all the Lord's people, are become prophets. No marvel then though some men, and some good men too, perhaps, but young in goodness, as Joshua then was, envy them. They fret, and out of their own weakness are in agony, lest these divisions and subdivisions will undo us. The adversary again applauds, and waits the hour, when they have branched themselves out, saith he, small enough into parties and partitions, then will be our time. Fool! he sees not the firm root, out of which we all grow, though into branches: nor will beware until he see our small divided maniples 2 cutting through at every angle of his ill-united and unwieldy brigade. And that we are to hope better of all these supposed sects, and schisms, and that we shall not need that solicitude honest perhaps though over-timorous of them that vex in this behalf, but shall laugh in the end, at those malicious applauders of our differences, I have these reasons to persuade me.

First, when a City shall be as it were besieged and blocked about, her navigable river infested, inroads and incursions round, defiance and battle oft rumoured to be marching up even to her walls, and suburb trenches, that then the people, or the greater part, more than at other times, wholly taken up with the study of highest and most important matters to be reformed, should be disputing, reasoning, reading, inventing, discoursing, even to a rarity, and admiration, things not before discoursed or written of, argues first a singular goodwill, contentedness and confidence in your prudent foresight, and safe government, Lords and Commons; and from thence derives itself to a gallant bravery and well grounded contempt of their enemies, as if there were no small number of as great spirits among us, as his was, who when Rome was nigh besieged by Hannibal, being in the city, bought that piece of ground at no cheap rate, whereon Hannibal himself encamped his own regiment. Next it is a lively and cheerful presage of our happy success and victory. For as in a body, when the blood is fresh, the spirits pure and vigorous, not only to vital, but to rational faculties, and those in the acutest, and the pertest operations of wit and subtlety, it argues in what good plight and constitution the body is, so when the cheerfulness of the people is so sprightly up, as that it has, not only wherewith to guard well its own freedom and safety, but to spare, and to bestow upon the solidest and sublimest points of controversy, and new invention, it betokens us not degenerated, nor drooping to a fatal decay, but casting off the old and wrinkled skin of corruption to outlive these pangs and wax young again, entering the glorious ways of Truth and prosperous virtue destined to become great and honourable in these latter ages. Methinks I see in my mind a noble and puissant nation rousing herself like a strong man after sleep, and shaking her invincible locks: Methinks I see her as an eagle mewing her mighty youth, and kindling her undazzled eyes at the full midday beam; purging and unscaling her long-abused sight at the fountain itself of heavenly radiance; while the whole noise of timorous and flocking birds, with those also that love the twilight, flutter about, amazed at what she means, and in their envious gabble would prognosticate a year of sects and schisms.

What should ye do then, should ye suppress all this flowery crop of knowledge and new light sprung up and yet springing daily in this City, should ye set an oligarchy of

1 The Lord's people prophets. Numbers xi. 29.

2 Maniples. The Roman maniplus was a small company.

3 This mark of confidence in Rome, when a rich Roman would pay a good price for the very land on which the enemy was camped, is told by Livy, xxvi. 11.

• Mewing, renewing, from French muer, Latin mutare, applied to birds moulting and renewing plumage. But not to birds only: "Nine times the moon had mewed her horns," wrote Dryden,

twenty engrossers over it, to bring a famine upon our minds again, when we shall know nothing but what is measured to us by their bushel? Believe it, Lords and Commons, they who counsel ye to such a suppressing, do as good as bid ye suppress yourselves; and I will soon show how. If it be desired to know the immediate cause of all this free writing and free speaking, there cannot be assigned a truer than your own mild, and free, and humane government; it is the liberty, Lords and Commons, which your own valorous and happy counsels, have purchased us, liberty which is the nurse of all great wits; this is that which hath rarefied and enlightened our spirits like the influence of heaven; this is that which hath enfranchised, enlarged and lifted up our apprehensions degrees above themselves. Ye cannot make us now less capable, less knowing, less eagerly pursuing of the truth, unless ye first make yourselves, that made us so, less the lovers, less the founders of our true liberty. We can grow ignorant again, brutish, formal, and slavish, as ye found us; but you then must first become that which ye cannot be, oppressive, arbitrary, and tyrannous, as they were from whom ye have freed us. That our hearts are now more capacious, our thoughts more erected to the search and expectation of greatest and exactest things, is the issue of your own virtue propagated in us; ye cannot suppress that unless ye reinforce an abrogated and merciless law, that fathers may despatch at will their own children. And who shall then stick closest to ye, and excite others? not he who takes up arms for coat and conduct, and his four nobles of Danegelt. Although I dispraise not the defence of just immunities, yet love my peace better, if that were all. Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.

5 What would be best advised then, if it be found so hurtful and so unequal to suppress opinions for the newness, or the unsuitableness to a customary acceptance, will not be my task to say; I only shall repeat what I have learned from one of your own honourable number, a right noble and pious lord, who had he not sacrificed his life and fortunes to the Church and Commonwealth, we had not now missed and bewailed a worthy and undoubted patron of this argument. Ye know him I am sure; yet I for honour's sake, and may it be eternal to him, shall name him, the Lord Brook." He writing of Episcopacy, and by the way treating of sects and schisms, left ye his vote, or rather now the last words of his dying charge, which I know will ever be of dear and honoured regard with ye, so full of meekness and breathing charity, that next to His last testament, who bequeathed love and peace to His disciples, I cannot call to mind where I have read or heard words more mild and peaceful. He there exhorts us to hear with patience and humility those, however they be miscalled, that desire to live purely, in such a use of God's ordinances, as the best guidance of their conscience gives them, and to tolerate them, though in some disconformity to ourselves. The book itself will tell us more at

5 The Proof is now ended, and the Peroration here begins.

6 Robert, son of Fulke Greville, Lord Brooke, was shot when he had marched against the Earl of Chesterfield, in Lichfield, and was preparing an assault on combatants who held Lichfield Cathedral, March 1st, 1613. He had published an earnest volume in 1641 on "The Nature of Truth." In his treatise on Episcopacy he said, "I must confess that I begin to think there may be, perhaps, something more of God in these sects which they call new schisms, than appears at first glimpse." Laud wrote of Lord Robert Brooke in his Diary," First, I observe that this great and known enemy to Cathedral Churches died thus fearfully, in the assault of a Cathedral; a fearful manner of death in such a quarrel; secondly, that this happened on St. Chad's day, of which saint the Cathedral bears the name." He was killed by a musket-shot out of the House of God.

large being published to the world, and dedicated to the Parliament by him who both for his life and for his death deserves, that what advice he left be not laid by without perusal.

And now the time in special is, by privilege to write and speak what may help to the further discussing of matters in agitation. The temple of Janus with his two controversal faces might now not unsignificantly be set open. And though all the winds of doctrine were let loose to play upon the earth, so Truth be in the field, we do injuriously by licensing and prohibiting to misdoubt her strength. Let her and Falsehood grapple; who ever knew Truth put to the worse, in a free and open encounter. Her confuting is the best and surest suppressing. He who hears what praying there is for light and clearer knowledge to be sent down among us, would think of other matters to be constituted beyond the discipline of Geneva, framed and fabricked already to our hands. Yet when the new light which we beg for shines in upon us, there be who envy, and oppose, if it come not first in at their casements. What a collusion is this, whenas we are exhorted by the wise man to use diligence, to seek for wisdom as for hidden treasures early and late, that another order shall enjoin us to know nothing but by statute? When a man hath been labouring the hardest labour in the deep mines of knowledge, hath furnished out his findings in all their equipage, drawn forth his reasons as it were a battle ranged, scattered and defeated all objections in his way, calls out his adversary into the plain, offers him the advantage of wind and sun, if he please; only that he may try the matter by dint of argument, for his opponents then to skulk, to lay ambushments, to keep a narrow bridge of licensing where the challenger should pass, though it be valour enough in soldiership, is but weakness and cowardice in the wars of Truth. For who knows not that Truth is strong, next to the Almighty; she needs no policies, nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious, those are the shifts and the defences that error uses against her power: give her but room, and do not bind her when she sleeps, for then she speaks not true, as the old Proteus did, who spake oracles only when he was caught and bound, but then rather she turns herself into all shapes, except her own, and perhaps tunes her voice according to the time, as Micaiah did before Ahab, until she be adjured into her own likeness. Yet is it not impossible that she may have more shapes than one. What else is all that rank of things indifferent, wherein Truth may be on this side, or on the other, without being unlike herself. What but a vain shadow else is the abolition of those ordinances, that hand-writing nailed to the cross, what great purchase is this Christian liberty which Paul so often boasts of. His doctrine is, that he who eats or eats not, regards a day, or regards it not, may do either to the Lord. How many other things might be tolerated in peace, and left to conscience, had we but charity, and were it not the chief stronghold of our hypocrisy to be ever judging one another. I fear yet this iron yoke of outward conformity hath left a slavish print upon our necks; the ghost of a linen decency yet haunts us. We stumble and are impatient at the least dividing of one visible congregation from another, though it be not in fundamentals; and through our forwardness to suppress, and our backwardness to recover any enthralled piece of truth out of the gripe of custom, we care not to keep truth separated from truth, which is the fiercest rent and disunion of all. We do not see that while we still affect

1 Ghost of a linen decency. The formality of the white surplice as a substitute for that decency of worship which lies in essentials. When congregations trouble themselves over surplice and black gown, they are still baunted by the ghost of linen decency.

by all means a rigid external formality, we may as soon fall again into a gross conforming stupidity, a stark and dead congealment of wood, and hay, and stubble forced and frozen together, which is more to the sudden degenerating of a Church than many subdichotomies of petty schisms. Not that I can think well of every light separation, or that all in a Church is to be expected gold and silver and precious stones it is not possible for man to sever the wheat from the tares, the good fish from the other fry; that must be the Angels' Ministry at the end of mortal things. Yet if all cannot be of one mind, as who looks they should be? this doubtless is more wholesome, more prudent, and more Christian that many be tolerated, rather than all compelled. I mean not tolerated popery, and open superstition, which as it extirpates all religions and civil supremacies, so itself should be extirpate, provided first that all charitable and compassionate means be used to win and regain the weak and the misled : that also which is impious or evil absolutely either against faith or manners no law can possibly permit, that intends not to unlaw itself: but those neighbouring differences, or rather indifferences, are what I speak of, whether in some point of doctrine or of discipline, which though they may be many, yet need not interrupt the unity of Spirit, if we could but find among us the bond of peace. In the meanwhile if any one would write, and bring his helpful hand to the slowmoving Reformation which we labour under, if Truth have spoken to him before others, or but seemed at least to speak, who hath so bejesuited us that we should trouble that man with asking license to do so worthy a deed? and not consider this, that if it come to prohibiting, there is not ought more likely to be prohibited than truth itself; whose first appearance to our eyes bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom, is more unsightly and unplausible than many errors, even as the person is of many a great man slight and contemptible to see to. And what do they tell us vainly of new opinions, when this very opinion of theirs, that none must be heard, but whom they like, is the worst and newest opinion of all others; and is the chief cause why sects and schisms do so much abound, and true knowledge is kept at distance from us; besides yet a greater danger which is in it. For when God shakes a Kingdom with strong and healthful commotions to a general reforming, 'tis not untrue that many sectaries and false teachers are then busiest in seducing; but yet more true it is, that God then raises to His own work men of rare abilities, and more than common industry not only to look back and revise what hath been taught heretofore, but to gain further and go on, some new enlightened steps in the discovery of truth. For such is the order of God's enlightening His church, to dispense and deal out by degrees His beam, so as our earthly eyes may best sustain it. Neither is God appointed and confined, where and out of what place these His chosen shall be first heard to speak; for He sees not as man sees, chooses not as man chooses, lest we should devote ourselves again to set places, and assemblies, and outward callings of men; planting our faith one while in the old Convocation house, and another while in the Chapel at Westminster; when all the faith and religion that shall be there canonised, is not sufficient without plain convincement, and the charity of patient instruction to supple the least bruise of conscience, to edify the meanest Christian, who desires to walk in the Spirit, and not in the letter of human trust, for all the number of voices that can be there made; no, though Harry VII. himself there, with all his liege tombs about him, should lend them voices from the dead, to swell their number. And if the men be erroneous who appear to be the leading schismatics, what withholds us but our sloth, our self-will, and distrust in the right cause, that we do not give them

gentle meetings and gentle dismissions, that we debate not and examine the matter throughly with liberal and frequent audience; if not for their sakes, yet for our own? seeing no man who hath tasted learning, but will confess the many ways of profiting by those who not contented with stale receipts are able to manage, and set forth new positions to the world. And were they but as the dust and cinders of our feet, so long as in that notion they may yet serve to polish and brighten the armoury of Truth, even for that respect they were not utterly to be cast away. But if they be of those whom God hath fitted for the special use of these times with eminent and ample gifts, and those perhaps neither among the Priests, nor among the Pharisees, and we in the haste of a precipitant zeal shall make no distinction, but resolve to stop their mouths, because we fear they come with new and dangerous opinions, as we commonly forejudge them ere we understand them, no less than woe to us, while thinking thus to defend the Gospel, we are found the persecutors.

There have been not a few since the beginning of this Parliament, both of the Presbytery and others who by their unlicensed books to the contempt of an Imprimatur first broke that triple ice clung about our hearts, and taught the people to see day I hope that none of those were the persuaders to renew upon us this bondage which they themselves have wrought so much good by contemning. But if neither the check that Moses gave to young Joshua, nor the countermand which our Saviour gave to young John, who was so ready to prohibit those whom he thought unlicensed, be not enough to admonish our Elders how unacceptable to God their testy mood of prohibiting is, if neither their own remembrance what evil hath abounded in the Church by this let' of licensing, and what good they themselves have begun by transgressing it, be not enough, but that they will persuade, and execute the most Dominican part of the Inquisition over us, and are already with one foot in the stirrup so active at suppressing, it would be no unequal distribution in the first place to suppress the suppressors themselves: whom the change of their condition hath puffed up, more than their late experience of harder times hath made wise.

And as for regulating the Press, let no man think to have the honour of advising ye better than yourselves have done in that Order published next before this, "that no book be Printed, unless the Printer's and the Author's name, or at least the Printer's be registered." Those which otherwise come forth, if they be found mischievous and libellous, the fire and the executioner will be the timeliest and the most effectual remedy, that man's prevention can

use.

For this authentic Spanish policy of licensing books, if I have said aught, will prove the most unlicensed book itself within a short while; and was the immediate image of a Star Chamber decree to that purpose made in those very times when that Court did the rest of those her pious works, for which she is now fallen from the stars with Lucifer. Whereby ye may guess what kind of state prudence, what love of the people, what care of Religion or good manners there was at the contriving, although with singular hypocrisy it pretended to bind books to their good behaviour. And how it got the upper hand of your precedent Order so well constituted before, if we may believe those men whose profession gives them cause to inquire most, it may be doubted there was in it the fraud of some old patentees and monopolisers in the trade of bookselling; who under pretence of the poor in their Company not to be defrauded, and the just retaining of each man his several copy, which God forbid should be gainsaid, brought divers glosing colours to the House, which were

1 Let, hindrance.

indeed but colours, and serving to no end except it be to exercise a superiority over their neighbours, men who do not therefore labour in an honest profession to which learning is indebted, that they should be made other men's vassals. Another end is thought was aimed at by some of them in procuring by petition this Order, that having power in their hands, malignant books might the easier scape abroad, as the event shows. But of these sophisms and elenchs of merchandise I skill not: This I know, that errors in a good government and in a bad are equally almost incident; for what Magistrate may not be misinformed, and much the sooner, if liberty of Printing be reduced into the power of a few; but to redress willingly and speedily what hath been erred, and in highest authority to esteem a plain advertisement more than others have done a sumptuous bribe, is a virtue (honoured Lords and Commons) answerable to your highest actions, and whereof none can participate but greatest and wisest men.2

John Milton

Men widely divided in opinion when they lived, join now in aid to the lifting of our hearts above all that is low-thoughted in party feud. Jeremy Taylor, loyal to monarchy, loyal to Lambeth and "the Palace Metropolitan," was, like Milton, loyal also to God, by labouring through life after the highest truth he could attain. If Truth was found in diverse shapes, "yet," as we have just heard Milton saying, "yet it is not impossible that she may have more shapes than one." Jeremy Taylor, four or five years younger than Milton, was, as to the truth of the hour, in a camp opposite to his, but as to the truth that abides, his fellow combatant." In 1657 Jeremy Taylor had left his retirement by the Towey, where he had lived, aided by the friendship of Lord Carbery, at Golden Grove, with Grongar Hill, afterwards to become a pleasant name in English literature, on the other side of the stream. He was in London in that year, having charge, perhaps, of a small congregation of churchmen, who, under the Commonwealth, were firm in fidelity to the episcopal forms and ancient usages of the Church. The Long Parliament required every parish to maintain a minister; the jurisdiction of

2 There are two excellent reprints of Milton's "Areopagitica." One is in the series of " English Reprints," by Mr. Edward Arber, being, indeed, the book with the publication of which, at the price of sixpence, that excellent diffuser of good literature began his indefatigable labours. It gives the original text, in the original spelling, preceded by full reprints of the Orders of Star Chamber and of Parliament concerning Printing, which occasioned Milton's defence of free speech. This edition, like Mr. Arber's other publications, can be obtained only by post from the Editor, Edward Arber, F.8.A., Southgate, London, N. The other edition gives also the original text and spelling, and is amply provided with notes by its Editor, J. W. Hales, M.A., Professor of English Literature at King's College London. This is all that can be desired as an aid to the study of Milton's greatest prose work. It is included (price three shillings) in the Clarendon Press Series of English Classics, published by Macmillan and Co.

3 Signature of John Milton to a petition dated 1650, among the "Composition Papers" in the Record Office.

• For some account of Jeremy Taylor see, in this Library, "Illustrations of English Religion," pages 285-288.

the official Triers was confined to benefices, and thus there arose here and there lectureships in London which, by local influence of friends to monarchy and the episcopal system, could be entrusted to men like Jeremy Taylor or John Pearson, whose lectures on the Creed given at St. Clement's, Eastcheap, were published as his "Exposition of the Creed" in 1659. Jeremy Taylor had in London John Evelyn for a friend, who gave, in this time of adverse fortune, some substantial help, and it was to Evelyn that Taylor wrote on the 9th of June, 1657, "Your kind letter hath so abundantly re

warded and crowned my innocent endeavours in my description of Friendship, that I perceive there is a friendship beyond what I have fancied, and a real material worthiness beyond the heights of the most perfect ideas; and I know now where to make my book perfect, and by an Appendix to outdo the first Essay; for when anything shall be observed to be wanting in my Character, I can tell them where to seek the substance, more beauteous than the picture, and by sending the readers of my book to be spectators of your life and worthiness, they shall see what I would fain have taught them, by what you really are." Jeremy Taylor's "Discourse of Friendship was addressed to Mrs. Katherine Phillips, a lady who lived with her husband in Wales, wrote innocent verse as Orinda, chiefly with friendship for her theme, and who was in 1657, when the Discourse was written and first published, only twenty-four

1 The portrait of Taylor as Mercurius Christianus was prefixed to the "Treatise of Friendship" in 1657.

any matter of Counsel. For where ever the interest is secular or vicious, there the biass is not on the side of truth or reason, because these are seldom served by profit and low regards. But to consult with a friend in the matters of friendship is like consulting with a spiritual 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,

Some verse of hers is in the volume of this Library containing "Shorter English Poems," page 340.

3 Jesus the Son of Sirach in his book called "Ecclesiasticus," chap. Xxxvii., verse 11. It goes on, "nor with a buyer, of selling; nor with an envious man, of thankfulness; nor with an unmerciful man, touching kindness; nor with the slothful, for any work; nor with an hireling for a year, of finishing work; nor with an idle servant, of much business: hearken not unto these in any matter of counsel."

because it is not only 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, the relatives of our family or our fortune, or our sect; something of society, or something of kindness there is in it; a tenderness 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 otherways 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 usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings, and the most exemplar faithfulness, 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 knows no enemy he hath; that is, though persons 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 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-Glass; 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 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 seems chargeable with singularity but therefore I say, glad I was when I saw Lælius in Cicero discourse thus: Amicitia ex infinita societate generis humani quam conciliavit ipsa natura, ita contracta res est, et adducta in angustum; ut omnis charitas, aut inter duos, aut inter paucos jungeretur.1 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;

1 Lælius: De Amicitia. Friendship amidst the infinite society of the human race which Nature has joined in fellowship, is a thing so contracted and drawn within strait bounds, that all love might be fastened up either between two or among a few.

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 air, common to all the World; but Tyrants, and evil customs, wars, and want of love have made them proper and peculiar. But when Christianity came to renew our nature, and to restore our laws, and to increase her priviledges, and to make her aptness 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 forgiveness 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 authorized 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; only 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 friendship. I confess 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 they are but tendencies to glory, so our friendships are imperfect too, and but beginnings of a celestial friendship, by which we shall love every one as much as they can be loved. But then so we must 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 which we can, and which they are capable of. The Friendship is equal to all the World, and of it self hath no difference; but is differenced only by accidents, and by the capacity or incapacity of them that receive it. Nature and Religion are the bands of friendships; excellency and usefulness are its great indearments: 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 Tropicks, the scalded Indian, or the poor boy that shakes at the foot of the Riphean hills; but the fluxures 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; and some have only a dark day and a long night from him, snows and white cattel, a miserable life, and a perpetual harvest of Catarrhes and Consumptions, apoplexies and dead palsies; but some have splendid fires, and aromatick spicos, 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 friend

Indifferent, not different. In himself he makes no distinction of

persons.