as well as in revealed religion, difficulties, occasioning diversities of opinion, subsist; but he would be a bad logician, who should infer that nothing was certain because something was questionable in each of them-that facts could not be established, because opinions could not be reconciled.

The truth of the Christian Religion is founded in historical facts, and especially in the fact of the Resurrection of Christ; of the truth of past facts men may, by proper investigation, become competent judges, though they may not be able to comprehend "the depth of the riches and wisdom of God," in having delivered up Jesus to be crucified and slain by wicked hands.

The religious disputes which have for so many ages.disturbed the peace of the christian world, respect the modes and circumstances of things, rather than matters essential to the working out our salvation. Whilst we believe that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, and that we

also

also shall be raised from the dead and made to give an account of our conduct, we are impelled by the strongest motives to the practice of holiness, "without "which we cannot see the Lord." In the words of the Epistle to the Hebrews, May the God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, "that great Shepherd of the sheep,

66

66

46

through the blood of the everlasting "covenant, make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ: to whom "be glory for ever and ever. Amen.”

66

SERMON V.

Preached before the Stewards of the Westminster Dispensary, at their Anniversary Meeting, in Charlotte-street Chapel, April 1785:- With an APPENDIX, 1793. [4th Edit.]

PROV. xxii. 2.

THE RICH AND THE POOR MEET TO

GETHER THE LORD IS THE MAKER OF THEM ALL.

T

IT

would be foreign to the purpose of this meeting to enter into a disquisition concerning the origin of property-Suffice it to observe, that it is a state of things which has taken place in every age and country of which we have any account: even the savage inhabitants of the uncultivated parts of the world, who derive their support from the casual success

of

of the chace, have their separate districts for hunting; and an infringement of that species of property is one of the chief causes of their barbarous hostilities. Amongst all civilized nations, the security of property constitutes one of the principal branches of their jurisprudence. From a state of property, however introduced, springs up a division of mankind into two classes, one possessing more, the other possessing less, or nothing at all: the more and the less may vary through a great many degrees, yet the division still remains certain; and the consequent distinction of mankind into Poor and Rich has been generally established. It is not possible to fix any precise mark by which these two classes may be discriminated from each other. We might, indeed, agree to call that man rich, who had any thing which strictly speaking was his own; and that man poor, who had no property at all: yet this would be a distinction opposite, in many instances, to our general notions; for he who can maintain

VOL. I.

G G

M

maintain himself by his manual labour or ingenuity, is often esteemed, and justly esteemed, richer than he who is possessed of a trifling property in land, money, or goods.

God gave the earth to be a means of support to the whole human race; and we have all of us a right to be maintained by what it produces: but he never meaned that the idle should live upon the labour of the industrious, or that the flagitious should eat the bread of the righteous: he hath therefore permitted a state of property to be every where introduced; that the industrious might enjoy the rewards of their diligence; and that those who would not work, might feel the punishment of their laziness. In the Jewish government, which was formed according to the especial appointment of God, he suffered some to sell their property, and others to buy it; some to become poor, and others to become rich. He appointed, indeed, that the land which had been sold out of any