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MEMB. 3. Charity composed of all three kinds, Pleasant, Profitable, Honest.
Besides this love that comes from Profit, Pleasant, Honest, (for one good turn asks another in equity) that which proceeds from the law of nature, or from discipline and Philosophy, there is yet another love compounded of all these three, which is Charity, and includes piety, dilection, benevolence, friendship, even all those vertuous habits; for love is the circle equant of all other affections, of which Aristotle dilates at large in his Ethicks, and is commanded by God, which no man can well perform, but he that is a Christian, and a true regenerate man;
This is To love God above all, and our neighbour as our self; for this love is lychnus accendens & accensus, a Communicating light, apt to illuminate it self as well as others.
All other objects are fair, and very beautifull, I confess; kindred, alliance, friendship, the love that we owe to our country, nature, wealth, pleasure, honour, and such moral respects, &c. of which read copious Aristotle in his Morals; A man is beloved of a man, in that he is a man; but all these are far more eminent and great, when they shall proceed from a sanctified spirit, that hath a true touch of Religion, and a reference to God.
Nature binds all creatures to love their young ones; an hen to preserve her brood will run upon a Lion, an Hinde will fight with a Bull, a Sow with a Bear, a silly Sheep with a Fox. So the same nature urgeth a man to love his Parents, (dii me pater omnes oderint, ni te magis quam oculos amem meos!) and this love cannot be dissolved, as Tully holds, without detestable offence: but much more Gods commandment, which injoyns a filial love, and an obedience in this kind.
The love of brethren is great, and like an arch of stones, where if one be displaced, all comes down, no love so forcible and strong, honest, to the combination of which, nature, fortune, vertue, happily concur; yet this love comes short of it.
——— Dulce & decorum pro patriâ mori,
it cannot be expressed, what a deal of Charity that one name of Country contains.
* Amor laudis & patriæ pro stipendio est;
The Decii did se devovere, Horatii, Curii, Scævola, Regulus, Codrus, sacrifice themselves for their Countries peace and good.
Una dies Fabios ad bellum miserat omnes, Ad bellum missos perdidit una dies.
One day the Fabii stoutly warred, One day the Fabii were destroyed.
Fifty thousand Englishmen lost their lives willingly neer Battle-Abby, in defence of their Country. P. Æmilius l. 6. speaks of six Senators of Calice, that came with halters in their hands to the King of England, to die for the rest. This love makes so many writers take such pains, so many Historiographers, Physitians, &c. or at least as they pretend, for common safety, and their Countries benefit.
Sanctum nomen amicitiæ, sociorum communio sacra; Friendship is an holy name, and a sacred communion of friends. As the Sun is in the Firmament, so is friendship in the world, a most divine and heavenly band. As nuptial love makes, this perfects mankind, and is to be preferred (if you will stand to the judgement of Cornelius Nepos,) before affinity or consanguinity; plus in amicitia valet similitudo morum, quam affinitas, &c.
the cords of love bind faster then any other wreath whatsoever. Take this away, and take all pleasure, joy, comfort, happiness, and true content out of the world; ’tis the greatest tye, the surest Indenture, strongest band, and as our modern Maro decides it, is much to be preferred before the rest.
Hard is the doubt, and difficult to deem, When all three kinds of love together meet; And do dispart the heart with power extream, Whether shall weigh the ballance down; to wit, The dear affection unto kindred sweet, Or raging fire of love to women kind, Or zeal of friends, combin’d by vertues meet: But of them all, the band of vertuous mind, Me thinks the gentle heart should most assured bind.
For natural affection soon doth cease, And quenched is with Cupids greater flame; But faithful friendship doth them both suppress, And them with mastering discipline doth tame, Through thoughts aspiring to eternal fame. For as the soul doth rule the earthly mass, And all the service of the body frame, So love of Soul doth love of body pass, No less then perfect gold surmounts the meanest brass.
A faithful friend is better then gold, a medicine of misery, an only possession; yet this love of friends, nuptial, heroical, profitable, pleasant, honest, all three loves put together, are little worth, if they proceed not from a true Christian illuminated soul, if it be not done in ordine ad Deum, for Gods sake.
Though I had the gift of Prophesie, spake with tongues of men and Angels, though I feed the poor with all my goods, give my body to be burned, and have not this love, it profiteth me nothing, 1 Cor. 13. 1, 3. ’tis splendidum peccatum, without charity; This is an all apprehending love, a deifying love, a refined, pure, divine love, the quintessence of all love, the true Philosophers stone,
Non potest enim, as Austin infers, veraciter amicus esse hominis, nisi fuerit ipsius primitus veritatis, He is no true friend that loves not Gods truth.
And therefore this is true love indeed, the cause of all good to mortal men, that reconciles all creatures, and glews them together in perpetual amity, and firm league, and can no more abide bitterness, hate, malice, then fair and foul weather, light and darkness, sterility and plenty may be together; as the Sun in the Firmament, (I say) so is love in the world; and for this cause ’tis love without an addition, love κατ’ ἐξοχὴν love of God, and love of men.
The love of God begets the love of man; and by this love of our neighbour, the love of God is nourished and increased. By this happy union of love, all well governed families and cities are combined, the heavens annexed, and divine souls complicated, the world it self composed, and all that is in it conjoyned in God, and reduced to one.
This love causeth true and absolute vertues, the life, spirit, and root of every vertuous action, it finisheth prosperity, easeth adversity, corrects all natural incumbrances, inconveniences, sustained by Faith and Hope, which with this our love, make an indissoluble twist; a Gordian knot, an Æquilateral Triangle, And yet the greatest of them is love, 1 Cor. 13, 13.
which inflames our souls with a divine heat, and being so inflamed, purged, and so purgeth, elevates to God, makes an attonement, and reconciles us unto him. That other love infests the soul of man, this cleanseth; that depresses, this erears; that causeth cares and troubles, this quietness of mind; this informs, that deforms our life; that leads to repentance, this to heaven.
For if once we be truly link’t and touched with this charity, we shall love God above all, our neighbour as ourself, as we are enjoyned, Mark. 12. 31. Mat. 19. 19. perform those duties and exercises, even all the operations of a good Christian.
This love suffereth long, it is bountiful, envieth not, boasteth not it self, is not puffed up, it deceiveth not, it seeketh not his own things, is not provoked to anger, it thinketh not evil, it rejoyceth not in iniquity, but in truth. It suffereth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, 1 Cor. 13. 4, 5, 6, 7. it covereth all trespasses, Prov. 10. 12. a multitude of sinnes, 1 Pet. 4.
as our Saviour told the woman in the Gospel, that washed his feet, many sins were forgiven her, for she loved much, Luke 7. 47. it will defend the fatherless and the widdow, Isa. 1. 17. will seek no revenge, or be mindful of wrong, Levit. 19. 18. will bring home his brothers oxe if he go astray, as it is commanded, Deut. 22. 1. will resist evil, give to him that asketh, and not turn from him that borroweth, bless them that curse him, love his enemie, Matthew 5. bear his brothers burthen, Galathians 6. 7.