Se ee eee kee 
XXIL. 15.] THE SECOND BOOK. 215 
do: so certainly, if a man’s mind be truly inflamed with 
charity, it doth work him suddenly into greater perfection 
than all the doctrine of morality can do, which is but a 
sophist in comparison of the other. ‘Nay further, as 
Xenophon observed truly, that all other affections, though— 
they raise the mind, yet they do it by distorting and 
uncomeliness of ecstasies or excesses; but only love doth 
exalt the mind, and nevertheless at the same instant doth 
settle and compose it: so in all other excellencies, though 
they advance nature, yet they are subject to excess. Only~ !” 
charity admitteth no excess. For so we see, aspiring to 
be, like God in power, the angels transgressed and fell ; 
Ascendam, et ero similis altissimo: by aspiring to be like 
God in knowledge, man transgressed and fell; LZ7rztis 
stcut Dit, sctentes bonum et malum: but by aspiring to a~ 
similitude of God in goodness or love, neither man nor 
angel ever transgressed, or shall transgress. For unto 
that imitation we are called: Dzligtle inimicos vestros, 
benefactte ets qui oderunt vos, et orale pro persequentibus et 
calumniantibus vos, ut silts filid Patris vesirt qui in celis~ 
est, quit solem suum ortri facit super bonos et malos, et pluit 
super justos et injustos. So in the first platform of the 
divine nature itself, the heathen religion speaketh thus, 
Optimus Maximus: and the sacred scriptures thus, J/zserd- 
cordia ejus super omnia opera ejus. i 
16. Wherefore I do conclude this part of moral know- 
ledge, concerning the culture and regiment of the mind; 
wherein if any man, considering the parts thereof which 
I have enumerated, do judge that my labour is but 
to collect into an art or science that which hath been 
pretermitted by others, as matter of common sense and 
experience, he judgeth well. But as Philocrates sported 
with Demosthenes, You may not marvel (Athenians) that 
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