who suffer; your great riches are only sacred deposits, which his goodness hath entrusted to your care, for security against usurpation and violence, and in order to be more safely preserved for the widow and the orphan; your abundance, in the order of his wisdom, is destined only to supply their necessities; your authority, only to protect them; your dignities only to avenge their interests; your rank only to console them by your good offices: whatsoever you be, you are it only for them; your elevation would no longer be the work of God, and he would have cursed you, in bestowing on you all the riches of the earth, had he given them to you for any other use.
Ah! allege, then, no more to us, as an excuse for your hardheartedness toward your brethren, wants which are condemned by the law of God; rather justify his providence toward all who suffer; by entering into his order, let them know, that there is a God for them as well as for you; and make them bless the adorable designs of his wisdom, in the dispensation of earthly things, which hath supplied them, through your abundance, with such resources of consolation.
But, besides, what can the small contributions required from you retrench from those wants, the urgency of which you tell us so much? The Lord exacteth not from you any part of your possessions and heritages, though they belong wholly to him, and he hath a right to despoil you of them. He leaveth you tranquil possessors of those lands, of those palaces, which distinguish you and your people, and with which the piety of your ancestors formerly enriched our temples. He doth not command you, like the young man in the gospel, to renounce all, to distribute your whole wealth among the poor, and to follow him: he maketh it not a law to you, as formerly to the first believers, to bring all your riches to the feet of your pastors: he doth not strike you with anathema, as formerly Annanias and Sapphira, for daring to retain only a portion of that wealth which they received from their ancestors; — you, who only owe the aggrandizement of your fortunes perhaps to public calamities, or other shameful means of acquirement, he consenteth that, as the prophet saith, you shall call the land by your name, and that you transmit to your posterity those possessions which you have inherited from your ancestors; — he wisheth that you lay apart only a portion for the unfortunate, whom he leaveth in indigence: he wisheth that, while in the luxury and splendour of your apparel you bear the nourishment of a whole people of unfortunate fellow-creatures, you spare wherewith to cover the nakedness of his servants who languish in poverty, and know not where to repose their head; he wisheth that, from those tables of voluptuousness, where your great riches are scarcely sufficient to supply your sensuality and the profusions of an extravagant delicacy, you drop at least a portion for the relief of the Lazaruses pressed with hunger and want: he wisheth that, while paintings of the most absurd and the most boundless price are seen to cover the walls of your palaces, your revenues may suffice to honour the liv-
