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Such was the charity of the psalmist, even toward his ingrateful enemies; They,' saith he, rewarded me evil for good to the spoiling of my soul.' But as for me, when they were sick, my clothing was sackcloth, I humbled my soul with fasting. I behaved myself as though it had been my friend or my brother; I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother.'

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Such was the charity of St. Paul; Who is weak,' said he, and I am not weak? who is offended, and I burn not?" with fervent compassion.

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Such was the charity of our Saviour; which so reigned in his heart, that no passion is so often attributed to him as this of pity, it being expressed to be the motive of his great works. 'Jesus,' saith St. Matthew, went forth, and saw a great multitude,' kaì éoxλayxvioon e' avrois, and was moved (in his bowels) with compassion toward them, and he healed their sick:' and, I have compassion on the multitude, because they have nothing to eat and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way:' and, 'Jesus had compassion on them, and touched their eyes' and, Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand and touched him, (the leper,) and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean :' and, • When the Lord saw her, (the widow of Nain, whose son was carried out,) he had compassion on her :' and, He beheld the city, and wept over it,' considering the miseries impendent on it, as a just punishment of their outrageous injuries against himself; and when the two good sisters did bewail their brother Lazarus, He groaned in spirit, and was troubled;' and wept with them; whence the Jews did collect, Behold how he loved him!'

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Thus any calamity or misfortune befalling his neighbor doth raise distasteful regret and commiseration in a charitable soul; but especially moral evils (which indeed are the great evils, in comparison whereto nothing else is evil) do work that effect: to see men dishonor and wrong their Maker, to provoke his anger, and incur his disfavor; to see men abuse their reason, and disgrace their nature; to see men endamage their spiritual estate, to endanger the loss of their souls, to discost from their happiRess, and run into eternal ruin, by distemper of mind and an inordinate conversation; this is most afflictive to a man endued

with any good degree of charity. Could one see a man sprawling on the ground, weltering in his blood, with gaping wounds, gasping for breath, without compassion? And seeing the condition of him that lieth grovelling in sin, weltering in guilt, wounded with bitter remorse and pangs of conscience, nearly obnoxious to eternal death, is far worse and more deplorable; how can it but touch the heart of a charitable man, and stir his bowels with compassionate anguish?

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Such was the excellent charity of the holy psalmist, signified in those ejaculations, I beheld the transgressors, and was grieved; because they kept not thy word:' and, ‹ Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because men keep not thy law.'

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Such was the charity of St. Paul toward his incredulous and obdurate countrymen, (notwithstanding their hatred and illtreatment of himself,) the which he so earnestly did aver in those words, I say the truth, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Ghost, that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart' for them.

Such was the charity of our Lord, which disposed him as to a continual sense of men's evils, so ou particular occasions to grieve at their sins and spiritual wants; as when the pharisees maligned him for his doing good, he, it is said, did ovλ\vπeioðaι, 'grieve (or condole) for the hardness of their heart;' and,' When he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd' and when he wept over Jerusalem,' because it did not know in its day the things which belonged to its peace,' (either temporal or eternal.)

This is that charity, which God himself in a wonderful and incomprehensible manner doth exemplify to us: for he is the Father of pities;' wodúowdayɣros, full of bowels;' his 'bowels are troubled,' and do sound,' when he is (for upholding justice, or reclaiming sinners) constrained to inflict punishment; of him it is said, that his soul was grieved for the misery of Israel;' and that he was 'afflicted in all the afflictions' of his people. So incredible miracles doth infinite charity work in God, that the impassible God in a manner should suffer with us, that happiness itself should partake in our misery; that grief should spring up in the fountain of joy. How this can

be, we thoroughly cannot well apprehend; but surely those expresses are used in condescension to signify the greatly charitable benignity of God, and to show us our duty, that 'we should be merciful as our heavenly Father is merciful,' sympathising with the miseries and sorrows of our brethren.

This is that duty which is so frequently inculcated; when we are charged to put on bowels of pity,' to be evoπλayxvoi, 'tender-hearted,' to be ovμжabeis, compassionate' one toward

another.

Hence it is that good men in this world cannot live in any briskness of mirth or height of jollity, their own enjoyments being tempered by the discontents of others; the continual obvious spectacles of sorrow and of sin damping their pleasures, and quashing excessive transports of joy: for who could much enjoy himself in an hospital, in a prison, in a charnel?

V. It is generally a property of love to appropriate its object; in apprehension and affection embracing it, possessing it, enjoying it as its own: so charity doth make our neighbor to be ours, engaging us to tender his case, and his concerns as our own; so that we shall exercise about them the same affections of soul, (the same desires, the same hopes and fears, the same joys and sorrows,) as about our own nearest and most peculiar interest; so that his danger will affright us, and in his security we shall find repose; his profit is gain, and his losses are damages to us; we do rise by his preferment, and sink down by his fall; his good speed is a satisfaction, and his disappointment a cross to us; his enjoyments afford pleasure, and his sufferings bring pain to us.

So charity doth enlarge our minds beyond private considerations, conferring on them an universal interest, and reducing all the world within the verge of their affectionate care; so that a man's self is a very small and inconsiderable portion of his regard whence charity is said not to seek its own things,' and we are commanded not to look on our own things;' for that the regard which charity beareth to its own interest, in comparison to that which it beareth toward the concerns of others, hath the same proportion as one man hath to all men; being therefore exceedingly small, and as it were none at all. This, saith St. Chrysostom, is the canon of most perfect Chris

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tianism, this is an exact boundary, this is the highest top of it, to seek things profitable to the public:' and according to this rule charity doth walk, it prescribeth that compass to itself, it aspireth to that pitch; it disposeth to act as St. Paul did, 'I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit, but the profit of many, that they may be saved.'

VI. It is a property of love to affect union, or the greatest approximation that can be to its object. As hatred doth set things at distance, making them to shun or chase away one another; so love doth attract things, doth combine them, doth hold them fast together; every one would be embracing and enjoying what he loveth in the manner whereof it is capable: so doth charity dispose a man to conjunction with others; it soon will breed acquaintance, kind conversation, and amicable correspondence with our neighbor.

It would be a stranger to no man, to whom by its intercourse it may yield any benefit or comfort.

Its arms are always open, and its bosom free to receive all, who do not reject or decline its amity.

It is most frankly accessible, most affable, most tractable, most sociable, most apt to interchange good offices; most ready to oblige others, and willing to be obliged by them.

It avoideth that unreasonable suspiciousness and diffidence, that timorous shyness, that crafty reservedness, that supercilious morosity, that fastidious sullenness, and the like untoward dispositions, which keep men in estrangement, stifling good inclinations to familiarity and friendship.

VII. It is a property of love to desire a reciprocal affection; for that is the surest possession and firmest union, which is grounded on voluntarily conspiring in affection; and if we do value any person, we cannot but prize his good-will and

esteem.

Charity is the mother of friendship, not only as inclining us to love others, but as attracting others to love us; disposing us to affect their amity, and by obliging means to procure it.

Hence is that evangelical precept so often enjoined to us, of 'pursuing peace with all men,' importing that we should desire and seek by all fair means the good-will of men, without

which peace from them cannot subsist; for if they do not love us, they will be infesting us with unkind words or deeds.

VIII. Hence also charity disposeth to please our neighbor, not only by inoffensive but by obliging demeanor; by a ready complaisance and compliance with his fashion, with his humor, with his desire in matters lawful, or in a way consistent with duty and discretion.

Such charity St. Paul did prescribe: Let every one please his neighbor, for his good to edification:' such he practised himself, Even as I please all men in all things, not seeking mine own profit;' and, 'I have made myself a servant to all, that I might gain the more.'

Such was the charity of our Lord, for even Christ pleased not himself:' he indeed did stoop to converse with sorry men in their way, he came when he was invited, he accepted their entertainment, he from the frankness of his conversation with all sorts of persons did undergo the reproach of being a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners.'

It is the genius and complexion of charity to affect nothing uncouth or singular in matters of indifferent nature; to be candid, not rigid in opinion; to be pliable, not stiff in humor; to be smooth and gentle, not rugged and peevish in behavior.

It doth indeed not flatter, not sooth, not humor any man in bad things, or in things very absurd and foolish; it would rather choose to displease and cross him, than to abuse, to delude, to wrong, or hurt him; but excepting such cases, it gladly pleaseth all men, denying its own will and conceit to satisfy the pleasure and fancy of others: practising that which St. Peter enjoined in that precept, Be of one mind, be compassionate, love as brethren, be pitiful, be courteous; or as St. Paul might intend, when he bid us, xapideoðaι áλλýλois, to gratify, to indulge one another.'

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IX. Love of our neighbor doth imply readiness on all occasions to do him good, to promote and advance his benefit in all kinds.

* Ομόφρονες, συμπαθεῖς, φιλάδελφοι, εὔσπλαγχνοι, φιλόφρονες.—1 Pet. iii. 8.

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