A sermon preach'd before in the Lord-Mayor and Court of Aldermen [and governors of the several hospitals], on ... April 23, 1728 / [Roger Altham].

Roger Altham

Date:: 1728

Credit: A sermon preach'd before in the Lord-Mayor and Court of Aldermen [and governors of the several hospitals], on ... April 23, 1728 / [Roger Altham]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

18/24 page 18

$r L 18 ] Command is given (r); If thy brother be waxen poor, and fallen into decay with thee j then thou jhaft relieve him: yea though he be a fir anger or a fojourner-y that he may live with thee. They are told alfo, that the Poor fhall never ceafe out of their Land. Therefore I command thee Jayingy thou fh a It open thine hand wide unto thy brother, to thy poor, and to thy needy in thy land '(f). The Duty being thus fix'd both upon the Prin¬ ciple of Nature, and rhe pofitive Law of God, fo that it is of that kind, that is was not to ceafe with the inftituted ceremonial Law of the Jews; Our Saviour fuppofing the Obligation to it, to be fufficicntly underftood by Mankind, in his Com¬ mands concerning it, dire&s us only to thehoneft and fin cere Pradice of it; Fo r thus we find his Law ftands in his Sermon upon the Mount. When thou doeft thine alms, do‘ not found a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do; but when thou doeft alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth, that thine alms may be in fecret and thy Father which~ feeth in fecret, himfelf fhall reward thee open¬ ly (t).. And yet we have in other places of the New Teftament, even the Obligation to the Duty i tie If fufficicntly Let forth to us; Thus St. Lute tells us [u)? Give aims of fuch things~as you have. And again {w), Sell what you have and give aims, provide yourfeIves bagges which wax not old, a treafure in the .heavens which- faileth- not. And Stv 3?aul admonjfhes (xjy To do good, (r) Levit. xxv. 35. (u) Luke xi,.4iv - ■_ VMi (/) Deut. xv. 11. (vj) Hid. xii. 33. (/) Mat. vi.2. (x) Heb. xi. 16.$