attest the Friendship of the Redeemer's heart. To enlarge upon that interesting tale would be only to enfeeble; thanks for that teacher and example of philanthropy, who in the plenitude of his Master's spirit has placed him before us at the grave of Lazarus.

From this short view of the excellence and importance of Friendship, who would not wish to experience it in its highest possible improvements, and, if the distance between heaven and earth should be found not to forbid it, to cultivate it with nobler beings and higher intelligences. But is Friendship with God to be had?

CHAPTER II.

OF FRIENDSHIP WITH God.

'WILL God, in very deed dwell with men on the earth,'* was the exclamation of a mighty monarch, an exclamation not of doubt, but of joyful amazement--he had that just sense of the transcendent greatness of the God of heaven which annihilates all human distinctions, and had not as yet degenerated into those low and paltry notions of Deity that prepared him for his mean and impious idolatries.

That divine condescension which is here exhibited for the delight and astonishment of the world, is confirmed to us by the lips of our gracious Saviour, 'If any man keep my words, my Father will love him, and we will come unto him and make our abode with him.' + Agreeable to what is elsewhere said by that very apostle who has recorded this wonderful declaration of his blessed Master,' he that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son.' He hath

*

11 Chronicles vi. 18.

+ John xiv. 23.

11 John, 9 ver.

the favor, the good-will, of both. If these words do not import Friendship none can.

Friendship amongst men arises from some or all of these four things. I. From our natural propensity to society and mutual converse. Man is a sociable creature, and his qualifications for society shew that he was intended for it. II.From the pleasure of communicating our sentiments and endearments to one another. Without an opportunity of doing this,* the improvements of the understanding and the virtues of the heart would yield but a diminished satisfaction. III. Our dependence upon one another is a further rise of Friendship. It belongs to God alone to be independent and to need nothing out of himself for his own happiness; he communicates his happiness to his creatures but cannot increase it. IV.--Another source of Friendship amongst men, is the discovery of some amiable qualities. in them; these catch the heart before we are aware, and carry it away into all the interests, delights, and pleasures of the beloved object; determining our propensity to society in general, to some special objects of peculiar delight. These are the secret bands that hold the civil world together, and the ordinary grounds of Friendship amongst men.

* Si quis in cœlum ascendisset, naturamque mundi, et pulchritudinem siderum perspexisset, insuavem illam admirationem ei fore, quæ jucundissima fuisset, si aliquem, cui narraret, habuisset. Sic natura solitarium nihil amat, semperque ad aliquod tanquam adminiculum annititur: quod in amicissimo quoque dulcissimum est.

Cic. de Amicitia, 23

Now each of these has something of a parallel in Friendship with God. The friend of God discerns his supreme and original excellence. The pleasure of mutual communication is maintained by goodness on God's part, and by devout affections on the part of his friend. The sense of his dependence upon God commands his reverence, and that dependence answered, inflames his gratitude; and his enlightened and rectified spirit affects divine converse with an ease and nature, like that, with which men affect and slide into each others converses and Friendship. The upright love him.

The nature and the several expressions of Friendship with God, will be more particularly stated in a subsequent chapter of this Treatise; at present, I may define it in these few words، It is the reverent, adoring, grateful, and dutiful behaviour of man to God, and God's favour and complacency in and towards man; together with man's pleasing apprehension and persuasion of this.'

I. And this was the original state of man, he was obedient and God was friendly. Rebellion on the one part, and displeasure on the other. came in afterwards and were not from the begining. God made man for Friendship with himself: 'Let us make man,' said he, 'in our own image!'* and why in his own image, but for his own communion? This mode of consultation at the

* Genesis i. 26.

production of man, and express mention of the divine pattern after which he should be formed, indicated the noble purpose and view of the Creator, in the existence he was about to bestow upon him; I will have a creature in the world, my hand has just formed, that shall be a partaker of my intelligence and capable of my converse, that shall adore my perfections and bless me for my works; that shall lift up to me an admiring and grateful eye, and that shall receive my visits and benefits with mental satisfaction and pleasure. And while man continued in honour it was so; from heaven to Adam's paradise was a frequented road, and God and his new-formed creature met with mutual delight, till transgression induced separation and that separation induced misery; the same offence that deprived man of God's company making him most unhappy in his own. Man opposed forbidden appetite to wise and reasonable law. There the quarrel began, which is to this day perpetuated in the same manner by all the impenitent and incorrigible part of his offspring.

But this Friendship was as mercifully restored as it was freely formed.

God sought the fugitive, he had fled from his duty and his happiness, and was endeavouring to fly from himself. In the cool of the day (the emblem of abated wrath*), he came to deal with

* The pleasing turn of Dr. Grosvenor.