Labour to distil and unite into thyself the scattered perfections of several nations. Many weed foreign countries, bringing home Dutch drunkenness, Spanish pride, French wantonness, and Italian atheism; as for the good herbs, Dutch industry, Spanish loyalty, French courtesy, and Italian frugality, these they leave behind them: others bring home just nothing; and because they singled not themselves from their countrymen, though some years beyond sea, were never out of England.

Thomas Fuller.

NEUTRALITY LOATHSOME.

God will have all or none; serve him, or fall
Down before Baal, Bel, or Belial;

Either be hot or cold; God doth despise,
Abhor, and spue out all neutralities.

Herrick.

TENDERNESS AND FORBEARANCE DUE TO HUMAN
IMPERFECTIONS AND DIFFERENCES.

A tender consideration of human imperfection is not merely the dictate of revelation, but the law of nature, exemplified in the most striking manner in the conduct of Him whom we all profess to follow. How wide the interval which separated his religious knowledge and attainments from that of his disciples; he, the fountain of illumination, they, encompassed with infirmities! But did he recede from them on that account? No, he drew the bond of union closer, imparted successive streams of effulgence, till he incorporated his spirit with theirs, and elevated them into a nearer resemblance of himself. In imitating, by our conduct towards our mistaken brethren, the great exemplar, we cannot err. By walking together with them, as far as we are agreed, our agreement will extend, our differences lessen, and love, which rejoiceth in the truth, will gradually open our hearts to higher and nobler inspirations.

Might we indulge a hope that not only our denomination, but every other description of Christians, would act upon these principles, we should hail the dawn of a brighter day, and consider it as a nearer approach to the ultimate triumph of the Church than the annals of time have yet recorded. In the accomplishment of our Saviour's prayer, we should behold a demonstration of the divinity of his mission, which the most impious could not resist; we should behold in the church a peaceful haven, inviting us to retire from the tossings of this unquiet ocean, to a sacred enclosure, a sequestered spot, which

the storms and tempests of the world were not permitted to invade. All attempts to urge men forward, even in the right rath, beyond the measure of their light, are impracticable in our situation, if they were lawful; and unlawful if they were practicable: augment their light, conciliate their affections, and they will follow of their own accord.

Robert Hall.

THE BETTER BARGAIN.

In alms regard thy means, and others' merit;
Think heaven a better bargain, than to give
Only thy single market-money for it.

Join hands with God to make a poor man live.
Give to all something, to a good poor man,

Till thou change names, and be where he began. Man is God's image, but a poor man is

Christ's stamp to boot: both images regard: God reckons for him, counts the favour his;

Write so much giv'n for God. Thou shalt be heard; Let thy alms go before, and keep heaven's gate Open for thee; or both may come too late.

Herbert.

RELIGION INDISPENSABLE.

If a man, by a vast and imperious mind, and a heart large as the sand upon the sea-shore, as is said of Solomon, could command all the knowledge of nature and of

art, of words and things; could attain to a mastery of all languages, and sound the depths of all arts and sciences; measure the earth and the heavens; tell the stars, and declare their order and motions; could discourse of the interests of all states, the intrigues of all courts, and give an account of the history of all ages; could speak of trees from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon, even unto the hyssop that groweth out of the wall; and of beasts also, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes: and yet should be destitute of the knowledge of God and of Christ, and of his duty, all this would be but an impertinent vanity, and a more glittering kind of ignorance; and such a man (like the philosopher who, while he was gazing on the stars, fell into a ditch) would but be undone with all his knowledge, and with a great deal of wisdom, go down unto hell.

Tillotson.

THE PRAYER OF WANT.

From the low prayer of want, and plaint of wo,

Oh never, never turn away thine ear!

Forlorn in this bleak wilderness below,

Ah! what were man should Heaven refuse to hear?

To others do (the law is not severe),

What to thyself thou wishest to be done;

Forgive thy foes, and love thy parents dear,
And friends, and native land; nor these alone:

All human wo and weal learn thou to make thine own.

Beattie.

WALK WITH GOD, OR SATAN WILL WALK WITH YOU.

You must hold intercourse with God, or your soul will die. You must walk with God, or Satan will walk with you. You must grow in grace, or you will lose it: and you cannot do this but by appropriating to this object a due portion of your time, and diligently employing suitable means.

Cecil.

DEFORMITY.

I hold there is a general beauty in the works of God, and therefore no deformity in any kind or species of creature whatsoever; I cannot tell by what logic we call a toad, a bear, or an elephant ugly, they being created in those outward shapes and figures which best express those actions of their inward forms. And having passed that general visitation of God, who saw that all he had made was good; that is, conformable to his will, which abhors deformity, and is the rule of order and beauty; there is no deformity but in monstrosity, wherein, notwithstanding, there is a kind of beauty, nature so ingeniously contriving the irregular parts, as they become sometimes more remarkable than the principal fabric. To speak yet more narrowly, there was never anything ugly, or mis-shapen, but the chaos; wherein, notwithstanding, to speak strictly, there was no deformity because no form, nor was it yet impregnant by the voice of God.

Sir Thomas Browne.