The beatitudes

Use 3 Use 3 I Proceed next to the Exhortation, to beseech all Christians to put on bowels of mercies,¹ be ready to indulge the miseries and necessities of others, Saint Ambrose calls charity the sum of Christianity; and the Apostle makes it the very definition of Religion, James 1. ult. Pure Religion, and undefiled before God, and the Father, is this, to visit the fatherless and the widows in their affliction. The Hebrew word for poor [Greek or Hebrew] seu, [Greek or Hebrew] signifies one that is empty, or drawn dry^*. So the ⟨p. 207⟩poor are exhausted of their strength, beauty, substance, like Ponds they are dried up; therefore let them be filled again with the silver streams of Charity. The poor are tanquam in Sepulchro, as it were in the Grave, the comfort of their life is buried; Oh Christians, help with your merciful hands to raise them out of the Sepulchre: God sendeth his springs into the valleys, Psal. 104.10. Let the springs of your liberality run among the valleys of poverty; your sweetest and most benign influences should fall upon the lower grounds: What is all your seeming devotion without bounty and mercifulness? I have known many saith Basil, pray and fast, but relieve not such as are in distress; they are for a zeal that will put them to no charges^*: What are they the better (saith he) for all their seeming virtue? we read the incense was to be laid upon the fire, Lev. 16.13. The flame of Devotion must be perfumed with the incense of Charity. Aaron was to have a Bell and a Pomegranate; the Pomegranate, as some of the Learned observe, was a Symbol of good works. They want the Pomegranate (saith Gregory Nazianzene) who have no good works. The wise men did not only bow the knee to Christ, but present him with gold, myrrh, and frankincense, Matth. 2.11. Pretences of zeal are insufficient; we must not only worship Christ, but bestow something upon his members; this is to present Christ with gold and frankincense. Isaac would not bless Jacob by the voice, but he feels and handles him, and supposing them to be Esau's hands, he blessed him. God will not bless men by their voice, their loud prayers, their devout discourses; but if he feel Esau's hands, if their hands have wrought good works, then he blesseth them.