A spittle sermon preach'd in St. Brides parish-church, on Wednesday in Easter Week, being the second day of April, 1684. Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and the sheriffs of the now Protestant, and loyal, City of London / By Thomas Pittis, D.D., Rector of S. Botolph.

  • Pittis, Thomas, 1636-1687.
Date:
1684
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: A spittle sermon preach'd in St. Brides parish-church, on Wednesday in Easter Week, being the second day of April, 1684. Before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and the sheriffs of the now Protestant, and loyal, City of London / By Thomas Pittis, D.D., Rector of S. Botolph. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    HWI—I I 1111 I 11II ■b.f 111—■■ iWi - .^.g^.-n.- - ^ww—. . -,-rrm Ill ,.,... .11. ' je£ts implore our relief, For as a profule Pro* digality is frequently force*! ro fhed tears at its own Funeral; So a griping avarice is often an invitation to Birds of Prey that follow the ftreams of a loathlom Carkals; It executes its Mailer by his own aufterity, and then buries it lelf with him, and all that it has done for him, was only to help him buy Mourning for himfelf, that he may be accompanied to his Grave with a larger Pomp, and more fumptuous Solemnity. But he that obferves the due mean betwixt thefe two oppofite extreams, and weighs his Bounty by h is Pofleflions, is not only blefs’d in his life, lamented at his death, and entails fmiles and kindnels on his Pofterity ,• But he conveys to them, together with his ellate, the juft merit of all his Liberality, and the honour and reputation /■his furviving memory. So that now we may eafily perceive the rule according to which our Charity is to be extended, by exercifing Libera¬ lity according to proportion : He that has but a fmaller overplus, may be as bountiful as he that wallows in golden dull, and glitters with Indian fands about him. Seneca that great, and almoft Evangelical, author, in his firft Book de bcneficiisy ch. the eighth, gives us a famous inftance of this: When many of Socrates’s Scholars brought him Prefents in proportion to their Wealth ,• Mfchines r, E 2 • ' one