theirs who are unreconciled to almost all the Churches of Christ or to multitudes of their Brethren because they are not of their way yea that make their Communion the very badge and means of their uncharitableness and divisions Sirs these are not matters of indifferency nor to be indulged by any faithful Pastor of the Church 7. And I know that these principles are as mortal to the Churches as they are to Souls And that if ever the Churches have peace prosperity or healing it must be by the means of Love and Concord and by destroying the principles which would destory them One thinketh that it must be by a Spanish Inquisition and by forcing or killing the dissenters And another thinketh it must be by Excommunicating them all and making them odious and making their own party seem thereby to be better than theirs But I know that it must be by revived Love or it will never be I know it and whoever is angry with me for it I cannot choose but know it When the Papists had murdered so many hundred thousands of the Albigenses and Waldenses who would have thought but they had done their work When the French Massacre had murdered 30000 or 40000 and dispatcht the Leaders of the Protestant party who would have thought that they had but strengthened them When the Duke D' Alva had done so much to drwon the Belgick Protestants in blood he little thought that he was but fortifying them Queen Maries Bishops little thought that their English Bonfires were but to light men to see the mischief of their cause and like the firing of a Beacon to call all the Land to take them for the Enemies of mankind and that the case would have been so quickly altered When the Irish had murdered two hundred thousand they little thought that they had but excited the Survivers to a terrible revenge I will come no nearer but you may easily do it your selves If we bite and devour one another we shall be devoured one of another Gal. 5. 15. The question is but who shall be devoured first and who reserved for the second course If any man have an ear to hear let him hear He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity He that killeth with the Sword must be killed with the Sword Here is the Patience and Faith of the Saints Rev. 13. 9. 10. God Ruleth the world still when he worketh not miracles Have we not seen a proud Victorious Army dissolved without a drop of blood and have we not seen that God approveth not of proud self-exaltation and violating the Sacred power of our Governours and usurping their places of Authority Hath not the drunken world had yet experience enough to teach them that the Church of God is not to be built up or repaired by their tumultuous quarrellings and frayes How long Lord must thy Church and Cause be in the hands of unexperienced furious fools who know not what Holiness or Healing is but think that victory over mens Bodies must be the cure of their Souls and that hurting them is the way to win their Love or that a Church is constituted of Bodies alone while Souls are absent or no parts who will make themselves the Rulers of thy Flock in despite of thee and of thy Cause and Servants without thy call or approbation and think that the work of a Soldier is the work of a Father and a Physician whose cures are all by amputation and whose piety consisteth in flying from each other and esteeming and using their Brethren as their foes who scatter thy flocks on all the mountains when Christ hath prayed that they may all be one Perhaps Reader thou art one of them that thinketh that the settlement and happiness of the Church must be won like a game at foot-ball and therefore scruplest not to toss it in the dirt and tumultuously to strive with and strike up the heels of all that are against thee so that peaceable passengers cannot safely come near your game or pass the streets But when you have got the Ball have you done the work Are you still so ignorant as not to know how uncertain still you are to keep it and that one spurn can take it from you And suppose you could secure all your conquests are the Churches healed ever the more Mens hearts must be conquered before this healing work is done And therefore the Apostle saith that we are more than Conquerours when we are killed all the day long and accountea as Sheep to the slaughter Rom. 8. 34 35. that is it is more gain and honour to our selves to suffer in faith and patience by our enemies than to conquer them in the field And it is more profitable also unto them and tendeth to a more desirable conquest of them Because when Conquerors do but exasperate them and if we hurt their bodies we harden them the more against our cause and against the means of their own Salvation our patient Martyrdom and suffering by them may â—end at last to open their eyes and turn their hearts and save their souls by shewing them the Truth the Goodness and the Power of Christ and of his Word and Spirit This is the meaning of being more than Conquerours The Irish are conquered by us but not converted The Scots and English were conquered by Cromwell but their hearts were not conquered nor their Religion changed by him They that think that if they could get and keep the upper ground and have Dissenters bodies and estates at their will they could soon settle the Church in Unity and Concord do tell all the world how ignorant they are of the nature of Christianity and of the fear of God and of the means of the peace and Concord of the Church Either you would give up your own judgments and Consciences or practice your selves to the will of men if you were in their power or not If you would not why should you think that others will If you would you do but tell the world that you are Atheists and have neither a God nor Conscience nor Religion But it is not evidence enough of your folly to say in your hearts there is no God and to fear them that can but kill the body more than Him that can punish both body and soul in hell but you must also shew that you know neither God nor Man by thinking that all others are Atheists also and judging of them by your selves as if they set their Souls and their everlasting hopes at as base a price as you do yours I tell you again that a Battel or a Footâ—ball skuffle will not settle the discomposed and divided Churches unless you think that a heap of Carkasses slain in the field possess the quietness and concord which you desire The Soul is the man and Love is the Christian Life and the true Cement of the Churches unity And Love must cause Love as fire causeth fire And hurtful wrath doth most powerfully
as carnal For ye are yet carnal v. 12. If any build on this foundation wood hay stubble v. 15. he shall suffer loss chap. 4. 18. 21. Some are puffed up Shall I come to you with a rod or in love chap. 6. 5 6 7 8. I speak to your shame Is there not a wise man among you Because yee go to Law one with another before Heathens Nay you do wrong and defraud and that your brethren Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the Kingdom of God chap. 11. 17 18 19 20 21. I praise you not that you come together not for the better but for the worse For first of all when you come together in the Church I hear that that there be divisions among you For there must be also Heresies among you that they which are approved may be made manifest among you When you come together into one place this is not to eat the Lords Supper For in eating every one taketh before other his own supper and one is hungry and another is drunken Vers. 23. 30. He that eateth and drinketh unworthâ—ly eateth and drinketh damnation to himself not discerning the Lords body For this cause many are weak and sick among you and many sleep Chap. 14. Reproveth their abuse of unknown tongues and their disorder in Gods publike worship Chap. 15. 12 13 14 15. If Christ be preached that he rose from the dead how say some among you that there is no resurrection But if there be no resurrection of the dead then Christ is not risen And if Christ be not risen then is our preaching vain and your faith is vain yea and we are found false witnesses of God v. 17. and ye are yet in your sins 2 Cor. 12. 20 21. I fear lest when I come I shall not finde you such as I would and that I shall be found to you such as ye would not Lest there be debates envyings wraths strifes back-bitings whisperings swellings tumults and lest my God will humble me among you and that I shall bewail many that have sinned already and have not repented of the uncleanness and fornication and lasciviousness which they have committed Besides that Paul and his Ministry was slandered and much slighted among them as by his large aâ—d vehement apologies and expostulations doth appear These were the faults of the Church of the Corinthians The corruptions of the Churches of Galatia Gal. 1. 6 7 8 9. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you to the grace of Christ to another Gospel which is not another but there are some that trouble you and would pervert the Gospel of Christ thoughâ—e â—e or an Augel from heaven preach any other Gospel to you than that which we have preached to you let him be accursed Chap. 3. 1 2 3. O foolish Galathians Who hath bewitched you that you should not obey the truth before whose eyes Are ye so foolish Having begun in the spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh Have ye suffered so many things in vain chap. 4. 9. How turn yâ— again to weak and beggarly elements whereto ye desire again to be in bondage vers 10. 11. Ye observe dayes and moneths and times and years I am afraid of you lest I have bestowed on you labour in vâ—in v. 16. Am I therefore become your enemy because I tell you the truth Tell me ye that desire to be under the Law v. 29. As then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now The Legalists persecuting the Apostles Chap. 5. 2. Behold I Paul say unto you that if ye be circumcised Christ shall profit you nothing V. 3 4. For I testifie again to every man that is circumcised that he is a debtor to do the whole Law Christ is become of no effect to you Who ever of you are justified by the Law ye are fallen from grace v. 9. A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump 12. I would they were even cut off which trouble you Chap. 6. 12. As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh they constrain you to be circumcised The corruptions of the Church of Colosse Col. 2. 20 21 22 23. If ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye subject to ordinances Touch not tast not handle not which all are to perish with the using after the Commandements and Doctrines of men Which things have indeed a shew of wisdome in will-worship The corruptions of the Church of Ephesus Rev. 2. 4 5. Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee because thou hast left thy first love Remember from whence thou art fallen and do thy first works or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remoâ—e thy Candlestick Act. 20. 30. Of your own selves shall men arise speaking perverse things c. as aforesaid The corruptions of the Church of Pergamus Rev. 2. 14 15 16. I have a few things against thee because thou hast there theâ— that hold the doctrine of Balaam who taught Balac to cast a stumbling block before the children of Israel to eat things sacrificed to Idols and to commit fornication so hast thou also them that hold the doctrine of the Nicolaitans which thing I hate Repent or else I will The faults of the Church of Thyatira Rev. 2. 20 21 22 I have a few things against thee because thou sufferest the woman Jezebel which calleth her self a Prophetess to teach and to sedâ—ce my sâ—rvants to commit fornication and to eat things sacrificed to Idols The faults of the Church of Sardis Rev. 3. 1. Thou hast a name that thou livest and art dead I have not found thy works perfect before God 4 Thou hast a few names even in Sardis which have not defiled their garments The faults of the Church of Laodicea Rev. 3. 15 16 17. Thou art neither cold nor hot I will spue thee out of my mouth and knowest not that thou art wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked I haue been thus large in citing the words of the Text to make it plain to you of what kind of Members the Visible Churches were then made up And to affect their hearts with the sense of their partiality who can plead for many things as duties and plead against many things as sin without one plain word of Scripture on their side and yet can read all these without either sense or notice Yet mark I pray you that I am far from saying that God alloweth any of these sins or that any should make light of them For all must abhor them Nor do I say that none of the Churches ought to have excommunicated any of these offenders for these sins Some of them I doubt not should have been cast out But these are the uses which I desire you to make of all these Texts First before you judge any Church to be 〈◊〉
sin which caused it and remember that you have aggravated your own transgression If you are children in parts and goodness your selves you are unfit either to upbraid the people with their childish weaknesses or to cure them DIRECT III. In all your publick Doctrine and private Conference inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace and of the Love of God and Man And make them understand that Love is their very Holiness and the sum of their Religion the end of Faith the heart of Sanctification and the fulfilling of the Law And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him so Love to man must unite us to one another And that all Doctrine or practice is against God and against Christ and against the great work of the Spirit and is enmity to the Church and to mankind which is against Love aâ—d Unity Press these things on them all the year that your hearers may be bred up and nourished with these principles from their youth IF ever the Church be recovered of its wounds it must be by the peaceable Disposiâ—ions of the Pastors and people And if ever men come to a peaceable Disposition it must be by peaceable Doctrine and principles And if ever men come to peaceable Principles it must be by the full and frequent explication of the nature pre-eminence necessity and power of Love That they may heat of it so much and so long till Love be made their Religion and become as the very Natural Heat and Constitution of their souls And if ever men be generally brought to this it must be by daily sucking it from those breasts which nourish them in the infancy and youth of their Religion and by learning it betimes as the sum of Godliness and Christianity And if ever they come to this the Aged experienced ripe and mellow sort of Ministers and private Christians must instil it into Schollars and into the younger sort of Ministers that they may have nothing so common in their ears and in their studies as Uniting-Love That they may be taught to know that God is Love and thaâ— he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Ioh. 4. 16. And that the Love of God doth ever work towards his image in man 1 Ioh. 4. 7 11 12 20. And that all men as men have some of his Image in their Nature as they are Intellectual Free Agents exalted above the bruits Gen. 9 6. And therefore we must Love men as men and Love Saints as Saints That it is Love to God and man which is the true state of Holiness and the New creature and which Christ came to recover lapsed man to and which the Holy Ghost is sent to work and all the means of grace are intended and fitted for and must be used for or they are misused In a word that FAITH WORKING BY LOVE or LOVE and THE WORKS OF LOVE KINDLED BY THE SPIRIT BY FAITH IN CHRIST is the sum of all the Christian Religion Gal. 5. 6 13 22. 1 Tim. 1. 5. He that crieth up Holiness and Zeal without a â—ue commemoration of Love and Peace doth first deceive the hearers about that very Holiness and Zeal which he commendeth whilest he lamely and so falsly representeth and describeth it and doth not make them know how much of Holiness consisteth in Love nor that true zeal is Love it self in its fervâ—ur and intense degree And so people are enticed to think that Holiness is nothing but the passions of fear and grief and earnest expressions in preaching and praying or scrupulousness and singularity about some controverted things or some other thing than indeed it is And they are tempted to think that Christian zeal is rather the violence of partial passions and the fervor of wrath and the making things sinful which God forbiddeth not than the fervors of Love to God and man And when the mind is thus mocked with a false Image of Holiness and Zeal it is cast into a sinful mold and engaged in the pursuit of an erroneous dangerous course of life And at last it cometh to an enmity and contempt of that which is Holiness and Zeal indeed For it accounteth Love but a Moral-vertue which they ignorantly take for a diminutive title of the great and primitive duties required by the light and law of nature it self And zealous Love is accounted by them but a carnal and selfish compliance and temporizing and a pleasing of men instead of God And â— zealous promoting of Unity and Peace is taken but for a cowardly neutrality and betraying of some truth which should be earnestly contended for And on the other side they that preach up Love to man and Peace and Concora without putting first the Love of God and a Holy and Heavenly mind and life they will cheat the poor ignorant carnal people by making them believe that God and Heaven may be forgotten and good neighbourhood to each other is all that is needful to make them happy And they will tempt the more religious sort to sin more against Love and Peace than before Because they will think that it is but a confederacy for Satan against Christ and a submission to the wills of proud usurpers to strengthen their worldly interest against godliness which these preachers mean when they plead for peace And thus as I have known ungodly Preachers by crying down Schism bring Schism into request while it was no such thing as real schism which they meant in theâ—r exclamations till at last the true eruption of schism with its monstrous effects made good people see that such an odious sin there is Even so I have known that a carnal Preacher contemning Holiness and crying up Love and Peace hath tempted the people to have too light thoughts of Love and Peace because it was but a confederacy in sin with a neglect of godliness which the preacher seemed to cry up Till riper knowledge better taught good people to perceive that Love and Peace are more Divine and excellent things than carnal preachers or hearers can imagine The wisedome from above is first pure then peaceable Let it therefore be a true conjunction of Holiness and Peace which you commend DIRECT IV. If others shew their weakness by any unwarrantable singularities or divisions shew not your greater weakness by passions impatiency or uncharitable censures or usage of them especially when any self-interest doth provoke you NOne usually are so spleenishly impatient at the weakness of Dissenters or Separatists as the Pastors are And what is the cause Is it because they abound most in Love to the souls of those who offend or them who are endangered by them If so I have no more to say to such But when we see that the Honour and Interest of the Pastors is most deeply concerned in the business and that they are carried by their impatiency into more want of Charity than the other express by their separations and when we see that they
well enough bear with themselves in such sins as this or in others as great and that they can beat with as great sins in the people with too much patience when their own interest concurreth not to raise their passions in such cases we have reason enough to fear lest pride and selfishness have too great a part in much that is said and done against schism in the world Is it a greater shame for children to cry and wrangle with the Nurse and one another or for the Nurse or Parents to go to law with them for it or to hate them and turn them out of doors Is it a fault for children to be so impatient as to cry and quarrel And is it not a greater fault in Parents that pretend to greater wisdome to be impatient with them for it I know you will say that Parents must not be so patient with sin as to leave their children uncorrected But I answer correction must not be the effect of impatiency but of Love and Wisedome and dislike of sin and must be chosen and measured in order to the cure of it It s one thing to be angry for God against sin and its another thing to be angry for our selves against the crossing of our wils and interests And it s one thing to correct so as tendeth to a cure And another thing to be revenged or do mischief or to cast out of doors Are not you guilty of Ministerial weaknesses in preaching and praying and of many omissions in your private oversight And do you think that it is meet for the people therefore to revile you with odious titles and stir up the Magistrate against you for your infirmities Is it seemly for them who are the fathers of the flock and should excel the people in Love and lowliness in patience and gentleness and meekness to be so proud and passionate as to storm against the most conscientious persons if they do but set light by us and cast off our Ministery though perhaps they hear and submit to others who are as able and as faithful and more profitable to them than we When we can â—asiâ—er bear with a swearer or drunkard or the families that are prayerless and ungodly than with the most religious if they do not choose our Miniâ—â—â—â—y but prâ—â—er some others before us as more edifying When we can bear with them that have no understanding or seriousness in Religion at all but make the world or their lusts their idols but cannot bear with the weak irregularities of the most upright and devout If they were never so irregular in preferring us before others and in leaving others to follow us we can easily bear with them and think their disorders may be well excused And to shew the height of our pride we still are confident whether we are uppermost or undermost whether we have publick liberty or are forbidden to preach that we are the persons only that are in the right and therefore that all are in the right that follow us and all are in the wrong that turn away from us That it is Unity and duty to follow us and adhere to us and all are Schismaticks who forsake us and choose others And thus the selfishness and Pride of the Pastors making an imprudent and impatient stir against all who dislike them and applauding all how bad soever who adhere to them and follow them is as great a cause of the disorders of the Church as the weakness and errours of the people DIRECT V. Distinguish between those who separate from the Universal Church or from all the Orthodox or purest and Reformed parts of it and those who only forsake the Ministery of some one person or sort of persons without refusing Communion with the rest AS many occasions may warrant a removal from a particular Church but nothing can excuse a separation from the Vniversal Church so he that separateth only from some particular Churches and yet is a member of the Vniversal Church may also be a member of Christ and be saved He may be a Christian who is no member of your flock yea or of any particular Church But he is no Christian who is no member of the Vniversal Church Paul and Barnabas may in the heat of a difference part from one another and yet neither of them part from Christ or the Church-Universal I do not excuse the fault of them who sin against any one Church or Pastor But I would not have the Pastors therefore sin as much by making their fault greater than it is nor to suffer their own interest partially to call men Schismaticks or Separatists in a sense for which they have no ground If they can learn more by another Minister than by me what reason have I to be offended at their edification though perhaps some infirmity of judgement may appear in it A true mother that knoweth her child is like to thrive better by a nurses milk than by her own will be so far from hatred or envy either at the nurse or child that she will consent and be thankful and pay the nurse Solomon made it the sign of the false mother that could bear the dividatur the hurt of the child for her own commodity and of the true mother that she had rather lose her commodity than the child should suffer And Paul giveth God thanks that Christ was preached though it was by them that did it in strife and envy to add affliction to his â—ands Phil. 1. He is not worthy of the name of a Physician who had rather the patients health were deplorate than that he should be healed by another who is preferred before him If I knew that man by whom the salvation of my flock were like to be more happily promoted than by me whatever infirmity of theirs might be the cause I should think my self a servant of Satan the envious enemy of souls if I were against it DIRECT VI. Distinguish between those who deny the Being of the Church or Ministery from which they separate and those who remove only for their own edification as from a weaker or worse Minister and from a Church more culpable and less pure FOr these last are not properly Separatists in a full sense Though they think it unlawful to joyn with you as supposing that you impose some sin upon them or that you deprive them of discipline or some ordinance of God Whether they be in the right or in the wrong yet still they hold inward Communion with you in faith and love and in the same species of worship And this is such a communion as we hold with many forreign Churches with whom we have no local present communion DIRECT VII Distinguish between those who hold it simply unlawful to have communion with you and those who only hold it unlawful to prefer your assemblies before those which they judge more pure but hold it lawful to communicate with you occasionally yea and statedly when they can have
in Christendome and the blood of the many hundred thousands that have for conscience sake been shed and the enduring of the outcries of the imprisoned and banished and their prayers to heaven for deliverance from mens hands and the leaving of such a name on record to posterity as is usually left in History on the authors of such sufferings besides the present regret of mind in the calamities of others and the sad divisions and destruction of Charity which cometh hereupon I say whether it be worth the suffering of all this and O how small a part is this and all to keep our Churches from the primitive simplicity and from the same way and Communion which Peter and Paul and the Churches of their times established and practised Shall we speak so highly of Christ and his Apostles and the sacred Scriptures and yet think all this blood and misery division and distraction worthy to be endured rather than our Union and Communion should be held on the terms which they did appoint and practise or rather than such terms should be tolerated among us I know what is said against all this But this is no place to answer all that is said by such as cannot see how to answer themselves in so clear a case DIRECT XII Remember that the Pastoral Government is a Work of LIGHT and LOVE and what cannot be done by these is not at all to be done by you And therefore you must make it your great study and employment first to Know more than the people and to Love them more than they Love you or one another and then to convince them by unresistable evidence of truth and to cause the warmth of your Love to be felt by them in every word and act of your Ministration As the Miâ—k is waâ—m by the natural heat of the mother and so is fitted for the nourishment of the child AS the Gospel is the revelation of the Love of God and it is a message of Love which we have to bring and a work of Love which we cooperate to effect so it is a spirit of Love which must be our principle and it is an office and work of Love which we are called to and the manner must be answerable to the work Faith is the Head and Love is the Heart of the new Creature And as there is no Light in our office and work if there be no Faith and evidence of Truth so there is no Life in it if there be no Love God himself in the great work of our Redemption Christ in his Incarnation life and suffering hath taught the world that the manifestation of Love is the way to win Love and to cure enmity And he is not worthy the name of a Minister of Christ who hath not learned this lesson and doth not imitate his Lord in this That as our office participateth subordinately of his office both Ruling Teaching Priestly so we may participate of that Spirit of Love which was his Principle and must be ours If it be not a work of Love which we do it is not the work of a Minister of Christ and Preacher of the Gospel Can you well Preach so great Love of Christ to men without Love if you shew not Love to them you can never expect to win their Love to your selves And when you overmuch desire to be loved your selves as which of you doth not you pretend that it is to make your endeavours more successful when you perswade them to the love of Christ. And doubtless a just Love to the person of the Preacher is a good advantage to this success And in good sadness can you believe that any thing is so likely to win Love as Love or did experience ever teach you that reproach or contempt or hurting men was the effectual way to make them Love you This way hath been long tried by the Mountebanks in Italy Spain and many other Countries but alas with what success Indeed solitudinem faciunt paâ—â—m vocant as Tertullian saith When they have killed those that they had first oppressed they affrighted the rest to say they loved them and really won the Love of their surviving blood-thirsty enemies but that was all If the new knack of transfusion of blood cannot do this feat by letting in the blood of a Spaniel who loveth him that beateth him when you let out their own phlebotomy will never do it Account then that Sermon that converse that reproof that discipline in which Love is not apparently predominant to be but a lifeless useless thing as to the winning of a sinners heart to Christ. Though I deny not but when the case of the sinner appeareth desperate the severity of Discipline in casting him off may express more of another affection as to him But that is because in so doing you must shew greater Love to the Church which must be saved from the infection But perhaps you 'l say They despise me and injure me and follow others and admire them who deserve not so well of them as I do Answ. First we are most of us too partial to be competent Judges of our own deserts Selfishness too often maketh us think better of our selves our preaching and our lives than there is cause And it too often filleth men with envy against those whose greater worth and better labours cause them to be preferred by the hearers And envy usually breeds detraction I know that many giddy persons heap up Teachers to them selves and follow seducers coutemn the faithfullest servants of the Lord. But I know withall that there is usually a convincing power in the preaching of able experienced Ministers which is not to be found in the cold formal discourses of an hypocrite And that there is a suitable principle in true spiritual experienced Christians which causeth them to relish this spiritual experimental preaching much more than the more-adorned carkasâ—es of formality And seriousness is still acceptable to serious Christians Yea even to common natural men unless the malicious possess them by slanders with prejudice against it Now if this should be the cause that others are preferred before you O how heynous were your sin As if it were not enough for you to neglect your duty and to do the work of God deceitfully and injure the souls of men in a cause of such importance but you must also impenitently justifie such a crime and also maligne those that have more of the grace and gifts of God than you and that do more to help to save mens souls Secondly But suppose that your deserts be as great as you conceive and their love to you as little I would further ask you First is it for their own sake who thus hinder their own edification by it that you are troubled at them or is it for your selves because you have not the respect which is your due If it be the later I need not tell you what it is for Ministers of Christ
Bolton well noteth to hide the malignity of their sin and to cheat the hearers and their own consciences they will first seem to praise him and to confess that he is in other respects a very worthy a learned or a pious man and then bring in their back-biting with a but. And that which must sanctifie all this sin and turns it into a work of zeal is the seeming interest of God and of religion They do all out of a zeal of God I cannot say A zeal for God though it be not according to knowledge If it was an untruth which they spake it was for religion If they did back-bite it was to preserve the hearers from errour and danger If they reviled that which they never understood it was to keep the Church from the infection If they tear the Church and use their reputation to murder Love and to make others odious who are wiser than they all this is but for the defence of truth And if it be non-sense or envy which they vent they never repent of it that 's the mischief because they think that the Lord and the Church and the hearers have need of it And so all those Texts are to them Apocripha which condemn their sin Psal. 15. 3. 2 Cor. 12. 20. Rom. 1. 30. Prov. 25. 23. And sin is so be friended in mans corrupted nature that they meet but with few angry countenances to drive away such reverend back-biting tongues Nay that they may abuse Gods word and name against God to the devils service they arm themselves as the Tempter did Math. 4. with Gods authority and scripture and will charge those with sin who would reprove their sin and bring them to repentance And as Master Herbert noteth how the Pope under the reverend garb of Christs Vicar doth do the like things to the suppressing of the Church and Truth as Turks and Heathens do under the name of open enemies so these men find that the names of Ministers and Christians with the words of God abused are among the well-meaning a more effectual means to do that work which God abhorreth I have long used to resist this sin of back-biting and not to justifie the faults of any but to convince the back-biter of his sin And I seldome do it but they report of me that I am a defender of such and such corruptions One backbiteth men as Prelatists and formalists another the Presbyterians another the Independents and another the Anabaptists and say such a one is of such a sect and ever with epithetes of reproach And when I tell them that the way to do them good is to convince them of their errour to their faces and not to talk of them behind their backs they report me presently to be a patron of the sect because I was a reprover of their unchristian vice And many of them having not so far digested their Religion as to see the evidences of it in themselves are fain to take it upon trust from others And they choose that party to cast this great trust upon which they think to be most venerable The Papist chooseth for number and worldly pomp and order The carnal self-seeker chooseth the party which may most further his preferment and honour in the world The honester sectaries do choose the party which seemeth to them to be the most illuminated or most strict And some have the wit to look most at those that set as many of these together as may be hoped for But among whomsoever they cast their lot their way to preserve the reputation of Orthodoxness and the peace of that conscience which made the choice is to be liberal in reproaching those that differ in any thing from the sect which they have chosen For how much of the Christian world is now in sects is a thing which requireth more lamentation than proof As the Dominicans when they have written far much more than Calvin about predetermination they have no way to keep their honour with their sect the Papists but to rail at the Calvinists and belye them and charge them with that which they abhor that so they may seem sufficiently to differ from them But the greatest reason of this contentious back-biting quarrelling humour is Ignorance it self which will not give them leave so much as to see the difficulty of the points which they oppose much less the truth of that which they have not been used to The way which is spoken against they think they may also boldly speak against And hypocrisie though mixed with sincerity hath too great a hand in this with many The less men are taken up in that true religion which consisteth in Heaâ—en-work and Heart-work in the Love of God and man and the mortification of their selfishness and pride the more they are addicted to make it up with a contentious zeal for their several wayes opinions and modes of worship that they may not seen to be cold or neutral in religion They never understood the third Chapter of Iâ—mes nor many other such texts of scripture O that the Ministers of Christ were once sensible not here only but through all the Christian world what a plague the conjunction of their ignorance and contensiousness and their dividing selfish zeal hath been to the Churches of Christ And what they have done against the souls of men by violence and by heading parties and by laying Heaven and Hell upon the opinions which they never understood and by departing from the primitive simplicity and charity And how odious a practise it is of ignorant Ministers to keep up the reverence of their wisedome or Orthodoxness or piety by the secret back-bitings and reproaches of others whose persons perhaps they never saw or whom they never once soberly discoursed with face to face or whose writings perhaps they never read or thought it not worth their time and labour to understand them and yet take it to be their piety to revile by hear-say and blind surmises and judge in a cause which they never impartially heard and understood There is none of those Ministers of Christ whom you reproach but is to be serviceable to hâ—s master for the saving of mens souls And you are satans instruments to block up their way and to turn away the hearts of people from their doctrine If every Minister especially your selves who hath as great an errour should be made odious for it to their hearers you might all put up your pipes and find that your artifice hath first silenced your selves by the righteous law Nec enim lex justior ulla est Quam necis artifices arte perire sua Or in the words of Christ With what measure you mete it shall be measured to you again Did you see the ugliness of Ignorant peevish contentious zeal as contrary to holy Light and Love you would think you saw a devil spitting out fire and brimstone and would never more take it for your honour nor for a mark of a