A SERMON PREACHED at the ANNIVERSARY-MEETING OF THE  Scholars: AT THE CHAPEL IN THE . On Monday, December 13th. 1680.  
By NATHANAEL RESBURY, Minister of Wandsworth in the County of Surrey, and Chaplain to the Right Honourable Arthur E. of Anglesey Lord Privy Seal.  
LONDON, Printed for Walter Kettilby at the Bishop's Head in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1681.   

A SERMON ON Matth. xxv. v. 40. And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, In as much as ye have done it to one of the least of these my Brethren, ye have done it unto Me.  
IT hath been a mighty outcry in the Church of Rome, and the calumny hath vended amongst the multitude, like other groundless Traditions, that our Religion is so mere a brag of Faith, that to show how perfectly it disclaims all kind of dependence upon the merit of good works, it discharges its Professors from all obligations of doing them; and had not our Ancestry (whiles governed by the Noble and generous principles of a munificent devotion and piety) erected such Monuments of the usefulness and excellency of their Religion, we had had no such august fabrics for performing the Solemnities of our Worship, as now we have, but had contented ourselves probably with an ungarnisht 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, some neglected upper-room, which the rage and tyranny of the Age, made the Apostles and Primitive Christians, through fear of observation, meet in. Much less had we known what an Hospital had meant, or any useful communities supported by the alms and pious disposals of such whom the Romish faith had inspired to it.  
But this clamour certainly, as it was only raised before the reformed Religion had time or capacity of exerting itself in practice in that kind; so it were strange if it could be kept up now amongst any, but those who have never seen, or read of the constitutions or manners of a Nation, wherein this Religion is professed.  
For as to the former, I mean our Churches, we have had (God knows) too late and sad an occasion to show, what the mind conducted by the Protestant Faith can do, when with so much largeness and alacrity we have rebuilt the Churches their Hellish rage had burnt; and exceeded in the decency and ornaments of those places, though not led to it by the blind and ignorant dictates of a fond and unreasonable Superstition; which we find so inconsistent with itself, that it can as furiously destroy those foundations, and lay the whole structure in ashes, the building of which they have insisted on, as one plausible argument for their Religion, and the devotion of their Ancestry.  
As to the latter, I mean the erecting of Hospitals, and constituting other useful Societies from the mighty supplies which the good and well-disposed minds of those within our Church have thought fit to administer. Were it worth the while to enumerate what foundations have been laid for the poor and disabled in Hospitals and Almshouses, for education and encouragement to the ingenuous in Schools and Colleges, for the painful and industrious in Corporations and Work-houses, for the maintenance of those that attend at the Altars, and minister in Holy things; in a word, what large and profuse issues have been from the wealth and charity of some amongst ourselves, for all the just uses and conveniencies of life, from the time of the first Reformation to this day, it would be found there hath been as much life in our faith, for the product of Good Works, as ever hath been in any one Age of the Church, since the time that a community of goods, made the mutual love of Primitive Christians, so great and remarkable▪  
And amongst the rest, I may very well say that this very Place, the memory of whose Founder we celebrate this day, becomes a standing eviction to the knavery of that calumny, whereby the Protestant Religion hath been scandalised, as a cold, and barren, and empty name, that hath nothing of the thing or substance of good works in it. A Foundation this is, which having been first laid without any other Ministry, but that of one single Purse; and having had no other improvements, but what the products within itself, may have swelled and increased it to; is beyond all the instances that can be elsewhere given, either at home or abroad; no one place in Europe probably, or within the whole diffusions of Christianity, having either beforehand set the like Copy, or wrote after this, since; the Sum total of this Charity amounting to a far larger account (as it hath served to much greater purposes) than that Cloister of Carthusians, which formerly had, to so idle and mistaken uses, nestled here.  
It is true, the Principles have not been the same upon which have been grounded this, or other Foundations of our Protestant Charity, with what have influenced those in the Church of Rome; nor have there been those wretched artifices used, as consequent to those principles, by which the Brokers for the Romish Charity have been so successful in the solicits they have made for the revenues of it. We have not first possessed the World with any frightful persuasions about the Torments of a Purgatory, pretending it the lot of most Men to pass through the refinings of that fire into the state of the blessed; and that the Prayers of some devout Persons secluded from the World to that purpose, together with some other Ministries, will hasten the dispatches of those Souls from thence, who have had the devotion, and the fortune to give liberally toward the maintenance of such Chauntries.  
We have no Doctrines that teach any expiatory and atoning merit in such works as these, so as to give us the opportunity of screwing out of the confessions of some sinners, such Sums for commutation of Penance, or satisfaction to Divine Justice as may build a Monastery or add to the supports of one already built. We erect no Foundations upon the Sins of the People; we dismiss not the Soul of the unruly Tyrant, who hath besmeared himself with the blood of numberless Innocents', and raised his dominion upon the Necks of just Proprietors, we dismiss not such an one with this appeasement of conscience, under all the horrors of his butchery and injustice, that might reasonably rack and torment him; if you build such a Religious house, or give so much into the Treasury of the Church, you will find yourself absolved there, and so all the scores of blood and usurpation wiped out for ever.  
We do not tell the infamous Lecher, that hath done infinite injuries to Families by his boundless lust, and made himself a stink and abhorrence, by the Disease that Vengeance allots to that Vice, we do not tell such an one, that his Charity toward a Nunnery (where the vowed chastity of those Secluses may recompense for his beastliness) will secure his forgiveness in the other World, and his reputation in this; Whereas in truth, that very Convent which the Money of such a Wretch may have endowed or augmented, may prove his Heir in his filthinesses, as well as his estate; and by a Pile of Skulls of the poor murdered Infants (begot in those secrecies of Villainy) may raise a proper and adequate Monument to the Lust of the first Founder.  
We do not pretend that those Goods, which the Rapine of some hath unjustly extorted from the right owners, or which the prodigious avarice of others hath congested to the scandal and reproach of himself, or the injury of his relatives; that such, if converted to Religious uses, when the fate of the Possessor hath set him for ever out of the reach of them, will make him such friends here, and above too, that the Prayers of the one, and the interest of the other shall lodge him safely enough in Abraham's bosom.  
No, the undesigning plainness of our Doctrines, so directly suited to the simplicity of the Gospel, hath laid bare all the cheats and wheadles of that kind; and by propounding and clearing up all the true notions of repentance and faith, and a good life, have made all that sort of disguises so thin and airy, that we have made ourselves uncapable of Juggling by such artifices; and what acts of charity are now performed amongst us; as they are always designed toward the best and most useful purposes of life; not for the satiating of some lazy Monks, or idle Gossips, whose sloth, and whose plenty, instead of the Divine and contemplative life, which they pretend, exposeth them to all the temptations of lust and wantonness: as (I say) the acts of our Charity have not this tendency, but to better designs, so they are grounded from better Principles, and promoted by more Christian persuasions in the breasts of the Donors.  
The intentions of our charity are chief directed against Idleness the Nursery of all Vices: or toward the relief of such Persons whom poverty or other misfortunes may have reduced to the extremest disablements: or, in a word, the institution of ingenuity in Youth, or composure of thoughtfulness and solicitude in old Age, that some after a long and cumbersome part acted, may have the advantage of retiring themselves, where, freed from the cares or the hazards of this life, they may in all repentance and devotion make up the reckon betwixt their Souls and God, and fit themselves for the Summons they must expect at his Bar: and of such a Nature is this great and almost unparallelled Foundation, where so many Youths may be shaped and modelled for service in the World, and so many aged Gentlemen drawn off and eased after the service they have done, and put into circumstances, wherein they need be thoughtful about nothing but Immortality.  
The Principles of which (no question) were, that Humanity and Brotherly love which the Christian Religion especially teacheth; that trust and stewardship which we are told in the Scriptures, is reposed in great and rich Men; that affinity and kindred, which bounty and mercifulness hath with all other parts of goodness and righteousness, and, to add no more, that relation and nearness which the Founder of our Religion, the Blessed Jesus, the Man-Christ doth own with those of our natures, transferring the obligations of all good turns done to one another, as done unto himself; for so it is in the words of my Text, Verily I say unto you, In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto Me.  
These words are part of the representation which our Lord makes of his appearing in Judgement at the end of the World, where he pronounces the different Sentence upon those on the right hand, and on the left; The former he instates in all the glories of a Kingdom prepared for them from the foundations of the World, v. 34. The latter he banisheth from his presence and all the bliss of it, into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels, v. 41. And the account of this different sentence alleged and explained: viz. the good deeds that those on the right hand had done, in feeding the hungry and relieving the stranger, clothing the naked and visiting the sick: and the neglects that those on the left hand had been guilty of, in all those excellent services which they had the obligation and opportunity of performing: à v. 35. ad finem.  
I shall take no occasion here to make any remarks upon this great Court of Judicature, nor consider the nature of the Process: I shall not determine for or against the conjecture of the learned Grotius, 
Lactant. Hieron. Theophylact.  who would suppose (for which he also citys some considerable Fathers for strengthening his presumption) that this Scene of judgement seems only laid for the Christian World, whiles they that either had not known God, or rejected his Gospel, were by their disbelief condemned already. All that I shall do, shall be with a direct eye upon what suits with the nature and reasons of this Assembly, wherein some of us that have in this place had our first institution of Youth, and others of us that have had with our Education, our Maintenance too, do unitedly meet to recognize that bulky charity of our Founder, that hath given us the opportunity of either. So that because throughout this whole Scene of action represented in the last Judgement, we may observe, partly that no other instances of life are mentioned or insisted on, but the extent or defect of men's charity or good deeds; and partly the mighty acknowledgements which the Great Judge makes of such good deeds, as if the performance or neglect redounded upon himself; I shall make this communicative charity the subject of my remaining Discourse, and as briefly as I can dispatch what I have to say under two or three Heads, which may abundantly vindicate the Doctrines and the effects of the Protestant Faith, as by no means foreign to Good Works.  
1. First, there is no duty or performance in the whole Christian Law more expressly prescribed and insisted on, than this of , or doing good to those that shall stand in need of it. This, I might argue, without mustering up the various injunctions in the Gospel, that look this way, from what we find urged in my Text, that our Blessed Lord should account such works, of so weighty an importance, that he makes it his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, or the ground of his sentence, to absolve or condemn Mankind according to what they have done or not done in this kind. He does not here insist on the Orthodoxy of their Religion, what Principles or Party they had espoused, how demurely they had lived, what numbers or length of Prayers they had wont themselves to, how many Fasts they had kept, or Sermons they had heard, (though herein the answer of a good conscience will be abundantly valuable at that day) but the reckoning is made upon the visits that have been given to the sick, what clothing to the naked, what food to the hungry, what protection and relief to the oppressed and indigent? after which Copy the Apostle writes, when he tells us that this is the Religion indeed; 
Jam. 1.17.  Pure Religion and undefiled before God and the Father, is this, to visit the Fatherless and Widows in their affliction, etc. It is a cheaper and easier performance to maintain a semblable regard for the duties of the first Table in our Devotions toward God, than this costly and active part of love toward our Neighbour, as comprehended in the second Table of the Law. There were those in our Saviour's time, who, while they were devouring Widows houses, 
Matth. 23.14.  could, in that very pretence be making long prayers, and it was Saint Basil's observation since that; 
Bas. M. in Luc. 12.8.  〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. I have known some that could fast, and pray, and groan, and be very dextrous at all the guises of a cheap and unexpensive Religion, and yet they have not the heart to give one Farthing to the Poor. There is nothing new under the Sun; the observation both of our Saviour's and this Father's, is as fresh and pertinent (God knows) in the Age we live in as ever.  
But however disproportioned the lives of some Christians are, or have been to their Law of Faith; yet have they no more explicit injunctions in any thing than in this: Our Saviour having not only adopted the Moral Law into his, as he hath summed it up under those two great heads of love to God and love to our Neighbours; 
Matth. 22. 37-39.  but also explained and extended the obligation of that part that concerns our Neighbour, even to the loving our enemies, 
Matth. 5.44.  and doing good to those that have wished or done us hurt. So gentle, so good natured a Religion indeed became him whose errand into the World was to accomplish a charitable work which goes beyond the comprehensions of Angels to indict just praises to.  
To say the truth, this Law of Charity is inseparably indented in humane nature, to which indeed though the whole Christian Law (so far as it concerns our practice) does bear a suitableness and correspondency, yet doth this instance of it seem more immediately connate and agreeable, as in relieving any perplexed and distressed part of humane Nature, we labour in something that is Natural, that is, the preservation of self, which whiles we withdraw from, we are in some measure in that unreasonable confederacy represented in Menenius Agrippa's Apologue, where the rest of the Members would withhold their ministries from the belly till the whole starved.  
And as it is a Law engraven even in humane Nature as so, so let me add, that it is an eternal Law, that is, it hath the eternal and unchangeable reasons of good in it, viz. of doing good where the necessities of an occasion shall offer. It is true indeed, such was not the original frame and disposure of Mankind, but that had it not been for the depravation of humane Nature, this Law of Beneficence might have been superseded for ever. Providence was not unequal in the provisions it made, but as the Sun and the Stars which were always out of the reach of the Ambitious or the Envious, do still diffuse their universal heat and influence, according to their first ordinance and appointment, so would all the riches and products of the Earth and of the Sea have indifferently subserved for the abundant supply of all Mortals, there being enough in the bosom and repository of Nature for every one to have fetched his sufficiencies; but Ambition and Rapine made the Invasion, and since that, Power and cunning hath secured the acquist, Divine Providence having so far interposed for the order and government of the World, as to make the liberality of those who find themselves plentifully possessed, where they diffuse it toward the attempering the extreme wants of others, and the patience and contentedness of those whose boundaries are more narrow and straitened, equally a virtue, and equally wellpleasing in his sight. And this is that now, which makes up the lovely harmony and gives the beauty of agreement in things so widely different and disproportioned; when the poor can in a still and quiet submission both serve and depend upon the Rich, and the Rich do not defeat the expectations of the Poor, but (as the Apostle expresses it, 2 Cor. 8.14.) one Man's abundance supplies another man's wants, and in some measure makes the equality. It was a generous expression of him in Seneca; Ego mea sic habeo ut omnium sint. I do so far possess what I have, that it is every ones else.  
Hence in that oeconomy amongst the Jews, which was so peculiarly of God's immediate dispensing and regulation, we find the thirtieth part of every Man's income (as may be collected from the various tithings allotted for the Poor) was the ultimum quod sic; the very lest of a necessary charity that must be set apart for the relief of the needy, and the observation of that charity run into the account of justice and righteousness; he was not an honest man that would not be punctual and strict in it: he was one of an evil eye (as the Jewish Authors express it) that extended not his bounty to something considerably more. To which purpose (perhaps) we may conjecture the reason why, when our Christian Law insists upon such strict and repeated commands for our charity, it prescribes not stated measures for it; because it would not suppose us bounded by any of the scantlings which former Laws have intimated. But, first, we have infinitely greater examples before us, than had ever yet been propounded to the World; such was the Lord of Life and Glory himself, 
2 Cor. 8.9.  who though he was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through his poverty might be made rich. He emptied himself of all that he was vested in, or had a title to, as to all the riches of his Kingdom above, with all the imaginable grandeurs of this World below, that by this voluntary beggary of his own, we, who had been so helplessly and fatally impoverished, might be not only restored to our original honours, but to an Inheritance with Himself, beyond all degrees what we could have pretended to.  
Such was that other instance of a large and unbounded Charity in the first Christians, who, to show how much this was the Doctrine and Life of the Religion they had engaged in, did quit their own properties so far, 
Acts 4.34, 35.  where they had any, as by equal portions only, to share with the indigent Brotherhood; that (as the Apostle applies the passage of the Israelites gathering Manna in the Wilderness) He that had gathered much, 
2 Cor. 8.15.  had nothing over, and he that had gathered little had no lack.  
And as we have such transcendent examples built upon the Doctrines of Charity in our Law of Faith, so we may suppose ourselves under obligations of larger displays of this virtue, than any other Law had yet directed Men to. Which considerations probably, (besides the exigencies which the Church in its persecuted state must needs conflict with, before it had the Patronage of Kings and Emperors) might fill the Pens of the ancient Writers with such large and importunate Exhortations to Charity; In so much that sometimes they charge such with rapine that convert what they have, beyond mere necessaries, to their own use; and therefore represent the richest Men but such Stewards, who are to make their Accounts to the Poor for all redundancy, beyond what themselves may modestly need; and at other times do Rhetorically bring the Poor upon the Stage, as claiming his propriety in that Silk, or that Gold wherein the gaudy Christian will ruffle it; in those disguised, and various Messes, wherein the humoursome appetite will play the wanton even to a surfeit, as part of which should have clothed his nakedness, and relieved his hunger, and the unjust waist must therefore be accounted for at another Bar. These things, however perhaps too severely spoke, at least not to pass current without the clearing up of some cases, which time will not allow to be at present discussed; yet are in thus much significant, that they teach us what sense the Ancients had of their obligations to Charity from the Laws of Christianity, and that we have indeed no boundaries to its diffusiveness, but only the prudent considerations of our dependencies, that neither ourselves nor they should really suffer, or be impoverished, through our unseasonable liberalities; and yet even as to this we are prevented all needless and unreasonable fears, by the warranty it hath pleased God to give us, both by his Word and Providence.  
2. As there is no duty which is more expressly prescribed by the Christian Law, than this of Charity, so there are no encouragements wanting to excite us to a cheerful performance of it, although we suppose no expiation or atonement for sin, no merit or desert from God by the utmost we can do in it. It is very true, that such are our circumstances with God, through an antecedent guilt that hath made us so obnoxious, that after all we can do, 
Luk. 17.10.  we must needs say we are unprofitable servants. Sin is of that nature, that it makes every action of the man who is embased and depraved by it, to be (in strictest account with God) unlovely and unacceptable; and no future performances can make up for the defects of former, because the utmost of all was due at first: However, if we are not amongst the mere Mercenaries and stipendiaries in Religion, we may find those encouragements to this virtue, which may render all the wheadles of satisfaction or merit needless and insignificant toward the making us conversant and exemplary in it.  
As to this, I would not use the argument of applause and acceptation amongst Men, because this is a qualification in our Charity which our Blessed Lord hath expressly prescribed against; though at the same time he assures us this is an inseparable reward to it. We should not blow the Trumpet before our Alms, to be seen and applauded by Men, though if we should do so, we should hardly miss of that reward. 
Matt. 6.2.  Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. This is an excellency that hath so universal an acceptation amongst Men, that he that hath the most abandoned it himself, either commends, or envies it in another; and the Philosopher spoke smartly enough when he told the Children of his Benefactor, that he stood upon even ground with their Father for all his munificence, because he had given him the credit of it; for all Men spoke well of him for his bounty to Xenocrates.  
But this is a thought unworthy the Christian, and therefore ought not to be urged in this place. However, may I not intimate something of the natural pleasure that always lives and glows in the mind thus employed? As it is hardly separable in the humane Nature, but it must be uneasy and afflicted in whatsoever it seems miserable in its own kind, so there is as immediate a joy and wellpleasedness of mind where we are in the least instrumental in its ease and relief. To make the sad and dejected countenance put on smiles; not only to still his groans, but turn them into laughter, and to change the complaints and murmurs of the Poor reduced Caitiff into Thanksgivings to Providence, good wishes and blessings to ourselves, which perhaps may mingle with our own Prayers (as those of the devout Centurion and prepare a speedier descent of some signal good to us; 
Acts 10.4.  what can be more inwardly delightsome and agreeable to a well tempered mind than this is? There is no good mind that can forbear sharing in another's joys, and interesting itself so far in all the good dews that fall, though they reach not his own fleece, that even the pleasure he conceives in another's happiness, does still derive something of it to himself. It was the Angelical temper, to unite in one transported Choir, and make their Songs give notice to the World how rejoiced they were in the behalf of Man when His Saviour was born: 
Luk. 2.13, 14.  And it is a part of their good natured Heaven still, that they can frame a new joy at the conversion of a sinner. 
Luk. 15.10.  Much more may it reflect a grateful touch upon the mind, when the Man himself hath been the Benefactor. This is a Godlike complacency, when our own full and entire happiness, gives us not that rest and content, but that we must be endeavouring, what in us lies, to make others so: God himself rested not in the perfections of his own bliss, till he had created beings to whom he might communicate, and make them happy in some derivative effluxes of himself: and the Blessed Jesus would fill up that eternity of delight he had in the bosom of his Father, with the pleasure he took in that unspeakable act of Grace, saving Mankind, by interposing himself betwixt the stroke and death. It is an indication of the real joys that attend every act of beneficence, when it hath been so much delight to the ever blessed God himself to be thus doing good. Epicurus who made pleasure his God, yet declared this to be a part of that pleasure, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉, to be doing good; and he that was God himself, that had lain in the bosom of Pleasure from all eternity, left this as one of his Maxims when he taught in the World, which St. Paul quotes from him, either by the help of Tradition or Revelation: 
Acts 20.35.  Remember the words of our Lord Jesus, how he said, It is more blessed to give than to receive.  
I may add (amongst many others) last, the grand encouragement in the Text, that our Lord, the Judge himself will not disdain to own the good that we have done to any other, as if it had been done unto himself. 
Heb. 2.11.  He is not ashamed to own the least of his servants under the name and dignity of his brethren; and to such (whiles we do it with regard to that relation and affinity with him) he tells us elsewhere that a Cup of cold water is registered as a gift that shall be accounted for, 
Matth. 10.42.  when the rewards come to be distributed.  
Oh! wondrous condescension, that the Blessed Jesus should proclaim himself still walking in rags, or shackled in a Dungeon, and that whiles we are feeding the Beggar, we make Christ our Guest! who would not gladly pair off all his superfluities of life, that he might always have ready an entertainment for so great a Personage when he craves an alms? Had Abraham known the quality of his Guests while he invited Angels in, he would not have thought his whole substance a competent entertainment: We have the word of our Lord himself for it, and may be sure we are treating Him, whiles we relieve the real sufferer that craves it in his Name. In as much as ye have done it to one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. What an infinite honour is it to be capable thus of laying up our Treasures in Heaven? to cloth and feed him whose is the Earth with all its fullness? to relieve and visit him whose is Heaven itself with all its Joys and Glories? It might well be esteemed one of the severer parts of the Ecclesiastical censure in the first ages of Christianity, not to suffer some kind of offenders to cast in their charity into the offertory; and so Epiphanius tells us, 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉. We accept of no offerings from unjust or wicked men, but from those that live well. It was too great an honour for such to be permitted to give good Men their alms, or that such whom Christ had so near a relation to, should be beholding to his enemies.  
These Considerations (I say) give Charity and good Works so high an estimate, that if we seriously entertained them, we need not, with the Church of Rome make lies our refuge, or make use of their lewd arguments from merit, or satisfaction, or a quicker dispatch from Purgatory, to animate to well-doing, because there are sufficient encouragements, we might derive from hence, which none but the Infidel or most abandoned Sensualist would account trivial, and not worthy to be governed and persuaded by.  
3. Lastly, There are some fair and plausible appearances of this Charity, which yet really and indeed ought not to be esteemed as so, because they answer not the true purposes and ends of it. We have some instances amongst ourselves against which our Laws have wisely provided; such are our idle wanderers, who, though they may have the Plea of hunger, and cold, and nakedness, to urge and persuade our compassion toward them, yet having hands, and health, and strength, which by their own industry might labour out a supply to themselves, our Laws forbidden the encouragement of such, and that upon the great Apostolical Foundation, 
2 Thess. 2.10.  that if any would not work, neither should they eat. These are not within the kindred of our Blessed Lord: Though he was poor, yet was not he idle and unactive himself, 
Act. 10.38.  but spent his whole life in the labours of love: He went about doing good; and so he expects from all his household of faith.  
Upon which occasion, I might again reflect upon most of the Religious Foundations in the Church of Rome; Perhaps the rise and original of such, might of old have been warrantable enough; whilst the Devotionist in those Societies had the real opportunities of withdrawing from the World, and contemplating the future state; and by severest mortifications and self-denial at home, as also industrious and exemplary instructions abroad might put himself and others into a ready posture for another World: this was to the true purposes and ends of Charity, and whoever by their beneficence begun or encouraged such foundations as these, will be owned by Christ, as having served and supplied Him in those his Brethren. But what shall we say now to those Nurseries either of Scandal or Mischief, into which the Religious-houses abroad are even Universally perverted? where either the luxury and lust of a pampered and well-fed Monk, the wantonness and dalliances of an idle and unwilling Nun, hath been the scoptick theme of witty and observing Men for some Ages. Or else if in other Societies they make not idleness their choice, and pretend not so much to the contemplative, as to the busy and active life; what is the result of this industry, (especially in these last Ages of Jesuitism) but searching into the Councils of Kingdoms, and States, and labouring out a mischievous interest from the intelligence they gain: perplexing and involving the World in Wars and Blood; making the Thrones of Kings either unsafe or uneasy, contriving Subversions of Government, or Hellish Massacres, and all for advancing the Tyranny and Pride of an Apostate Prelate, to whose obedience and interests they have bound and obliged themselves, by Vows as impious as Hell itself could invent. The founding and endowing such confederacies as these, is so far from doing good to the brethren, that it will be found at last a maintenance and support to the enemies of the Holy Jesus; however they may abuse and presume upon that Name of his to distinguish the fraternity.  
But, thanks be to God, it is not so with us in any of our foundations of Charity; it is least of all so, in this, which we at present commemorate.  
Here the Parent is disburdened from the cares and expenses of his Child's education, and hath a moral assurance from the first entry and admission of him here, that he is not only provided for, but likely to act a very useful and serviceable part upon the Stage of this World, either in the Church or in the Commonwealth. And here old age may compose itself, and having disintangled itself from all the bustles and the snares of an active employed life, may be at leisure to look backward, and repent of all the miscarriages of times past, and in doing so, may look forward with a well-grounded hope of closing up the whole in peace and bliss. Oh what a Crown of Joy is it likely to prove to our Founder, at the last great Solemnity, when he shall stand at the head of a numerous happy crowd, who have had the opportunities of living usefully, and dying successfully, through the ministry of that significant charity of his!  
Let me therefore, as an upshot to this discourse, bespeak both the Youth and the Age of this place, that you would in your different spheres and capacities think yourselves more peculiarly obliged by the bounty of this great Man, and kind allotments of Providence in giving you a share in it; to answer the ends and designs of it; the young ones, 
Eccl. 12.1.  in remembering your Creator now in the days of your Youth, improving the advantages you have both for Learning and Piety, that His Memory may live in the fragrant savours of your Lives, and others may be encouraged to multiply such works, when they discern such excellent effects of it in you. 
v. 13.  And you Fathers, the Keepers of whose house do now begin to tremble; The decays of whose age assure you that the flame of life is dwindling and almost spent off; However you may have lived, make it your whole business to die well: Let no pretended cares of life divert you, because the unlaboured liberalities that feed and clothe you now have superseded all; but, as you are in reasons of Nature hastening to the endless state; so take hold of this season of leisure and retirement for making up your last periods in that devotion and seriousness, that when the great Judge shall come to reckon up the good deeds of our mighty Benefactor, yourselves may be amongst the Number he shall point at, when he owns that they were done to these his brethren. Which God of his infinite mercy grant, through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with Himself and Holy Spirit, be given all Praise and Glory for ever. Amen!  
THE END.