ceeded from none but a mind exercised to an SER M. habitual discharge of holy duties, and wherein XVII. there was a complication of virtues and graces. She must have been used to fafting and abftinence, and to frequent felf-denials, who could deny her felf the neceffaries of life. She must have been ftrongly affected with a belief of God's all-fufficiency, as well as with a prefent fenfe of his all-feeing eye. She must have had a warm zeal for the house of God and his worship; and have been of a tender and compaffionate heart towards the poor, as having a fellow-feeling of their miseries. She was furely of a devout and excellent spirit, endued with a great contempt of all worldly pleasures and vanities; intirely void of all discontent, or murmuring at her poverty and the meanness of her condition; and of all envy at the flourishing condition of the rich who were able to give fo plentifully. From whence we may learn, that the poorest person in the lowest condition of life, hath it in his power to exercise the most exalted acts of virtue; nay and to out-do those of an higher rank in that very particular of alm/giving, in which of all other duties they feem to have the greatest advantage over him.

This was a full tryal of the truth and fincerity of her heart towards God in a fignal inftance of duty and love, and upon an extraordinary occafion; and a proof that no hardfhip or difficulty could overcome the refolution of her mind in afpiring to the greatest

SERM. height of virtue and goodness which was XVII. practicable, nay though the starved for it. A perfon's paffing fuch a tryal as this, in the only point of virtue and goodness exprefsly to be recited in the day of judgment, must be ever after a ground of unfpeakable comfort for the rest of his life; it fhows that God can call him to nothing which he is not disposed readily and chearfully to obey. But it must be a reflection full of finking and despondency for a man to be confcious to himself that he has hitherto remarkably failed in what is to be the main article of his account; whatever appearance or profeffion of religion he makes in all other inftances, he may conclude the heart is not right, and that his fervice is divided between God and Mammon.

It is worth obferving, that in all this fhe acted upon no higher principle than what the Old Teftament could furnish her with. She might have heard of Manna rained down from Heaven for a fupply to God's people in the wilderness; of the Prophet's being fed by ravens; and the widow's cruife of oyl which failed not in the famine. But he had not been taught that though two sparrows were fo inconfiderable as to be fold for a farthing, yet that one of them could not be killed without God's permiffion; and that his care of us is fuch, that the very hairs of our beads are numbered. And yet we find how little thought fhe took for her life, what he should eat or what she should drink, who gave away

all

ber,

her living; and how truly fhe fought firftSER M. the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and XVII. left it to him to add all other things as he faw fit. Compare this woman with those who make the fear of wanting an excufe for not giving to the poor; nay fome to that degree that they are not without perpetual boading thoughts of ftarving in the midft of plenty. Then it is faith when we look upon what we give in charitable ufes to be the furest provifion for our felves and families, and think that we lend upon the best security. He that bath pity upon the poor lendeth unto the Lord, and that which he bath borrowed will be pay bim again; pay him with intereft, and commonly in this life: And if we had the whole hiftory of this widow, I doubt not but we fhould have had an account even of a tem poral reward for fuch an excellent charity, and of fome providential relief for her who had thus liberally caft her bread upon the wa ters. Whenever charity fails of a return either upon our felves or our pofterity even in this world, it is in all likelihood because we give not chearfully or in proportion to our fortune, but fparingly or with diftrustful and defponding thoughts. Or becaufe, though we are not wanting in the quantity of our charities, yet we are not all of a piece, but fail in fome other duties; for though we fhould vifit the fatherlefs and widows in their affliction, it is not pure religion unless we keep our felves unspotted from the world, James i. 22.

VII

SERM.

VII. The feventh thing we may obferve XVII. from this remarkable paffage, is the great w value and real excellency of a publick charity.

i

The corban or treasury was a common fund for the repairs and furniture of the temple; for the fupport of the publick worship of God and for the relief of the indigent. One would be apt to think that a farthing was not worth contributing to fo great a fund; and that it was vanity in the widow not to lay it out in fome private charity, whofe low condition must have made her acquainted with miserable objects enough, and with fuch as wanted it to buy them bread. But we find fhe thought otherwise, who chose to contribute her two mites to a publick charity; and fo did our Saviour, who from his full approbation of what she had done, and magnifying it above all the great and pompous charities of the rich, hath recommended the like practice to all pofterity. It is true, private cafes of great extremity, or fudden exigence, and prefent mifery, require an immediate relief, and are preferable to any publick charity whatsoever; and this we are taught by Chrift in the person of the good Samaritan, who was at expence in taking care of the man he chanced to find stript and wounded by the way; whereas the Priest and the Levite, who paffed him by, perhaps would have pleaded for themselves that they reserved their money for the corban. Such another feasonable act of generofity and kindness was that of the woman who confumed the pre

cious oyntment on our Saviour when he fat at SER M. meat, the price of which would have relieved XVII. many of the ordinary poor. The import of his answer upon that occafion was, that his was a particular and extraordinary cafe, it being done not merely out of a customary compliment, but upon a great and fudden exigence, no less than by an excellent act of faith, the anointing of him for his burial.

But though fuch like inftances of present exigence or mifery claim a preference before all other, yet the contributing to promote a general and publick good is otherwife more preferable, as the good of the community is to be confidered before that of any fingle perfon. The common poor you have always with you, and you need never want opportunities of relieving them; but opportunities of contributing to an united and publick charity you have not always. We find this Widow left the performance of those common and ordinary charities to them who were able to perform both; and wifely chofe to throw her farthing into the publick treasury: And small as it was, you fee it was not funk in fo great a mass, but came into the account with God, and brought her in for no small share of that universal benefit which from thence accrued to the whole nation of the Jews. This little gift was an argument of a large and generous foul, and shewed how plentifully she would have given if she had been able. As none could equal

her