Abbildungen der Seite
PDF
EPUB

XII.

porium !-How effectual they have proved D I s c. in answering the several ends proposed, the Report, now to be recited, will beft in

form you.

Here the REPORT was read.

The case itself speaks fo forcibly to your feelings, and calls fo loudly for your kind affistance, that it renders needless any long exhortation from the preacher. The expences annually incurred by the feveral hofpitals you find to exceed their certain revenues; and therefore, they must depend, for fupport, on the farther donations of the benevolent. Suffer not the blaze of charity, which now burns with fo much heat and fplendour, to die away for want of lasting fuel. You have heard how useful these establishments have proved; be it your endeavour to make them permanent. Whatever can be fpared (and with proper management much by every one may be fpared), let it be lodged, as a treasure-a treasure to yourselves, as well as to them—

XII.

DISC. in these public repofitaries—It is lodged in good hands, and will be employed, to the uttermost farthing, as your hearts can defire. Did I plead only for one of them, attention would be due; let me not lift up my voice in vain when I lift it up for them all. "Among thofe actions," fays the great moralift of the age-" among "thofe actions which the mind can moft

[ocr errors]

fecurely review with unabated pleasure, "is that of having contributed to an hof

pital for the fick."-But we have a more fure word, a word which cannot fail, which fhall ftand fast for ever-a word of promife, that he who has been the means of giving comfort to the fick, befides being bleffed with profperity in the days of health, fhall, when himself in fickness, be comforted with comfort from above. "Bleffed is he that confidereth the poor; "the Lord will deliver him in time of "trouble. The Lord will preserve him "and keep him alive, and he fhall be "bleffed upon the earth; and thou wilt "not deliver him into the will of his ene

"mies. The Lord will ftrengthen him DISC.

[ocr errors]

upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt "make all his bed in his fickness."--The fame gracious hand will conduct him, in perfect fafety, through the valley of the fhadow of death, to that holy and heavenly hill, where he shall be hailed by the thoufands he has relieved, and fee the face of that Redeemer, for whose fake he has relieved them.

XII.

DISCOURSE XIII.

CHARITY TO THE BRETHREN OF CHRIST.

MATT. XXV. 40.

And the King Shall answer and fay unto them, Verily, I fay unto you, inafmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

YE

ET once again, by the favour of DISC. the Almighty, we have lived to fee XIII. the return of this holy feafon; again we are affembled in the house of God, to turn our thoughts towards the fecond Advent of our Lord. The Church by her services on this day directs us to do so, and we will obey her. In the portion of Scripture selected for the Gofpel, his appearance and

the

« ZurückWeiter »