we may from hence find a considerable relief for the poor. But if we be not willing sometimes to fast that our brother may eat, we should ill die for him. St. Martin had given all that he had in the world to the poor, save one coat, and that also he divided between two beggars. A father in the mount of Nitria, was reduced at last to the inventory of one Testament, and that book also was tempted from him by the needs of one whom he thought poorer than himself. Greater yet; St. Paulinus sold himself to slavery to redeem a young man, for whose captivity his mother wept sadly and it is said, that St. Katherine sucked the envenomed wounds of a villain who had injured her most impudently. And I shall tell you of a greater charity than all these put together; Christ gave himself to shame and death to redeem his enemies from bondage, and death, and hell.

14. Learn of the frugal man, and only avoid sordid actions, and turn good husband, and change your arts of getting into providence for the poor, and you shall soon become rich in good works; and why should we not do as much for charity, as for covetousness; for heaven, as for the fading world; for God and the Holy Jesus, as for the needless superfluities of back and belly.

15. In giving alms to beggars and persons of that low rank, it is better to give a little to each that we may give to the more, so extending our alms to many persons but in charities of religion, as building hospitals, colleges, and houses for devotion, and supplying the accidental wants of decayed persons, fallen from

great plenty to great necessity, it is better to unite our alms than to disperse them; to make a noble relief or maintenance to one, and to restore him to comfort, than to support only his natural needs, and keep him alive only, unrescued from sad discomforts.

16. The precept of alms or charity binds not indefinitely to all the instances and kinds of charity: for he that delights to feed the poor, and spends all his portion that way, is not bound to enter into prisons and redeem captives: but we are obliged, by the presence of circumstances, and the special disposition of providence, and the pitiableness of an object, to this or that particular act of charity. The eye is the sense of mercy, and the bowels are its organ, and that inkindles pity, and pity produces alms; when the eye sees what it never saw, the heart will think what it never thought: but when we have an object present to our eye, then we must pity, for there the providence of God hath fitted our charity with circumstances. He that is in thy sight, or in thy neighbourhood, is fallen into the lot of thy charity.

17. If thou hast no money, yet thou must have mercy, (Luke xii. 33. Acts iii. 6.) and art bound

to pity the poor, and pray for them, and throw thy holy desires and devotions into the treasures of the church and if thou doest what thou art able, be it little or great, corporal or spiritual, the charity of alms, or the charity of prayers, a cup of wine, or a cup of water; if it be but love to the brethren, or a

* Chi ti da un ossa non ti verrebbe morta.

desire to help all or any of Christ's poor, it shall be accepted according to what a man hath, not according to what he hath not. (II Cor. viii. 12.) For love is all this, and all the other commandments: and it will express itself where it can; (1 Pet. i. 22.) and where it cannot, yet it is love still, and it is also sorry that

it cannot.

Motives to Charity.

The motives to this duty are such as holy scripture hath propounded to us by way of consideration and proposition of its excellencies and consequent reward. 1. There is no one duty which our blessed Saviour did recommend to his disciples with so repeated an injunction as this of charity and alms. To which add the words spoken by our Lord, (Mat. vi. 4. xiii. 12, 33. and xxv. 15.) It is better to give than to receive. And when we consider how great a blessing it is that we beg not from door to door, (Luke xi. 41.) it is a ready instance of our thankfulness to God, for his sake to relieve them that do. 2. This duty is that alone whereby the future day of judgment shall be transacted. For nothing but charity and alms is that whereby Christ shall declare the justice and mercy of the eternal sentence. Martyrdom itself is not there expressed, and no otherwise involved, but as it is the greatest charity. 3. Christ made himself the greatest and daily example of alms or charity. He went up and down doing good, preaching the gospel, and healing all diseases: and God the Father is imitable by us in nothing but in purity and mercy. 4. Alms given

to the poor (Phil. iv. 17.) redound to the emolument of the giver, both temporal and eternal. 5. They are instrumental to the remission of sins. (Acts x. 4. Heb. xiii. 16. Dan. iv. 27.) Our forgiveness and mercy to others being made the very rule and proportion of our confidence and hope, and our prayer to be forgiven ourselves. 6. It is a treasure in heaven, it procures friends when we die. It is reckoned as done to Christ whatsoever we do to our poor brother; and therefore when a poor man begs for Christ his sake, if he have reason ask for Christ his sake, give it him if thou canst. Now every man hath title to ask for Christ's sake whose need is great, and himself unable to cure it, and if the man be a christian. Whatsoever charity Christ will reward, all that is given for Christ's sake, and therefore it may be asked in his name: but every man that uses that sacred name for an endearment hath not a title to it, neither he nor his need. 7. It is one of the wings of prayer by which it flies to the throne of grace. 8. It crowns all the works of piety. 9. It causes thanksgiving to God on our behalf. 10. And the bowels of the poor bless us, and they pray for us. 11. And that portion of our estate* out of which a tenth, or a fifth, or a twentieth, or some offering to God for religion and the poor goes forth, certainly returns with a great blessing upon all the rest. It is like the effusion of oil upon the Sidonian woman; as long as she pours into empty vessels, it could never cease running: or like the

* Nunquam memini me legisse malâ morte mortuum qui libenter opera charitatis exercuit. S. Hierom. Ep. ad Nepot.

widow's barrel of meal: it consumes not as long as she fed the prophet. 12. The sum of all is contained in the words of our blessed Saviour, Give alms of such things as ye have, and behold all things are clean 13. To which may be added, that charity

unto you.

or mercy is the peculiar character of God's elect, and a sign of predestination; which advantage we are taught by St. Paul; [Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved, bowels of mercy, kindness, &c. forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any.] The result of all which we may read in the words of St. Chrysostom; to know the art of alms, is greater than to be crowned with the diadem of kings. And yet to convert one soul is greater than to pour out ten thousand talents into the baskets of the poor.

But because giving alms is an act of the virtue of mercifulness, our endeavour must be by proper arts to mortify the parents of unmercifulness, which are, 1. Envy; 2. Anger; 3. Covetousness: in which we may be helped by the following rules or instruments.

Remedies against Unmercifulness and

Uncharitableness.

1. Against Envy; by way of Consideration. Against envy I shall use the same arguments I would use to persuade a man from the fever or the dropsy. 1. Because it is a disease, it is so far from having pleasure in it, or a temptation to it, that it is full of pain, a great instrument of vexation; it eats No. 15.

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