"the royal law, according to the Scripture,Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself; by feeling that the poor are not mere objects of our bounty, but our neighbours and our brethren. If we do feel this, kindness will cost us nothing, and a familiar and unpretending manner will be natural to us; for who thinks of being proud or insulting towards his brother? And it is astonishing how much pleasure any one of us may thus give, almost daily, at no cost or trouble to himself. To talk to the poor upon mere common points, without seeming always bent upon instructing them or relieving them;-to visit them, and talk to them, in short, as neighbours;-to care for their pleasures and amusements, and especially, to study their feelings; -to give them credit often for more delicacy and refinement than they really have, in order to teach them gradually to be what we suppose them to be;-these are things which every one may practise, and by which a wonderful improvement may soon be effected both in the temper of the poor towards the rich, and in what requires amendment no less, the temper of the rich towards the poor.

If all this be an idle dream,-if it be thought wild and visionary, and destructive of the

If

existing order of society, -I would most solemnly entreat those who think so, to look seriously around them, and then ask themselves whether society is in no danger from the continuance of the system, and the feelings, on which we are acting towards the poor at present. But if they are capable of listening to better arguments than those addressed to their fears, I would request them to read carefully the language of Christ and his Apostles with respect to the poor; and still more, because the circumstances are more exactly parallel, the language used on the same subject by the prophets of the Old Testament. they can read that language, and honestly satisfy themselves that the judgments threatened there are not applicable to us, or if they can flatter themselves that society now in England is any thing like the picture given in the New Testament, of what Christ's family should be, then there is no more to be said; and Christ's judgment alone, when we all appear before him at the last great day, can decide whether they have fatally blinded their consciences or no. But for those who do think that the woes threatened by the prophets are deserved in fearful exactness by us now; who look in vain for such a

state of the Christian church as Christ and his Apostles speak of;-they may be more than pardoned, if they, at every possible opportunity, express the deep conviction which possesses them. To them, earth and heaven, all actual observation, all past experience, all the conclusions of human reasoning, all the lessons of divine authority, agree in the same language, in bidding us remember our common relation to God our Maker and Redeemer, and in urging us to labour without ceasing, that as we are all brethren in respect of our common Father, so we may be brethren amongst ourselves, in the fulness of an equal affection.

SERMON XXXIV.

ACTS XXVII. 34.

Wherefore I pray you to take some meat for this is for your health for there shall not an hair fall from the head of any of you.

WHEN We assemble in this place to pray to God, and to be reminded of our duties towards him and towards each other, it is very certain that in one sense we ought to leave all worldly thoughts entirely behind us. Not only should all evil feelings be laid aside, all passions of pride, of anger, of lust, of covetousness,all such things as at no time, and under no circumstances, ought to harbour in a Christian's bosom; but other feelings not wrong in themselves, and in their own season good and useful, would be out of place and mischievous here. I mean, for instance, the worldly rewards or consequences of good

* Preached on receiving the account of the first appearance of the spasmodic cholera at Sunderland.

:

conduct the wealth, the honours, or the general good opinion, which often follow on the diligent discharge of our several duties,on industry, on a proper exertion of our talents, and on general uprightness and benevolence. These feelings would be mischievous here, because they would stand in the way of something better. We come here to learn to think of God, of his rewards, of the honour that comes from Him, of the judgment which He will pass upon all our thoughts, and words, and deeds. I say, that we come here to learn to think of these things; for this is a lesson in which, I fear, we are none of us as yet perfect enough. It may be, that, to a perfect Christian, life in all its relations would be so thoroughly imbued, if I may so speak, with the Spirit of God, that thoughts of earthly blessings would never be separated from the thought of their Author; that the angels of God had been so long ascending and descending between heaven and earth, that the two were become as one; and the man's life on earth was in fact a life virtually passed in heaven. If there be any such, to them the word "worldliness," in its bad sense, has altogether lost its meaning all their thoughts and all their feelings glorify God equally. But to us common men,