ner as you fee in my motto. I must own, I think every man in England concerned to fupport the fucceffion of that family.

THE publishing a few fermons, whilft I live, the latest of which was preached about eight years fince, and the firft above feventeen, will make it very natural for people to enquire into the occafion of doing fo; and to fuch I do very willingly affign these following reasons.

First, from the obfervations I have been able to make for these many years laft paft, upon our public affairs, and from the natural tendency of several principles and practices, that have of late been ftudioufly revived, and from what has followed thereupon, I could not help both fearing and prefaging, that thefe nations would fome time or other, if ever we should have an enterprifing prince upon the throne, of more ambition than virtue, juftice, and true honour, fall into the way of all other nations, and lofe their liberty.

Nor could I help forefeeing to whofe charge a great deal of this dreadful mifchief, whenever it should happen, would be laid, whether juftly or unjustly, was not my bufiefs to determine; but I refolved, for my own particular part, to deliver myself, as well as I could, from the reproaches and the curfes of posterity, by publicly declaring to all the world, that although, in the conftant course of my ministry, I have never failed on proper occafions to recommend, urge, and infilt upon the loving, honouring, and reverencing the prince's perfon, and holding it, according to the laws, inviolable and facred; and paying all obedience and fubmiffion to the laws, though never fo hard and inconvenient to private people: yet did I never think myfelf at liberty, or authorifed to tell the people, that either Chrift, St. Peter, or St. Paul, or any other holy writer, had by any doctrine delivered by them, fubverted the laws and conftitutions of the country in which they lived, or put them in a worfe condition, with respect to their civil liberties, than they would have been, had they not been Chriftians. I ever thought it a moft impious blafphemy against that holy religion, to father any thing upon it that might encourage tyranny, oppreffion, or injuftice in a prince, or that easily tended to

make a free and happy people flaves and miferable. No: people may make themfelves as wretched as they will, but let not God be called into that wicked party. When force and violence, and hard neceffity, have brought the yoke of fervitude upon a people's neck, religion will fupply them with a patient and fubmiffive spirit under it until they can innocently thake it off; but certainly religion never puts it on. This always was, and this at prefent is, my judgment of thefe matters: and I would be tranfmitted to pofterity (for the little share of time fuch names as mine can live) under the character of one who loved his country, and would be thought a good Englishman, as well as a good clergyman.

This character I thought would be tranfmitted by the following fermons, which were made for, and preached in a private audience, when I could think of nothing elfe but doing my duty on the occafions that were then offered by God's providence, without any manner of defign of making them public: and for that reafon I give them now as they were then delivered; by which I hope to fatisfy thofe people who have objected a change of principles to me, as if I were not now the fame man I formerly was. I never had but one opinion of thefe matters; and that I think is fo reafonable and well-grounded, that I believe I can never have any other.

Another reafon of my publishing thefe fermons at this time is, that I have a mind to do myself fome honour by doing what honour I could to the memory of two most excellent princes, and who have very highly deserved at the hands of all the people of these dominions, who have any true value for the proteftant religion, and the conftitution of the English government, of which they were the great deliverers and defenders. I have lived to fee their illuftrious names very rudely handled, and the great benefits they did this nation treated flightly and contemptuously. I have lived to fee our deliverance from arbitrary power and popery, traduced and vilified by somewho formerly thought it was their greatest merit, and made it part of their boaft and glory, to have had a little hand and fhare in bringing it about; and others, who, without it, muft have lived in exile, poverty, and mifery, meanly difclaiming it, and ufing

The fermon that was preached upon the Duke of Gloucefter's death was printed quickly after, and is now, becaufe the fubject was fo fuitable, joined to the others. The lofs of that moft promifing and hopeful prince was, at that time, I faw, unspeakably great; and many accidents fince have convinced us, that it could not have been overvalued. That precious life, had it pleafed God to have prolonged it the ufual space, had faved us many fears and jealoufies, and dark diftrufts, and prevented many alarms, that have long kept us, and will keep us ftill waking and uneafy. Nothing remained to comfort and fupport us under this heavy ftroke, but the neceflity it brought the king and nation under of fettling the fucceffion in the house of Hanover, and giving it an hereditary right, by act of parliament, as long as it continues proteftant. So much good did God, in his merciful providence, produce from a misfortune, which we could never otherwife have fufficiently deplored!

The fourth fermon was preached upon the queen's acceffion to the throne, and the first year in which that day was folemnly obferved, (for, by fome accident or other, it had been overlooked the year before;) and every one will fee with out the date of it, that it was preached very early in this reign, fince I was able only to promife and prefage it's future glories and fucceffes, from the good appearances of things, and the happy turn our affairs began to take; and could not then count up the victories and triumphs that, for feven years after, made it, in the prophet's language,

a name and a praise among all the people of the earth.' Never did feven fuch years together pafs over the head. of any English monarch, nor cover it with fo much honour: the crown and fceptre feemed to be the queen's leaft ornaments; those other princes wore in common with her, and her great perfonal virtues were the fame before and fince; but fuch was the fame of her adminiftration of affairs at home, fuch was the reputation of her wisdom and felicity in chufing minifters, and fuch was then efteemed their faithfulnefs and zeal, their diligence and great abilities in executing her commands; to fuch a height of military glory did her great general and her armies carry the British name abroad; fuch was the harmony and concord betwixt her and her allies, and fuch was the bleffing of God upon all her counfels and undertakings, that I am as fure as hiftory can make me, no prince of our's ever was fo profperous and fuccefsful, fo beloved, efteemed, and honoured by their fubjects and their friends, nor near fo formidable to their enemies. We were, as all the world imagined then, juft entering on the ways that promised to lead to fuch a peace, as would have anfwered all the prayers of our religious queen, the care and vigilance of a most able ministry, the payments of a willing and obedient people, as well as all the glorious toils and hazards of the foldiery; when God, for our fins, permitted the fpirit of difcord to go forth, and, by troubling fore the eamp, the city, and the country, (and oh that it had altogether fpared the places facred to his worship!) to fpoil for a time this beautiful and pleafing profpect, and give us in it's itead, I know not what-Our enemies will tell the reft with pleafure. It will become me better to pray to God to restore us to the power of obtaining fuch a peace, as will be to his glory, the fafety, honour, and the welfare of the queen and her dominions, and the general fatiffaction of all her high and mighty allies.

MAY 2, 1712.

T

N° CCCLXXXV,

OVID. TRIST. L. 1. EL. III. v. 66.

Intend the paper for this day as a loofe effay upon Friendship, in which I fhall throw my obfervations together without any fet form, that I may avoid repeating what has been often faid on this fubject.

Friendship is a ftrong and habitual inclination in two perfons to promote the good and happiness of one another. Though the pleafures and advantages of friendship have been largely celebrated by the best moral writers, and are confidered by all as great ingredients of human happiness, we very rarely meet with the practice of this virtue in the world.

Every man is ready to give in a long catalogue of thofe virtues and good qualities he expects to find in the perfon of a friend, but very few of us are careful to cultivate them in ourfelves.

Love and efteem are the firft principles of friendship, which always is imperfect where either of thefe two is wanting.

As, on the one hand, we are foon afhamed of loving a man whom we cannot efteem; fo, on the other, though we are truly fenfible of a man's abilities, we can never raise ourfelves to the warmths of friendship, without an affectionate good-will towards his perfon.

Friendship immediately banishes envy under all it's difguifes. A man who can once doubt whether he fhould rejoice in his friend's being happier than himfelf, may depend upon it that he is an utter ftranger to this virtue.

1

There is fomething in friendship fo very great and noble, that in thofe fictitious ftories which are invented to the honour of any particular perfon, the authors have thought it as neceffary to make their hero a friend as a lover. Achilles has his Patroclus, and Æneas his Achates. In the firft of thefe inftances we may obferve, for the reputation of the fubject I am treating of, that Greece was almoft ruined by the

hero's love, but was preserved by his friendship.

The character of Achates fuggefts to us an obfervation we may often make on the intimacies of great men, who frequently chufe their companions rather for the qualities of the heart than those of the head, and prefer fidelity in an eafy, inoffenfive, complying temper, to thofe endowments which make a much greater figure among mankind. I do not remember that Achates, who is reprefented as the first favourite, either gives his advice or strikes a blow through the whole Æneid.

A friendship, which makes the leaft noise, is very often most useful: for which reafon I fhould prefer a prudent friend to a zealous one.

Atticus, one of the best men of ancient Rome, was a very remarkable inftance of what I am here speaking. This extraordinary perfon, amidst the civil wars of his country, when he saw the defigns of all parties equally tended to the fubverfion of liberty, by conftantly preferving the esteem and affection of both the competitors, found means to ferve his friends on either fide: and while he fent money to young Marius, whofe father was declared an enemy to the commonwealth, he was himself one of Sylla's chief favourites, and always near that general.

During the war between Cæfar and Pompey, he ftill maintained the fame conduct. After the death of Cæfar, he fent money to Brutus in his troubles, and did a thousand good offices to Antony's wife and friends when that party feemed ruined. Laftly, even in that bloody war between Antony and Auguftus, Atticus ftill kept his place in both their friendships: infomuch that the firft,' fays Cornelius Nepos, 'whenever he was abfent from Rome in any part of the empire, writ punctually to him what he was doing; what he read, and whither he intended to go; and

the

the latter gave him conftantly an exact account of all his affairs.'

A likeness of inclinations in every particular is fo far from being requifite to form a benevolence in two minds towards each other, as it is generally imagined, that I believe we fhall find fome of the firineft friendships to have been contracted between perfons of different humours; the mind being often pleased` with thofe perfections which are new to it, and which it does not find among it's own accomplishments. Befides that a man in fome meafure fupplies his own defects, and fancies himself at fecondhand poffeffed of thofe good qualities and endowments, which are in the poffeffion of him who in the eye of the world is looked on as his other felf.

The most difficult province in friendfhip is the letting a man fee his faults and errors, which should, if possible, be fo contrived, that he may perceive our advice is given him not fo much to please ourselves as for his own advantage. The reproaches therefore of a friend fhould always be strictly juft, and not too frequent.

The violent defire of pleafing in the

perfon reproved, may otherwife change into a defpair of doing it, while he finds himself cenfured for faults he is not confcious of. A mind that is foftened and humanized by friendship, cannot bear frequent reproaches; either it must quite fink under the oppreffion, or abate confiderably of the value and efteem it had for him who beftows them.

The proper bufinefs of friendship is to inspire life and courage; and a foul thus fupported, outdoes itfelf; whereas if it be unexpectedly deprived of these fuccours, it droops and languishes.

We are in fome measure more inexcufable if we violate our duties to a friend than to a relation: fince the former arife from a voluntary choice, the latter from a neceflity to which we could not give our own confent.

As it has been faid on one fide, that a man ought not to break with a faulty friend, that he may not expofe the weaknefs of his choice; it will doubtless hold much stronger with respect to a worthy one, that he may never be upbraided for having loft so valuable a treasu which was once in his poffeffion.

TH

HE piece of Latin on the head of this paper is part of a character extremely vicious, but I have fet down no more than may fall in with the rules of justice and honour. Cicero fpoke it of Catiline, who, he faid, lived with the fad feverely, with the chearful agreeably, with the old gravely, with the young pleafantly;' he adde 1, with the wicked boldly, with the wanton lafciviously. The two laft inftances of his complaifance I forbear to confider, having it in my thoughts at prefent only to fpeak of obfequious behaviour as it its upon a companion in pleasure, not a man of defign and intrigue. To vary with every humour in this manner cannot be agreeable, except it comes from a man's own temper and natural complexion; to do it out of an ambition to excel that way, is the most fruitless and unbecoming proftitution imaginable. To put on an artful part to obtain

TULL,

no other end but an unjust praise from the undifcerning, is of all endeavours the most defpicable. A man must be fincerely pleased to become pleasure, or not to interrupt that of others: for this reafon it is a molt calamitous circumftance, that many people who want to be alone, or fhould be fo, will come into converfation. It is certain, that all men, who are the leaft given to reflection, are feized with an inclination that way; when, perhaps, they had rather be inclined to company; but indeed they had better go home and be tired with themselves, than force themselves upon others to recover their good-humour. In all this the cafe of communicating to a friend a fad thought or difficulty, in order to relieve a heavy heart, ftands excepted; but what is here meant, is that a man fhould always go with inclination to the turn of the company he is going into, or net pretend to