ships some are worthy, and some are necessary; some dwell hard by and are fitted for converse; Nature joyns 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 friendship 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 signifie 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 then another, because my expressions being finite 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 enrag'd 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 disorder'd 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 limited; but in other things which pass under our hand and eye, our voices and our material exchanges; our hands can reach no further but to our arms end, and our voices can but sound till the next air be quiet, and therefore they can have entercourse but within the sphere of their own activity; our needs and our conversations are served by a few, and they cannot reach to all; where they can, they must; but where it is impossible, it cannot be necessary. It must therefore follow, that our friendships to mankind may admit variety as does our conversation; and as by nature we are made sociable to all, so we are friendly; but as all cannot actually be of our society, so neither can all be admitted to a special, actual friendship; Of some entercourses all men are capable, but not of all; Men can pray for one another, and abstain from doing injuries to all the world, and be desirous to do all mankind good, and love all men; Now this friendship we must pay to all because we can, but if we can do no more to all, we must shew our readiness to do more good to all by actually doing more good to all them to whom we can. To some we can, and therefore there are nearer friendships to some then1 to others, according as there are natural or civil nearnesses, relations and societies; and as I cannot express my friendships to all in equal measures and significations, that is, as I cannot do benefits to all alike: so neither am I tied to love all alike: for although there is much reason to love every man; yet there are more reasons to love some than others; and if I must love because there is reason I 1 Then, than. In the "Areopagitica" Milton invariably wrote then for than. The words have the same origin. should; then I must love more, where there is more reason; and where there's a special affection and a great readiness to do good and to delight in certain persons towards each other, there is that special charity and indearment which Philosophy calls friendship; but our Religion calls love or charity. Now if the inquiry be concerning this special friendship. 1. How it can be appropriate, that is, who to be chosen to it; 2. how far it may extend; that is, with what expressions signified; 3. how conducted? The answers will depend upon such considerations which will be neither useless nor unpleasant. 1. There may be a special friendship contracted for any special excellency whatsoever; because friendships are nothing but love and society mixt together; that is, a conversing with them whom we love; now for whatsoever we can love any one, for that we can be his friend; and since every excellency is a degree of amability, every such worthiness is a just and proper motive of friendship, or loving conversation. But yet in these things there is an order and proportion. Therefore 2. A good man is the best friend, and therefore soonest to be chosen, longer to be retain'd; and indeed never to be parted with, unless he cease to be that for which he was chosen. Τῶν δ ̓ ἄλλων ἀρετὴ ποιεῖ φίλον ὁστὶς ἀρίστος 2 But although vertue alone is the worthiest cause of amability, And for this we have the best warrant in the world: For a just man scarcely will a man die; the Syriac interpreter reads it, inep dðíкov for an unjust man scarcely will a man die; that is, a wicked man is at no hand fit to receive the expression of the greatest friendship; but all the Greek copies that ever I saw, or read of, read it as we do; for a righteous man or a just man, that is, justice and righteousness is not the nearest indearment of friendship; but for a good man some will even dare to die: that is for a man that is sweetly disposed, ready to do acts of goodness and to oblige others, to do things useful and profitable, for a loving man, a beneficent, bountiful man, one who delights in doing good to his friend, such a man may have the highest friendship; he may have a friend that will die for him. And this is the meaning of Lælius: Vertue may be despised, so may Learning and Nobility: at una est amicitia in rebus humanis de cujus utilitate omnes consentiunt: only friendship is that thing, which because all know to be useful and profitable, no man can despise; that is χρηστότης, or ἀγαθότης, goodness or beneficence makes friendships. For if he be a good man he will love where he is beloved, and that's the first tie of friendship. ̓Αλλήλους ἐφίλησαν ἴσῳ ζυγῷ. That was the commendation of the bravest friendship in Theocritus, They lov'd each other with a love χρυσεῖοι πάλαι ἄνδρες ὁκ ̓ ἀντιφίλησ' ὁ φιληθείς. The World was under Saturn's reign For it is impossible this nearness of friendship can be where there is not mutual love; but this is secured if I choose a good man; for he that is apt enough to begin alone, will never be behind in the relation and correspondency; and therefore I like the Gentiles Litany well, Ζεύς μοι τῶν τε φίλων δοίη τισὶν οἵ με φιλεῦσι. But there is more in it than this felicity amounts to. For Xpηords avǹp the good man is a profitable, useful person, and that's the band of an effective friendship. For I do not think that friendships are Metaphysical nothings, created for contemplation, or that Men or Women should stare upon each others faces, and make dialogues of news and prettinesses, and look babies in one anothers eyes. Friendship is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the clarity of our minds, the emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we meditate. And although I love my friend because he is worthy, yet he is not worthy if he can do no good. I do not speak of accidental hindrances and misfortunes by which the bravest man may become unable to help his Child; but of the natural and artificial capacities of the man. He only is fit to be chosen for a friend, who can do those offices for which friendship is excellent. For (mistake not) no man can be loved for himself; our perfections in this World cannot reach so high; it is well if we would love God at that rate, and I very much fear, that if God did us no good, we might admire his Beauties, but we should have but a small proportion of love towards him; and therefore it is, that God to endear the obedience, that is, the love of his servants, signifies what benefits he gives us, what great good things he does for us. I am the Lord God that brought thee out of the land of Egypt: and does Job serve God for nought? and he that comes to God, must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder: all his other greatnesses are objects of fear and wonder, it is his goodness that makes him lovely and so it is in friendships. He only is fit to be chosen for a friend who can give counsel, or defend my cause, or guide me right, or relieve my need, or can and will, when I need it, do me good: only this I add: into the heaps of doing good, I will reckon [loving me] for it is a pleasure to be beloved, but when his love signifies nothing but kissing my cheek, or talking kindly, and can go no further, it is a prostitution of the bravery of friendship to spend it upon impertinent people who are (it may be) loads to their families, but can never ease my loads: but my friend is a worthy person when he can become to me instead of God, a guide or a support, an eye, or a hand; a staff, or a rule: There must be in friendship something to distinguish it from a Companion, and a Country man, from a School-fellow or a Gossip, from a Sweet-heart or a Fellow-traveller: Friendship may look in at any one of these doors, but it stays not any where till it come to be the best thing in the world: and when we consider that one man is not better than another, neither towards God nor towards Man, but by doing better and braver things, we shall also see, that that which is most beneficent is also most excellent; and therefore those friendships must needs be most perfect, where the friends can be most useful. For men cannot be useful but by worthinesses in the several instances: a fool cannot be relyed upon for counsel, nor a vitious person for the advantages of vertue, nor a begger for relief, nor a stranger for conduct, nor a tatler to keep a secret, nor a pittiless person trusted with my complaint, nor a covetous man with my childs fortune, nor a false person without a witness, nor a suspicious person with a private design; nor him that I fear with the treasures of my love: But he that is wise and vertuous, rich and at hand, close and merciful, free of his money and tenacious of a secret, open and ingenuous, true and honest, is of himself an excellent man; and therefore fit to be loved; and he can do good to me in all capacities where I can need him, and therefore is fit to be a friend. I confess we are forced in our friendships to abate some of these ingredients; but full measures of friendship, would have full measures of worthiness; and according as any defect is in the foundation; in the relation also there may be imperfection: and indeed I shall not blame the friendship so it be worthy, though it be not perfect; not only because friendship is charity, which cannot be perfect here, but because there is not in the World a perfect cause of perfect friendship. If you can suspect that this discourse can suppose friendship to be mercenary, and to be defective in the greatest worthiness of it, which is to love our friend for our friends sake, I shall easily be able to defend my self; because I speak of the election and reasons of choosing friends: after he is chosen do as nobly as you talk, and love as purely as you dream, and let your conversation be as metaphysical as your discourse, and proceed in this method, till you be confuted by experience; yet till then, the case is otherwise when we speak of choosing one to be my friend: He is not my friend till I have chosen him, or loved him; and if any man enquires whom he shall choose or whom he should love, I suppose it ought not to be answered, that we should love him who hath least amability; that we should choose him who hath least reason to be chosen: But if it be answered, he is to be chosen to be my friend who is most worthy in himself, not he that can do most good to me; I say, here is a distinction but no difference; for he is most worthy in himself who can do most good; and if he can love me too, that is, if he will do me all the good he can, that I need, then he is my friend and he deserves it. And it is impossible from a friend to separate a will to do me good: and therefore I do not choose well, if I choose one that hath not power; for if it may consist with the nobleness of friendship to desire that my friend be ready to do me benefit or support, it is not sense to say, it is ignoble to desire he should really do it when I need; and if it were not for pleasure or profit, we might as well be without a friend as have him. Among all the pleasures and profits, the sensual pleasure and the matter of money are the lowest and the least; and therefore although they may sometimes be used in friendship, and so not wholly excluded from the consideration of him that is to choose, yet of all things they are to be the least regarded. Ἐν τοῖς δὲ δεινοῖς, χρημάτων κρείττων φίλος.5 When fortune frowns upon a Man, A friend does more than money can. 4 Conversation. The familiar intercourse of life; behaviour among others. 5 Uncertain author, in Grotius, "Excerpt. ex Trag. et Com.," itc, Paris, 1626, p. 915. For there are besides these, many profits and many pleasures; οὐκ ἐᾶ πότων καὶ τῆς καθ' ἡμέραν τρυφῆς said Menander. By Wine and mirth and every days delight Είδωλα καὶ μιμήματα φιλίας. Plutarch calls such friendships, the Idols and Images of friendship. True and brave friendships are between worthy persons; and there is in Mankind no degree of worthiness, but is also a degree of usefulness, and by every thing by which a man is excellent, I may be profited; and because those are the bravest friends which can best serve the ends of friendships, either we must suppose that friendships are not the greatest comforts in the World, or else we must say, he chooses his friend best, that chooses such a one by whom he can receive the greatest comforts and assistances. 3. This being the measure of all friendships; they all partake of excellency, according as they are fitted to this measure: a friend may be counselled well enough though his friend be not the wisest man in the world, and he may be pleased in his society though he be not the best natured man in the world; but still it must be, that something excellent is, or is apprehended, or else it can be no worthy friendship; because the choice is imprudent and foolish. Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just, ingenuous and honest; and in those things which have a latitude, use your own liberty; but in such things which consist in an indivisible point, make no abatements; That is, you must not choose him to be your friend that is not honest and secret, just and true to a tittle; but if he be wise at all, and useful in any degree, and as good as you can have him, you need not be ashamed to own your friendships: though sometimes you may be ashamed of some imperfections of your friend. 4. But if you yet enquire further, whether fancy may be an ingredient in your choice? I answer, that fancy may minister to this as to all other actions in which there is a liberty and variety; and we shall find that there may be peculiarities and little partialities, a friendship, improperly so called, entring upon accounts of an innocent passion and a pleas'd fancy; even our Blessed Saviour himself loved Saint John and Lazarus by a special love, which was signified by special treatments; and of the young man that spake well and wisely to Christ, it is affirmed, Jesus loved him: that is, he fancied the man, and his soul had a certain cognation and similitude of temper and inclination. For in all things where there is a latitude, every faculty will endeavour to be pleased, and somtimes the meanest persons in a house have a festival; even sympathies and natural inclinations to some persons, and a conformity of humours, and proportionable loves, and the beauty of the face, and a witty answer may first strike the flint and kindle a spark, which if it falls upon tender and compliant natures may grow into a flame; but this will never be maintained at the rate of friendship, unless it be fed by pure materials, by worthinesses which are the food of friendship: where these are not, Men and Women may be pleased with one anothers company, and lye under the same roof, and make themselves companions of equal prosperities, and humour their friend; but if you call this friendship, you give a sacred name to humour or fancy, for there is a Platonick friendship as well as a Platonick love; but they being but the Images of more noble bodies are but like tinsel dressings, which will shew bravely by candle-light, and do excellently in a mask, but are not fit for conversation, and the material entercourses of our life. These are the prettinesses of prosperity and good-natured wit; but when we speak of friendship, which is the best thing in the World (for it is love and beneficence; it is charity that is fitted for society) we cannot suppose a brave pile should be built up with nothing; and they that build Castles in the air, and look upon friendship, as upon a fine Romance, a thing that pleases the fancy, but is good for nothing else, will do well when they are asleep, or when they are come to Elysium ; and for ought I know in the mean time may be as much in love with Mandana in the Grand Cyrus,' as with the Infanta of Spain, or any of the most perfect beauties and real excellencies of the world: and by dreaming of perfect and abstracted friendships, make them so immaterial that they perish in the handling and become good for nothing. But I know not whither I was going; I did only mean to say that because friendship is that by which the world is most blessed and receives most good, it ought to be chosen amongst the worthiest persons, that is, amongst those that can do greatest benefit to each other; and though in equal worthiness I may chuse by my eye, or ear, that is, into the consideration of the essential I may take in also the accidental and extrinsick worthinesses; yet I ought to give every one their just value; when the internal beauties are equal, these shall help to weigh down the scale, and I will love a worthy friend that can delight me as well as profit me, rather than him who cannot delight me at all, and profit me no more; but yet I will not weigh the gayest flowers, or the wings of butterflies against wheat; but when I am to chuse wheat, I may take that which looks the brightest: I had rather see Thyme and Roses, Marjoram and July-flowers that are fair and sweet and medicinal, than the prettiest Tulips that are good for nothing: And my Sheep and Kine are better servants than Race-horses and Gray-hounds: And I shall rather furnish my Study with Plutarch and Cicero, with Livy and Polybius, than with Cassandra and Ibrahim Bassa;2 and if I do give an hour to these for divertisement or pleasure, yet I will dwell with them that can instruct me, and make me wise and eloquent, severe and useful to my self and others. I end this with the saying of Lælius in Cicero: 1 Madeleine de Scudéri's "Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus," was com pleted in ten vols. in 1650, and the English translation was published in 1653-54. Cassandra and Ibrahim Bassa. Calprenède's French novel of "Cassandra," published in 1642, had been translated into English by Sir Charles Cotterell in 1653; Madeleine de Scudéri's "Ibrahim, or the Illustrious Bassa," had been Englished by Henry Cogan in 1652. Such translations of French romances into folio volumes were the chief fare of the novel-readers under the Commonwealth. Almost the only home grown imitation of this style was the Earl of Orrery's "Parthenissa." Amicitia non debet consequi utilitatem, sed amicitiam_utilitas,1 When I chuse my friend, I will not stay till I have received a kindness; but I will chuse such an one that can do me many if I need them: But I mean such kindnesses which make me wiser, and which make me better; that is, I will when I chuse my friend, chuse him that is the bravest, the worthiest and the most excellent person: and then your first Question is soon answered; to love such a person and to contract such friendships is just so authorized by the principles of Christianity, as it is warranted to love wisdom and vertue, goodness and beneficence, and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of brave men. 2. The next inquiry is how far it may extend? That is, by what expressions it may be signified? I find that David and Jonathan loved at a strange rate; they were both good men; though it happened that Jonathan was on the obliging side; but here the expressions were; Jonathan watched for Davids good; told him of his danger, and helped him to escape; took part with Davids innocence against his Fathers malice and injustice; and beyond all this, did it to his own prejudice; and they two stood like two feet supporting one body; though Jonathan knew that David would prove like the foot of a Wrestler, and would supplant him, not by any unworthy or unfriendly action, but it was from God; and he gave him his hand to set him upon his own Throne. : We find his parallels in the Gentile stories: young Athenodorus having divided the estate with his Brother Xenon; 2 divided it again when Xenon had spent his own share; and Lucullus would not take the Consulship till his younger brother had first enjoyed it for a year; but Pollux divided with Castor his immortality; and you know who offer'd himself to death being pledg for his friend; and his friend by performing his word rescued him as bravely and when we find in Scripture that for a good man some will even dare to die; and that Aquila and Priscilla laid their necks down for S. Paul; and the Galatians would have given him their very eyes, that is, every thing that was most dear to them, and some others were near unto death for his sake; and that it is a precept of Christian charity, to lay down our lives for our brethren, that is, those who were combined in a cause of Religion, who were united with the same hopes, and imparted to each other ready assistances, and grew dear by common sufferings, we need enquire no further for the expressions of friendships: Greater love than this hath no man, than that he lay down his life for his friends; and this we are oblig'd to do in some Cases for all Christians; and therefore we may do it for those who are to us in this present and imperfect state of things, that which all the good Men and Women in the World shall be in Heaven, that is, in the state of perfect friendships. This is the biggest; but then it includes and can suppose all the rest; and if this may be done for all, and in some cases must for any one of the multitude, we need not scruple whether we may do it for those who are better than a multitude. But as for the thing it self, it is not easily and lightly to be done; and a Man must not die for humour, nor expend so great a Jewel for a trife: μόλις ἀνεπνεύσαμεν εἰδότες ἐπ ̓ οὐδενὶ λυσιτελεῖ παρανάλωμα γενησόμενοι: said Philo; we will hardly die when it is for nothing, when no good, no worthy end is served, and become a Sacrifice to redeem a foot boy. But we may not give our life to redeem another: unless 1. The party for whom we die be a worthy and an useful person; better for the publick, or better for Religion, and more useful 1 Friendship ought not to be the consequence of usefulness, but usefulness of friendship. 2 Plutarch on "Fraternal Friendship." to others than my self. Thus Ribischius the German died bravely when he became a Sacrifice for his Master, Maurice Duke of Saxony; Covering his Masters body with his own, that he might escape the fury of the Turkish Souldiers. Succurram perituro, sed ut ipse non peream, nisi si futurus ero magni hominis, aut magnæ rei merces, said Seneca.3 I will help a dying person if I can; but I will not die my self for him, unless by my death I save a brave man, or become the price of a great thing; that is, I will die for a Prince, for the republick, or to save an Army, as David expos'd himself to combat with the Philistin for the redemption of the host of Israel and in this sense, that is true; Præstat ut pereat unus, quam Unitas, better that one perish than a multitude. 2. A man dies bravely when he gives his temporal life to save the soul of any single person in the Christian world. It is a worthy exchange, and the glorification of that love by which Christ gave his life for every soul. Thus he that reproves an erring Prince wisely and necessarily, he that affirms a fundamental truth, or stands up for the glory of the Divine attributes, though he die for it, becomes a worthy sacrifice. 3. These are duty, but it may be heroick and full of Christian bravery, to give my life to rescue a noble and a brave friend; though I my self be as worthy a man as he; because the preference of him is an act of humility in me; and of friendship towards him: Humility and Charity making a pious difference, where art and nature have made all equal. Some have fancied other measures of treating our friends. One sort of men say that we are to expect that our friends should value us as we value our selves which if it were to be admitted, will require that we make no friendship with a proud man; and so far indeed were well; but then this proportion does exclude some humble men who are most to be valued, and the rather because they undervalue themselves. Others say that a friend is to value his friend as much as his friend values him; but neither is this well or safe, wise or sufficient; for it makes friendship a meer bargain, and is something like the Country weddings in some places where I have been; where the bridegroom and the bride must meet in the half way, and if they fail a step, they retire and break the match: It is not good to make a reckoning in friendship; that merchandise, or it may be gratitude, but not noble friendship; in which each part strives to out-do the other in significations of an excellent love: And amongst true friends there is no fear of losing any thing. But that which amongst the old Philosophers comes nearest to the right, is that we love our friends as we love our selves. If they had meant it as our Blessed Saviour did, of that general friendship by which we are to love all Mankind, it had been perfect and well; or if they had meant it of the inward affection, or of outward justice; but because they meant it of the most excellent friendships, and of the outward significations of it, it cannot be sufficient: for a friend may and must sometimes do more for his friend than he would do for himself. Some men will perish before they will beg or petition for themselves to some certain persons; but they account it noble to do it for their friend, and they will want rather than their friend shall want; and they will be more earnest in praise or dispraise respectively for their friend than for themselves. And indeed I account that one of the greatest demonstrations of real friendship, that a friend can really endeavour to have his friend advanced in honour, in reputation, in the opinion of wit or learning before himself. Aurum et opes, et rura frequens donabit amicus: Lands, gold and trifles many give or lend; But then be pleased to think that therefore I so highly value this signification of friendship, because I so highly value humility. Humility and Charity are the two greatest graces in the World; and these are the greatest ingredients which constitute friendship and express it. But there needs no other measures of friendship, but that it may be as great as you can express it; beyond death it cannot go, to death it may, when the cause is reasonable and just, charitable and religious: and yet if there be any thing greater than to suffer death (and pain and shame to some are more insufferable) a true and noble friendship shrinks not at the greatest trials. And yet there is a limit even to friendship. It must be as great as our friend fairly needs in all things where we are not tied up by a former duty, to God, to our selves, or some pre-obliging relative. When Pollux heard some body whisper a reproach against his Brother Castor, he killed the slanderer with his fist that was a zeal which his friendship could not warrant. Nulla est excusatio si amici causâ peccaveris, said Cicero. No friendship can excuse a sin: And this the braver Romans instanced in the matter of duty to their Country. It is not lawful to fight on our friends part against our Prince or Country; and therefore when Caius Blesius of Cuma in the sedition of Gracchus appeared against his Country, when he was taken he answered, That he loved Tiberius Gracchus so dearly, that he thought fit to follow him whithersoever he led; and begg'd pardon upon that account. They who were his Judges were so noble, that though they knew it no fair excuse: yet for the honour of friendship they did not directly reject his motion: but put him to death, because he did not follow, but led on Gracchus, and brought his friend into the snare: For so they preserved the honours of friendship on either hand, by neither suffering it to be sullied by a foul excuse, nor yet rejected in any fair pretence. A man may not be perjured for his friend. I remember to have read in the History of the Low-countries, that Grimston and Redhead,1 when Bergenapzoom was besieged by the Duke of Parma, acted for the interest of the Queen of Englands Forces a notable design; but being suspected and put for their acquittance to take the Sacrament of the Altar, they dissembled their persons and their interest, their design and their religion, and did for the Queens service (as one wittily wrote to her) give not only their bodies but their souls, and so deserved a reward greater than she could pay them:. I cannot say this is a thing greater than a friendship can require, for it is not great at all, but a great villany, which hath no name, and no order in worthy entercourses; and no obligation to a friend can reach as high as our duty to God: And he that does a base thing in zeal for his friend, burns the golden thred that ties their hearts together; it is a conspiracy, but no longer friendship. And when Cato lent his Wife to Hortensius, and Socrates lent his to a merry Greek, they could not amongst wise persons obtain so much as the fame of being worthy friends, neither could those great Names legitimate an unworthy action under the most plausible title. It is certain that amongst friends their estates are common; that is, by whatsoever I can rescue my friend from calamity, I am to serve him, or not to call him friend; there is a great latitude in this, and it is to be restrained by no prudence, but when there is on the other side a great necessity neither 1 "Victoires de Maurice de Nassau," fol., Leyden, 1612, p. 74. vicious nor avoidable: A man may chuse whether he will or no; and he does not sin in not doing it, unless he have bound himself to it: But certainly friendship is the greatest band in the world, and if he have professed a great friendship, he hath a very great obligation to do that and more; and he can no ways be disobliged but by the care of his Natural relations. I said, [Friendship is the greatest bond in the world,] and I had reason for it, for it is all the bands that this world hath; and there is no society, and there is no relation that is worthy, but it is made so by the communications of friendship, and by partaking some of its excellencies. For friendship is a transcendent, and signifies as much as Unity can mean, and every consent, and every pleasure, and every benefit, and every society is the Mother or the Daughter of friendship. Some friendships are made by nature, some by contract, some by interest, and some by souls. And in proportion to these ways of Uniting, so the friendships are greater or less, vertuous or natural, profitable or holy, or all this together. Nature makes excellent friendships, of which we observe something in social parts; growing better in each others neighbourhood than where they stand singly: And in animals it is more notorious, whose friendships extend so far as to herd and dwell together, to play, and feed, to defend and fight for one another, and to cry in absence, and to rejoyce in one anothers presence. But these friendships have other names less noble, they are sympathy, or they are instinct. But if to this natural friendship there be reason superadded, something will come in upon the stock of reason which will ennoble it; but because no Rivers can rise higher than Fountains, reason shall draw out all the dispositions which are in Nature and establish them into friendships, but they cannot surmount the communications of Nature; Nature can make no friendships greater than her own excellencies. Nature is the way of contracting necessary friendships: that is, by nature such friendships are contracted without which we cannot live, and be educated, or be well, or be at all. In this scene, that of Parents and Children is the greatest, which indeed is begun in nature, but is actuated by society and mutual endearments. For Parents love their Children because they love themselves, Children being but like emissions of water, symbolical, or indeed the same with the fountain; and they in their posterity see the images and instruments of a civil immortality; but if Parents and Children do not live together, we see their friendships and their loves are much abated, and supported only by fame and duty, by customs and religion, which to nature are but artificial pillars, and make this friendship to be complicated, and to pass from its own kind to another. That of Children to their Parents is not properly friendship, but gratitude and interest, and religion, and whatever can supervene of the nature of friendship comes in upon another account; upon society and worthiness and choice. This This relation on either hand makes great Dearnesses: But it hath special and proper significations of it, and there is a special duty incumbent on each other respectively. friendship and social relation is not equal, and there is too much authority on one side, and too much fear on the other to make equal friendships; and therefore although this is one of the kinds of friendship, that is of a social and relative love and conversation, yet in the more proper use of the word; [Friendship] does do some things which Father and Son do not; I instance in the free and open communicating counsels, and the evenness and pleasantness of conversation; and consequently the significations of the paternal and filial love as they are divers in themselves and unequal, and therefore another kind of friendship than we mean in our inquiry; so they are such a duty which no other friendship can annul: |