I will now put the following _case_ in as high terms as the Doctor can well desire. Let it be supposed that some good _bishop_, possessed of as rich a _bishoprick_ as that of _Winchester_, should through his extensive charity for the poor throughout the whole diocese, be forced to use the utmost frugality in family expences, and to bring up his children in employments of labour, to help themselves to food and raiment; one a carpenter, in which business our Saviour is said to have laboured in his youth; another a maker of tents, the trade of the great apostle: and the rest in the like manner. Let it be supposed, that when he died, he left only twenty pounds a year amongst them, not to be _possessed_ by any one of them, but only to be used by every one as sickness or age made them stand in need of it, with this injunction, that it should be given to other sick and helpless people, when there was no such amongst themselves: Let it be supposed that by his life and conversation, he had filled his wife and children with the true and perfect spirit of the gospel, that they loved and rejoiced in his memory for all the good he had done to them, desiring nothing, but to go through the world, in the same _humility_, _piety_, _charity_, _love_ of God, and _renunciation_ of the world, as he had done. Will the Doctor say that this _bishop_ had _ruined_ his wife and children; that _half thinking_ had betrayed him into a most _grievous sin_, that he had by this life _deny’d the faith_, and become _worse_ than an infidel? I will venture to say, that if such a bishop should ever appear in this kingdom, he would bid fair to put an end to infidelity through all his diocese, though it were the largest in the nation. Now if the Doctor does not know of any one either among the _laity_ or _clergy_, who is _ruining_ his wife and children by a greater and more blameable charity than that of this bishop, it must be said, that he has been in too much haste, that his zeal has not proceeded from _knowledge_; and that he has been throwing _cold water_ upon charity, before there was any flame in it.
37. I now proceed to shew in a more general way the blameable nature of the Doctor’s discourse. The whole Christian world from the time of our Saviour to this day, has been praying, _Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven._ Sacraments, divine worship, and the order of the clergy, are appointed as ministerial helps for this end, to raise, set up, and establish this kingdom of God on earth. The fall of a man brought forth the kingdom of this world; sin in all shapes is nothing else but the will of man, following the workings of a nature _broken off_ from its dependency upon, and union with the divine will. All the evil and misery in the creation arises _solely_ from this one cause. There is not the smallest degree of pain or punishment either within us, or without us, but is owing to this, viz. that man stands out of his place, is not _in_, and _under_, and _united_ to God as he should be, as the nature of things requires. God created every thing to partake of his _own nature_, to have some share of his _own life_, and happiness. Nothing can be good or evil, happy or unhappy, but as it does or does not stand in the same _divine life_ in which it was created, receiving in God, and from God, all that good that it is capable of, and so co-operating with, and under him, according to the nature of its powers and perfections. As soon as it turns to itself, and would as it were have a sound of its _own_, it breaks off from the _divine harmony_, and falls into the misery of its own _discord_; and all its workings then are only so many sorts of torments. The redemption of mankind can then only be effected, the harmony of the creation can only then be restored when the will of God is the will of every creature. For this reason our blessed Lord having taken upon him a created nature, so continually declares against the doing any thing of himself, and always appeals to the will of God, as the only motive and end of every thing he did, saying, that it was his meat and drink, to do the will of him that had sent him.