may best conduce to promote the eternal welfare of our souls. For, when we are here commanded to be beneficial to those from whom no recompense is to be expected, we are not by that command excluded from all hopes of any sort of reward. Hope is the first

spring of all our actions; and there can be no sufficient reason assigned why we should prefer any one action to another, but because we have greater hopes of advantage from the one than from the other. And our gracious Lord and Master is so far from extinguishing this natural principle in us, that when he advises him who makes a feast to call the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind, and grounds that advice on their inability to recompense him, he immediately subjoins, Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just. An eternal reward from the hand of God for the good we do unto men is made the motive to this duty; and therefore, whatever some speculative men may have advanced to the contrary, it can be no fault in us to be influenced by the hopes of such reward.

And as we are not excluded from the expectation and desire of a reward for our charitable deeds, so neither are we forbidden, whenever we do good to our brethren, to expect a requital from them. Were we never to show any acts of kindness towards those from whom we had probable hopes of a return, men of thankful and generous dispositions, who seem to have the best title to our favour, would be utterly excluded from it; and those would be the most proper objects of our beneficence whom we had found ungrateful, or who were most likely to prove such. This advice of our Saviour was never interpreted in so rigorous a sense, as that it should be thought absolutely unlawful for Christians to invite their friends, their relations, or

their rich neighbours to their table; all that is intended thereby is, that neither our hospitality nor our beneficence of any other kind be restrained to those who can recompense us, but that it take in others also, from whom we can expect no recompense. Our receiving good from others may, by God's providence, be the fruit and consequence of our doing good to others; but it ought not to be the chief end and principal motive of our beneficence and charity. And that for these three reasons:

I. Because this is an end not sure to be obtained by those who propose it.

II. Because the proposing to ourselves this end will deprive us of a greater satisfaction here.

III. Because it will deprive us of a greater recompense hereafter.

First, the hopes of a recompense from men for the acts of beneficence we show towards them ought not to be our chief aim in doing good, because this is an end not sure to be obtained by us.

Some men may be willing to think, that because they find in themselves a natural inclination to do all the good they can, there must needs be the same propensity in the breasts of others. A favour seasonably bestowed possesseth their soul with gladness, warms them into thoughts of gratitude, and makes them uneasy in themselves till they can repay it; and hence they are apt fondly to imagine that others are made of the same soft and melting temper as themselves, and that no heart is so hard as to be proof against repeated acts of kindness. Now such thoughts as these are arguments of very good nature, but of very small acquaintance with the world; for it is much to be feared, that that man hath done but little good in his generation whose own experience hath not often con

futed these speculations. For many there are whose thoughts and desires are entirely wrapt up within themselves; they find so much scope and so full employment for their affections at home, that they never suffer them to rove abroad: their charity, as it begins, so it ends there too; they are sensible enough of the pleasures and pains which immediately affect themselves, but they think it an unaccountable paradox that one man should feel another man's happiness or smart with another's pain. Now to men of this selfish temper favours are always welcome, and there is no danger of overloading them; but that exquisite pleasure which some pretend to find in doing good is a thing of which these men have no relish, and therefore they are not hasty to make a return.

But should our acts of kindness be always placed upon the most thankful and most deserving, should the persons gratified by us be always both willing and able to make us a suitable return, yet, after all, he who is truly and sincerely kind even to such persons as these may not meet with a requital equal to his kindness; for none can make a just recompense for favours received, but such as know their full value. Now this is to be taken from the intent of him who bestows it, and cannot always be discerned by the party obliged. Here then an honest, sincere, and truly generous person will lie under a great disadvantage; for it is his character rather to be good and beneficent than to appear so: he feels sentiments of love towards his brethren beyond what he is either willing or able to express ; he chooses rather to smother his kind affections than to proclaim them; and whilst he is so little careful to display the due worth of his favours, it is no wonder if he should find an unproportionable reward from those who can make no true estimate of their value.

And as those who do good unto others cannot be sure of any recompense from those to whom they do good, and can be still less sure of a recompense equal to the good they do, so they can be least of all certain of a recompense for good offices done barely upon that prospect. For men are always upon their guard against any kindness bestowed on them which carries with it an appearance of design: where they had voluntarily intended an act of favour or charity, they are apt to withdraw their hand if they find it is looked for: and for the same reason, where they design a recompense for benefits received, they are less solicitous to make it when it is exacted. For although gratitude be a debt which we are bound in justice to discharge, yet a creditor who is too importunate doth for that very reason often fail of receiving what is his due. But on the other side, he who gratifies another without the prospect of a return hath, for that very reason, the fairest title to a recompense: for whilst he aims not at a requital, he doth that upon other and better motives which is most likely to procure it. His only aim is to please God, who hath commanded him to do good unto men without any regard to a recompense from them; and God, who hath the disposal of men's hearts, is pleased to recompense the purity of his intention, by inclining them to do him all the offices of love and gratitude.

Now, if we cannot be sure of any return from men for the good offices we do them, if we can be less sure of an equal return, and least of all of a recompense which we aim at; it will be very improper to make this the principal motive of our doing good unto our brethren, because this end is sometimes impossible, often difficult, never certain, to be obtained. But that

which makes the doing good on this motive still more unreasonable is our

Second consideration, that the proposing to ourselves this end will deprive us of a greater satisfaction here.

There is implanted in us a natural desire of excelling, or at least of equalling each other; to be above others is our first and most eager wish; and if we cannot reach that, our next desire is to be at least upon the level. Now he who hath by acts of beneficence obliged another is so far upon the upper ground; for whatever other relation he may stand in as to his fortune, birth, or condition, yet as benefactor he is still superior to that person whom by his benefits he hath obliged. And this is an advantage which a noble and generous mind will not part with for any mean and sordid interest: for that man must have but little sense of true honour who would not choose rather to be a creditor than a debtor, a patron than a client, a lender than a borrower, or, to speak in the language of our parable, an entertainer than a guest. The communicating good things argues sufficiency and plenty, whilst the receiving of good things is a mark rather of impotence and want. We have the authority of truth itself Acts xx. 35. for the certainty of this maxim, that it is more blessed to give than to receive.

No one can more highly oblige a truly generous person than by affording him an opportunity of doing good; and hence it is that, to one thus disposed, the having been kind is a stronger motive to be further kind to the same person, than the having received kindness from him would be. It is a gross mistake of some men to think that our wants only and imperfections do naturally induce us to be beneficent to each other; for although we had no wants of our own to be