Blessed is he that confidereth the Poor 245 Preached before the Lord Mayor, &c. at St. Bride's, on Eafter Tuesday, April And behold they brought to him a man fick of the palfy, lying on a bed; and Jefus, feeing their faith, faid unto the fick of Preached before the University of Oxford, at St. Mary's, May 29, 1760. DISCOURSE XVI. The Woman taken in Adultery. JOHN viii. 7. He that is without fin among you, let him firft caft a ftone at her DISCOURSE XVII. On the Purification. LUKE ii. 22. 347 And when the days of her purification, according to the Law of Mofes, were accomplished, they brought him to Jerusalem, to prefent him to the Lord 367 DISCOURSE I. THE DUTY OF TAKING NO THOUGHT JOTHE MATTHEW VI. 34. Take therefore no thought for the morrow; for the morrow fhall take thought for the things of itJelf; fufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. WH * I. HAT? Take no thought, no DISC. thought at all for the morrow? Attend only to the day that is paffing over us, and make no provifion for the future? Are we not to look forward; to suppose a continuation of life, and a want of the means which are neceffary to fupport it? Should we fit ftill, with our arms folded, and expect that Providence will fupply us with thofe means, without ufing our own VOL. III. DISC. endeavours? Is not the hufbandman, when I. he has reaped one harveft, to fow his feed. for another? Moft undoubtedly he is. The Scriptures fuppofe all men to have some occupation, and to be labouring in it, that the state of the world may be upholden. They tell us, in the Old Teftament, that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich;" and in the New, that "if any man will not "work, neither fhould he eat." In the former, man is fent to learn wisdom of "the "ant, which provideth her meat in the "fummer, and gathereth her food in the "harvest," with a view to the approaching winter; in the latter we read, that "the parents should lay up for the children." In a word, no one thing is more feverely condemned and expofed, than the folly of the fluggard, who has the prefumption to tempt God, by imagining, that all the bleffings of heaven will defcend on the head of idleness, and that meat will drop into his mouth, if he does but condefcend to open it.-How -How are these very to be reconciled? different directions The |