are its great endearments; society and neighbourhood,-that is, the possibilities and the circumstances of converse,—are the determinations and actualities of it. Now, when men either are unnatural or irreligious, they will not be friends; when they are neither excellent nor useful, they are not worthy to be friends; when they are strangers or unknown, they cannot be friends, actually and practically. But yet, as any man hath any thing of the good contrary to those evils, so he can have, and must have, his share of friendship. For thus the sun is the eye of the world; and he is indifferent to the Negro or the cold Russian; to them that dwell under the line, and them that stand near the tropics, the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills. But the flexures of the heaven and the earth, the conveniency of abode, and the approaches to the north or south, respectively change the emanations of his beams; not that they do not pass always from him, but that they are not equally received below; but by periods and changes, by little inlets and reflections, they receive what they can. Some have only a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattle, a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of catarrhs and consumptions, apoplexies and dead palsies; but some have splendid fires and aromatic spices, rich wines and well-digested fruits, great wit and great courage; because they dwell in his eye, and look in his face, and are the courtiers of the sun, and wait upon him in his chambers of the east. Just so is it in friendship; some are worthy, and some are necessary; some dwell hard by, and are fitted for converse. Nature joins some to us, and religion combines us with others. Society and accident, parity of fortune and equal dispositions, do actuate our friendships, which of themselves, and in their prime dispositions, 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 need, we ought to be alike in charity, yet we signify 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 than 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 need 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 enraged 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 disordered 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 arm's end, and our voices can but sound till the next air be quiet; and therefore they can have intercourse 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 act of friendship. Prayer without Wrath. Prayer is an action of likeness to the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of gentleness and dove-like simplicity; an imitation of the holy Jesus, whose spirit is meek, up to the greatness of the biggest example; and a conformity to God, whose anger is always just, and marches slowly, and is without transportation, and often hindered, and never hasty, and is full of mercy : prayer is the peace of our spirit, the stillness of our thoughts, the evenness of recollection, the seat of meditation, the rest of our cares, and the calm of our tempest: prayer is the issue of a quiet mind, of untroubled thoughts-it is the daughter of charity and the sister of meekness; and he that prays to God with an angry, that is, with a troubled and discomposed spirit, is like him that retires into a battle to meditate, and sets up his closet in the out-quarters of an army, and chooses a frontiergarrison to be wise in. Anger is a perfect alienation of the mind from prayer, and, therefore, is contrary to that attention which presents our prayers in a right line to God. For so have I seen a lark rising from his bed of grass, and soaring upwards, singing as he rises, and hopes to get to heaven, and climb above the clouds; but the poor bird was beaten back with the loud sighings of an eastern wind, and his motion made irregular and inconstant, descending more at every breath of the tempest, than it could recover by the libration and frequent weighing of his wings, till the little creature was forced to sit down and pant, and stay till the storm was over, and then it made a prosperous flight, and did rise and sing, as if it had learned music and motion from an angel, as he passed sometimes through the air about his ministries here below. So is the prayer of a good man: when his affairs have required business, and his business was matter of discipline, and his discipline was to pass upon a sinning person, or had a design of charity, his duty met with the infirmities of a man, and anger was its instrument; and the instrument became stronger than the prime agent, and raised a tempest, and overruled the man; and then his prayer was broken, and his thoughts were troubled, and his words went up towards a cloud; and his thoughts pulled them back again, and made them without intention; and the good man sighs for his infirmity, but must be content to lose that prayer, and he must recover it when his anger is removed, and his spirit is becalmed, made even as the brow of Jesus, and smooth like the heart of God; and then it ascends to heaven upon the wings of the holy dove, and dwells with God, till it returns, like the useful bee, loaden with a blessing and the dew of heaven. Prayer without Doubting. He that asks with a doubting mind, and a lazy desire, begs for nothing but to be denied. We must in our prayers be earnest and fervent, or else we shall have but a cold answer; for God gives his grace according as we can receive it. If our desires were strong and fervent, our minds would, in the same proportion, be present. We see it by a certain and regular experience; what we love passionately, we perpetually think on, and it returns upon us whether we will or no; and in a great fear, the apprehension cannot be shaken off; and therefore, if our desires of holy things were strong and earnest, we should most certainly attend our prayers. It is a more violent affection to other things that carries us off from this; and therefore, if we loved passionately what we ask for daily, we should ask with hearty desires, and an earnest appetite, and a present spirit; and, however it be very easy to have our thoughts wander, yet it is our indifferency and lukewarmness that makes it so natural: and you may observe it, that so long as the light shines bright, and the fires of devotion and desires flame out, so long the mind of a man stands close to the altar, and waits upon the sacrifice; but as the fires die, and desires decay, so the mind steals away, and walks abroad to see the little images of beauty and pleasure, which it beholds. in the falling stars and little glow-worms of the world. The river that runs slow and creeps by the banks, and begs leave of every turf to let it pass, is drawn into little hollownesses, and spends itself in smaller portions, and dies with diversion; but when it runs with vigorousness and a full stream, and breaks down every obstacle, making it even as its own brow, it stays not to be tempted by little avocations, and to creep into holes, but runs into the sea through full and useful channels: so is a man's prayer; if it moves upon the feet of an abated appetite, it wanders into the society of every trifling accident, and stays at the corners of the fancy, and talks with every object it meets, and cannot arrive at heaven; but when it is carried upon the wings of passion and strong desires, a swift motion and a hungry appetite, it passes on through all the intermedial regions of clouds, and stays not till it dwells at the foot of the throne, where mercy sits, and thence sends holy showers of refreshment. I deny not but some little drops will turn aside, and fall from the full channel by the weakness of the banks, and hollowness of the passage; but the main course is still continued: and although the most earnest and devout persons feel and complain of some looseness of spirit, and unfixed attentions, yet their love and their desire secure the main portions, and make the prayer to be strong, fervent, and effectual. Anything can be done by him that earnestly desires what he ought: secure but your |