so clean of heart, and free from sin? Who a greater peace-maker than he, who made peace between God and man? Who more truly suffered for justice, than he who died for teaching virtue, reprehending sin, and redeeming mankind ?

EXHOR.-Heaven, O christian, is your desired end and happiness: all things on earth, the most refined pleasures and delights of earthly men are torments, in comparison of its joys. Nothing but God can make the soul of man happy; without him all things here are but vanity, misery and vexation of spirit. Where is the person who can deny it? Solomon, the wisest of all, confessed it: live now the life of Jesus and his saints, that you may enjoy the happiness of his saints; and here see by what steps you are to ascend thither. Blessed are the poor in spirit. Bend not too much your mind on life, or any thing in life: court not its riches, state or grandeur, which will soon have an end; but set your heart upon joys that are eternal. If you are rich, live not as Dives did; remember he died, and was buried in hell; if you cannot actually forsake your riches, to become poor, forsake them at least with your soul, and with your reason, and value them not; this is true wisdom. Blessed are the meek. Give not way to passion; passion is the destroyer of reason, and takes away understanding: carry yourself with lenity and mildness towards your fellow creatures; this will justify your cause before God and man, more powerfully than anger and revenge. Blessed are they that mourn sow in tears, and you will reap in joy: bewail your sins while you may, and time is, with tears of true sorrow and contrition: confess, do penance, leave off sin; one hour of this sorrow, will bring you more consolation, than all the vain joys of the world.-Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for justice: be just to all, give every one his due; to God in the first place, give due honour, love, and service; give your neighbour also what is due to him, obedience to superiors, love to your equals, assistance to inferiors; do justice to yourself, in taking care of your soul.-Blessed are the merciful. If you are merciful, you shall find mercy be ever ready to

relieve those that suffer, and have pity on them, as you are in coustant need of God's mercy yourself; and remember, if you are lost, it will not be through any deficiency of mercy in God, but through want of mercy in yourself; for if you had shewn mercy to others, you might find mercy at his hands.-Blessed are the clean of heart. Keep your soul pure from sin; let nothing defiled or offensive to the most pure eyes of God, harbour there; you are the temple of the Holy Ghost, nothing but sanctity and purity ought to be there: when any evil or impure thought rises in your mind, turn your heart to God and say, Lead us not into temptation.-Blesssd are the peace-makers. Beware then of being the occasion of others dissentions, or widening the breach, as many do. Seek peace with God; keep it with all men, and strive to reconcile and make up others differences: such are the sons of God.-Blessed are they that suffer persecution for justice. They come the nearest to our Lord and Saviour, who suffer unjustly for men: they are his true and worthy disciples, who suffer persecution for his holy religion: if we ought to embrace all the evils of this life, which we suffer justly for sin, with the patience of Jesus on the cross, without murmuring and impatience; how much in the wrong are we to murmur and complain at suffering persecution for justice; in which we ought ever to rejoice? because to all such is promised the highest reward in the glory of the kingdom of heaven. These are the blessed steps we must take in this life, and these will lead us unto the clear sight and enjoyment of God.

Q. WHAT

SECT. I.

Of the Works of Mercy.

HAT are the works of mercy? A. They are corporal and spiritual. Q. Which are the corporal works of mercy? 4. To feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty; to clothe the naked; to harbour the harbourless; to visit the sick; to visit the imprisoned; to bury the dead. Q. Do these works me

rit a reward? A. Yes: Christ has promised heaven to such, Come, O ye blessed of my Father, and receive the kingdom prepared for you, from the beginning of the world; because when I was hungry, you gave me to eat; when I was thirsty, you gave me to drink, &c. St. Matt.

XXV.

INSTRUC. Great is the obligation of every christian to relieve, as in his power, his distressed brethren. It is the duty of charity to love your neighbour as yourself? and this not in word only, but in work. You can never truly love God, unless you thus love your neighbour: He that hath the substance of this world, and shall see his brother in need, and shall shut his bowels against him, how does the love of God abide in him? My little children, let us not love in word, and with our tongue, but in deed and in truth. 1 John iii. 17.

The corporal works of mercy are much recommended in scripture: Break your bread to the needy; bring the harbourless into your houses; when you see the naked, cover him, and despise not your own flesh; and this is the reward: then shall your light break forth like the morning, and the glory of God shall encompass you. Isaiah Ivii. 7. This charity was much practised by Job, Toby, and others, mentioned in holy writ, and rendered them well pleasing to God, and high in his favour. The neglect of it, we see punished in Dives; who feasted every day splendidly, but neglected poor Lazarus : He died and was buried in hell. St. Luke xvi. 22. many ways as our neighbour may be in need, so many ways there are of relieving him, so many works of mercy; as to feed the hungry; to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, &c. Of the six first we read in St. Matthew, c. xxv. of the seventh much is said in the book of Toby.

As

When you do a work of charity, do it with a good intention, not to gain applause, but to fulfil God's commandment of loving your neighbour as yourself; this is doing it for the love of your neighbour, and for the love of God to: let not your left hand then see what your right hand does; and what you give, give willingly.-God loves a cheerful giver, Many, for want

of a right intention, lose the reward of their charities; and I fear there are some, who leave great charities behind them at their death, rather to perpetuate their vain memories, than to benefit their souls.

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EXHOR.-There is no more noble virtue, than to give in charities to others in this you resemble the great God of nature, who opens his hand, and fills every creature with blessings. Why has God given you plenty, but to relieve those that want? Why does he bless you with riches, but to distribute them to the poor? Why does he give you health but to attend the sick? Why are you at liberty, but to comfort those that are in prison? Consider the reward of it: Come ye blessed of my Father, and receive the kingdom prepared for you, from the beginning of the world; because when I was hungry, you gave me to eat, &c. St. Matt. xxv. Our Saviour here declares, that in the poor you relieve him; that he takes it as done to himself, and rewards it accordingly, with no less reward than heaven; where those who fed him in the hungry here, shall themselves be fed with all the delights of the celestial paradise those who give him drink in the thirsty, shall themselves drink of the torrent of eternal pleasure: those who clothed him in the naked, shall be clothed with robes of immortal glory and those who harboured him in the harbourless, shall be received into the mansions of bliss; and those who visited him in the sick and imprisoned, shall forever be delivered from the prison of hell, from all sickness and pain, and from all the miseries both of this world and the other. Shew mercy then to others, that you may find mercy: when all these fail, and there is none to assist you at the day of account, then those you assisted by your charities, or at least, those good works themselves which you did, will intercede to God in your favour; then you will find you have laid up treasures in heaven.-Let the pious Samaritan be your example, in doing charities to the distressed, though strangers, and perhaps not deserving indeed, there is an order in charity, by which we should relieve those first who are the nearest allied to us in blood, when they are in want; and next to

them those of the same faith: observe order in your charities, but let them at the same time extend to all Let us do good to all; chiefly those that are of the same faith. Gal. vi. 10. To all both good and bad, grateful and ungrateful, deserving and not deserving; for in this manner God does good to us. Exercise yourself, then O christian, in all these corporal works of mercy, as your state, condition, and power will allow; let no one go empty away. Do all for the love of God, who has loved you so, as to give his only Son, and with him all things; do it out of charity to your neighbour, who will plead for your soul at our great day of judgment; do it out of charity for yourself; you will be the greatest gainer; honour, glory, and benediction will attend you: To every one that does good, honour and glory, Rom. ii. 10. you shall receive a hundred fold, and possess life everlasting. St. Matt. xix. 29.

Of the Spiritual Works of Mercy.

WHICH are the spiritual works of mercy

To admonish sinners; to instruct the ignorant; to counsel the doubtful; to comfort the sorrowful; to bear patiently with the troublesome; to forgive injuries; to pray for the living and the dead. Q. Why are these called spiritual works of mercy? A. Because by them we do good to the soul of our neighbour,

INSTRUC.-As the corporal works of mercy relate to the body, works of mercy spiritual relate to the soul and as the immortal soul far exceeds the body; so do these spiritual works of mercy surpass the others, and ought therefore to be more diligently practised, by those whose charge and office exact it, or in whose power it is and if a reward is promised to those, who do the least corporal work of mercy to others, what must be the reward of spiritual ones? A far greater degree of glory will be their recompense next to saving your own soul, the best thing you can do is, to co-operate to the salvation of others.

The holy scripture in many places, recommends spiritual charities. Of the first we read, Gal. yi. If any one