rpetual experience that one of the
best uses that can be made of it is to take measure of men's
understandings and abilities by it, according as they are more or less
serious in it. For he thinks that no man ought to be much concerned in
it but hypocrites and such as make it their calling and profession, who,
though they do not live by their faith, like the righteous, do that
which is nearest to it, get their living by it; and that those only take
the surest course who make their best advantages of it in this world and
trust to Providence for the next, to which purpose he believes it is
most properly to be relied upon by all men.

He admires good nature as only good to those who have it not, and laughs
at friendship as a ridiculous foppery, which all wise men easily
outgrow; for the more a man loves another the less he loves himself. All
regards and civil applications should, like true devotion, look upwards
and address to those that are above us, and from whom we may in
probability expect either good or evil; but to apply to those that are
our equals, or such as cannot benefit or hurt us, is a far more
irrational idolatry than worshipping of images or beasts. All the good
that can proceed from friendship is but this, that it puts men in a way
to betray one another. The best parents, who are commonly the worst men,
have naturally a tender kindness for their children only because they
believe they are a part of themselves, which shows that self-love is the
original of all others, and the foundation of that great law of Nature,
self-preservation; for no man ever destroyed himself wilfully that had
not first left off to love himself. Therefore a man's self is the proper
object of his love, which is never so well employed as when it is kept
within its own confines, and not suffered to straggle. Every man is just
so much a slave as he is concerned in the will, inclinations, or
fortunes of another, or has anything of himself out of his own power to
dispose of; and therefore he is resolved never to trust any man with
that kindness which he takes up of himself, unless he has such security
as is most certain to yield him double interest; for he that does
otherwise is but a Jew and a Turk to himself, which is much worse than
to be so to all the world beside. Friends are only friends to those who
have no need of them, and when they have, become no longer friends; like
the leaves of trees, that clothe the woods in the heat of summer