Their rents must be raised to an immoderate height; which the farmer cannot pay, unless corn is dear; and then, if any artificial scarcity should take place annually, either by connivance, or by trifling with the laws, and making a breach between the constitution of the country, that must be a very great evil; for if there is a just human right upon earth, and which ought to be religiously attended to, it is a right in the poor to have bread for their labour; and so long as they have bread cheap, we shall never hear any complaints from them: and this, I say, they ought always to have, except when scarcity is from the visitation of God. Why is there such a demand for money, among the rich? is it to support two families instead of one? No; but that one family may live at the expense of two: that they may be able to lead a dissipated, unprofitable, unhealthy life; which, while it seems to benefit some individuals (among whom we shall find the most useless members of the community) hurts themselves and the public in general. Our metropolis is swollen to a monstrous size, like a body that is dropsical: and we may consider it as a scale, whereby our expensiveness, as a people, is to be measured; for its magnitude has been rendered excessive, chiefly by a change of manners, in those who have exceeded the bounds of their economy. And the poor follow the rich according to their measure. Many of them have departed from a cheap and manly diet, to admit articles of luxury, on which they live worse for more money. The terms they are upon, under the present laws, and the ill management of parish officers, tempt them to idleness and profligacy. It would be a dangerous experiment to render the maintenance of the poor discretionary, at a time when all the rich are outliving themselves; but certainly it is of bad consequence, that the maintenance is fixed by the laws; depending on which, many people make themselves poor by idleness and drunkenness, and apply for relief when they ought rather to be sent to the house of correction. When the high price of the neces saries of life brings a poor industrious family into difficulties, so that they are obliged, after all their labour, to live upon what credit they can get; harassed with small debts, and dejected at the sight of their creditors; then my heart bleeds for them: I wish I was rich enough to relieve them all. I lament that there is not more economy in their betters; and I pray that God will some time shew them a better world than this we now live in. When we compare the wants of many honest poor people, some under difficulties, some in distress, some in sorrow and lamentation, with the thousands which are squandered away for no one good purpose by the rich; a sum, perhaps, in the adventures of a single night, is hazarded and lost, sufficient to clear and set up a hundred families for life: when we compare poor these things, what shall we say, but that wickedness and folly united, cannot shew us a worse case? If he who gains the world, and loses his soul, be a fool, what is he who loses both! For here I am to warn all Christian people, that God giveth to us, that we may be able to give to others. He is no respecter of persons; his ways are equal; his mercy is over all his works; and all men must account strictly to his justice. Then the prodigal, who hath tormented and ruined himself, will discover that he has also robbed the poor, and that the Almighty is their Avenger. Therefore, let the poor be frugal, that they may lessen the troubles of the present life; and let the rich be prudent, that they may be charitable; so shall they find the blessing of God upon themselves and their affairs in this world, and secure an interest in the world to come. SERMON IX. AND HE SAID UNTO HIM, IF THY PRESENCE GO NOT WITH ME, CARRY US NOT UP HENCE. TH HUS did Moses signify his distress for himself, and his people, when God threatened to withdraw his presence from them in the wilderness. The prophet knew it was impossible for them to go through the dangers and difficulties of their passage to Canaan, unless the God who had brought them out of Egypt should still be with them to guide and protect them. No less hazardous is the situation of every Christian in this world, than theirs was in their way to Canaan. We are all upon a journey, as they were, to the promised rest; and we are beset with such difficulties, dangers, and temptations, that there can be no hope of arriving at it in safety, unless God shall conduct and defend us in our progress. So that we may each of us take up the words of Moses, and say, "If thy presence go not with me, carry me not up hence." Miserable is the condition of those, who either do not know how necessary the presence of God is to every man, or who have neither assurance nor sense of its effects towards their preservation. I shall therefore shew you, in discoursing on the words I have chosen, that his presence always has been with his church, and that it extends to every individual. That the presence of God was with the church of the Hebrews, must be plain to every one who reads their history and while to us this presence is an object of faith, to them it was visible, in the cloud and the pillar of fire which attended their camp, and the glory which was seen on Mount Sinai. But the presence of God was as manifest by its effects. He divided the sea for them; he confounded the host of Egypt which pursued them; he furnished them with water from the rock, and bread from heaven; he healed them when they were bitten with serpents; their clothes did not wear out, nor their shoes wax old upon their feet; their enemies were terrified and driven out before them; vengeance was executed upon those who tempted and seduced them; and when they were about to be settled in the promised land, all the wonders God had wrought were set before them, as inducements to gratitude, and obligations to obedience. If we look to the history of the Christian church that also was propagated in a wonderful manner, by the power of its preachers, and the fortitude of its martyrs; whom God invested with such wisdom as overpowered the disputers of this world, and prevailed against the kingdoms of the earth; which were at length converted "from the power of Satan unto God." The universal monarchy established in the Roman Empire was really aiding and assisting toward the spreading of the Gospel, while it seemed to persecute and resist it; and at last the Christian religion was received as the religion of the empire. We are apt to admire the works of God when he interposes for the deliverance and preservation of his people; but his providence is equally to be admired, in the corrections and punishments which he sends upon them for their disobedience. For why does God choose any people, but to make them wise and holy, and lead them to eternal happiness by the ways of truth and righteousness? If they forget their profession, and disgrace it by their manners, they are corrected in mercy, for the preservation of God's truth, and the reformation of the society, which he has separated from the world. In the 105th psalm the prophet celebrates the mercies of God, in redeeming the people from Egypt, and feeding them in the wilderness; but in the 106th psalm, the same mercy is farther celebrated for the mighty acts of his judgments in visiting them for their sins how he sent leanness into their soul for their lusting after the food of Egypt; how he destroyed Dathan and Abiram, and sent a fire and a pestilence upon the murmuring congregation how he overthrew them in the wilderness for their idolatry in worshipping the golden calf, and their unbelief in not receiving the good report which was brought of the land of Canaan; how he sent a plague upon those who had joined themselves unto Baal Peor; and after their settlement in Canaan, when they defiled themselves with the works of idolatry, he gave them into the hands of the heathen, and they that hated them were lords over them then their enemies oppressed them, and they were brought into subjection under their hand. These are the works of God's Providence toward his church; he delivers it from the power of the world; he punishes it for disobedience, and humbles it to effect its reformation. If we were to examine the history of the nations of Christendom, since they were taken into the church; we should find, that his providence has acted by the same rules, for the preservation of his truth and the reformation of his people. But now I mean to prove that his providence extends to particular persons, as well as to nations and the church at large for every person is a church and nation to himself, and no concerns can be so near to him as his own; therefore it would be of small profit to him to hear that God's presence attends the church; unless it can also be shewn, that it extends to single persons. And this it certainly does, and must from the reason of the thing: for why doth God's presence attend the church, but for the benefit of the individuals of which it consists? His care is upon the whole for the sake of the parts; and the salvation of single men is the object of all his mighty works and of all the means of grace: he willeth not the death of any one sinner, but is desirous that all should return and be saved. therefore his attention is as truly upon individuals as upon societies. And the same rules are observed in both cases. In regard to churches |