Kaina kai palaia Things new and old, or, A store-house of similies, sentences, allegories, apophthegms, adagies, apologues, divine, morall, politicall, &c. : with their severall applications / collected and observed from the writings and sayings of the learned in all ages to this present by John Spencer ...

[ 1008] To be charitable Christians, and why so?

IF a man should at his own proper cost and charges,* 1.1 build a fair Bridge, upon some River, in a convenient place thereof, leading the ready way to some City or Market-town; can it be thought amisse, if he should demand a small kind of tribute or pontage, for horse or man, that should passe over, whether it were to keep the Bridge in repair, that so posterity might have the benefit thereof; or for the ac∣knowledgment of so great a benefit, or for the satisfaction of the builder? Surely it could not. Thus, Christ Iesus, our blessed Saviour and Redeemer, hath with

the price his own most precious bloud, built a bridge of mercy to pass over, and is himselfe become a new and living way for all repentant sinners to walk in, there be∣ing no other way,* 1.2 no other bridge for passage into Heaven; It is but just then, that something should be done on our parts, not that he hath any need, but because he looks for it; some tribute, something by way of acknowledgement, something as a Toll-penny for the reliefe of his poor distressed Members, with this assurance, That Eleemosyna, Viaticum in Mundo, thesaurus in Caelo, What we lay out in this world by way of Charity, shall be doubled in the next by way of Retribution.

Notes

• * 1.1

  T. Stapleton Prompt. moral.
• * 1.2

  Dis••e ad singu∣la dona gratias agere. Bern. super Cantic••.