A

DISCOURSE

OF THE

NATURE, OFFICES, AND MEASURES,

OF

FRIENDSHIP,

&.c.

MADAM,

THE wise Ben Sirach advised that we should not consult with a woman concerning her of whom she is jealous, neither with a coward in matters of war, nor with a merchant concerning exchange; and some other instances he gives of interested persons, to whom he would not have us hearken in any matter of council. For wherever the interest is secular or vicious, there the bias is not on the side of truth or reason, because these are seldom served by profit and low regards. But to consult with a friend in the matters of friendship, is like consulting with a spiritual person in religion; they who understand the secrets of religion, or the interior beauties of friendship, are the fittest to give answers in all inquiries concerning the respective subjects; because reason and experience are on the side of interest; and that which in friendship is most pleasing and most useful, is also most reasonable and most true; and a friend's fairest interest is the best measure of the conducting friendships: and therefore you who are so eminent in friendships, could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries, and you could have trusted your own reason, because it is not only greatly instructed by the direct notices of things, but also by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire.

But because I will not use any thing that shall look like an excuse, I will rather give you such an account which you

can easily reprove, than by declining your commands, seem more safe in my prudence, than open and communicative in my friendship to you.

You first inquire, how far a dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity?

To this I answer; that the word 'friendship,' in the sense we commonly mean by it, is not so much as named in the New Testament; and our religion takes no notice of it. You think it strange; but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it. There is mention of "friendship with the world," and it is said to be enmity with God;" but the word is no where else named, or to any other purpose in all the New Testament. It speaks of friends often; but by friends are meant our acquaintance, or our kindred, the relatives of our family, or our fortune, or our sect; something of society, or something of kindness, there is in it; a tenderness of appellation and civility, a relation made by gifts, or by duty, by services and subjection; and I think I have reason to be confident, that the word 'friend' (speaking of human intercourse) is no otherways used in the Gospels or Epistles, or Acts of the Apostles: and the reason of it is, the word friend is of a large signification; and means all relations and societies, and whatsoever is not enemy. But by friendships, I suppose you mean the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds, of which brave men and women are capable. But then I must tell you that Christianity hath new christened it, and calls this charity. The Christian knows no enemy he hath; that is, though persons may be injurious to him, and unworthy in themselves, yet he knows none whom he is not first bound to forgive, which is indeed to make them on his part to be no enemies, that is, to make that the word enemy shall not be perfectly contrary to friend, it shall not be a relative term and signify something on each hand, a relative and a correlative; and then he knows none whom he is not bound to love and pray for, to treat kindly and justly, liberally and obligingly. Christian charity is friendship to all the world; and when friendships were the noblest things in the world,

charity was little, like the sun drawn into a chink, or his beams drawn into the centre of a burning-glass; but Christian charity is friendship expanded like the face of the sun when it mounts above the eastern hills; and I was strangely pleased when I saw something of this in Cicero; for I have been so pushed at by herds and flocks of people that follow any body that whistles to them, or drives them to pasture, that I am grown afraid of any truth that seems chargeable with singularity: but therefore, I say, glad I was when I saw Lælius in Cicero discourse thus: "Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani, quam conciliavit ipsa natura, ita contracta res est, et adducta in angustum, ut omnis caritas, aut inter duos, aut inter paucos jungeretur."Nature hath made friendships and societies, relations and endearments; and by something or other we relate to all the world; there is enough in every man that is willing to make him become our friend; but when men contract friendships, they enclose the commons; and what nature intended should be every man's, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like rivers and the strand of seas, and the air, common to all the world; but tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love, have made them proper and peculiar. But when Christianity came to renew our nature, and to restore our laws, and to increase her privileges, and to make her aptness to become religion, then it was declared that our friendships were to be as universal as our conversation; that is, actual to all with whom we converse, and potentially extended unto those with whom we did not. For he who was to treat his enemies with forgiveness and prayers, and love and beneficence, was indeed to have no enemies, and to have all friends.

So that to your question, how far a dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity? the answer is ready and easy. It is warranted to extend to all mankind; and the more we love, the better we are; and the greater our friendships are, the dearer we are to God. Let them be as dear, and let them be as perfect, and let them be as many, as you can; there is no danger in it; only where the restraint begins, there begins our imperfection It

q Wetzel. V. 15. pag. 154.

is not ill that you entertain brave friendships and worthy societies: it were well if you could love and if you could benefit all mankind; for I conceive that is the sum of all friendship.

: I confess this is not to be expected of us in this world; but as all our graces here are but imperfect, that is, at the best they are but tendencies to glory; so our friendships are imperfect too, and but beginnings of a celestial friendship, by which we shall love every one as much as they can be loved. But then so we must here in our proportion; and indeed that is it that can make the difference; we must be friends to all, that is, apt to do good, loving them really, and doing to them all the benefits which we can, and which they are capable of. The friendship is equal to all the world, and of itself hath no difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it. Nature and religion are the bands of friendships; excellency and usefulness are its great endearments: society and neighbourhood, that is, the possibilities and the circumstances of converse, are the determinations and actualities of it. Now when men either are unnatural, or irreligious, they will not be friends; when they are neither excellent nor useful, they are not worthy to be friends; when they are strangers or unknown, they cannot be friends actually and practically; but yet, as any man hath any thing of the good, contrary to those evils, so he can have and must have his share of friendship. For thus the sun is the eye of the world; and he is indifferent to the negro, or the cold Russian; to them that dwell under the line, and them that stand near the tropics; the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills. But the fluxures of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the north or south respectively, change the emanations of his beams; not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not equally received below, but by periods and changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what they can. And some have only a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattle, a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of catarrhs and consumptions; apoplexies and dead palsies. But some have splendid fires, and aromatic

spices, rich wines, and well-digested fruits, great wit and great courage; because they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the courtiers of the sun, and wait upon him in his chambers of the east. Just so is it in friendship: some are worthy, and some are necessary; some dwell hard by, and are fitted for converse: nature joins some to us, and religion combines us with others; society and accidents, parity of fortune, and equal dispositions, do actuate our friendships: which of themselves and in their prime disposition are prepared for all mankind according as any one can receive them. We see this best exemplified by two instances and expressions of friendships and charity: viz., alms and prayers; every one that needs relief, is equally the object of our charity; but though to all mankind in equal needs we ought to be alike in charity; yet we signify this severally, and by limits, and distinct measures: the poor man that is near me, he whom I meet, he whom I love, he whom I fancy, he who did me benefit, he who relates to my family, he rather than another; because my expressions being infinite and narrow, and cannot extend to all in equal significations, must be appropriate to those, whose circumstances best fit me: and yet even to all I give my alms; to all the world that needs them: I pray for all mankind; I am grieved at every sad story I hear; I am troubled when I hear of a pretty bride murdered in her bride-chamber by an ambitious and enraged rival; I shed a tear when I am told that a brave king was misunderstood, then slandered, then imprisoned, and then put to death, by evil men: and I can never read the story of the Parisian massacre, or the Sicilian vespers, but my blood curdles, and I am disordered by two or three affections. A good man is a friend to all the world; and he is not truly charitable that does not wish well, and do good, to all mankind in what he can. But though we must pray for all men, yet we say special litanies for brave kings, and holy prelates, and the wise guides of souls, for our brethren and relations, our wives and children.

The effect of this consideration is, that the universal friendship of which I speak, must be limited, because we are so in those things where we stand next to immensity and infinity, as in good wishes and prayers, and a readiness to benefit all mankind, in these our friendships must not be

VOL. XI.

X