Selected quad for the lemma: body_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
body_n	death_n	soul_n	union_n	6,555	5	9.5716	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A64030	The measures and offices of friendship with rules of conducting it : to which are added, two letters written to persons newly changed in their religion / by Jer. Taylor, D.D.; Discourse of the nature, offices and measures of friendship	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1657 (1657)	Wing T350; ESTC R41495	50,636	214

non fit verbis Marce ut ameris ama Mar. l. 6. ep 11. if he does then there is a great friendship and he possibly is to be preferred if he can be that friend which he pretends to be that is if he be equally worthy but if he sayes I must love him onely because he is my Brother whether he loves me or no he is ridiculous and it will be a strange relation which hath no correspondent but suppose it and adde this also that I am equally his Brother as he is mine then he also must love me whether I love him or no and if he does not he sayes I must love him though he be my Enemy and so I must but I must not love my Enemy though he be my Brother more then I love my Friend and at last if he does love me for being his Brother I confesse that this love deserves love again but then I consider that he loves me upon an incompetent reason for he that loves me only because I am his Brother loves me for that which is no worthinesse and I must love him as much as that comes to and for as little reason unlesse this be added that he loves me first but whether choice and union of souls and worthinesse of manners and greatnesse of understanding and usefulnesse of conversation and the benefits of Counsel and all those endearments which make our lives pleasant and our persons Dear are not better and greater reasons of love and Dearnesse then to be born of the same flesh I think amongst wise persons needs no great enquity For fraternity is but a Cognation of bodies but friendship is an Union of souls which are confederated by more noble ligatures My Brother if he be no more shall have my hand to help him but unlesse he be my friend too he cannot challenge my heart and if his being my friend be the greater nearnesse then friend is more then Brother and I suppose no man doubts but that David lov'd Jonathan far more then he lov'd his Brother Eliab One inquity more there may be in this affair and that is whether a friend may be more then Husband or Wife To which I answer that it can never be reasonable or just prudent or lawfull but the reason is because Marriage is the Queen of friendships in which there is a communication of all that can be communicated by friendship and it being made sacred by vowes and love by bodies and souls by interest and custome by religion and by lawes by common counsels and common fortunes it is the principal in the kind of friendship and the measure of all the rest And there is no abatement to this consideration but that there may be some allay in this as in other lesser friendships by the incapacity of the persons if I have not chosen my friend wisely or fortunately he cannot be the correlative in the best Union but then the friend lives as the soul does after death it is in the state of separation in which the soul strangely loves the body and longs to be reunited but the body is an uselesse trunk and can do no ministeries to the soul which therefore prayes to have the body reformed and restored and made a brave and a fit companion so must these best friends when one is useless or unapt to the braveries of the princely friendship they must love ever and pray ever and long till the other be perfected and made fit in this case there wants onely the body but the soul is still a relative and must be so for ever A Husband and a Wife are the best friends but they cannot alwayes signifie all that to each other which their friendships would as the Sunne shines not upon a Valley which sends up a thick vapour to cover his face and though his beams are eternall yet the emission is intercepted by the intervening cloud But however all friendships are but parts of this a man must leave Father and Mother and cleave to his Wife that is the dearest thing in Nature is not comparable to the dearest thing of friendship and I think this is argument sufficient to prove friendship to be the greatest band in the world Adde to this that other friendships are parts of this they are marriages too lesse indeed then the other because they cannot must not be all that endearment which the other is yet that being the principal is the measure of the rest and are all to be honoured by like dignities and measured by the same rules and conducted by their portion of the same Lawes But as friendships are Marriages of the soul and of fortunes and interests and counsels so they are brotherhoods too and I often think of the excellencies of friendships in the words of David who certainly was the best friend in the world Ecce quam bonum quam jucundum fratres habitare in unum It is good and it is pleasant that Brethren should live like friends that is they who are any wayes relative and who are any wayes social and confederate should also dwell in Unity and loving society for that is the meaning of the word Brother in Scripture It was my Brother Jonathan said David such Brothers contracting such friendships are the beauties of society and the pleasure of life and the festivity of minds and whatsoever can be spoken of love which is Gods eldest daughter can be said of vertuous friendships and though Carneades made an eloquent oration at Rome against justice yet never saw a Panegyrick of malice or ever read that any man was witty against friendship Indeed it is probable that some men finding themselves by the peculiarities of friendship excluded from the participation of those beauties of society which enamel and adorne the wise and the vertuous might suppose themselves to have reason to speak the evil words of envy and detraction I wonder not for all those unhappy soules which shall find heaven gates shut against them will think they have reason to murmur and blaspheme The similitude is apt enough for that is the region of friendship and love is the light of that glorious Countrey but so bright that it needs no Sun Here we have fine and bright rayes of that Celestial flame and though to all mankind the light of it is in some measure to be extended like the treasures of light dwelling in the South yet a little do illustrate and beautifie the North yet some live under the line and the beams of friendship in that position are imminent and perpendicular I know but one thing more in which the Communications of friendship can be restrained and that is in Friends and Enemies Amicus amici amicus meus non est My friends friend is not alwayes my friend nor his enemy mine for if my friend quarrel with a third person with whom he hath had no friendships upon the account of interest if that third person be my friend the nobleness of our

friendships despises such a quarrel and what may be reasonable in him would be ignoble in me sometimes it may be otherwise and friends may marry one anothers loves and hatreds but it is by chance if it can be just and therefore because it is not alwayes right it cannot be ever necessary In all things else let friendships be as high and expressive till they become an Union or that friends like the Molionidae be so the same that the flames of their dead bodies make but one Piramis no charity can be reproved and such friendships which are more then shadows are nothing else but the rayes of that glorious grace drawn into one centre and made more active by the Union and the proper significations are well represented in the old Hieroglyphick by which the ancients depicted friendship In the beauties and strength of a young man bare-headed rudely clothed to signifie its activity and lastingness readiness of action and aptnesses to do service Upon the fringes of his garment was written Mors vita as signifying that in life and death the friendship was the same on the forehead was written Summer and Winter that is prosperous and adverse accidents and states of life the left arme and shoulder was bare and naked downe to the heart to which the finger pointed and there was written longè propè by all which we know that friendship does good far and neer in Summer Winter in life and death and knows no difference of state or accident but by the variety of her services and therefore ask no more to what we can be obliged by friendship for it is every thing that can be honest and prudent usefull and necessary For this is all the allay of this Universality we may do any thing or suffer any thing that is wise or necessary or greatly beneficial to my friend and that in any thing in which I am perfect master of my person and fortunes But I would not in bravery visite my friend when he is sick of the plague unlesse I can do him good equall at least to my danger but I will procure him Physicians and prayers all the assistances that he can receive and that he can desire if they be in my power and when he is dead I will not run into his grave and be stifled with his earth but I will mourn for him and performe his will and take care of his relatives and do for him as if he were alive and I think that is the meaning of that hard saying of a Greek Poet. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 To me though distant let thy friendship flye Though men be mortal friendships must not die Of all things else there 's great satiety Of such immortal abstracted pure friendships indeed there is no great plenty and to see brothers hate each other is not so rare as to see them love at this rate The dead and the absent have but few friends say the Spaniards but they who are the same to their friend 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 when he is in another Countrey or in another World these are they who are fit to preserve the sacred fire for eternall sacrifices and to perpetuate the memory of those exemplar friendships of the best men which have filled the world with history and wonder for in no other sense but this can it be true that friendships are pure loves regarding to doe good more then to receive it He that is a friend after death hopes not for a recompense from his friend and makes no bargain either for fame or love but is rewarded with the conscience and satisfaction of doing bravely but then this is demonstration that they choose Friends best who take persons so worthy that can and will do so This is the profit and usefulnesse of friendship and he that contracts such a noble Union must take care that his friend be such who can and will but hopes that himselfe shall be first used and put to act it I will not have such a friendship that is good for nothing but I hope that I shall be on the giving and assisting part and yet if both the friends be so noble and hope and strive to do the benefit I cannot well say which ought to yield and whether that friendship were braver that could be content to be unprosperous so his friend might have the glory of assisting him or that which desires to give assistances in the greatest measures of friendship but he that chooses a worthy friend that himself in the dayes of sorrow and need might receive the advantage hath no excuse no pardon unlesse himself be as certain to do assistances when evil fortune shall require them The summe of this answer to this enquiry I give you in a pair of Greek verses 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Friends are to friends as lesser Gods while they Honour and service to each other pay But when a dark cloud comes grudge not to lend Thy head thy heart thy fortune to thy friend 3. The last inquiry is how friendships are to be conducted That is what are the duties in presence and in absence whether the friend may not desire to enjoy his friend as well as his friendship The answer to which in a great measure depends upon what I have said already if friendship be a charity in society and is not for contemplation and noise but for materiall comforts and noble treatments and usages this is no peradventure but that if I buy land I may eat the fruits and if I take a house I may dwell in it and if I love a worthy person I may please my self in his society and in this there is no exception unlesse the friendship be between persons of a different sex for then not onely the interest of their religion and the care of their honour but the worthiness of their friendship requires that their entercourse be prudent and free from suspicion and reproch and if a friend is obliged to bear a calamity so he secure the honour of his friend it will concerne him to conduct his entercouse in the lines of a vertuous prudence so that he shall rather lose much of his own comfort then she any thing of her honour and in this case the noises of people are so to be regarded that next to innocence they are the principall But when by caution and prudence and severe conduct a friend hath done all that he or she can to secure fame and honourable reports after this their noises are to be despised they must not fright us from our friendships nor from her fairest entercourses I may lawfully pluck the clusters from my own vine though he that walks by calls me thief But by the way Madam you may see how much I differ from the morosity of those Cynics who would not admit your sex into the communities of a noble friendship I believe some Wives have been the best