So that, whether we consider our fortune as a trust from God, or the _great good_ it enables us to do, or the great harm that it does to ourselves, if idly spent; on all these accounts it is absolutely necessary to make reason and religion the strict rule of using all our fortune. 15. Every exhortation in scripture to satisfy only such wants as God would have satisfied; every exhortation to be spiritual and heavenly, pressing after a glorious change of our nature; every exhortation to love our neighbours as ourselves, is a command to be _strictly religious_ in the use of our money. This use of our worldly goods, is so much the doctrine of the New Testament, that you cannot read a chapter without being taught something of it. I shall only produce one passage of scripture, which is sufficient to justify all that I have said. _When the Son of Man shall come in his glory, and all his holy angels with him, then he shall sit upon the throne of his glory. And before him shall be gathered all nations; and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth the sheep from the goats; and he shall set the sheep on his right-hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right-hand, Come ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry, and ye gave me meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked and ye cloathed me: I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came unto me. Then shall he say unto them on the left-hand, Depart from me ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry, and ye gave me no meat; I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me not in; naked, and ye cloathed me not; sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not. These shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous into life eternal._ 16. I have quoted this passage at length, because if one looks at the way of the world, one would hardly think Christians had ever read this scripture. Some people look upon this text only as a general recommendation of _occasional_ works of _charity_; whereas it shews the necessity, not only of occasional charities, but of such an _entire charitable life_, as is a continual exercise of all such works of charity as we are able to perform.