may indeed

relief; there are many public establishments of approved charity, such as the present, which continually offer themselves, and ask the kind assistance of all persons according to their abilities; in which there can be no fear or suspicion of misapplication and abuse. Vice and imposture will never apply here; they have nothing here to invite them idleness and sloth indeed present themselves under some disguise; but whatever the disguise, they will certainly be detected. Private designs and interested views can have no scope here; if they should, they will easily be defeated: where the managers are frequently changed; where the management is always in the hands of those who are most concerned to have it well conducted; where a number of the chief contributors constantly attend upon this very thing, and in their attendance itself contribute more than by the most generous of their contributions.

Such are the principal considerations that recommend this branch of charity, under this particular form and economy. There is another which the situation and circumstances of the place itself so obviously present, that I cannot but mention it. Whence does this flourishing country, and this wealthy and populous town, chiefly derive their plenty and their riches, but from their large and extensive trade, and from that inexhausted source of it, which the very soil and earth itself from its bowels supplies? And who are these poor objects, for the most part, who now implore your bounty, but the very instruments which you make use of to carry on this commerce, and to gather in this

F

whom on your account forego s of nature, the purer and re cheerful light of the day, and h of the sun; who commit e depths of the earth, and the ve your profit; whose labours in et them to peculiar infirmities, accidents, to more imminent are dreadful exposure of limbs and Can any other ordinary occupation.

o afford them a prospect of relief nities which they risk on your acve your advantage; that you would out a small portion out of those riches neie toil and hazard supplies you in other cases your bounty may be account of humanity and generosity; becomes a matter, not only of equity, et right and common justice.

not further insist on these reflecNoves me rather to exhort you to progood work in which you have so far aced, with the same readiness and ...of liberality, with the same unanimity irit, with the same attention and zeal. be wearied in well-doing" let us ... encourage all we can, and to diffuse ce by our assistance and example, that e beneficence, which has of late maerased and prevailed in this nation; geven rise to so many different charitable all, in their several kinds, truly laudpious in their design, and evidently

useful and beneficial in their execution; to the honour of our country, of our religion, and of the age itself; of edifying example to the world; and above all (as we may humbly hope, notwithstanding our manifold sins and provocations) acceptable in the sight of God. Bounty to the poor is the properest concomitant of true repentance and reformation: "The merciful shall obtain mercy," saith our Lord: "Break off thy sins by righteousness," saith the prophet to the king of Babylon, "and thine iniquities by showing mercy to the poor, if it may be a lengthening of thy tranquillity." "To deal our bread to the hungry; to satisfy the afflicted soul; to love mercy; to do good; to communicate ;" these are the sacrifices wherewith we may hope to please God; to avert His judgments, and to draw down His blessings : His blessing upon ourselves, and upon our families; "upon our store, and upon all the work of our hands; upon the fruit of our cattle, and upon the fruit of our ground;" upon our nation, and upon our sovereign; upon his councils, and upon his arms all private and public blessings here, and His eternal blessing hereafter.

1 Dan. iv. 27.

SERMON II'.

MATT. VI. 10.

Thy kingdom come.

THE kingdom of God, or the kingdom of Heaven, according to its most usual and almost constant acceptation throughout the several histories of the Evangelists, signifies the state of the Gospel, or the Church of Christ upon earth, first begun and established by the preaching of our blessed Saviour and his apostles. When our Saviour commands his disciples to pray that this kingdom may come; his meaning is, that we should make it a constant and perpetual subject of our petitions to Almighty God, that this Gospel-state, or Church of Christ, so begun and established upon earth, may, through his grace, be still advanced and carried on, till at longth it arrive at that maturity and completion, that universality, unity, and spiritual perfection, which he hath decreed and promised that it shall in time attain.

Preached at the Visitation of the Hon. and Right Rev. Richard, Loud Hishop of Durham, held in the parish church of St. Mary-leHow in Durham, on Thursday, July 27, 1758. By Robert Lowth, DD Prebendary of Durham, Rector of Sedgefield, and Chaplain in Oudinary to his Majesty. Published by his Lordship's request. London, 1758, 4to. 2d Edition, 1767, 8vo.

Without further supporting or enlarging upon this explication of the words, or discoursing on the nature of the Gospel-state considered as a kingdom, I shall endeavour to carry your thoughts to a general view of the past, the present, and the future condition of Christianity in the world; in order to show, how much reason the disciples of Christ ever had, and still have, to offer up this petition for its advancement: what we may be allowed to hope, from God's gracious promises in this respect, in time to come; how much it is the duty of every subject, and more especially of every minister of this heavenly kingdom, to aim at promoting, by his most earnest endeavours, as well as his prayers, the perfect and universal establishment of it.

Our Saviour, commanding his disciples perpetually to offer up their prayers to God for the advancement of his kingdom on earth, may well be understood by this very command to intimate to them, that the state of Christianity would long be incomplete, its progress gradual, its advances towards perfection and universality oftentimes slow and imperceptible; and that it would not arrive at its full maturity till the end of the age, till the last scene of this great dispensation. And this he has more fully explained to them in several of his discourses, particularly in some of his parables. "The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man which sowed good seed in his field; but, while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares among the wheat; which appeared together with the wheat, and were suffered to grow together with it