reason to be angry with an eternall light because we have a changeable and a mortall faculty But however do not think thou didst contract alliance with an Angel when thou didst take thy friend into thy bosome he may be weak as well as thou art and thou mayest need pardon as well as he and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Theog that man loves flattery more then friendship who would not onely have his friend but all the contingencies of his friend to humour him 5. Give thy friend counsel wisely and charitably but leave him to his liberty whether he will follow thee or no and be not angry if thy counsel be rejected for advice is no Empire and he is not my friend that will be my Judge whether I will or no. Neoptolemus had never been honoured with the victory and spoiles of Troy if he had attended to the tears and counsel of Lycomedes who being afraid to venture the young man faine would have had him sleep at home safe in his little Island He that gives advice to his friend and exacts obedience to it does not the kindnesse and ingenuity of a friend but the office and pertnesse of a Schoolmaster 6. Never be a Judge between thy friends in any matter where both set their hearts upon the victory If strangers or enemies be litigants what ever side thou favourest thou gettest a friend but when friends are the parties thou losest one 7. Never comport thy self so as that thy friend can be afraid of thee for then the state of the relation alters when a new and troublesome passion supervenes ODERUNT quos METUUNT Perfect love casteth out feare and no man is friend to a Tyrant but that friendship is Tyranny where the love is changed into fear equality into empire society into obedience for then all my kindness to him also will he no better then flattery 8. When you admonish your friend let it be without bitternesse when you chide him let it be without reproch when you praise him let it be with worthy purposes and for just causes and in friendly measures too much of that is flattery too little is envy if you doe it justly you teach him true measures but when others praise him rejoyce though they praise not thee and remember that if thou esteemest his praise to be thy disparagement thou art envious but neither just nor kind 9. When all things else are equal preferre an old friend before a new If thou meanest to spend thy friend and make a gain of him till he be weary thou wilt esteeme him as a beast of burden the worse for his age But if thou esteemest him by noble measures he will be better to thee by thy being used to him by triall and experience by reciprocation of indearments and an habituall worthiness An old friend is like old wine which when a man hath drunk he doth not desire new because he saith the old is better But every old friend was new once and if he be worthy keep the new one till he become old 10. After all this treat thy friend nobly love to be with him do to him all the worthinesses of love and fair endearment according to thy capacity and his Bear with his infirmities till they approch towards being criminal but never dissemble with him never despise him never leave him * Extra fortunam est quicquid donatur amicis Quas dederis solas semper habebis opes Mart. l. 5. ep 43. Et tamen hoc vitiū sed non leve sit licet unū Quod colit ingratas pauper amicitias Quis largitur opes veteri fidoque sodali ep 19. Give him gifts and upbraid him not †Non bellè quaedam faciunt duo sufficit unus Huic operi si vis ut loquar ipse tace Crede mihi quamvis ingentia Postume dones Authoris pereunt garrulitate sui ep 53. and refuse not his kindnesses and be sure never to despise the smallness or the impropriety of them Confirmatur amor beneficio accepto A gift saith Solomon fasteneth friendships for as an eye that dwels long upon a star must de refreshed with lesser beauties and strengthened with greens and looking-glasses lest the sight become amazed with too great a splendor so must the love of friends sometimes be refreshed with material and low Caresses lest by striving to be too divine it becomes less humane It must be allowed its share of both It is humane in giving pardon and fair construction and openness and ingenuity and keeping secrets it hath something that is divine because it is beneficent but much because it is eternal THE END TWO LETTERS TO PERSONS Changed in their RELIGION A Copy of the First Letter written to a Gentlewoman newly seduced to the Church of Rome M. B. I Was desirous of an opportunity in London to have discoursed with you concerning something of nearest concernment to you but the multitude of my little affairs hindred me and have brought upon you this trouble to read a long Letter which yet I hope you will be more willing to do because it comes from one who hath a great respect to your person and a very great charity to your soul I must confesse I was on your behalf troubled when I heard you were fallen from the Communion of the Church of England and entred into a voluntary unnecessary schism and departure from the Lawes of the King and the Communion of those with whom you have alwayes lived in charity going against those Lawes in the defence and profession of which your Husband died going from the Religion in which you were Baptized in which for so many years you lived piously and hoped for Heaven and all this without any sufficient reason without necessity or just scandall ministred to you and to aggravate all this you did it in a time when the Church of England was persecuted when she was marked with the Characterismes of her Lord the marks of the Crosse of Jesus that is when she suffered for a holy cause and a holy conscience when the Church of England was more glorious then at any time before Even when she could shew more Martyrs and Confessors then any Church this day in Christendome even then when a King died in the profession of her Religion and thousands of Priests learned and pious men suffered the spoiling of their goods rather then they would forsake one Article of so excellent a Religion So that seriously it is not easily to be imagined that any thing should move you unlesse it be that which troubled the perverse Jewes and the Heathen Greek Scandulum crucis the scandall of the Crosse You stumbled at that Rock of offence You left us because we were afflicted lessened in outward circumstances and wrapped in a cloud but give me leave only to reminde you of that sad saying of the Scripture that you may avoid the
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 The second Edition By JER TAYLOR D. D. Dion Orat. 1. de Regno 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 LONDON Printed by J.G. for R. Royston at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1657. A DISCOURSE OF THE Nature and Offices OF FRIENDSHIP In a Letter to the most Ingenious and Excellent M.K.P. MADAM THe wise Bensirach advised that we should not consult with a woman concerning her of whom she is jealous neither with a coward in matters of warre 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 Counsel For where ever the interest is secular or vitious there the bias is not on the side of truth or reason because these are seldome serv'd by profit and low regards But to consult with a friend in the matters of friendship is like consulting with a spirituall 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 friends 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 onely 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 then by declining your commands seem more safe in my prudence then open and communicative in my friendship to you You first inquire how far a Dear and a perfect friendship is authoriz'd 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 there latives of our family or our fortune or our sect something of society or something of kindnesse there is in it a tendernesse 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 humane entercourse is no other-wayes 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 usefulnesse and the most open communication and the noblest sufferings and the most exemplar faithfulnesse 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 knowes no enemy he hath that is though persons may be injurious to him and unworthy in themselves yet he knowes 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 shal not be perfectly contrary to friend it shall not be a relative term and signifie 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 in at a chink or his beams drawn into the centre of a Burning-glasse but Christian charity is Friendship expanded like the face of the Sun when it mounts above the Eastern hills and I was strangely pleas'd when I saw something of this in CICERO for I have been so push'd 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 Laelius in Cicero discourse thus Amicitia ex infinitate generis humani quam conciliavit ipsa natura contracta res est adducta in angustum ut omnis charitas 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 inclose the Commons and what Nature intended should be every mans we make proper to two or three Friendship is like rivers and the strand of seas and the ayre common to all the world but Tyrants and evil customes wars and want of love have made them proper and peculiar But when Christianity came to renew our nature and to restore our lawes and to increase her priviledges and to make her aptnesse 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 forgivenesse 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 authoriz'd by the principles of Christianity The answer is ready and easie 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 onely where the restraint begins there begins our imperfection it 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 summe of all friendships I confesse 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
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 worthinesse 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 unlesse he cease to be that for which he was chosen 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where vertue dwells there friendships make But evill neighbourhoods forsake But although vertue alone is the worthiest cause of amability and can weigh down any one consideration and therefore to a man that is vertuous every man ought to be a friend yet I doe not meane the severe and philosophicall excellencies of some morose persons who are indeed wise unto themselves and exemplar to others by vertue here I doe not meane justice and temperance charity and devotion for these I am to love the man but friendship is something more then that Friendship is the nearest love and the nearest society of which the persons are capable Now justice is a good entercourse for Merchants as all men are that buy and sell and temperance makes a Man good company and helps to make a wise man but a perfect friendship requires something else these must be in him that is chosen to be my friend but for these I doe not make him my privado that is my speciall and peculiar friend but if he be a good man then he is properly fitted to be my correlative in the noblest combination 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 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 doe for a righteous man or a just man that is justice and righteousnesse 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 doe acts of goodnesse and to oblige others to doe things usefull and profitable for a loving man a beneficent bountifull 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 Laelius Vertue may be despised so may Learning and Nobility at una est amicitia in rebus humanis de cujus utilitatc omnes consentiunt onely friendship is that thing which because all know to be usefull and profitable no man can despise that is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 goodnesse 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 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That was the commendation of the bravest friendship in Theocritus They lov'd each other with a love That did in all things equal prove 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 The world was under Saturns reign When he that lov'd was lov'd again For it is impossible this neernesse of friendship can be where there is not mutuall 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 Letany well 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let God give friends to me for my reward Who shall my love with equal love regard Happy are they who when they give their heart Find such as in exchange their own impart But there is more in it then this felicity amounts to For 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the good man is a profitable usefull person and that 's the band of an effective friendship For I doe 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 newes and prettinesses and look babies in one anothers eyes Friendship is the allay of our sorrowes the ease of our passions the discharge of our oppressions the sanctuary to our calamities the counsellour 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 doe no good I doe not speak of accidentall hinderances and misfortunes by which the bravest man may become unable to help his Child but of the naturall and artificiall capacities of the man He onely is fit to be chosen for a friend who can doe 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 goodnesse that makes him lovely and so it is in friendships He onely is fit to be chosen for a friend who can give me counsel or defend my cause or guide me right or relieve my need or can and will when I need it doe me good onely this I adde into the heaps of doing good I will reckon loving me for it is a pleasure to be bloved but when his love signifies nothing but kissing my cheek or talking kindly and and can goe 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 staffe or a rule There must be in friendship something to distinguish it from a Companion and a Countryman 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 stayes not any where til it come to be the best thing in the world and when we
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 speciall 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 sometimes the meanest persons in a house have a festival even sympathies and naturall 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 maintainde at the rate of friendship unless it be fed by pure materials by worthinesses which are the food of friendship where thse are not men and women may be pleased with one anothers company and lie under the same roof and make themselves companions of equall prosperities and humour their friend but if you call this friendship you give a sacred name to humour or fancy for there is a Platonic friendship as well as a Platonic love but they being but the Images of more noble bodies are but like tinsell 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 aire 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 immateriall that they perish in the handling and become good for nothing But I know not whither I was going I did onely 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 doe greatest benefit to each other and though in equal worthinesse I may choose 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 then 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 choose 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 then the prettiest Tulips that are good for nothing And my Sheep and Kine are better servants then Race-horses and Greyhounds And I shall rather furnish my Study with Plutarch and Cicero with Livy and Polybius then with Cassandra Ibrahim Bassa and if I doe give an houre to these for divertisement or pleasure yet I will dwell with them that can instruct me and make me wise and eloquent severe and usefull to my self others I end this with the saying of Laelius in Cicero Amicitia non debet consequi utilitatem sed amicitiam utilitas When I choose my friend I wil not stay till I have received a kindnesse but I will choose such an one that can doe 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 choose my friend choose 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 wisdome and vertue goodness 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 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 pledge 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 neer 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 then this hath no man then 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 doe it for those who are to us in this present and imperfect state of things that