Practical piety Author:Francis Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Observe particularly, that as our Saviour has done for us all that could be done, so he wills, and the rule of perfection requires, that we do all lhat we are ab... more »le one for another, except sin. With that exception, our love ought to be so firm, so cordial, and so solid, that we should never refuse to do or suffer aught for the good of our neighbor. Now, rightly to evidence our love for our neighbor, it is necessary'to procure for him all the good that we can, both spiritual and temporal, praying for him, and cordially serving him as occasion requires; because a friendship which ends in fine words is no great thing. To do otherwise is not to love as our Lord hath loved us, who did not content himself with assuring us that he loved us, but gave us effective proofs of his love. CHAPTER II. IN WHAT WAY WE SHOULD I.OVE OCR NEIGHBOR. You ask me in what way we should love our neighbor ? I answer, that there are friendships which seem extremely great and perfect in the eyes of men, which before God are seen to be little and of no value, because they are not founded in true charity, which is God, but only on certain natural affinities and inclinations, and on considerations humanly praiseworthy and agreeable. There are other friendships, on the contrary, which seem extremely poor and trifling in the eyes of the world, which before God are seen to be rich and very excellent, because they are only in God and for God, without any admixture of our own interest. Now, the acts of charity which we exercise towards those whom we love in this way are athousand times more perfect, inasmuch as everything in them tends purely to God; but the services and other help which we render to those whom wo love by inclination are of much less merit, by reason of the great satisfaction and enjo...« less