which he has already begun, and out of his tender care of you, his chofen people, will in a fhort time compleat your deliverance, and fettle you with peace and fecurity, with plenty and abundance, in the Land of Promife. He will, in a little while, bless you, who have hitherto endured the inconveniences of a wilderness, and of a wandering and uncertain ftate, with cities and houses of your own; and thofe great and goodly, well furnifhed and adorned: he will blefs you also with wells of water for your neceflities, and with wine and oil for your pleasure and entertainment: In fhort, he will make every way fuch plenty and abundance round about you, that it will be in your power to enjoy all the pleafures of affluence, and all the delicacies and fatisfactions of a wealthy and an easy state of life. This will foon be your condition after you arrive at the land of Canaan: but when this is your cafe, be not like ungrateful Jefburun, who waxed fat and kicked; who for fook God that made him, and lightly esteemed the rock of bis falvation, Deut. xxxii. 15. Remember who it is to whom all the happiness is owing, and that every bleffing you receive from God is to be returned back in gratitude and obedience. Confider the ends and intentions of all the divine goodnefs to you; to lead you to repentance; to encourage your religious fervices; to take off from you the burdens of poverty, and the diftractions and interruptions of want, in order to your enjoying more time, and employing with greater alacrity more of your fpare hours in the offices of his worship. Do not forget when you reflect upon your brave cities, your fine houses, your handsome furniture, your conveniences for pleafure, as well as neceffaries for life, that all these advantages were not originally your own, nor from yourselves; were not the product of your

own

own industry or diligence, but the proper gifts of Almighty God, and the fole effects of his goodness and love to you. When you think upon your cities or your houses, remember withal they were not of your own building, nor enlarged and furnished at your own coft; but by thofe enemies whom the power of God alone has difpoffeffed for you. Whenever you make ufe of the water of your wells, or of the wine and oil of your plantations, confider it was others that digged the former, and planted the latter; and that it is only the title of God's donation by which you claim a right to any of these things. Beware therefore left you, who are but tenants or stewards, behave yourselves as if you were lords and poffeffors. Take heed left that abundant provision the divine bounty has made for you, have fo fatal and mischievous an effect as to encourage your floth, your luxury, your pride, and your irreligion. Then above all times, beware left thou forget the Lord; left thou be unmindful of the rock that begat thee, and forgetteft the God that formed thee, Deut. xxxii. 18.

In these words therefore we may obferve how much Almighty God expects from those who are plentifully provided for by his providence; and particularly from those who are taken care of by fuch means as themfelves could not have any hand in, but accrue to them from the labours and wealth of others, without any pains and toil of their own in the acquifition; which, by the bleffing of God, and the liberality of those our pious and generous founders and benefactors, whom we are now met thankfully to commemorate, is our cafe at prefent; and will therefore be a fubject very fuitable for our meditations at this time. The obfervation therefore which the words of the text afford us, if we confider them with a peculiar

regard

regard to our own circumftances, and as appro priated to our present business is this: that [the plentiful provifion which is in this place made for us, and] the great advantages we reap by the liberality of our benefactors to us, lays a mighty obligation upon us to obedience to that God, whofe providence by fuch methods takes care of us; and to a careful anfwering the pious intentions of those who aimed at the glory of God, and the good of men, and not our bare private maintenance in those endowments they have fettled upon us.

In difcourfing upon which, I fhall (1.) enquire whence, and from what heads this obligation arifes. (2.) What our principal obligations themselves are, or to what duties and offices we are in particular obliged by the enjoyment of thefe advantages. (1.) I am to enquire whence, or from what heads our obligation in the prefent cafe does arife. And I think, I need not go farther in fearch after thefe points, than thofe three obvious particulars which immediately prefent themselves to our confideration. (1.) This obligation arifes from ftrict and abfolute juftice. (2.) From that branch of justice which ties us to veracity, and the performance of our promises. (3.) From gratitude, and the fenfe of favours bestowed upon us.

I. This obligation arifes from ftrict and abfolute justice. For we ought not to think, that the great advantages we here enjoy belong to us as an eftate of inheritance belongs to the immediate heir: fo that without any more ado, we may esteem them our own, and behave ourselves under them as we please. But we are to look upon them as bestowed upon us conditionally, and with at least a tacit agreement and covenant, that our true right and property fhall depend on our good behaviour, and on our faithful performance of thofe duties and offices,

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offices, whether of piety or charity, which fuch generous endowments were defigned to promote. As it is in all our worldly poffeffions with regard to Almighty God; fo is it, in fome measure, in our collegiate enjoyments, with regard to our founders and benefactors. For as our title to this world's goods, when confidered with refpect to other men, is by no means founded on our goodnefs and virtue; and fo is intirely valid in human judicatures, be our morals never fo bad, and our lives never fo fcandalous; tho' at the fame time we are but stewards under the great poffeffor of heaven and earth, and must be accountable to him for the abuse of all thofe things, whofe abfoJute title and property he ever referved to himfelf. So in the cafe before us, we may have fo juft and legal a right to the advantages belonging to a collegiate fociety, that none can, or ought to difpoffefs us; while at the fame time we may be fo little careful of our duties here, and fo little answer the main ends and intentions of our foundation, (in view of fecuring which thefe endowments were made, and which are a tacit condition implied in the very nature of the donation itself) that we may justly be called to account hereafter for our unjuft intrufion; or, at leaft, unworthy mifmanagement and abuse of fo great, and fo well-defigned benefactions. If we be willing to enjoy the benefits, we ought never to think ourselves excufed from the duties of a college. And I cannot tell whether we ought in juftice, and with a fafe confcience, to reap the advantages, if we be not careful to difcharge the offices, and perform the truft belonging to thofe, by the exprefs will of the donors, who are intitled to them. I am fure it will deferve every one of our fober confiderations, how hard it will lie upon us at the laft day, if we have, for a long time, ventured to live upon the profits of a learned

and

and religious foundation, and all the while have had no regard to thofe great ends and conditions. annexed to them, and what we fhall be able to plead in our own behalf, if, instead of pursuing with all fincerity the glory of God, the advancement of learning and religion, the difpofing ourselves for the fervice of Chrift's church, and the doing good to the fouls of men (which our very acceptance of thefe benefits implies our obligation to) we make no other use of them, than to live an easy and pleafurable life; and to privilege ourfelves from the bufinefs and offices, whether of piety or humanity, which otherwife in the world we fhould be unable fo readily to avoid. And if the mere omiffion of our duty, and the fingle unprofitableness of our lives here be fo criminal, and fo perilous, how much more fo must be the pofitive abuse of our plenty and leisure; the actual difcouraging of virtue or learning; the affording real examples of intemperance, profanenefs, lewdnefs, or debauchery; and thereby doing all we can to hinder and prevent thofe pious intentions of our religious founders and benefactors, which we ought, with all our might, to promote in the world? Such as thefe are fo far from having a proper right and title to what they have from these charitable foundations, that, if those who fettled them could be fuppofed capable of reviewing the fad mif-employment of their donations, they would be under a temptation of repenting of the whole benefaction, upon the account of thofe abuses in fome parts thereof; and would be ready to use the most violent means to free their endowments from fuch ungrateful and unjust usurpers, who fhould fo wretchedly pervert their pious defign, as to lead men down to the chambers of fin and death, by thofe very means, which were fitted and intended for the promoting of mens holiness here, and happiness hereafter. II. This

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