Selected quad for the lemma: spirit_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
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B03453
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Friendship.
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Wither, George, 1588-1667.; Finch, Francis.
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1654
(1654)
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Wing F930A; ESTC R177055
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16,857
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44
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Abrahams love of God and Gods of him be allowed of as high a degree as any others mentioned in Scripture and surely 't is no prodigality to give so much to the Father of the faithfull 'T is more then once that Abraham is stiled in Scripture the Friend of God 2 Chron. 20.7 Isa 41.8 James 2.23 And we find one of the highest and constituent qualities and effects of Friendship expressed clearly by God in the preambulatory chapter to Sodoms destruction to wit Communication of secrets and counsels Shall I sayes God hide from Abraham the thing I am about to do What followes we know a positive Declaration of the doom of Sodom and a concession of all those Conditions and Qualifications for the reversing the Decree and preservation of the place Abraham could think fit to desire But to come out of the clouds and descend to the proper stage of Friendship and if you believe Guzman the onely true Friend the Earth I do not think the love of any Relation hath that Candour Vigour Complacency and eminent Perfection which is in the love of Friends And the reason hereof to my present apprehension is That in all other Relations whether Naturall or Politick our love is a Duty imposed in this a Duty too but freely chosen at first and made so by our selves Now regularly what ever we are bound to by a Law we look on as an incroachment upon and abridgement of our freedome and be the thing never so good we are oblig'd to it alters not our conception of and quarrel to the Obligation and hence we qualifie our Obedience as much as we can and think we have shaken off a yoke and piece of servitude when we have found out a way to slacken our dependance on those Relations In this case we are all like Princes who take it very unkindly to have their Counsellours and Confidents appointed them by their Father and therefore as they usually do at their Fathers death we count it the first part of our Royalty to advance some new Favourite and the stranger the better we think because it gives the clearer testimony of our Absolutenesse Notwithstanding all which it is a great happiness and rather to be wished then found that the Relations of Bloud especially the most capable ones might twine and grow up into those of Friendship that where Nature hath made some Ties we may adde others and so twist a Cord into a strength not easily broken But to effect this there must be an Allyance or correspondence of Souls and Humours as well as bloud and where they may be found there is not any consanguinity in an equall degree as between Brothers and Sisters which ought to hinder the stricter union of Friendship And though Diversity and may be Contrariety of Humour hinder so happy a progression yet this must not unravel the affection Nature knits 'twixt those of such affinity There is a vast difference betwixt admission of one into my dearest thoughts and exclusion of him from all and before we have done with all the requisites towards making a Friend we shall certainly find it highly necessary He be not without naturall affection It is hardly worth the while to enquire why it is so rare to find a Friendship contracted 'twixt Relatives But the wonder if it be one is taken off if we consider that their Souls are of as different makes as if their Persons had no Relation For either the Father does not beget the Soul of the Child or if he does since no man differs more from another then the same man at severall times does from himself the next child may be of as contrary a frame of spirit as if he had been the issue of a stranger Now in Relations which have not that equality as Father and Son and the like or Politick Relations as King and Subject the inequality and aw created thence quite destroyes possibility of Friendship and this incapacity of the greatest happinesse here is the sharpest Thorn in a Kings Crown Some one King may be there is of so extraordinary a Genius as by unvailing much of his Majesty and descending to appear in an addresse and converse more familiar obliging may arrive at the felicity of Friendship but I must not name him lest Historians explode the Narration as fabulous and Politicians Him And 't is so certain that Superiority whether Naturall or acquired forbids Friendship that every place will give you examples of stricter Vnions 'twixt younger Brothers one with another then any of them with the elder especially if the elder Brother hath a kind of adopted Paternity over the younger and they depend wholly upon him If any Love may stand in competition with that of Friends it is the Conjugall and that if any where where the Marriage was purely the choice and congruity of the Persons united without the Byasse of other Interests which usually bear a great sway in that Union Now even here unlesse the Love proceed to a Friendship it is short of what it might come to and of that Passion which the very Persons have towards others if so be they are really and indeed Friends to any There be many can adore one as a Mistresse affect her for a Wife and yet believe her not so proper for all the Relations of Friendship More that while she is a Mistresse believe her fit for all those offices and find themselves afterwards deceived But to bring Marriage and Friendship into Competition allowing onely to Marriage the legal and ordinary Union I think it will be past dispute where the Transcendency lies if we admit the most unquestionable Gradation that can be any where desired Take it as it lies in Deuteronomy the 13. chapter and about the 6. or 7. verse where God commanding enticers to Idolatry how near soever to be put to death thus reckons them up If thy brother the Son of thy Mother or thy own Son or Daughter if the Wife of thy bosome nay if thy Friend which is as thine own soul entice thee to Idolatry c. thou shalt not spare them Higher then a Friend we cannot go There be those would sacrifice their other Relations for the preservation of this but he that can be perswaded not to spare this needs little weaning from the rest It is not possible for me to go higher in evincing the excellency of Friendship in relation to all other Loves Let us look a little nearer and more narrowly into its Nature and Qualities One I have already mentioned its being Communicative and this keeps Friendship in perpetuall Motion and Action and so makes it more resplendent By this a private person is happier then his Prince all his Actions and Counsels being subjected to a more ingenuous and free debate and the result given more impartially according to true Interest not affections and what is worse parasiticall cockering of the humour Then Friendship hath an Vniting quality it makes two as it were One