therefore behold vice without a fatire, content only with an admonition, or inftructive reprehenfion; for noble natures, and fuch as are capable of goodness, are railed into vice, that might as easily be admonished into virtue; and we should be all fo 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 cenfure or condemn another, because indeed no man truly knows another. This I perceive in myfelf; for I am in the dark to all the world, and my nearest friends behold me but in a cloud: thofe that know me but fuperficially, think lefs of me than I do of myfelf; 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 fenfible species, but beholds the substance without the help of accidents, and the forms of things as we their operations. Further, no man can judge another, because no man knows himself: for we cen fure others but as they difagree from that humour which we fancy laudable in ourfelves, and commend others but for that wherein they seem to quadrate and confent with us. So that in conclusion, all is but that we all condemn, self-love.* 'Tis the general complaint of these times, and perhaps of those past, that charity grows cold; which I perceive most verified in those which moft do manifeft the fires and flames of zeal; for it is a virtue that beft agrees with coldest natures, and fuch as are complexioned for humility. But how shall we expect charity towards others, when we are uncharitable to ourfelves? 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 fcarce obferved 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, * See Bishop Butler's eleventh Sermon. who brought in death; whereof he beheld the practice and example in his own fon Abel, and faw that verified in the experience of another, which faith could not perfuade him in the theory of himself. pathy. v. There is, I think, no man of fymthat apprehendeth his own miseries lefs than myself, and no man that so nearly apprehends another's. I could lose an arm without a tear, and with few groans, methinks, be quarter'd into pieces; yet can I weep most seriously at a play, and receive with a true paffion the counterfeit griefs of those known and professed impostures. It is a barbarous part of inhumanity to add unto any afflicted party's mifery, or endeavour to multiply in any man, a paffion, whofe fingle nature is already above his patience: this was the greatest affliction of Job; and thofe ob- Job. xix. lique expoftulations 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 alfo, that do exhauft the current of our forrows; which falling into many ftreams, runs more peaceably, and is contented with a narrower channel. It is an act within the power of charity, to tranflate a paffion out of one breast into another, and to divide a forrow almoft out of itself; for an affliction, like a dimenfion, may be fo divided, as, if not indivisible, at least to become infenfible. Now with my friend I defire not to fhare or participate, but to engross his forrows, that by making them mine own, I may more eafily discuss them; for in mine own reason, and within myself, I can command that, which I cannot intreat without myself, and within the circle of another. I have often thought thofe noble pairs and examples of friendship not fo truly hiftories of what had been, as fictions of what should be; but I now perceive nothing in them but poffibilities, nor any thing in the heroic examples of Damon and Pythias, Achilles and Patroclus, which methinks upon fome 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 fuch as confine themselves within that worldly principle, Charity begins at home. For mine own part, I could never remember the relations that I held 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 confefs I do not obferve 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 neceffary and indiffoluble fympathy to all thofe of my blood. I hope I do not break the fifth commandment, if I conceive I may love * Cf. Pope's Effay on Man. "Self-love but ferves the virtuous mind to wake, Friend, parent, neighbour, next it will embrace, |