Whether I have juftly reprefented the Confequences of this Cafe, or no, you, who have the poor Orphans of this City under your Care; and you, whofe charitable Work it is to correct and reform the Vicious and Profligate; are beft able to say: for you know all the Distresses of the Poor, and the Causes from whence they fpring. And, to your Honour I speak it, you have provided for every Evil of Life a proper Remedy, or a proper Comfort. But I need not be your Orator; your own Deeds will speak for you, far better than I can. The Report now to be read will fhew both the Nature and the good Management of the feveral Charities under your Direction.

Here the Report was read. The Account now laid before you is capable of raising very different Sentiments in the Heart of a Chriftian. It is a melancholy Thing to hear the poor Orphans in one Place, the profligate Vagrants in another, the Lame and Impotent in a third, and the distempered in Mind in a fourth, reckoned up by hundreds and by thoufands. To what Miseries is human Life expofed!

But ftill, in the Midft of thefe Calamities, there is Reason to bless and adore the Good

nefs

nefs of God, who has put it into the Hearts of his Servants to provide Comfort and Relief for these Sons and Daughters of Affliction.

The richest among us, when he views thefe Misfortunes, fees nothing but what he is liable to himself. Examine the Condition of these Orphans, many of them perhaps born in the Midst of Plenty, though now they live on Charity. There was a Time perhaps when their Fathers as little thought they should be beholden to an Hofpital for the Maintenance of their Children, as we may think it at this Day.

Other Calamities make no Distinction between Rich and Poor; we have no Inheritance in the Ufe of our Limbs and Senfes, but enjoy them by the good Pleasure of him who gave them. And whenever these Mis fortunes overtake us, our Riches make but little Difference in the Cafe; a rich diftracted Man, and a poor distracted Man, are very near upon an Equality; and as far as the Power of Imagination goes, they often change Conditions; the poor Man fancying himself to be a Prince, whilst the rich one pines and torments himself with the Allfears and Anxieties of Poverty.

Since then you are fo nearly related to all the Miseries now placed within your View, need I fay much to move Tenderness and Compaffion towards a Cafe already fo much your own? This is a Caufe which Nature will plead for in every Heart not made of Stone. But there is one still greater Advocate to plead this Caufe, even he who died for our Sins, and rofe again for our Juftification. These Orphans, these diseased in Body or in Mind, nay, even the profligate Wretches who are brought to you for Punishment and Correction, are his Care; and whatever Charity you bestow on them, he will reckon it as done to himself, and acknowledge it in the Sight of Men and of Angels, when he shall come again to judge the World in Righteousness.

DISCOURSE X.

MARK iii. 24.

If a Kingdom be divided against itself, that
Kingdom cannot fstand.

HOUGH thefe Words are read in

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the Gospel, yet they have not their Authority merely from thence; but for the Truth of the Obfervation contained in them, there lies an Appeal to common Sense and Experience. Our Saviour indeed, by using this Maxim, has approved it; and he could not appeal to the Judgment of all Men in this Cafe, without, at the fame Time, declaring his own.

As Obfervations of this Kind depend on a great Number of Facts; fo are there in the present Cafe a great Number to support

it.

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