§ 19. Additional motive for good behaviour in its effect upon inferiors.

5. Let me again remind you of the additional reason, which persons of fortune have to take particular care of their whole behaviour, that it be in all respects good and exemplary, upon account of the influence which it will have upon the manners of their inferiors. And pray observe how strictly this is connected with the occasion of our present meeting: how much your good behaviour in private life will contribute to promote the good design of all these charities; and how much the contrary would tend to defeat it, and even to produce the evils which they are intended to prevent or to remedy. Whatever care be taken in the education of these poor children at school, there is always danger of their being corrupted, when they come from it. And this danger is greater, in proportion to the greater wickedness of the age they are to pass through. But if, upon their coming abroad into the world, they find the principles of virtue and religion recommended by the example of their superiors, and vice and irreligion really discountenanced, this will confirm them in the good principles in which they have been brought up, and give the best ground to hope they will never depart from them. And the like is to be said of offenders, who may have had a sense of virtue and religion wrought in them, under the discipline of labour and confinement. Again; dissolute and debauched persons of fortune greatly increase the general corruption of manners; and this is what increases want and misery of all kinds.

§ 20. Even liberal gifts may undo but in part the effect of bad example.

So that they may contribute largely to any or all of these charities, and yet undo but a very small part of the mischief which they do, by their example, as well as in other ways. But still the mischief which they do, suppose by their example, is an additional reason why they should contribute to them; even in justice to particular persons, in whose ruin they may have an unknown share of guilt; or however in justice to society in general; for which they will deserve commendation, how blamable soever they are for the other. And indeed amidst the dark prospect before us, from that profligateness of manners, and scorn of religion, which so generally abound, this good spirit of charity to the poor discovering itself in so great a degree, upon these occasions, and likewise in the late necessitous time, even amongst persons far from being blameless in other respects; this cannot but afford hopes, that we are not given over by Providence, and also that they themselves will at length consider, and not go on contributing, by the example of their vices, to the introduction of that distress, which they so commendably relieve by their liberality.

§ 21. By giving as the creatures of God, our charity will become piety.

To conclude: Let our charity towards men be exalted into piety towards God, from the serious consideration, that we are all his creatures; a consideration which enforces that duty upon our consciences, as we have any regard to him. This kind of adjuration, and a most solemn one it is, one

often hears profaned by a very unworthy sort of people, when they ask relief for God's sake. But surely the principle itself, which contains in it every thing great, and just, and good, is grievously for gotten among us. To relieve the poor for God's sake, is to do it in conformity to the order of nature, and to his will, and his example, who is the Author and Governor of it; and in thankful remembrance, that all we have is from his bounty. It is to do it in his behalf, and as to him. For he that hath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord P: and our Saviour has declared, that he will take as given to himself, what is given in a well-chosen charity 9. Lastly, it is to do it under a sense of the account which will be required of what is committed to our trust, when the rich and poor, who meet here upon terms of so great inequality, shall meet hereafter upon a level, before him who is the Maker of them all.

P Prov. xix. 17.

q Matt. xxv. 40.

SERMON III

PREACHED BEFORE THE HOUSE OF LORDS, IN THE ABBEYCHURCH OF WESTMINSTER, ON FRIDAY, JANUARY 30, 1740-41. BEING THE DAY APPOINTED TO BE OBSERVED AS THE DAY OF THE MARTYRDOM OF KING CHARLES I.

And not using your liberty for a cloke of maliciousness, but as the servants of God.-1 PETER ii. 16.

§ 1. Range of hypocrisy larger than we suspect.

AN

N history so full of important and interesting events as that which this day recalls annually to our thoughts, cannot but afford them very different subjects for their most serious and useful employment. But there seems none which it more naturally leads us to consider than that of hypocrisy, as it sets before us so many examples of it; or which will yield us more practical instruction, as these examples so forcibly admonish us, not only to be upon our guard against the pernicious effects of this vice in others, but also to watch over our own hearts, against every thing of the like kind in ourselves: for hypocrisy, in the moral and religious consideration of things, is of much larger extent than every one may imagine.

§ 2. Widespread as a species of self-delusion. In common language, which is formed upon the common intercourses amongst men, hypocrisy signifies

little more than their pretending what they really do not mean, in order to delude one another. But in scripture, which treats chiefly of our behaviour towards God and our own consciences, it signifies not only the endeavour to delude our fellow-creatures, but likewise insincerity towards him, and towards ourselves. And therefore, according to the whole analogy of scripture language, to use liberty as a cloke of maliciousness a,

a NOTE.

I. Pharisees and Saddu

cees were hypocrites chiefly towards God and themselves.

The hypocrisy laid to the charge of the Pharisees and Sadducees, in Matt. xvi. at the beginning, and in Luke xii. 54, is determinately this, that their vicious passions blinded them so as to prevent their discerning the evidence of our Saviour's mission; though no more understanding was necessary to discern it, than what they had, and made use of in common matters. Here they are called hypocrites merely upon account of their insincerity towards God and their own consciences, and not at all upon account of any insincerity towards men. This last indeed is included in that general hypocrisy, which, throughout the gospels, is represented as their distinguished character; but the former is as much included. For they were not men, who, without any belief at all of religion, put on the appearance of it only in order to deceive the world: on the contrary, they believed their religion, and were zealous in it. But their religion, which they believed, and were zealous in, was in its nature hypocritical: for it was the form, not the reality; it allowed them in immoral practices; and indeed was itself in some respects immoral, as they indulged their pride and uncharitableness under the notion of zeal for it. See Jer. ix. 6. Psalm lxxviii. 36. Job iii. 19. and Matt. xv. 7-14, and xxiii. 13, 16, 19, 24, 26, where hypocrite and blind are used promiscuously. Again, the scripture speaks of the deceitfulness of sin, and its deceiving those who are guilty of it: Heb. iii. 13. Eph. iv. 22. Rom. vii. 11; of men's acting as if they could deceive and mock God: Isa. xxix. 15. Acts v. 3. Gal. vi. 7; of their blinding their own eyes: Matt. xiii. 15. Acts xxviii. 27; and deceiving themselves, which is quite a different thing from being deceived: 1 Cor. iii. 18. 1 John i. 8. Gal. vi. 3. James i. 22, 26. Many more coincident passages might be mentioned: but I will add only one. In 2 Thess. ii. it is foretold, that by means of some force, some energy of delusion,