them capable! What grand exalted fentiments interchangeably impart to them! What a value must it communicate to their friendship! Friendship thus framed, and refting on fuch a bottom, has a great, an ineftimable value! Let us fee what gives it this value, or wherein it confifts. As In the first place, friendship is the most intimate and happy conjunction of two fouls of the fame generous temper in heart and mind. All things in nature, my pious hearers, as well in the spiritual as in the material world, are continually ftriving to unite, to obtain a clofer and completer union. all the particles of matter reciprocally follow the law of attraction; fo do spirits likewise, fo do human fouls; fo all things tend and endeavour to af fimilate with whatever is or appears to be homogeneous to them. This is the foundation of love ; this the ground of friendship. Some have fenfual and grofs, others fpiritual and noble conjunctions in view. The wifer, better, and more perfect two friends may be, fo much the more perfect is their union alfo. When both of them are of a found and vigoroufly reflecting mind, have a capacious. and fentimental heart; when both have a widely extended knowledge, great and elevated notions, pure and generous feelings; both great activity in goodness they then poffefs, as it were, more points of contact, fo much the greater fimilarity or homogeneity, inceffantly drawing them clofer, and binding them more indiffolubly together. They fee fo many many objects on the fame fide, from the fame point of view, in the fame combinations; they think and judge of fo many important matters in the fame way; they are on fuch a number of occafions penetrated by the very fame fentiments; employ themfelves fo frequently and fo earnestly about the very fame things that each fees the other in himself; is fenfible to himself in the other, and both fo think and will and feel and act, as though they were but one. Friendship is, in fact, a reduplicated or multiplied mode of existence, and of effecting and enjoying good. Each exifts at the fame time in the other, is operative and effective by him. The good which one does, is done by both; the fatisfaction that one enjoys, is enjoyed by the other likewife; the merit of one is alfo fet down to the account of the other. Both are animated by the fame common intereft, and are fet upon the most diverfified activity. And how much must not all this concur to unite like conftituted fouls; and how happy must not the fentiment, the enjoyment of this union be! True friendship is, farther, the most intimate community of all the joys and forrows of life; a community, which as much improves and heigh tens the one, as it diminishes and alleviates the other. No joy is of any great value which remains entirely locked up within my heart, which I cannot impart to a being of my kind, which I cannot enjoy with him; even the most exalted, the divineft of all joys, even the joys of piety, would ceafe to be be what they are, if I could not enjoy them in the fentiment of the prefence of God, and of my connection with him; and every even the slightest forrows may become oppreffive, may be intolerable, if I be forced to bear them alone, if none of all that furround me will fuffer with me, or if I am not fupported under them by the fentiment of the prefence of the Almighty. But what joy will not be improved and multiplied, what joy will not frequently be augmented into tranfport, by communicating it to the friend of my heart, when I know that he feels it as much as I do myself, that he will call my attention to every circumstance, every confequence, every effect of it, that can increase its value, and that he will, for me and with me, give praise for it, from the fullness of my heart, to God, the giver of joy! And what folid and good reflections, what humane and generous fentiments, what honourable purpofes, what useful employments, what circumfpect profecution of them, what innocent enjoyment of nature, what improvements in knowledge or in virtue, what progrefs towards our common aim, must not this produce in friends thus connected together, and augment their fatisfactions in it! How must not all be ennobled in their eyes by the pleasure they mutually take in it, by the heart of fentiment and affection wherewith they enjoy it! And their forrows, how much more tolerable, how much lighter, muft they not be to them, by not being abandoned to their own violence and fury, fury, by their not remaining locked up in the receffes of the heart, where they would rankle and the more deeply inflict their ftings, but are fhaken forth from the bofom of the one into that of the other; all that tormented and pained him is entrusted to the other without referve, not even concealing that which probably no danger, no torture, would have extorted from him! No, neither fuffers for himself alone; neither bears alone the burden that 'oppreffes him; each obtains from the other all the comfort, all the counfel, every affiftance he ever has it in his power to give him. And what a sweet is friendship able to infufe even into the bitterest forrows of human life! What a light it diffuses over the darkneffes that furround it! What vigour and courage it infpires into the weary and heavy-laden heart! What little circumstances does it not apply to chear and revive it! With what a lenient hand it binds up its wounds! What attention, what officioufnefs, what complacency, what indulgence, what facrifice, is too troublefome or too dear to this end! And what repays and rejoices them more than when they fee the suffering friend fuffer lefs, fuffer more compofedly, or fuffer no more; when they can fee him reftored, strengthened, cheared, and satisfied, again in poffeffion of the comforts of life? Real, vírtuous friendship is, thirdly, an united pursuit of one and the fame end, an animated endeavour after ever increafing perfection. And how much much must not their united endeavours be thus facilitated in the glorious attempt! Hand in hand they walk the path of wisdom and virtue; with united hearts, with combined forces, they labour at their improvement and happiness. One quickens and encourages the other to proceed; one incites the other to industry and perfeverance, one kindles the other to generous and noble deeds. Each watches over the other, as much as over himfelf; warns him of this danger, reminds him of that duty, fupports him in each toilfome, each painful enterprise, and affectionately recalls him from every indirect and devious way. If one ftumble or fall, the other raises him again; if one grow flack and weary on his course, he is infpired with new firmness and courage by the voice and the example of the other. Each finds in the other the skill, the ability, the dexterity, on a hundred occafions, which he would never have found in himself. They never are weakened or retarded by low felf-intereft; but a generous emulation animates them both, and allows neither one or the other to be left behind. They fight in conjunction against every disorderly paffion that stirs within, against every attack of envy and derifion, against the baleful influence of prevailing principles and practices, against every carking care and every mining forrow. And how much must not this facilitate the conquest over all their foes! The more impediments and perils they meet with on the way, the more difficulties they have to encounter: fo much |