"The peculiar nature of our religion," observes Dr. Barrow, [42] "specially requires it, and the honour thereof exacts it from us; nothing better suits Christianity, nothing more graces it, than liberality; nothing is more inconsistent therewith, or more disparageth it, than being miserable and sordid. A Christian niggard is the veriest nonsense that can be; for what is a Christian? What but a man who adores God alone, who loves God above all things, who reposes all his trust and confidence in God? What is he, but one who undertaketh to imitate the most good and bountiful God; to follow, as the best pattern of his practice, the most benign and charitable JESUS, the Son of God; to obey the laws of God and his Christ, the sum and substance of which is charity; half whose religion doth consist in loving his neighbour as himself! What is he further, but one who hath renounced this world, with all the vain pomps and pleasures of it; who professes himself in disposition and affection of mind to forsake all things for Christ's sake; who pretends little to value, affect, or care for any thing under heaven, having all his main concernments and treasures--his heart, his hopes, and his happiness, in another world? Such is a Christian: and what is a niggard? All things quite contrary. One whose practice manifestly shows him another thing besides and before God; to love mammon above God, and more to confide in it than in him; one who bears small goodwill, kindness, or pity towards his brother; who is little affected or concerned with things future or celestial; whose mind and heart are rivetted to this world; whose hopes and happiness are settled here below; whose soul is deeply immersed and buried in earth; one who, according to constant habit, notoriously breaketh the two great heads of Christian duty, '_loving God with all his heart, and his neighbour as himself_. It is, therefore, by comparing those things very plain, that we pretend to reconcile gross contradictions and inconsistences, if we profess ourselves to be Christians and are illiberal. It is indeed the special grace and glory of our religion, that it consisteth not in barren speculations, or empty formalities, or forward professions; not in fancying curiously, or speaking zealously, or looking demurely; but in really producing sensible fruits of goodness, in doing (as St. Paul signifies) _things good and profitable, unto men_."