we are fure, will never be wanting, to perfect any work, that is begun for the honour, advantage, and fecurity of the church of England. Scarce any but a royal heart was capable of entertaining fo large a defign; as none but royal hands were, in a degree, equal to the execution of it.

The benefaction is, indeed, worthy of her, from whom it fprung; and carries in it marks of a wisdom, as extenfive as her goodness For it is not confined, tho' given, to those who minifter in holy things; the happy fruits, and effects of it will, through this channel, be conveyed to all ranks and orders of men among us. All will share in that munificence, which redounds to the fervice of religion, the common inheritance and bleffing of all; and which gives life and weight to the inftructions of those, who, as meanly as they may be thought of on other accounts, are vet "the ambaffadors of Christ, and stewards of "the myfteries of God."

An unenvied bounty, therefore, it needs must be; a good, which cannot decently be evil spoken of, even by fuch (if there be any fuch) who with not well either to the objects or the bestower of it.

Great and groundlefs reproaches have, in other refpects, been caft on our church, as if there were still fome remains of Popery in it. Poor vicarages are really fuch; which took their rife from the pretended vicar of Chrift, who endowed Abbies, and Monafteries, oftentimes, with the fpoils of church-livings, for the fupport and maintenance of his fpiritual tyranny. Twas the great blemish of our reformation, that when religious houfes were fuppreffed, fome part at leaft

of

of their revenue was not reftored to its original ufe. But the defects of that time were, we truft, referved to be fupplied by her majefty; and the goodly frame of our conftitution is to be perfected, as it was modelled, by the hand of a woman.

A prince, lefs folicitous for the good of religi on, tho' intent on fuch a work, would yet have deferred it, till the expenfive war, wherein we are engaged, was brought to a clofe. But the compaffion and godly zeal of our gracious fovereign would not be checked by this confideration: The love of doing good overcame all the difficulties, which lay in the way towards doing it. She thought, that to confecrate one part of her revenue to fo pious an ufe, would draw a bleffing on the management of all the other branches of it; That the crufe of oil would not fail ever the fooner, for bestowing a portion of it on a prophet, or any of the fons of the prophets; That the earneft prayers of thofe, whom the thus relieved, would be as ferviceable to her in this war, as the income itself; and that her charity would, in the expreffions of the fon of Sirach, Ecclus xxxix. 19. "Fight for her against her enemies better than a "mighty fpear and a strong fhield."

And, furely, the unanimous and early dispatch. of the fupplies, the prefent height of public credit, and the eagernefs with which all her fubjects prefs to fill her coffers with their loans, are not figns, that he hath by an act of mifapplied bounty hitherto loft ground either in the favour of heaven, or in the affection and efteem of her people.

May that God, whom the thus ferves, and imitates, extend her life and reign beyond the

ordinary

ordinary term af either; and crown every year of them with new inftances of his goodness to her, and to thefe kingdoms.!

Now, unto the King eternal, imortal, invisible, the only wife God, be hanour, and glory, for ever and ever ! Amen.

A

MON

SERM

Preached before the Her

MA JE S TÝ

A T

St. JAMES's Chapel,

On Sunday, Nov. 5, 1704.

The Rule of Doing as we would be done unto, explained.

MATTH. vii. 12.

things, whatever ye would that men bould do unto you, do ye even fo to them; for this is the law and the prophets.

OHE Sentence I have read unto you, is very fitly placed towards the clofe of our Savi our's admirable fermon on the mount, as being, in great measure, the epitome and fum of what the Divine Preacher had there expreffed more at large. Nor it is lefs fitly ordered to be receited at the holy table, in the most folemn part of the

fervice

fervice of this day; on which we met annually to commemorate our deliverance from the attempts of those bloody and merciless men, who feem to have out-done all their predeceffors and fucceffors in wickedness by a notorious contempt of this great evangelical rule, and of all the principles of common humanity. The practice of thofe confpirators was the perfect reverse of this precept; and we cannot, therefore, better be taught or incited to deteft the ore, than by a due illuftration and enforcement of the other.

This I fhall attempt, by offering to your thoughts fome confiderations, first, on the rule here laid down ; All things, whatsoever ye would that men should do unto you, do ye even fo to them and then on the fhort, but full encomium, bestowed upon it, that it is the law and the prophets: Which fhall be followed by fome inferences naturally arifing from the whole; and the general reflexions advanced (tho' they may all along easily be understood to refer, yet) fhall afterwards be particularly applied to the fubject of this day's folemnity.

As to the rule itself, we may diftinctly confider the juft extent and bounds of it, the reafon of its preferableness to all other rules, in point of evidence and conviction, the manifeft equity and exactness, the peculiar properties and advantages

of it.

All things whatfoever ye would that men fould do unto you, do ye even fo to them! Words of great force and energy and yet the moft fimple, plain, and perfpicuous that can be! And which therefore commentators do (as they too often do) obscure and perplex, by a pretence of explaining.

The