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our Lord, particularly, who may surely be fuppofed to know his Mafter's Will, hath wrote his Epiftle on fet Purpose to recommend this fingle Virtue: At a Crifis too, when, as Herefies were springing up apace, a modern Controverfialist would be apt to think he might have employed his Time better. And why (it may be reasonably afked) fo very much on Charity, in an Age when Chriftians had fo few Provocations or Temptations to violate it? For their Faith being yet chafte from the Proftitutions of the Schools, and their Hierarchy yet uncorrupted by the Gifts of Conftantine, the Church knew neither Bigotry nor Ambition, the two fatal Sources of uncharitable Zeal. I will tell you, It was the Providence of their prophetic Spirit, which presented to them the Image of those miserable Times foretold by their Mafter, when Iniquity fhould abound, and the Love of many wax cold'. So that if the Men of thofe Times fhould perfift in violating this Bond of Perfectness, after so many repeated Admonitions, they might be found altogether without Excufe. For I can by no means enter into the Views of that profound Philosopher, who discovered that Jefus and his Followers might preach up Love and Charity, the better to enable a Set of Men, fome Centuries afterwards, to tyrannise over those whom the engaging Sounds of Charity and Brotherly Love had intrapped into Subjection *.

¡Mat. xxiv. 12. k Characteristicks, vol. i. p. 87. vol. iii. p. 115. Ed. 1737.

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I am aware that certain modern Propagators of the Faith, aided with a School Distinction, will tell you, that it is pure Charity which fets them all at work; and that what you call Uncharitableness, when they infult the Fame, the Fortune, or the Perfon of their Brother, is indeed the very Height of Charity, a Charity for his Soul. This indeed may be the Height of the Hangman's Charity, who waits for your Cloaths: But it could never be St. Paul's. His was not easily provoked, thought no Evil, bore all Things, hoped all Things, endured all Things'. was a Charity that begun in Candour, inspired good Opinion, and fought the temporal Happiness of his Brother.

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I leave it with Mr. De Croufaz to think upon the different Effects which Excefs of Zeal in the Service of Religion, hath produced in him. For I will, in very Charity, believe it to be really that; notwithstanding we every Day see the most defpicable Tools of others Impotency, and the vileft Slaves to their own Ambition, hide their corrupt Paffions under the self-fame Cover. This learned Gentleman fhould reflect on what the fober Part of the World will think of his Conduct. tho' the Apostle bids AGED MEN BE SOUND IN FAITH, he adds immediately, and IN CHARITY, IN PATIENCE m likewife. But where was his Charity in labouring, on the flighteft Grounds, to represent his Brother as propagating Spinozism and

i 1 Cor. xiii. 5, 7.

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m Titus ii. 2.
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Immorality? Where was his Temper, when he be came fo furious against him, on the Suppofition of his efpoufing a Syftem he had never read, that of Leibnitz; and justifying a Doctrine he had never heard of, the pre-established Harmony? Where was his Patience, when, having conceived this of him, on the mere Authority of a most mistaken Translator, he would not ftay to inquire whether the Author owned the Faithfulness of the Verfion; but publifhed his Conceptions, and the strongest Accufations upon thofe Conceptions, in Volume after Volume, to the whole World? Where, if in any of these Imaginations so founded, he should be miftaken, he became guilty of a deliberate and repeated Act of the highest Injuftice; the attempting to deprive a virtuous Man of his honeft Reputation.

If Mr. De Croufaz prefumes his Zeal for the Honour of God will excufe his Violations of Charity towards Men, I must tell him, he knows not what Spirit he is af. If a Man (fays the beloved Difciple of our Lord) fay, I love God, and hateth his Brother, he is a Liar: For he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath feen, how can he love God whom he hath not feen ". A Free-thinker may perhaps laugh at the Simplicity of this Argument, which yet he would affect to admire, could any one find it for him in Plato. But let him for once

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condescend to be inftructed by his Bible, and hearken to a little Chriftian Reasoning.

"You say, you love God (fays the Apostle) tho' you hate your Brother: Impoffible! The Love " of any Object begins originally, like all the other "Paffions, from Self-love. Thus we love our"felves, by Representation, in our Offspring; "which Love extends by degrees to our remoter "Relations, and fo on thro' our Neighbourhood, "to all the Fellow-Members of our Community. "And now Self-love, refined by Reason and Re"ligion, begins to lose its Nature, and deservedly "affumes another Name. Our Country next "claims our Love; we then extend it to all "Mankind, and never reft till we have, at length, "fixed it on that most amiable of all Objects, the great Author and Original of Being. This is the "Course and Progrefs of human Love:

God loves from Whole to Parts, but human Soul Muft rife from Individual to the Whole.

Now (pursues the Apostle) I reason thus: "Can cc you, who are not yet arrived at that inferior "Stage of Benevolence, the Love of your Bro"ther, whom you have feen, that is, whom the "Neceffities of Civil Life, and a Sense of your << mutual Relation might teach you to love, pre"tend to have reached the very Height and Per"fection of this Paffion, the Love of God whom you have not feen? that is, whofe wonderful Oe66 conomy in his Syftem of Creation, which makes

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"him fo amiable, you cannot have the leaft Con"ception of; you, who have not yet learnt that your own private Syftem is fupported on the great Principle of Benevolence? Fear him, flat"ter him, fight for him, as you dread his Power, you may; but to love him, as you know not "his Nature, is impoffible." This is the Apostle's grand and fublime Reafoning; and it is with the fame Thought on which the Apostle founds his Argument that our moral Poet ends his Effay, as the juft and neceffary Conclufion of his Work:

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Self-love but ferves the virtuous Mind to wake,
As the fmall Pebble ftirs the peaceful Lake;
The Centre mov'd, a Circle strait succeeds,
Another still, and still another spreads;
Friend, Parent, Neighbour, firft it will embrace,
His Country next, and next, all human Race;
Wide, and more wide, th' O'erflowings of the
Mind

Take ev'ry Creature in, of ev'ry Kind;

Earth fmiles around, with boundless Bounty blest, AND HEAV'N BEHOLDS ITS IMAGE IN HIS BREAST.

FINIS.

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