virtue (abolish vice) is an idea: again, the community of sin doth not disparage goodness: for when vice gains upon the major part, virtue, in whom it remains, becomes more excellent: and being lost in some, multiplies its goodness in others, which remain untouched, and persist entire in the general inundation. I can therefore behold vice without a satire, content only with an admonition, or instructive reprehension; for noble natures, and such as are capable of goodness, are railed into vice, that might as easily be admonished into virtue; and we should be all so far the orators of goodness, as to protect her from the power of vice, and maintain the cause of injured truth. No man can justly censure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another. This I perceive in myself; for I am in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud: those that know me but superficially, think less of me than I do of myself; those of my near acquaintance think more. God, who truly knows me, knows that I am nothing; for he only beholds me, and all the world; who looks not on us through a derived ray, or a trajection of a sensible species, but beholds the substance without the helps of accidents, and the forms of things, as we their operations. Further no man can judge another, because no man knows himself; for we censure others but as they disagree from

main, though no one should ever err. It is only by removing the power to sin that you destroy the merit of obedience; which is probably what he intended to say.-ED.

that humour which we fancy laudable in ourselves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and consent with us. So that in conclusion, all is but that we all condemn, selflove. It is the general complaint of these times, and perhaps of those past, that charity grows cold; which I perceive most verified in those which most do manifest the fires and flames of zeal; for it is a virtue that best agrees with coldest natures, and such as are complexioned for humility.(126) But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourselves? Charity begins at home, is the voice of the world; yet is every man his greatest enemy, and, as it were, his own executioner. Non occides, is the commandment of God, yet scarce observed by any man; for I perceive every man is his own Atropos, and lends a hand to cut the thread of his own days. Cain was not therefore the first murderer, but Adam, who brought in death; whereof he beheld the practice and example in his own son Abel, and saw that verified in the experience of another, which faith could not persuade him in the theory of himself.

There is, I think, no man that apprehends his own miseries less than myself, and no man that so nearly apprehends another's. I could lose an arm

(126) It is a common habit to prefer times past to the time present, in every respect. But, taking all things into consideration, a philosopher will probably find that the age he lives in is at least as good as almost any that have preceded it. Charity by no means grows cold. Human nature, on the contrary, rather improves than otherwise; and whatever virtues our ancestors had, were probably inferior to our own.-ED.

without a tear, and with few groans, methinks, be quartered into pieces; (127) yet can I weep most seriously at a play, and receive with true passion, the counterfeit grief of those known and professed impostures. It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted party's misery, or endeavour to multiply in any man, a passion, whose single nature is already above his patience: this was the greatest affliction of Job; and those oblique expostulations of his friends, a deeper injury than the downright blows of the devil. It is not the tears of our own eyes only, but of our friends, also, that do exhaust the current of our sorrows; which falling into many streams, runs more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within the power of charity, to translate a passion out of one breast into another, and to divide a sorrow almost out of itself; for an affliction, like a dimension, may be so divided, as if not invisible, at least to become insensible. Now, with my friend I desire not to share or participate, but to engross his sorrows, that by making them mine own, I may more easily discuss them; for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can command that, which I cannot entreat without myself, and within the circle of another. I have often thought those noble pairs and examples of friendship not so truly histories of what had been, as fictions of what should be; but I now perceive nothing in them but possibilities, nor anything in the heroic ex

(127) Credat Judæus Apella.—ED.

amples of Damon and Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus, which methinks upon some grounds I could not perform within the narrow compass of myself. That a man should lay down his life for his friend seems strange to vulgar affections, and such as confine themselves within that worldly principle, Charity begins at home. For my own part, I could never remember the relations that I hold unto myself, nor the respect that I owe unto my own nature, in the cause of God, my country, and my friends. Next to these three I do embrace myself: I confess I do not observe that order that the schools ordain our affections, to love our parents, wives, children, and then our friends; for excepting the injunctions of religion, I do not find in myself such a necessary and indissoluble sympathy to all those of my blood. I hope I do not break the fifth commandment, if I conceive I may love my friend before the nearest of my blood, even those to whom I owe the principles of life. I never yet cast a true affection on a woman, but I have loved my friend as I do virtue, my soul, my God. (128) From hence methinks I do conceive how

(128) This Doric modification of passion is what I do not understand. In my humble judgment, the man most capable of love will be most capable of friendship. David, though he loved Jonathan with an affection passing the love of women, (a thing to me inexplicable,) still loved women passionately. The same observation will apply to Homer's Achilles. And necessarily, for love is energy, an expansive, irresistible grasping at whatever is good or beautiful. Sir Thomas Browne's confession proves his character to have been deficient in an important element of genius, though no doubt he possessed other elements in no ordinary degree.-- Ed.

God loves man, what happiness there is in the love of God. Omitting all other, there are three most mystical unions; two natures in one person; three persons in one nature; one soul in two bodies. For though, indeed, they be really divided, yet are they so united, as they seem but one, and make rather a duality than two distinct souls.

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 happi