outward, counterfeit, or for some by-respects, so long dissembled, till they have satisfied their own ends, which, upon every small occasion, breaks out into enmity, open war, defiance, heart-burnings, whispering, calumnies, contentions, and all manner of bitter melancholy discontents. And those men which have no other object of their love than greatness, wealth, authority, &c., are rather feared than beloved; nec amant quemquam, nec amantur ab ullo; and howsoever borne with for a time, yet for their tyranny and oppression, griping, covetousness, currish hardness, folly, intemperance, imprudence, and such like vices, they are generally odious, abhorred of all, both God and men.

"Non uxor salvum te vult, non filius, omnes
Vicini oderunt,"

"wife and children, friends, neighbours, all the world forsakes them, would feign be rid of them," and are compelled many times to lay violent hands on them, or else God's judgments overtake them; instead of graces, come furies. So when fair 1 Abigail, a woman of singular wisdom, was acceptable to David, Nabal was churlish and evil-conditioned; and therefore 2 Mordecai was received, when Haman was executed, Haman the favourite, "that had his seat above the other princes, to whom all the king's servants that stood in the gates, bowed their knees and reverenced." Though they flourish many times, such hypocrites, such temporizing foxes, and blear the world's eyes by flattery, bribery, dissembling their natures, or other men's weakness, that cannot so apprehend their tricks, yet in the end they will be discerned, and precipitated, in a moment; "surely," saith David, "thou hast set them in slippery places," Ps. xxxvii. 5, as so many Sejani, they will come down to the Gemonian scales; and as Eusebius in Ammianus, that was in such authority, ad jubendum Imperatorem, be cast down headlong on a sudden. Or put case they escape, and rest unmasked to their lives' end, yet after their death their memory stinks as a snuff of 1 1 Sam. xxv. 3. 2 Esther iii. 2. 3 Amm. Marcellinus, 1. 14.

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a candle put out, and those that durst not so much as mutter against them in their lives, will prosecute their name with satires, libels, and bitter imprecations, they shall malè audire in all succeeding ages, and be odious to the world's end.

MEMB. III.

Charity composed of all three Kinds, Pleasant, Profitable, Honest.

BESIDES this love that comes from profit, pleasant, honest (for one good turn asks another in equity), that which proceeds from the law of nature, or from discipline and philosophy, there is yet another love compounded of all these three, which is charity, and includes piety, dilection, benevolence, friendship, even all those virtuous habits; for love is the circle equant of all other affections, of which Aristotle dilates at large in his Ethics, and is commanded by God, which no man can well perform, but he that is a Christian, and a true regenerate man; this is, 1" To love God above all, and our neighbour as ourself;" for this love is lychnus accendens et accensus, a communicating light, apt to illuminate itself as well as others. All other objects are fair, and very beautiful, I confess; kindred, alliance, friendship, the love that we owe to our country, nature, wealth, pleasure, honour, and such moral respects, &c., of which read 2 copious Aristotle in his morals; a man is beloved of a man, in that he is a man; but all these are far more eminent and great, when they shall proceed from a sanctified spirit, that hath a true touch of religion, and a reference to God. Nature binds all creatures to love their young ones; a hen to preserve her brood will run upon a lion, a hind will fight with a bull, a sow with mundi corruit, si una de rolis turbatur; lex perit divina si una ex his. 28 et 9 libro.

1 Ut mundus duobus polis sustentatur: ita lex Dei, amore Dei et proximi; duobus his fundamentis vincitur; machina

a bear, a silly sheep with a fox. So the same nature urgeth a man to love his parents, (dii me pater omnes oderint, ni te magis quam oculos amem meos!) and this love cannot be dissolved, as Tully holds, 2" without detestable offence;" but much more God's commandment, which enjoins a filial love, and an obedience in this kind. 8" The love of brethren is great, and like an arch of stones, where if one be displaced, all comes down," no love so forcible and strong, honest, to the combination of which, nature, fortune, virtue, happily concur; yet this love comes short of it. 4 Dulce et decorum pro patria mori, it cannot be expressed, what a deal of charity that one name of country contains. Amor laudis et patriæ pro stipendio est; the Decii did se devovere, Horatii, Curii, Scævola, Regulus, Codrus, sacrifice themselves for their country's peace and good.

6" Una dies Fabios ad bellum miserat omnes,

Ad bellum missos perdidit una dies."

"One day the Fabii stoutly warred,
One day the Fabii were destroyed."

Fifty thousand Englishmen lost their lives willingly near
Battle Abbey, in defence of their country. P. Æmilius,
1. 6, speaks of six senators of Calais, that came with halters
in their hands to the king of England, to die for the rest.
This love makes so many writers take such pains, so many
historiographers, physicians, &c., or at least, as they pretend,
for common safety, and their country's benefit. 8 Sanctum
nomen amicitiæ, sociorum communio sacra; friendship is a
holy name, and a sacred communion of friends.
9" As the
sun is in the firmament, so is friendship in the world," a most
divine and heavenly band. As nuptial love makes, this per-
fects mankind, and is to be preferred (if you will stand to

1 Ter. Adelph. 4, 5. 2 De Amicit. 3 Charitas parentum dilui nisi detestabili scelere non potest, lapidum fornicibus simillima, casura, nisi se invicem sustentaret. Seneca. 4. It is sweet to die for one's country." 5 Dii immortales,

dici non potest quantum charitatis nomen illud habet. 6 Ovid. Fast. 7 Anno 1347. Jacob Mayer. Annal. Fland. lib. 12. 8 Tully. 9 Lucianus, Toxari. Amicitia ut sol in mundo, &c.

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the judgment of 1 Cornelius Nepos) before affinity or consanguinity; plus in amicitiâ valet similitudo morum quam affinitas, &c., the cords of love bind faster than any other wreath whatsoever. Take this away, and take all pleasure, joy, comfort, happiness, and true content out of the world; 'tis the greatest tie, the surest indenture, strongest band, and, as our modern Maro decides it, is much to be preferred before the rest.

2" Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem,

When all three kinds of love together meet;
And do dispart the heart with power extreme,
Whether shall weigh the balance down; to wit,
The dear affection unto kindred sweet,

Or raging fire of love to women kind,

Or zeal of friends, combin'd by virtues meet;
But of them all the band of virtuous mind,
Methinks the gentle heart should most assured bind.

"For natural affection soon doth cease,

And quenched is with Cupid's greater flame;
But faithful friendship doth them both suppress,
And them with mastering discipline doth tame,
Through thoughts aspiring to eternal fame.
For as the soul doth rule the earthly mass,

And all the service of the body frame,

So love of soul doth love of body pass,

No less than perfect gold surmounts the meanest brass."

8 A faithful friend is better than gold, a medicine of misery, 5 an only possession; yet this love of friends, nuptial, heroical, profitable, pleasant, honest, all three loves put together, are little worth, if they proceed not from a true Christian illuminated soul, if it be not done in ordine ad Deum, for God's sake. 66 Though I had the gift of prophecy, spake with tongues of men and angels, though I feed the poor with all my goods, give my body to be burned, and have not this love, it profiteth me nothing," 1 Cor. xiii. 1, 3, 'tis splendidum peccatum, without charity. This is an all-apprehending love, a deifying love, a refined, pure, divine love, the quintessence 1 Vit. Pompon Attici. 2 Spenser, numisma. 5 Xenophon, verus amicus Faerie Queene, lib. 5, cant. 9, staff. 1, 2. præstantissima possessio. 3 Siracides. 4 Plutarch, preciosum

of all love, the true philosopher's stone, Non potest enim, as 1 Austin infers, veraciter amicus esse hominis, nisi fuerit ipsius primitus veritatis, He is no true friend that loves not God's truth. And therefore this is true love indeed, the cause of all good to mortal men, that reconciles all creatures, and glues them together in perpetual amity and firm league; and can no more abide bitterness, hate, malice, than fair and foul weather, light and darkness, sterility and plenty may be together; as the sun in the firmament (I say), so is love in the world; and for this cause, 'tis love without an addition, love, love of God, and love of men. 2 "The love of God begets the love of man; and by this love of our neighbour, the love of God is nourished and increased." By this happy union of love, "all well governed families and cities are combined, the heavens annexed, and divine souls complicated, the world itself composed, and all that is in it conjoined in God, and reduced to one. 4 This love causeth true and absolute virtues, the life, spirit, and root of every virtuous action, it finisheth prosperity, easeth adversity, corrects all natural incumbrances, inconveniences, sustained by faith and hope, which with this our love make an indissoluble twist, a Gordian knot, an equilateral triangle, and yet the greatest of them is love,” 1 Cor. xiii. 13, 5" which inflames our souls with a divine heat, and being so inflamed, purged, and so purgeth, elevates to God, makes an atonement, and reconciles us unto him." 6 That other love infects the soul of man, this cleanseth; that depresses, this rears; that causeth cares and troubles, this quietness of mind; this informs, that deforms our life; that leads to repentance, this to heaven." For if once we be truly linked and touched with this charity, we shall love God above all, our neighbour as ourself, as we are enjoined, Mark xii.

1 Epist. 52. 2 Greg. Per amorem Dei, proximi gignitur; et per hunc amorem proximi, Dei nutritur. 3 Picolomineus, grad. 7, cap. 27, hoc felici amoris nodo ligantur familiæ, civitates, &c. 4 Veras absolutas hæc parit virtutes, radix omnium virtutum, mens et spiritus.

5 Divino calore animos incendit, incensos purgat, purgatos elevat ad Deum, Deum placat, hominem Deo conciliat. Bernard. Ille inficit, hic perficit; ille deprimit, hic elevat; hic tranquillitatem, ille curas parit: hic vitam rectè informat, ille deformat, &c.