Now, you may think nothing but of your pleasures and delights, of living in ease and plenty, and never consider how many thousands of your fellow-creatures would rejoice at what you are making waste of, and setting no account by. Let me beseech you, my rich brethren, to consider the poor of the world, and how commendable and praise-worthy it is to relieve those who are distressed. Consider, how pleasing this is to GOD, how delightful it is to man, and how many prayers you will have put up for your welfare, by those persons whom you relieve; and let this be a consideration to spare a little out of the abundance wherewith GOD has blessed you, or the relief of his poor. He could have placed you in their low condition, and they in your high state; it is only his good pleasure that has thus made the difference, and shall not this make you remember your distressed fellow-creatures?
Let me beseech you to consider, which will stand you best at the day of judgment, so much money expended at a horse-race, at a cockpit, at a play or masquerade, or so much given for the relief of your fellow-creatures, and for the distressed members of JESUS CHRIST.
I beseech you, that you would consider how valuable and commendable this duty is: do not be angry at my thus exhorting you to that duty, which is so much recommended by JESUS CHRIST himself, and by all his apostles: I speak particularly to you, my rich brethren, to intreat you to consider those that are poor in this world, and help them from time to time, as their necessity calls for it. Consider, that there is a curse denounced against the riches of those, who do not thus do good with them; namely, “Go to now you rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you; your riches are corrupted, your garments are moth-eaten, your gold and silver is cankered, and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh, as it were fire; ye have heaped your treasure together for the last day.” You see the dreadful woe pronounced against all those who hoard up the abundance of the things of this life, without relieving the distresses of those who are in want thereof: and the apostle _James_ goes on also to speak against those who have acquired estates by fraud, as too many have in these days. “Behold the hire of the labourers, which have reaped down your fields, which is by you kept back by fraud, crieth; and the cries of them who have reaped, are entered into the ears of the LORD GOD of Sabbaoth. Ye have lived in pleasure on the earth, and been wanton; ye have nourished your hearts, as in a day of slaughter.” Thus, if you go on to live after the lust of the flesh, to pamper your bellies, and make them a God, while the poor all round you are starving, GOD will make these things a witness against you, which shall be as a worm to your souls, and gnaw your consciences to all eternity; therefore, let me once more recommend charity unto the bodies of men, and beseech you to remember what the blessed LORD JESUS CHRIST has promised unto those who thus love his members, that “as they have done it to the least of his members, they have done it unto him.”
I am not now speaking for myself; I am not recommending my little flock in _Georgia_ to you; then you might say, as many wantonly do, that I wanted the money for myself; no, my brethren, I am now recommending the poor of this land to you, your poor neighbours, poor friends, yea, your poor enemies; they are whom I am now speaking for; and when I see so many starving in the streets, and almost naked, my bowels are moved with pity and concern, to consider, that many in whose power it is, to lend their assisting hand, should shut up their bowels of compassion, and will not relieve their fellow-creatures, though in the most deplorable condition for the want thereof.
As I have thus recommended charity particularly to the rich among you; so now I would,
2. _Secondly_, Recommend this to another set of people among us, who, instead of being the most forward in acts of charity, are commonly the most backward; I mean the _clergy_ of this land.
Good GOD! how amazing is the consideration, that those, whom GOD has called out to labour in spiritual things, should be so backward in this duty, as fatal experience teacheth. Our clergy (that is the generality thereof) are only seeking after preferment, running up and down, to obtain one benefice after another; and to heap up an estate, either to spend on the pleasures of life, or to gratify their sensual appetites, while the poor of their flock are forgotten; nay, worse, they are scorned, hated, and disdained.
I am not now, my brethren, speaking of all the clergy; no, blessed be GOD, there are some among them, who abhor such proceedings, and are willing to relieve the necessitous; but GOD knows, these are but very few, while many take no thought of the poor among them.