DISCOURSE

OF THE

NATURE, OFFICES AND MEASURES

O F

FRIEND DSHIP,

WITH

RULES OF CONDUCTING IT.

In a Letter to the moft Ingenuous and Excellent Mrs. CATHERINE PHILIPS.

Madam,

THE

HE wife Ben Sirach advised that we fhould not confult 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 fome other inftances he gives of interested persons, to whom he would not have us hearken in any matter of counsel. For whereever the intereft is fecular or vicious, there the biafs is not on the fide of truth or reafon, becaufe thefe are feldom ferved by profit and low regards. But to confult with a friend in the matters of friendship, is like confulting with a fpiritual perfon in religion; they who understand the fecrets

of

of religion, or the interior beauties of friendship, are the fitteft to give answers in all inquiries concerning the refpective fubjects; because reason and experience are on the fide of intereft; and that which in friendship is most pleafing and most useful, is also most reasonable and most true: and a friend's faireft intereft is the best measure of the conducting friendships: and therefore you who are fo eminent in friendships could also have given the best answer to your own inquiries, and you could have trufted your own reason, because it is not only greatly inftructed by the direct notices of things, but alfo by great experience in the matter of which you now inquire.

But because I will not use any thing that shall look like an excufe, I will rather give you fuch an account which you can eafily reprove, than by declining your commands, feem more fafe in my prudence, than open and communicative in my friendship to you.

You firft enquire, how far a dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of chrif tianity?

To this I anfwer, that the word [friendship] in the sense we commonly mean by it, is not fo much as named in the New Teftament; 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 paffion or a wonder upon it. There is mention of [friendship with the world], and it is faid to be enmity with God; but the word is no where else named, or to any other purpose in all the New Teftament. It fpeaks of friends often; but by friends are meant our acquaintance, or our kindred, the relatives of our family or our fortune, or our fect; fomething of fociety, or fomething of kindness there is in it; a tenderness of appellation and civility, a relation made by gifts,

or

or by duty, by services and fubjection; and I think, I have reafon to be confident, that the word friend (fpeaking of human intercourfe) is no otherwise used in the gofpels or epiftles, or acts of the apostles and the reafon of it is, the word friend is of a large fignification, and means all relations and focieties, and whatsoever is not enemy. But by friendships, 1 fuppofe you mean the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and the moft open communication, and the nobleft fufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, and the feverest 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 perfons 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 fignify fomething 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. Chriftian charity is friendship to all the world; and when friendships were the nobleft things in the world, charity was little, like the fun drawn in at a chink, or his beams drawn into the center of a burning glafs; but chriftian charity is friendship expanded like the face of the fun when it mounts above the eastern hills: and I was ftrangly pleased when I faw fomething 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 feems chargeable with fingularity:

fingularity but therefore I fay, glad I was when I faw Lelius in Cicero difcourfe thue: Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani quam conciliavit ipfa natura, contracta res eft, et adducta in anguftum; ut omnis charitas, aut inter duos, aut inter paucos jungeretur. Nature hath made friendships and focieties, relations and endearments; and by fomething 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 inclofe the commons ;. and what nature intended should be every man's, we make proper to two or three. Friendship is like rivers and the ftrand of feas, 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 chriftianity came to renew our nature, and to restore our laws, and to increase her privileges, and to make her aptnefs to become religion, then it was declared that our friendships were to be as univerfal as our converfation; that is, actual to all with whom we converfe, 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 queftion, how far a dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of christianity? the anfwer is ready and eafy. 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 reftraint begins, there begins our imperfection. It is not ill that you entertain brave friendships and worthy facieties

it

you could benefit all mankind: for I conceive that is the fum of all friendship.

I confefs this is not to be expected of us in this world; but as all our graces here are but imperfect, that is, at the beft they are but tendencies to glory: fo our friendships are imperfect too, and but beginnings of a celeftial friendship, by which we shall love every one as much as they can be loved. But then fo we must be 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 that we can, and which they are capable of. The friendship is equal to all the world, and of itfelf hath no difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it. Nature and religion “aré the bands of friendships; excellency and usefulnefs are its greatest indearments; fociety and neighbourhood, that is, the poffibilities and the cir cumftances of converse are the determinations and actualities of it. Now when men are either unnatural or irreligious, they will not be friends; when they are neither excellent nor ufeful, they are not worthy to be friends; when they are ftrangers or unknown, they cannot be friends actually and practically; but yet, as any man hath any thing of the good, contrary to thofe evils, fo he can have and must have his fhare of friendship. For thus the fun is the eye of the world; and he is indifferent to the negro or the cold Ruffian, to them that dwell under the line, and them that ftand near the tropics, the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that fhakes at the foot of the Ripbean hills. But the fluxufes of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the aproaches to

D

the