3. But you say, that you therefore believe your friend, whose heart you cannot see, because you have proved him in your trials, and have come to know of what manner of spirit he was towards you in your dangers, wherein he deserted you not. Seemeth it therefore to you that we must wish for our own affliction, that our friend’s love towards us may be proved? And shall no man be happy in most sure friends, unless he shall be unhappy through adversity? so that, forsooth, he enjoy not the tried love of the other, unless he be racked by pain and fear of his own? And how in the having of true friends can that happiness be wished for, and not rather feared, which nothing save unhappiness can put to the proof? And yet it is true that a friend may be had also in prosperity, but proved more surely in adversity. But assuredly in order to prove him, neither would you commit yourself to dangers of your own, unless you believed; and thus, when you commit yourself in order to prove, you believe before you prove. For surely, if we ought not to believe things not seen,3    The text seems corrupt. A ms. in Brasenose Library reads, “si non vis rebus credere.” If we read “Si non vis rebus non visis credere,” the sense will be, “For certainly if you will not have us believe things unseen, we ought not (to believe this), since” etc. since indeed we believe the hearts of our friends, and that, not yet surely proved; and, after we shall have proved them good by our own ills, even then we believe rather than see their good will towards us: except that so great is faith, that, not unsuitably, we judge that we see, with certain eyes of it, that which we believe, whereas we ought therefore to believe, because we cannot see.

3. Sed dicis, ideo te credere amico, cujus videre cor non potes, quia in tuis tentationibus eum probasti, et cujusmodi animum erga te haberet in tuis periculis, ubi te non deseruit, cognovisti. Numquid ergo, ut amicorum probetur erga nos charitas, videtur tibi nostra optanda calamitas? Nec quisquam erit ex amicis 0173 certissimis felix, nisi fuerit adversis rebus infelix: ut videlicet explorato alterius amore non fruatur, nisi suo dolore vel timore crucietur. Et quomodo in habendis veris amicis optari ea, non potius timeri, felicitas potest, quam probare nisi infelicitas non potest? Et tamen verum est haberi posse amicum etiam in rebus prosperis, probari autem certius in rebus adversis.

CAPUT II.

Fide de rebus humanis sublata, quam horrenda confusio sequeretur. Sed utique ut eum probes, periculis tuis nec te committeres, nisi crederes: ac per hoc cum te committis ut probes, credis antequam probes. Certe enim si rebus non visis credere non debemus, quandoquidem et nondum certius probatis amicorum cordibus credimus ; et cum ea malis nostris bona probaverimus, etiam tunc eorum erga nos benevolentiam credimus potius, quam videmus: nisi quia tanta fides est, ut non incongruenter quibusdam oculis ejus nos judicemus videre quod credimus; cum propterea credere debeamus, quia videre non possumus.