good nature, nay that Vanity and Oftentation should spur Men on to bounty and liberality; I would rather the most excellent Works fhould be owing to the very worst of Principles, even to Ambition and Faction, than the needy and the miferable fhould be abandoned; but yet I cannot be of the Opinion of fome St. Austin takes notice of, who thought their Alms might protect their fins, and their Charity towards Man thelter their impiety towards God, even though they perfifted in it. I know very well that Charity without Devotion, is like bounty without charity, of which St. Paul lays, 1 Cor. 13. 3. Though I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor, and have not Charity, it profiteth me nothing.

This was another reason why I have faid fo much of Devotion, It was out of a Zeal I had, that no Man's Charity might ever lose its reward; that no Man's Alms might prove as fruitless to him, as that Wealth and Treasure which foolish Indians bestow upon the Dead, and bury in their Graves, but that your Charity may be fuch as that of Cornelius, whofe memorial may go up before God, and procure you Angels for your attendants, and Heaven for your reward.

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This is that I am now to speak to. 2dly, The second part of Cornelius his Character is Charity, Thine Alms: And here 'tis obfervable, that as Devotion fo Charity too was at its height in him, as it is faid of him, that he prayed always, fo is it faid of him too, That he gave much Alms; much not only with respect to his rank and fortune, or with respect to his Religion, being at most but a Profelyte of the Gates, but much even confidered in it felf, for it is faid he gave much Alms to the People, which must imply an enlarged generous bounty; to give Alms might have argued a Senfe of Religion, but to give much, zeal and fervency; to give Alms might have argued in him Humanity and the Tenderness of Nature; but to give much Alms a heavenly Difpofition and greatnefs of Mind, made fo by Faith: Something he might have done for Reputation, fomething out of compliance and decency, but to give much Alms in a Perfon of his circumftances was an unquestionable proof of Sincerity and Perfection too: I will not go about to compare this Roman with Abraham the Friend of God, or David the Man after God's own Heart, leaft you fhould think

him raised above your Imitation, and fo I fhould beget in you not a Defire but a Despair of equalling him: No, I will chufe rather to confider. ft. By what Grace. 2dly, By what Principles he was moved and acted, that the fame or a higher may move you, or leave you inexcufable: 1ft. If we enquire after the Grace vouchfafed Cornelius, [ doubt not to affirm that he was affifted by the Holy Spirit. For though he were a Gentile in the Flesh, and uncircumcifed, and in that respect, though not in regard to his Works, an Alien from the Common-wealth of Ifrael, and a Stranger from the Covenants of Promife, yet was he not without God, nor without Hope in the World: God is the God of the Gentile as well as of the Jew, and St. Paul has taught us : Rom. 2. 28, 29. That a Conformity to the Law of Nature, that is; of right Reafon, was that which did render the Gentile a few inwardly, and did conftitute that circumcifion, which is of the Heart in the Spirit, and not in the Letter, whofe praife is not of Men but of God: And fince we know that the Holy Spirit is the Spring and Source of Sanctification, I dare not derive it in Cornelius from any other

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Principle; but must attribute his Devotion and Charity to the fame Spirit, to which I would that of Abraham before Circumcifion, or that of Job who was no lefs a Stranger than Cornelius from the Jewish Covenant; What needs farther Arguments, has not God himself told us that he had fanctified him: V. 15. What God hath cleanfed that call not thou common. But I am more follicitous in this Matter than my defign requires, for if we fhould fuppofe Cornelius to have been acted by no Supernatural principle; then what a fhame and scandal will it be to us, if Christianity cannot carry us as far as Paganism did him, if the concurring and co-operating Grace of God, cannot raise our Charity to that pitch which Reafon did his? But if univería! Grace were the Principle and Origin of thefe Vertues in Cornelius, then can we have no excule for any degrees of Uncharitableness; for this feems as general and as ready a one as Reason, and no Man forfeits the one but by abufing and violating the other: But if indeed we think the Vertue of this Centurion owing to special Grace, and that working in luch a manner, that he that has it, can never fall short, and he that

wants it never come up to his Vertue: This I confefs, would furnish any Man with an excuse for Impiety and Inhumanity; but because it would do fo, this must be an erroneous and false Opinion but finally let the Grace that moved Cornelius be what it will, we have, or we may have the fame, or a much greater; for we are within that Covenant which contains the Dispensation of the Riches of the Divine Grace; and 'tis one of the great and precious Promises of the Gospel, If we ask we shall receive, if we feek we shall find, if we knock it shall be opened to us, that is, as appears from the Verfe following, we fhall have the Holy Spirit given us.

Our next Inquiry muft be what the Principles were, which infpired Cornelius with fuch a boundless Charity, and here I find many. For the Gentiles fometimes lookt upon Charity as an Office of Humanity, and thought him a Stranger to Human Nature, and an Enemy to Human Society, whofe breaft was not touch'd with Tenderness and Compaffion for the Miseries and Diftreffes of those who were partakers of the fame Nature, and Members of the fame Body politick,. fometimes they lookt upon it as fome