He their messengers again to demonstrate their innocency, how they were not Saracens, but Jews, which put Christ to death, and therefore that the Christians (if posterity should be punished for their predecessors' fault) should rather revenge themselves on the Jews which lived amongst them. Another relateth, that in the year of our Lord 1453, the great Turk sent a letter to the Pope, advertising him how he and his Turkish nation were not descended from the Jews, but from the Trojans, from whom also the Italians derive their pedigree, and so would prove himself akin to his Holiness. Moreover, he added, that it was both his and their duty to repair the ruins of Troy, and to revenge the death of their great-grandfather Hector, upon the Grecians; to which end, the Turk said he had already conquered a great part of Greece. As for Christ, he acknowledged him to have been a noble Prophet, and to have been crucified of the Jews, against whom the Christians might seek their remedy. These two stories I thought good to insert, because though of later date, and since the holy war in Palestine was ended, yet they have some reference thereunto, because some make that our quarrel to the Turks. But grant the Christians' right to the Turks' lands to be lawful, and the cause in itself enough deserving to ground a war upon, yet in the prosecution and managing thereof, many not only venial errors but inexcusable faults were committed; no doubt, the cause of the ill success. To omit the book called the Office of our Lady, made at the beginning of this war to procure her favourable assistance in it (a little manual, but full of blasphemies, in folio, thrusting her with importunate superstitions into God's throne, and forcing on her the glory of her Maker); superstition not only tainted the rind, but rotted the core of this whole action. Indeed, most of the pottage of that age tasted of that wild gourd. Yet far be it from us to condemn all their works to be dross, because debased and alloyed with superstitious intents. No doubt there was a mixture of much good metal in them, which God the good refiner knoweth how to sever, and then will crown and reward. But here we must distinguish betwixt those deeds which have some superstition in them, and those which in their nature are wholly superstitious, such as this voyage of people to Palestine was. what opinion had they of themselves herein, who thought that by dying in this war, they did make Christ amends for his death, as one saith, which if but a rhetorical flourish, yet doth hyperbolise into blasphemy. Yea, it was their very judgment, that hereby they did both merit and superero For Thomas Fuller, born at Aldwincle, Northamptonshire, in 1608, and educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, was first known in the Church as a popular preacher in his University town, and then became rector of Broad Winsor, in Dorsetshire. began his career in literature with a poem in three Darts upon "David's Heinous Sin, Hearty Repentance, and Heavy Punishment," and in 1640 he wrote an account of the Crusades as "A History of the Holy War," from which this is a passage, illustrating gate; and by dying for the Cross, cross the score of their The change of opinion time had wrought touching Let us CRUSADES AND PILGRIMAGES TO JERUSALEM. Three things are necessary to make an invasive war lawal: the lawfulness of the jurisdiction, the merit of the cause, nd the orderly and lawful prosecution of the cause. oply to our present purpose in this Holy War: for the first vo, whether the jurisdiction the Christians pretended over e Turks' dominions was lawful or not; and, whether this ar was not only opera, but vitæ pretium, worth the losing so any lives, we refer the reader to what hath been said in e first book. Only it will not be amiss to add a story or o out of an author of good account. When Charles the xth was King of France, the Duke of Brabant sailed over to Africa with a great army, there to fight against the racens. The Saracen Prince sent an herald to know of n the cause of his coming: the Duke answered, it was to enge the death of Christ the Son of God, and true Prophet, om they had unjustly crucified. The Saracens sent back own sins, and score up God for their debtor. But this flieth high, and therefore we leave it for others to follow. Let us look upon pilgrimages in general, and we shall find pilgrims wandering not so far from their own country as from the judgment of the ancient fathers. 66 We will leave our army at home, and only bring forth our champion. Hear what Gregory Nyssene saith, who lived in the fourth century, in which time voluntary pilgrimages first began; though before there were necessary pilgrims, forced to wander from their country by persecution. 'Where," saith he, "our Lord pronounceth men blessed, he reckoneth not going to Jerusalem to be amongst those good deeds which direct to happiness." And afterwards, speaking of the going of single women in those long travels: "A woman," saith he, "cannot go such long journeys without a man to conduct her; and then whatsoever we may suppose, whether she hireth a stranger or hath a friend to wait on her, on neither side can she escape reproof, and keep the law of continency." Moreover, "If there were more divine grace in the places of Jerusalem, sin would not be so frequent and customary amongst those that lived there. Now there is no kind of uncleanness which there they dare not commit; malice, adultery, thefts, idolatry, poisonings, envies, and slaughters. But you will say unto me, If it be not worth the pains, why then did you go to Jerusalem? Let them hear, therefore, how I defend myself. I was appointed to go into Arabia to an holy council, held for the reforming of that Church; and Arabia being near to Jerusalem, I promised those that went with me, that I would go to Jerusalem to discourse with them which were presidents of the churches there; where matters were in a very troubled state, and they wanted one to be a mediator in their discords. We knew that Christ was a man born of a virgin, before we saw Bethlehem; we believed his resurrection from death, before we saw his sepulchre; we confessed his ascension into heaven, before we saw Mount Olivet. But we got so much profit by our journey, that by comparing them, we found our own more holy than those outward things. Wherefore you that fear God, praise him in what place you are. Change of place maketh not God nearer unto us; wheresoever thou art, God will come to thee, if the inn of thy soul be found such as the Lord may dwell and walk in thee," &c. A patron of pilgrimages not able to void the blow, yet willing to break the stroke of so pregnant and plain a testimony, thus seeketh to ward it: that indeed, pilgrimages are unfitting for women, yet fitting for men. But sure God never appointed such means to heighten devotion necessary thereunto, whereof the half of mankind, all women, are by their very creation made incapable. Secondly, he pleadeth, that it is lawful for secular and laymen to go on pilgrimages, but not for friars, who lived recluse in their cells, out of which they were not to come; and against such, saith he, is Nyssen's speech directed. But then, I pray, what was Peter, the leader of this long dance, but an hermit? and, if I mistake not, his profession was the very dungeon of the monastical prison, the strictest and severest of all other orders. And though there were not so many cowls as helmets in this war, yet always was the holy army well stocked with such cattle; so that on all sides it is confessed that the pilgrimages of such persons were utterly unlawful. Soon after the publication of this book, Fuller became lecturer to the Savoy Church in the Strand, where he was so popular a preacher that he is said to have had two audiences-one outside the church, and one in. Thomas Fuller was active on the king's side in the Civil War; he was presented to the living of Waltham, in 1648; in 1654, married a second wife-twelve or thirteen years after his first wife's death; and if he had not died of fever soon after the Restoration, he would have been made a bishop. Of his books, which are all ingenious and lively in their style, the most important are "The Church History of Britain, from the Birth of Jesus Christ until the year 1648," first published in 1655, and "The History of the Worthies of England," first published in the year after his death. John Howe, born in 1630, was the son of a clergyman. His father was persecuted in the reign of Charles I. for Puritan tendencies. John Howe went to Cambridge in 1647, and entered Milton's College Christ's-as a sizar. In 1652, aged twentytwo, he was the Rev. John Howe, M.A., minister at Great Torrington, in Devonshire. His parish is set on a hill-top, in beautiful Devonshire scenery, the hills surrounding it in such a way as to have suggested a comparison with the site of Jerusalem. There he preached and prayed on special fast-days, with his people, from nine in the morning until four in the evening, taking only a quarter of an hour's rest. In 1654 he married a minister's daughter, and two years later, at the age of twenty-six, being in London, he went to Whitehall Chapel to see Cromwell. The The blessed apostle St. John only endeavours the strengthening of these two vital principles, faith in Christ and love to fellow-Christians, as may be seen at large in his epistles. These he presses, as the great commandments; upon the observation whereof he seems to account the safety and peace of the sincere did entirely depend. "This is his commandment, That we should believe on the name of his Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, as he gave us commandment," 1 Epistle iii. 23. He puts upon Christians no other distinguishing test, but "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ, is born of God: and every one that loveth him. that begat, loveth him also that is begotten of him" (chap. v. 1): is only solicitous that they did practise the commandment they had from the beginning-i.e. that they loved one another (2 Epist. verse 5), and that they did abide in the doctrine of Christ (verse 9). The prudence and piety of those unerring guides of the Church (themselves under the certain guidance of the Spirit of truth), directed them to bring the things wherein they would have Christians unite, within as narrow a compass as was possible, neither multiplying articles of faith nor rites of worship. These two principles, as they were thought to answer the apostles, would fully answer our design and present enquiry. And we may adventure to say of them that they are both sufficient and necessary; the apt and the only means to heal and save us; such as would effect our cure, and without which nothing will. Nor shall I give other answer to the proposed questionthan what may be deduced from these two, considered according to what they are in themselves and what they naturally lead and tend unto. I shall consider them in the order wherein the Apostle here mentions them, who, you see, reserves the more important of them to the latter place. The sincere love of Christians to one another would be a happy means of preserving the truly Christian interest among us. That this may be understood, we must rightly apprehend what kind of love it is that is here meant. It is specified by what we find in conjunction with it, the understanding and acknowledgment of the mystery of Christianity. Therefore it must be the love of Christians to one another as such. Whence we collect, lest we too much extend the object of it on the one hand or contract it on the other, 1. That it is not the love only which we owe to one another as men, or human creatures merely, that is intended here. That were too much to enlarge it, as to our present consideration of it. For under that common notion, we should be as much obliged to love the enemies we are to unite against as the friends of religion we are to unite with, since all partake equally in human nature. It must be a more special love that shall have the desired influence in the present case. We cannot be peculiarly endeared and united to some more than to others upon a reason that is common to them with others. We are to love them that are born of God, and are his children, otherwise than the children of men, or such of whom it may be said they are of their father the devil; them that appear to have been partakers of a divine nature at another rate, than them who have received a mere human, or also the diabolical nature, 1 John v. 1. Yet this peculiar love is not to be exclusive of the other which is common, but must suppose it and be superadded to it, as the reason of it is superadded. For Christianity supposes humanity; and divine grace, human nature. 2. Nor is it a love to Christians of this or that party or denomination only. That were as much unduly to straiten and confine it. The love that is owing to Christians as such, as it belongs to them only, so it belongs to them who in profession and practice do own sincere and incorrupt Christianity. To limit our Christian love to a party of Christians, truly so called, is so far from serving the purpose now to be aimed at that it resists and defeats it; and instead of a preservative union infers most destructive divisions. It scatters what it should collect and gather. 'Tis to love factiously; and with an unjust love that refuses to give indifferently to every one his due: for is there no love due to a disciple of Christ in the name of a disciple? It is founded in falsehood, and a lie denies them to be of the Christian community who really are so. It presumes to remove the ancient land-marks, not civil but sacred, and draws on, not the people's curse only, but that of God himself. "Tis true (and who doubts it) that I may and ought upon special reasons to love some more than others; as relation, acquaintance, obligation by favours received from them, more eminent degrees of true worth, and real goodness: but that signifies nothing to the withholding of that love which is due to a Christian as such, as that also ought not to prejudice the love I owe to a man, as he is a man. Nor am I so promiscuously to distribute this holy love as to place it at random upon every one that thinks it convenient for him to call himself a Christian, though I ought to love the very profession, while I know not who sincerely make it, and do plainly see that Jews and Pagans were never worse enemies to Christ and his religion than a great part of the Christian world. But let my apprehensions be once set right concerning the true essentials of Christianity, whether consisting in doctrinal or vital principles; then will my love be duly carried to all in whom they are found under one common notion, which I come actually to apply to this or that person as particular occasions do occur, and so I shall always be in a preparation of mind, actually to unite in Christian love with every such person, whensoever such occasions do invite me to it. And do we now need to be told what such an impartial truly Christian love would do to our common preservation, and to prevent the ruin of the Christian interest? 1. How greatly would it contribute to the vigour of the Christian life! For so we should all equally "hold the head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God;" as afterwards in this chapter (Coloss. ii. 19). Thus (as it is in that other parallel text of Scripture) "speaking the truth in love, we shall grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ; from whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love," Eph. iv. 15, 16. Obstructions that hinder the free circulation of blood and spirits, do not more certainly infer languishings in the natural body, than the want of such a diffusive love shuts up and shrivels the destitute parts and hinders the diffusion of a nutritive vital influence in the body of Christ. 2. It would inspire Christians generally with a sacred courage and fortitude, when they should know and even feel themselves knit together in love. How doth the revolt of any considerable part of an army discourage the rest! or if they be not entire and of a piece! Mutual love animates them, as nothing more, when they are prepared to live and die together, and love hath before joined whom now their common danger also joins. They otherwise signify but as so many single persons, each one but caring and contriving how to shift for himself. Love makes them significant to one another, so as that every one understands himself to be the common care of all the rest. It makes Christians the more resolute in their adherence to truth and goodness when, from their not doubted love, they are sure of the help, the counsels, and prayers of the Christian community, and apprehend by their declining they shall grieve those whom they love, and who they know love them. If any imagine themselves intended to be given up as sacrifices to the rage of the common enemy, their hearts are the apter to sink, they are most exposed to temptations to prevaricate; and the rest will be apt to expect the like usage from them, if themselves be reduced to the like exigency and be liable to the same temptations. 3. It would certainly, in our present case, extinguish or abate the so contrary unhallowed fire of our anger and wrath towards one another, as the celestial beams do the baser culinary fire, which burns more fervently when the sun hath less power. Then would debates, if there must be any, be managed without intemperate heat. We should be remote from being angry that we cannot convey our own sentiments into another's mind; which when we are, our business is the more remote; we make ourselves less capable of reasoning aptly to convince, and (because anger begets anger, as love doth love) render the other less susceptible of conviction. Why are we yet to learn that the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God? What is gained by it? So little doth angry contention about small matters avail, that even they that happen to have the better cause lose by it, and their advantage cannot recompense the damage and hurt that ensues to the Church and to themselves. Our famous Davenant, speaking of the noted controversy between Stephen, Bishop of Rome, who, he says, as much as in him lay, did with a schismatical spirit tear the Church, and Cyprian, who with great lenity and Christian charity professes that he would not break the Lord's peace for diversity of opinion, nor remove any from the right of communion, concludes that erring Cyprian deserved better of the Church of Christ than orthodox Stephen. He thought him the schismatic whom he thought in the right, and that his orthodoxy, as it was accompanied, was more mischievous to the Church than the other's error. Nor can a man do that hurt to others, without suffering it more principally. The distemper of his own spirit, what can recompense! and how apt is it to grow in him; and, while it grows in himself, to propagate itself among others! Whereupon, if the want of love hinders the nourishment of the body, much more do the things which, when it is wanting, are wont to fill up its place. For as naturally as love begets love, so do wrath, envy, malice, calumny, beget one another, and spread a poison and virulency through the body, which necessarily wastes and tends to destroy it. How soon did the Christian Church cease to be itself, and the early vigour of primitive Christianity degenerate into insipid, spiritless formality, when once it became contentious! It broke into parties, sects multiplied, animosities grew high, and the grieved Spirit of love retired from it, which is grieved by nothing more than by bitterness, wrath, anger, &c., as the connection of these two verses intimates, Eph. iv. 30, 31-"Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.-Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice." And to the same purpose is that, 1 Pet. ii. 1, 2, “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as new-born babes, desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby." By this means religion, once dispirited, loses its majesty and awfulness, and even tempts and invites the assaults and insultations of enemies. 4. It would oblige us to all acts of mutual kindness and friendship. If such a love did govern in us, we should be always ready to serve one another in love, to bear each other's burdens, to afford our mutual counsel and help to one another, even in our private affairs if called thereto; especially in that which is our common concern, the preserving and promoting the interest of religion, and to our uttermost strengthen each other's hands herein. It would engage us to a free, amicable conversation with one another upon this account; would not let us do so absurd a thing as to confine our friendship to those of our own party, which we might as 1 John Davenant was born in Watling Street in 1576, and educated at Queen's College, Cambridge, of which he became Master in 1614. He was a Divinity Professor at Cambridge, was sent by James I. to the synod of Dort, and in 1621 was made Bishop of Salisbury. He vas a liberal Calvinist, and offended James I. by a discourse on Predestination. He died of consumption. John Howe is here quoting from a Latin exhortation to Christian unity published by Davenant at Cambridge in 1640, the year before his death, "Ad fraternam Communionem inter Evangelicas Ecclesias restaurandam Adhortatio." There was an English edition in the year of his death, 1641. reasonably to men of our own stature, or to those whose voice and hair and look and mien were likest our own. It would make us not be ashamed to be seen in each other's company, or be shy of owning one another. We should not be to one another as Jews and Samaritans that had no dealing with one another, or as the poet notes they were to other nations; "Non monstrare vias eadem nisi sacra colenti" (Not so much as to show the way to one not of their religion). There would be no partition-wall through which love would not easily open a way of friendly commerce, by which we should insensibly slide, more and more, into one another's hearts. Whence also, 5. Prejudices would cease, and jealousies concerning each other. A mutual confidence would be begotten. We should no more suspect one another of ill designs upon each other, than lest our right hand should wait an opportunity of cutting off the left. We should believe one another in our mutual professions, of whatsoever sort, both of kindness to one another, and that we really doubt and scruple the things which we say we do. 6. This would hence make us earnestly covet an entire union in all the things wherein we differ, and contribute greatly to it. We are too prone many times to dislike things for the disliked persons' sake who practise them And a prevailing disaffection makes us unapt to understand one another, precludes our entrance into one another's mind and sense, which if love did once open, and inclined us more to consider the matters of difference themselves than to imagine some reserved meaning and design of the persons that differ from us, 'tis likely we might find ourselves much nearer to one another than we did apprehend we were, and that it were a much easier step for the one side to go quite over to the other. But if that cannot be, 7. It would make us much more apt to yield to one another and abate all that ever we can in order to as full an accommodation as is any way possible, that if we cannot agree upon either extreme, we might at least meet in the middle. It would cause an emulation who should be larger in their grants to this purpose; as it was professed by Luther when so much was done at Marburg towards an agreement between him and the Helvetians, that he would not allow that praise to the other party that they should be more desirous of peace and concord than he. Of which amicable conference, and of that afterwards at Wittenberg, and several other negotiations to that purpose, account is given by divers; and insisted on by some of our own great divines, as precedential to the concord they endeavoured between the Saxon and the Helvetian Churches of later time, as Bishop Morton, Bishop Hall, Bishop Davenant, in their several sentences or judg ments written to Mr. Dury 3 upon that subject. And indeed when I have read the pacific writings of those eminent worthies, for the composing of those differences abroad, I could not but wonder that the same peaceable spirit did not endeavour with more effect the composing of 2 Thomas Morton, born at York in 1564, and educated at St. John's College, Cambridge, was made chaplain to James I. in 1606, Bishop of Chester in 1615, of Lichfield and Coventry in 1618, and of Durham in 1632. He died in retirement in 1659 aged ninety-five. 3 John Dury (or Duræus) was a Scotch divine who spent forty years in the vain endeavour to reconcile Lutherans and Calvinists. He travelled to confer with divines in England, Geneva, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Holland, &c., and wrote much to advance the idea of Christian union, which he made it the work of his life to strive for in a true spirit of brotherhood. His works were published between 1634 and 1674. One of them was "A Model of Church Government" (1647). He is not to be confounded with John Dury (or Duræus), a Jesuit, who published in 1582 a reply to William Whitaker's answer to Edmund Campian. our own much lesser differences at home. But the things of our peace were (as they still are) hid from our eyes, with the more visibly just severity by how much they have been nearer us and more obvious to the easy view of any but an averse eye. It is not for us to prescribe (as was said) to persons that are now in so eminent stations as these were at that time; but may we not hope to find with such (and where should we rather expect to find it?) that compassion and mercifulness in imitation of the blessed Jesus, their Lord and ours, as to consider and study the necessities of souls in these respects, and at least willingly to connive at and very heartily approve some indulgences and abatements in the administrations of the inferior clergy, as they may not think fit themselves positively to order and enjoin? Otherwise I believe it could not but give some trouble to a conscientious conforming minister, if a sober pious person, sound in the faith and of a regular life, should tell him he is willing to use his ministry in some of the ordinances of Christ, if only he would abate or dispense with some annexed ceremony which in conscience he dare not use or admit of. I believe it would trouble such a minister to deal with a person of this character as a pagan because of his scruple, and put him upon considering whether he ought not rather to dispense with man's rule than with God's. I know what the same Bishop Davenant hath expressly said, that "He that believes the things contained in the Apostles' Creed,' and endeavours to live a life agreeable to the precepts of Christ, ought not to be expunged from the roll of Christians, nor be driven from communion with the other members of any Church whatsoever." However, truly Christian love would do herein all that it can, supplying the rest by grief that it can do no more. 8. It would certainly make us abstain from mutual censures of one another as insincere for our remaining differences. Charity that thinks no evil would make us not need the reproof, Rom. xiv. 4, "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?" The common aptness hereunto among us shows how little that divine principle rules in our hearts, that in defiance of our rule and the authority of the great God and our blessed Redeemer, to whom all judgment is committed, and who hath so expressly forbidden us to judge lest we be judged (Matt. vii. 1), we give ourselves so vast a liberty, and set no other bounds to our usurped licence of judging, than nature hath set to our power of thinking-i.e. think all the mischievous thoughts of them that differ from us that we know how to devise or invent, as if we would say, "Our thoughts (and then, by an easy advance, our tongues) are our own, who is Lord over us?" I animadvert not on this as the fault of one party; but wheresoever it lies, as God knows how diffused a poison this is among them that are satisfied with the public constitutions towards them that dissent from them, and with these back again towards them, and with the several parties of both these towards one another. This uniting, knitting love would make us refrain, not merely from the restraint of God's laws in this case, but from a benign disposition, as that which the temper of our spirits would abhor from. So that such as are well content with the public forms and rites of worship, would have no inclination to judge them that apprehend not things with their understandings, nor relish with their taste, as persons that therefore have cut themselves off from Christ, and the body of Christ. They might learn better from the Cassandrian moderation and from the avowed sentiments of that man 1 Jeremy Taylor also, in his "Liberty of Prophesying," recom. mended this basis of Christian union. (See pages 285, 286.) whose temper is better to be liked than his terms of union, who speaking of such as, being formerly rejected (meaning the Protestants) for finding fault with abuses in the Church, had by the urgency of their conscience altered somewhat in the way of their teaching and the form of their service, and are therefore said to have fallen off from the Church and are numbered among heretics and schismatics. It is, saith he, to be enquired how rightly and justly this is determined of them. For there is to be considered, as to the Church, the head and the body. From the head there is no departure but by doctrine disagreeable to Christ the head; from the body there is no departure by diversity of rites and opinions, but only by the defect of charity. So that this learned Romanist neither thinks them heretics that hold the head, nor schismatics, for such differences as ours are, from the rest of the body, if love and charity towards them remain. And again, where this love remains, and bears rule, it can as little be, that they who are unsatisfied with the way of worship that more generally obtains should censure them that are satisfied, as insincere merely because of this difference. It cannot permit that we should think all the black thoughts we can invent of them, as if because they have not our consciences they had none, or because they see not with our eyes they were therefore both utterly and wilfully blind. Thomas Browne, born in Cheapside in 1605, was educated at Winchester School and Pembroke College, Oxford. He travelled in France and Italy, graduated in physic at the University of Leyden, and published, in 1634, after his return to London, a quaint, thoughtful book, entitled "Religio Medici" (The Religion of a Physician). Two years afterwards Dr. Browne settled at Norwich, where he became the leading physician. He was not knighted until thirty-seven years after his "Religio Medici" was published, and he died in 1682. His books on "Urn Burial," and on 66 Vulgar Errors," are not less interesting than his "Religio Medici," from which this passage is taken :— TRUE AFFECTION. There are wonders in true affection; it is a body of enigmas, mysteries, and riddles; wherein two so become one, as they both become two. I love my friend before myself, and yet methinks I do not love him enough. Some few months hence, my multiplied affection will make me believe I have not loved him at all: when I am from him, I am dead till I be with him; when I am with him, I am not satisfied, but would still be nearer him. United souls are not satisfied with embraces, but desire to be truly each other; which being impossible, their desires are infinite, and proceed without a possibility of satisfaction. Another misery there is in affection, that whom we truly love like our own, we forget their looks, nor can our memory retain the idea of their faces; and it is no wonder for they are ourselves, and our affection makes their looks our own. This noble affection falls not on vulgar and common constitutions, but on such as are marked for virtue. He that can love his friend with this noble ardour, will, in a competent degree, affect all. Now, if we can bring our affections to look beyond the body, and cast an eye upon the soul, we have found the true object, not only of friendship, but charity; and the greatest happiness that we can bequeath the soul, is that wherein we all do place our last felicity, salvation; which, though it be not in our power to bestow, it is in our charity and pious invocations to desire, if not |