S. Austin Allibone, comp. Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay. 1880.
Thomas Sprat
Are we not to pity and supply the poor, though they have no relation to us? No relation? That cannot be. The gospel styles them all our brethren: nay, they have a nearer relation to usour fellow-members; and both these from their relation to our Saviour himself, who calls them his brethren.
That spotless modesty of private and public life, that generous spirit which all other Christians ought to labour after, should look in us as if they were natural.
This doctrine of Gods good will towards men, this command of mens proportionable good will to one another, is not this the very body and substance, this the very spirit and life, of our Saviours whole institution?
Tis the property of all true knowledge, especially spiritual, to enlarge the soul by filling it; to enlarge it without swelling it; to make it more capable, and more earnest to know, the more it knows.
Envy, malice, covetousness, and revenge are abolished: a new race of virtues and graces, more divine, more moral, more humane, are planted in their stead.
Opportunity is in respect to time, in some sense, as time is in respect to eternity: it is the small moment, the exact point, the critical minute, on which every good work so much depends.
True zeal is not any one single affection of the soul, but a strong mixture of many holy affections, filling the heart with all pious intentions; all, not only uncounterfeit, but most fervent.
It is certainly a great disparagement to virtue and learning itself that those very things which only make men useful in the world should incline them to leave it. This ought never to be allowed to good men, unless the bad had the same moderation, and were willing to follow them into the wilderness. But if the one shall contend to get out of employment, while the other strive to get into it, the affairs of mankind are likely to be in so ill a posture that even the good men themselves will hardly be able to enjoy their very retreats in security.