Charity to Man.

By Charity, I do not mean only Almfgiving; for that is only one Branch of it, one outward Expreffion of this Duty; I mean the moft liberal Sentiments and the most enlarged Affections towards all Mankind. A charitable Man will endeavour to fee every Thing through the Mirror of Good-Nature, which mends and beautifies all Objects, without altering any: Like fine Painting, which, without deviating. from Nature, adds new Touches and Graces to it; it does not change, but only embellish it; it does not give a mere Likeness, much less a woful Likeness, it gives. an agreeable and advantageous one.

Far

from furmifing Evil, where there is none; he will rather think no Evil, where there really is; judging it better to err through a good-natured Credulity, than through an undistinguishing Sufpicion; because a goodnatured Credulity will only expofe him to fome temporal Inconveniencies; but an undiftinguishing Sufpicion will beget in him a fettled Uneafinefs, Jealoufy, Hatred, and the whole Train of black Paffions, which

SERM.III. will render his Soul as dark as that Hell, into which they will at laft irrecoverably fink him.

To defcend to Particulars; 1ft, A charitable Man will never hate any Body or Community of Men, provided there be nothing immoral in their Profeffion; however he may diflike fome Individuals in it. Nothing is more unjust, though I am afraid, nothing is more ufual; than, if we have had to do with fome wicked Men of any Fraternity, to cry out, they are all become abominable. Now an undistinguishing Cenfure upon a whole Profeffion, for the Faults of fome few particular Members, is generally a greater Crime; than any we can fix upon those few particular Members. Because it tends to bring an undeserved Discredit upon a whole Body of Men, and thereby to leffen their Usefulness. To commend a whole Body in the grofs, is an Indication of a weak, undistinguishing Judgment; and to condemn it in the grofs, of Uncharitableness: Human Nature was never fo good, but there were several worthlefs Members of every Profeffion; and never fo bad, but there were feveral of diftinguished Worth in every Condition of

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Life.

Life. The Scholar despises the Man of SERM.III. Business, and the Man of Bufinefs the Scholar: Now, what estranges Men from each other, should, in the Reason of the Thing, mutually endear them: Because the general Good of the whole arises from the different Pursuits of the feveral Individuals: And if all Men were to go the fame Way, and follow the fame Track of Employment; it would cause a strange Embarraffment: The Road would be fo much crouded, that none could get forward. then all Men, even thofe of the meanest Occupations: Take in, with a comprehenfive View, the whole Chain of the rational World, where, though the Links may be difproportioned in their Size, yet the least serves to strengthen and support the greateft, and both, by depending upon, and aiding each other, keep the whole Contexture from falling asunder.

Honour

2dly, As you ought not to conceive a Distaste for any Man, or Body of Men, upon the Account of a different Profeffion; fo neither fhould you, because they are of a different Perfuafion, Sect, or Party.

Suppofing yourself in the Right; you pity corporeal Blindness; why should you

not

SERM.III. not likewife compaffionate, instead of being

angry with, the Blindness of the Under-
Standing, when it cannot discern certain re-
ligious Truths? I know no Reason but
this, which refolves itself into Pride; that
the corporeally blind own themselves to be
fo; but the blind in Understanding main-
tain, that we labour under that Distemper,
and not they. Now we are not so tho-
roughly convinced, that our Understanding
and Way of Thinking is perfectly right in
all Points, as that we have the full Enjoy-
ment of our Eye-fight: And this makes us
fo angry with the
one, while we pity the
other. Enfure your own Salvation as much
as you can, but do not think hardly of
those, who differ from you even in funda-
mental Points, much lefs confign them
over to Damnation. Our bleffed Saviour,
who disapproved the Worship of the Sama-
ritans, as appears from his Converfation
with the Samaritan Woman at the Well,
yet fingles out, in his beautiful Parable,
one of that Nation to do a generous Acti-
on to the wounded Traveller, on Purpose,
one would think, to obviate this contracted
Turn of Mind, and to recommend those
to our Love, whofe religious Notions we
diflike.

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