made a beast, would have been content should have been offered by man to him; no other than he shall make account to answer to a common Creator. Justly do we smile at the niceness of the foolish Manichees,' who made scruple to pull a herb or flower, and were ready to preface apologies and excuses for the reaping of their corn and grinding the grain they fed upon; as if these vegetables were sensible of pain, and capable of our oppression; but surely for those creatures, which, enjoying a sensitive life, forego it with no less anguish and reluctation than ourselves, and would be as willing to live, without harm, as their owners, they may well challenge both such mercy and justice at our hands, as that in the usage of them we may approve ourselves to their Maker. Wherein I blush and grieve to see how far we are exceeded by Turks and infidels, whom mere nature hath taught more tenderness to the poor brute creatures than we have learned from the holier rules of charitable Christianity. For my part, let me rather affect and applaud the harmless humour of that miscalled saint, who in an indiscreet humility called every wolf his brother, and every sheep, yea, every ant his sister, fellowing himself with every thing that had life in it, as well as himself; than the tyrannical disposition of those men, who take pleasure in the abuse, persecution, destruction of their fellow-creatures, upon no other quarrel, than because they live.

Among many strange tenets of this heretical sect, they held the doctrine of the metempsychosis, or transmigration of the souls of men into the bodies of the inferior animals, and other natures, as a means of expiating their guilt by a lengthened probation. Hence their excessive regard for animal and even vegetable life.-ED.

AN HOLY RAPTURE;

OR,

A PATHETICAL MEDITATION

ON

THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

A MEDITATION

ON THE LOVE OF CHRIST.

SECTION I.

The Love of Christ how passing knowledge; how free, of us, before we were.

WHAT is it, O blessed apostle, what is it, for which thou dost so earnestly bow thy knees, in the behalf of thine Ephesians, unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? even this, that they may know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge.'

Give me leave, first, to wonder at thy suit; and then much more at what thou suest for. Were thine affections raised so high to thine Ephesians, that thou shouldst crave for them impossible favours? Did thy love so far overshoot thy reason, as to pray they might attain to the knowledge of that which cannot be known? It is the love of Christ which thou wishest they may know; and it is that love which thou sayest is past all knowledge. What shall we say to this? Is it, for that there may be holy ambitions of those heights of grace which we can never hope actually to obtain ? Or is it rather, that thou supposest and prayest they

Eph. iii. 14, 19.

may reach to the knowledge of that love, the measure whereof they could never aspire to know?

Surely so it is, O blessed Jesu: that thou hast loved us, we know, but how much thou hast loved us is past the comprehension of angels. Those glorious spirits, as they desire to look into the deep mystery of our redemption, so they wonder to behold that divine love whereby it is wrought; but they can no more reach to the bottom of it than they can affect to be infinite; for, surely, no less than an endless line can serve to fathom a bottomless depth. Such, O Saviour, is the abyss of thy love to miserable man. Alas! what do we poor wretched dust of the earth go about to measure it, by the spans and inches of our shallow thoughts? Far, far be such presumption from us: only admit us, O blessed Lord, to look at, to admire and adore that which we give up for incomprehensible.

What shall we then say to this love, O dear Jesu; both as thine, and as cast upon us? All earthly love supposeth some kind of equality, or proportion at least, betwixt the person that loves, and him that is loved here is none at all. So as, which is past wonder, extremes meet without a mean; for, lo, thou, who art the eternal and absolute Being, God blessed for ever, lovedst me, that had no being at all thou lovedst me, both when I was not, and could never have been but by thee. It was from thy love that I had any being at all; much more, that, when thou hadst given me a being, thou shouldst follow me with succeeding mercies. Who but thou, who art infinite in goodness, would love that which is not? Our poor sensual love is drawn from us by the sight of a face or picture, neither is ever raised but upon some pleasing motive: