Of peace and contentment of minde. By Peter Du Moulin the sonne. D.D.

CHAP. II. Of brotherly Charity, and of Friendship.

TO live in concord with our neighbours we must love them, otherwise all our compli∣ance and dexterity to keepe concord will be but dissimulation, and though it get us peace abroad it will not give us peace within. My little children; saith St. John let us not love in word, neither in tongue, but indeed and in truth. 1. Ioh. 3.18. Then he addeth that hereby wee know that wee are of the truth, and assure our hearts before God. A text, shew∣ing that charity to our neighbours fills the minde with saith, peace, and assurance: a doctrine, justi∣fied by the experience of meek and charitable soules. The same charity that unites us with Christ as our head, unites us also with our neighbours as his members, or at least as his crea∣tures that beare his image: In the one or the other of these relations we must love all men for Gods sake, and render to them all possible duties of humanity.

To the practice of these duties we are more especially called by the necessity of our neigh∣bours, and by their vertue. Necessity affords us a perpetual occasion of charity. Matth. 26.11 For ye

have the poore alwayes with you, saith the Lord Jesus. Others that are not poore in estate are poore in counsel, or health, or friends, or comfort: Let every body give of that he hath, to him that hath not, and he sheweth charity to the rich if he doe him good expecting no reward.

Workes of charity doe good both to him that is relieved and to him that relieveth. But he that doeth good, gets more reliefe by it then he to whom it is done: for it is a thing more happy to give then to receive, Act. 20.35. saith St Paul after Christ; first because of the good treasure which is layd up thereby for the future, Pro. 11.25. The liberal soul shall be made fat, and he that watereth shall be watered also himselfe. Giving charitably is casting a seed bringing an everlasting harvest. It is sending up sweete vapours to heaven which are thickened there into a raine of blessings to showre downe upon the head of the charitable person. To which we may joine the great and present content accrewing to the soule in the very act of giving, for good workes give a ready pay to the doers. This made Solomon to say The merciful man doeth good to his owne soul, Prov. 11.17 for the workes of mercy give a great joy to the doer. And he that gives his bread to the poore is more satisfied with it then he that eates it. It is a divine felicity to doe good to many, for it is the greatest imitation of God, who gives to all and is never weary of doing good. Herein onely

dignities and riches are good, that they enable a willing mind to doe much good.

As the necessity of our neighbours invites us to charity so doth their Vertue, which is the bet∣ter invitation. The first sort of Charity, which regards more the need then the worth of the person, is humanity and mercy; that which regard∣eth Vertue is friendship, or at least a beginning of it.

Friendship, to deserve fully that name, must be reciprocall, the parties loving one another dearely because they deserve it, and because they see the graces of God each in the other. Friendship that regards profit and pleasure de∣serveth not that name since it is neither for the love of God, nor for the love of the person that such a Friendship is contracted, but out of selfe∣love.

Friendship cemented by Vertue, and riveted by likeness in inclinations, manners, and opini∣nions, is the sweetest of all human things. For besides counsell and mutuall help, and the de∣light of enterchanging thoughts and discharging cares in the bosome one of another, the union of affections, and the assurance to be beloved of the beloved person, is a content not to be exprest; & there is something heavenly in that harmony. It is a little imitation of the union between the persons of the Trinity which make themselves happy by their mutuall love. There is nothing

neither in heaven nor in earth that giveth con∣tent but friendship. Nothing is pleasant with∣out it. And if I were asked what is the greatest of all joyes, I would say that it is to love, and to be loved againe, and know it.

But it must be acknowledged that this per∣fection and felicity is more in Idea then in reality among men, and we must go higher then human Society, to find it. For whereas it is hard to find a vertuous man in the world, it is harder to find two. And it is harder yet to make these two meet in opinions, in inclinations, in interesses, in place of habitation, and in the like course of life; for the want of one of these particulars hinders the knitting of the bond of friendship, or makes it shortlived, or abates the comfort of it.

The description which Pagan Philosophy forge∣eth of perfect friendship is a fair imagination of an impossible thing; They require two friends or three at the most, but such as were never found, endowed with perfect vertue; That for that vertue these persons love one another, with∣out any other obligation or collaterall respect. That these perfect soules be so plunged and blended one within another that they can not owne themselves singled and asunder. That they be but one soul dwelling in severall bodyes. That a friend give himselfe so absolute∣ly to his friend that he live no more but for him,

yea in him; and that his goods, as himselfe, be his friends, whose interesses he wholly seekes, not his owne.

I wonder that among Christian Philosophers none hath hitherto observed (for any thing I know) what it was that bred that Idea of friend∣ship so high and remote from the nature of things, in the fancy of Pagan Philosophers, which yet placed vertue and felicity in living according to Nature; & why they have so universally ado∣red that chimera which is found no where a∣mong men, like the Athenians that had set up an Altar to the unknowne God.

This is then the origine and ground of that high imagination of those Pagans. They had found by searching the nature of man, that no∣thing can make him happy, but love; And that for a beatificall love a man hath need of an object all good, all wise, and all perfect; so perfectly united with him, yea so totally, that both passe the one into the other and make a mutuall free and absolute gift of themselves. But the poore men did not know that object of transcendent goodness, onely worthy to be loved with all the heart and soul: and if some of them acknow∣ledged God to be the Soveraine good, they be∣leeved not that he could have such a communi∣cation with man that both might enterchange a mutuall gift of their owne selves; so, that man should dwell in God, and God in man. Think∣ing

not then that there might be a contract of friendship betweene God and man, and seeing that it is friendship that must make man happy, they forged that Idea of friendship betweene man & man, of which the condition of man is not capable, requiring for that friendship that which indeed is requisite for felicity, but together is impossible to nature. For so farre they say true, that for a perfect love the soul of a friend must passe into his friends soul. But that being impro∣perly and hyperbolically ascribed to love be∣twen men, is true and reall in the friendship be∣tween God and man sanctified, especially when he is glorified; For God graceth man so much as to make him his friend, and to call him so, I have called you my friends saith Christ to his Di∣sciples. Joh. 15.15. And in that friendship there is such a strict union between God and the soul, that thereby the soul is refunded into her original being. The spirit of God gets into mans spirit, and the spirit of man poures it selfe into Gods spirit, as the river falls into the Sea and the Sea floweth into the river; Their wills become one, their interesses one, the glory of God and the salvation of man become the same thing; Man seeking above all things to glorifie God glorifyeth himselfe, and is advanced by deba∣sing himselfe out of his love to God, till finally seeing God, and being seene of him, 2. Cor. 3.18. he is changed into the same image, and made

partaker of the divine nature. 2. Pet. 1.4.

When the Pagans from their contemplations upon friendship passe to examples, they shew how remote their imaginations are from the na∣ture of things, and that their characters of friend∣ship are fitter to be lookt on than copied out. For none of these paires of friends, which Anti∣quity extolls, is come neere those compleat I∣deas which they fancy. Most of them that would strive to expresse them in their practice have made themselves miserable, and their friendship a bondage. Also among the vertuous examples of friendship, they set forth vicious presidents; as that of Blosius who being convented before the Senate about the sedition of Tiberius Gracchus, whose intimate friend he was, and asked what he would have done for him, answered that he would have done any thing at his request. And what (sayd the Judges) if he would have re∣quested thee to set the Temples on fire, wouldst thou have done it? I know, replyed he, that Grac∣chus would never have had such a will, but if he had desired it of me, I would have done it. I am scandalized to see that answere commended by Christian writers, Montagne and Carron. Let them comment upon it as much as they please, it is certaine that such a deference to a friend's will, is the highest homage that the creature can make unto the Creatour, whose will is the onely rule of righteousnesse. If any preferre his

friends will before the observation of that Sove∣raine will, his amity is enmity against God, and becomes a plot and a conspiracy to offend him.

These old characters of perfect friendship per∣swade some to imitate them, but commonly they are young men, that know neither how to choose what they ought to love, nor how to love what they have chosen; and they that choose a friend with most judgement, and preserve him with most care soone find that human nature, though inricht with grace, affords neither the perfect objects, nor the firme bond, nor the solid content of Friendship.

Yet since we live in the world, we must make friends in it, and leaving heroique characters to romances, content ourselves with such as the earth beares, and neighbourhood presents; chu∣sing them such as have, at least, piety, honesty, and ingenuity; matching ourselves with our equalls, or rather a little above us then under, preserving their love by respect and good offices, and conversing with them with a cheerfull and innocent facility

But seeing that a great affection is a great ser∣vitude, filling the minde with care and feare, he that loveth his owne tranquillity will take heed how he engageth himselfe in a friendship whose value doth not recompense the interesse he takes in it, and will not suffer his affection for any per∣son to grow to the losse of his liberty and peace of mind.

It is a great folly for one to make himselfe miserable out of too much good nature, and to lose the sweetness of friendship by a perpetuall carefulnesse and allarum. Good things become evill to us when we love them beyond measure. There is but one friendship where we may love without any measure, & where the greatnesse of the affection brings rest & serenity to the soul. It is the friendship with God, the only Good perfect and worthy of all our love, who being so great yet is able to contract friendship with us that are so little. If we have the grace to entertaine that friendship, which fills the soul with joy and goodnesse, we shall easily be comforted about the rarity, and weakeness, yea and the losse of humane friendships.