SERMON XXX. 417 vulgärand brutal Souls that no kindness can engage, no merit can oblige, and no virtue can influence. Am I a servant? Let my zeal for my master's interest exceed all my fellows, and my faithfulness and diligence in every duty extort honour even from those who envy me, and deserve theesteem and love of those that are above me. If I am an artificer, and God hath given me any superior talents or capacities, I should not employ those superior talents in trifles, but use them to some most valuable purposes, for the benefit of mankind, beyond what former ages have known. I should promote useful knowledge, if I ama philosopher, and carry it on farther than my fathers have done. These are some instances wherein we may perform actions of praise that are be- coming a man or a christian. II. It is a thing praise- worthy to improve all the seasons and occasions of extraordinary virtue, to seize on those special opportunities which providence now and then may give us to exert uncommon degrees of wisdom or mercy, activity or cou- rage. We are always required to be faithful to our rulers, and kind to our neighbours and friends : But when our king or our coun- try is in some imminent danger, when some threatening mischief hangs over afamily, or acity, when our friend or brother, or even a stranger, is in immediate peril of life, there may be a glorious occasion for some great and generous exercise of loyalty, forti- tude, compassion, or love, to save a friendor a stranger, a prince or a nation. All the world shall agree to praisethe man whoper- forms that noble service. We are bound always to be liberal, and to give to the poor, but sometimes we have an opportunity to exercise that grace of liberality in a more ample and generous manner, so as to deserve andobtain an honourable name : As whena great number of dis- tressed wretches come to the city or place where we dwell, or when somegeneral calamity involves all our poor neighbours, and reduces them to great straits, then we should exercise bounty beyond the common measure : Thus a christian shall have the honour of relieving the poor more than heathens do, or those who make no professionof godliness. So in the practice of charity and forgiveness, Jesus our Lord requires usto forgive our enemies, and to do good to those that hate, and abuse, and persecute us : But when it lies in our power to doamost considerable service to a person that has done us thehighest injury, then there is a special providence callingus to perform a glorious action of praise. Such was the character of that great and good man Archbishop Cranmer, of whom it is said, if any man had done him an injury, he would ever afterward be his friend. E e 2
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