nere reason could raise and incite them to so great reverence for virtue, and so solicitous a pursuit of it, we may well blush if our very reason, co nuch informed by them, be not at least equal to heirs; and being endowed and strengthened with clear notions of religion, it doth not carry us higher than they were able to mount, and to a perfection they were not able to ascend to. We may learn from them to undervalue life so much, as not affect it above the innocence of living or living innocently; we may so far learn from them to contemn death, as not to avoid it with the guilt or infamy of living. But then the consideration of heaven and hell, the reward and punishment which will inevitably attend our living and dying well or ill, will both raise and fix our thoughts of life and death in another light than they were accustomed to; neither of those Lands of Promise having been contained in their map, or in any degree been exposed to their prospect; and nothing but the view of those landmarks can infuse into us a just esteem of life, and a just apprehension of death. Christianity then doth neither oblige us not to love life, or not to fear death, but to love life so little, that we may fear death the less. Nothing can so well prepare us for it, as a continual thinking upon it; and our very reason methinks should keep us thinking of that which we know must come, and cannot know when; and therefore the being much surprised with the approach of it is as well a discredit to our reason as to our religion; and beyond an humble and contented expectation of it religion requires not from us: it being impossible for any man who is bound to pay money upon demand, not reserved for him, but he knew as well that the Longer his journey thither was deferred, he should have the more company there; and this made his choice of life, even upon the comparison, very warrantable. Men may very piously desire to live, to comply with the very obligation of nature in cherishing their wives and bringing up their children, and to enjoy the blessings of both and that he may contribute to the peace and happiness and prosperity of his country, he may heartily pray not to die. Length of days is a particular blessing God vouchsafes to those he favours most, as giving them thereby both a task and opportunity to do the more good. They who are most weary of life, and yet are most unwilling to die, are such who have lived to no purpose; who have rather breathed than lived. They who pretend to the apostle's ecstasy, and to deșire a dissolution from a religious nauseating the folly and wickedness of this world, and out of a devout contemplation of the joys of heaven, administer too much cause of doubting, that they seem to triumph over nature more than they have cause, and that they had rather live till the next year than die in this. He who believes the world not worthy of him, may in truth be thought not worthy of the world. If men are not willing to be deprived of their fortunes and preferments and liberty, which are but the ordinary perquisites of life, they may very justifiably be unwilling to be deprived of life itself, upon which those conveniences depend; and death is accompanied with many things, which we are not obliged solicitously to covet, We are well prepared for it,

XI. OF FRIENDSHIP.

Montpellier, 1670.

FRIENDSHIP must have some extraordinary excellence in it, when the great philosopher as well as best orator commends it to us to prefer before all things in the world; "Ut amicitiam omnibus rebus humanis anteponatis:" and it must be very precious, when it was the circumstance that made David's highest affliction most intolerable, that his lover and his friend was put from him; and there could be no aggravation of the misery he endured, when his own familiar friend, in whom he trusted, was turned against him. This heroical virtue is pretended to by all, but understood or practised by very few, which needs no other manifestation, than that the choleric person thinks it an obligation upon his friend to assist him in a murder; the unthrifty and licentious person expects that friendship should oblige him who pretends to love him, to waste all his estate in riots and excesses, by becoming bound for him, and so liable to pay those debts which his pride and vanity contract. In a word, there is nothing that the most unreasonable faction, or the most unlawful combination and conspiracy, can be applied to compass, which is not thought by those who should govern the world to be the proper and necessary office of friendship; and that the laws of friendship are extremely violated and broken, if it doth not engage in the performance of all those offices, how unjust and unworthy soever. And thus the sacred name of friendship, and all the generous duties which result from it,