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GENTLEMEN EDUCATED AT ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, AND PUBLISHED AT THEIR REQUEST.

BY D. BELLAMY, OF TRINITY COLLEGE,
CAMBRIDGE.

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SUMMARY of the LIFE and CHARACTER

OF

JOHN COLET, D. D. DEAN of St. PAUL'S,

IN

The Reigns of K. HENRY VII. and HENRY VIII.
And Founder of ST. PAUL'S SCHOOL, LONDON.

PSALM CXII. 6.

THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL BE HAD IN EVERLASTING REMEM

A

BRANCE.

S the principal and most laudable design of this Anniversary
Meeting, and all others of the like nature, is to promote

brotherly love, and the focial duties of life, from the confideration of fome particular connections, by which, exclusive of what belongs to us in common with all men and chriftians, we are more nearly united and linked one to another; I conceived I could not enter upon any subject more acceptable and pertinent to our present purpose, than the subject of Benevolence, and especially that fpecies of it which intends the good of pofterity: such a subject will naturally poffefs our thoughts with a lively warmth of gratitude towards that eminently great man, who established that feat of learn

ing

ing, where a great part of this auditory have received their first cducation, and which confequently claims their highest regard.

The duty of BENEVOLENCE is fo obvious and self-evident, the reafons for it so strong, and the virtue itself so amiable and praiseworthy, that to expatiate on fo copious a subject, is like entering into a large and well cultivated garden, where the prospects around us are fo numerous and beautiful, that the fenfes are in a manner bewildered, with a variety of the most alluring objects. In whatever light we view this heavenly virtue, it fills the mind with the most agreeable ideas.-The Almighty has implanted in the heart of - man a tender and compaffionate regard for all his fellow-creatures : -how elfe fhould we be able to account for that pleasing fenfation, which we receive from the bare recital of a truly benevolent action? 1 appeal to the experience of every one here prefent, Whether he can refift the joy that arifes in his mind on fuch an occafion? And if a description can create fuch an exalted pleasure, what reaf fatisfaction must accrue to that perfon, whose conscious heart, in a kind of transport, fhall fay to him,-THOU ART THE

MAN.

As we have received benefit by thofe who went before us; have borrowed light from their light, and lived upon the effects of their benevolence; fo fhould the rifing generation feel the warmth of ours. In how miferable a state should we have come into the world, and how wretchedly fhould we have lived in it, had nothing been done for us, had we laid under no obligations to our predeceffors? If all arts and sciences, all the helps and conveniences of human life, were to be invented and begun with every age, how rude and unpolished, how mean and abject would the condition of it be? How heavily would it be preffed with the burthen of neceffity? How much more painful and laborious would this render the pilgrimage of man, which as it is, with all its advantages, has ftill its fufficient fhare of trouble and incumbrance? In what darkness had we

fat,

fat, in reference to the means of our most glorious redemption, had it not pleased the God of wisdom, through the hands of the christians of former centuries, to have delivered down to us those ineftimable treasures, the facred scriptures?

It well becomes us, therefore, to have a due fenfe of the benefits we have received from those who died long before we came into being, but who ftill live through their extenfive benefactions, and gratefully to transmit their memories to latest posterity, particularly those who have founded public schools, and other nurseries of found and fubftantial learning; for it is by learning that the powers and capacities of our fouls are enlarged, and turned from little and low things, upon their greatest and noblest object, the divine nature; and employed in the discovery and admiration of thofe various perfections that adorn it. We fee what difference there is between man and man; fuch, in reality, as there is hardly greater between man and brute; and this proceeds principally from the different sphere which they act in, and the different objects they converse with; the mind is effentially the fame in the peasant and the prince; the forces of it are naturally equal in the most illiterate man, and the wifeft philofopher; but the time of the former is wholly taken up in the tranfaction of mean and groveling affairs, and contracted within a very narrow compafs; whereas the latter is daily and hourly perhaps engaged in matters of the highest importance and this it is, and this alone, that occafions the wide diftance that: appears between them. Noble objects are to the mind what funbeams are to a bud or flower: they open and unfold its leaves, put it upon exerting and spreading itself every way; and call forth all thofe powers of nature that lie hid and locked up in the dark receffes of the foul. The benefits of learning are fo well known and felt, that there is scarcely a perfon now to be met with, that has not, through the benevolence of those who lived before him, received, what in former times would have deemed a liberal educa

tion.

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