Church but Christ himself 58. Take heed of superstition indiserâ—â—t â—â—al â—â—th been the usual beginner of superstition Mâ—lignity in that age the sharpest opposer for the Aâ—thorâ—s sake Formality in the next age hath made a Religion of it And then the zealous who first invented it have turned most against it for the sake of the last owners And thus the world hath turned round Instances lay'd down of the superstition of Religions people in this age 59. If through the fault of either side or both you cannot meet together in the same assemblies yet keep that Unity in faith love and practice which all neighbour Churches should maintain And use not your different assemblies to revâ—ling and destroying Love and Peace 60. When the Love-killing spirit either cruel or dividing is abroad among Christians be not idle nor discouraged Spectators nor betray the Churches peace by lazy wishes But make it a great part of your labour and Religion to revive Love and Peace and to destroy their contraries And let no censures or contempt of any party take you off But account it as comfortable to be a Martyr for Love Peace by blind Zealots or proud Usurpers as for the saith by Infidels or Heathens And take the pleasing of God whoever is displeased for your full reward The Additional Directions to the Pastors 1. Let it be our first care to know and do our own duty And when we see the peoples weakness and divisions let us first examine and judge our selves and lament and reform our own neglects Ministers are the Cause of most divisions 2. It is needful to the peoples Edification and Concord that their Pastors much excel them in knowledge and utterance and also in prudence holiness and heavenly mindedness that the reverence of their callings and persons may be preserved and the people taught by their Examples 3. Inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace and of the Love of God and Man And that Love is their Holiness it self and the sum of their Religion the End of faith and the fulfilling of the Law And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him so Love to man must unite us to each other And that all doctrine and practices which are against Love and Unity are against God against Christ against the Spirit against the Church and against Mankind 4. If others shew their weakness by unwarrantable singularities or divisions shew not your greater weakness by impatience and uncharitable censures or usage of them especially when self-interest provoketh you 5. Distinguish between them that separate from the Universal Church or from all the Orthodox and Reformed parts of it and those who only turn from the Ministery of some one person or sort of persons without refusing Communion with the rest 6. Distinguish between them who deny the Being of the Ministry and Church from which they separate and those who remove only for their own Edification as from a worse or weaker Ministry a Church less pure 7. 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 such as they think to be more pure 8. Remember Christs interest in the weakest of his Servants and do nothing against them which Christ will not take well 9. Distinguish between weakness of Gifts and of Graces and remember that many who are weaker in the understanding of Church-orders may yet be stronger in grace than you 10. Think on the Common Calamity of mankind what strange disparity there is in mens understandings and will be And how the Church here is a Hospital of diseased souls of whom none are perfectly healed in this life 11. Distinguish still between those truths and duties which are or are not of necessity and between the tolerable and the intolerable errors And never think of a Common Unity and Concord but upon the terms of necessary points and of the primitive simplicity and the forbearance of dissenters in tolerable differences 12. Remember that the Pestoral Government is a work of Light and Love And what these cannot do we cannot do Our great study therefore must be first to know more and to Love more than the people and then to convince them by cogent evidence of truth and to cause the warmth of our Love to be felt by them in all the parts of our ministration and converse As the warmth of the Mothers milk is needful to the good nutrition of the Child The History of Martin 13. When you see many evils which Love and evidence will leave uncured yet do not reject this way till you have found one that will better do the work and with fewer inconveniences 14. When you reprove those weak Christians who are subject to errors disorders and divisions reflect noâ— any disgrace upon piety it self but be the more careful to proclaim the honour of Godliness and true Conscientious strictness lest the ungodly take occasion to despise it by hearing of the faults of such as are accounted the zealousest professors of it 15. Discourage not the people from so much of Religions exercises in their families and with one another as is meet for them in their private stâ—tions 16. Be not wanting in abilities watchfulness and diligence to resist Seducers by the evidence of truth that there may be no need of other weapons And quench the sparks among the people before they break out into flames 17. Be not strange to the poet ones of your flocks but impartial to all and the servants of all Mind not high things but condescend to men of low estate 18. Spend and be spent for your peoples good Do all the good that you are able for their bodies as well as for their souls And think nothing that you have too dear to win them that they may see that you are truely fathers to them and that their welfare is your chiefest care 19. Keep up the reverence of the ancient and experienced sort of Christians and teach the younger what honour they owe to them that are their Elders in age and grace For whilest the Elder who are usually sober and peaceable are duly reverenced the heat of rash and giddy youth will be the better kept in order 20. Neither neglect your interest in the Religious persons of your charge lest you lose your power to do them good Nor yet be so tender of it as to depart from sober principles or wayes to please them Make them not your Rulers nor follow them into any exorbitancies to get their love or to escape any of their censures 21. Let not the Pastors contend among themselves especially through envy against any whom the people most esteem A reproof of ignorant pievish backbiting quarrelsome Ministers 22. Study our great pattern of Love and tenderness meekness and patience and all those texts which commend these virtues till they are digested into a nature in you that healing virtue may go from you
will joyn with such a one no more And it is the Confession which must be the sin But if once we have to do against the sin of any that are Great or Godly that power or piety is made a patron of the errour then it may be a smarting censure indeed which we may expect One crieth out He is a pestilent fellow and a mover of sedition as they did of Paul though I hate and preach-against sedition Another saith he is bitter and speaketh against the Godly when I spend my self to preach up Godliness But if it be a party that is engaged in the errour you must expect the censure of all the party And what errour is it that hath not a party or that hath neither Greatness nor Godliness for a refuge If in doctrinal or practical consultations of great moment you have to do with injudicious unskilful men if you contradict their way be it never so modestly you are proud and self-opiâ—ionated and must have your own way If you follow their mistakes and contradict them not you may wound the Church and Cause of Christ and be more generally censured at the last In a word when such a multitude of things are matters of Controversie as many may be the matters of Censure One will censure me for praying with a form or book and another for praying without it One for being too long and another for being too short one for this gesture and another for that One for preaching when I am silenced another for not preaching more One for being too gentle to dissenters and another for being too severe One for being too narrow in my principles and communion and another for being too large and universal And if in the sense of the sin and misery of some Christians Love-killing principles and practises I have spent the best of twenty years in writing preaching while I had leave conferring and praying for the Union of Christians and the Churches peace I have but made a wedge of my bare hand by putting it into the clift and both sides have closed upon me to my pain But I have turned both parties in the fray which I endeavoured to part against my self when each side had one adversary I had two Nay this is not the worst to be expected But moreover I must add that I was never more accused of any thing as a crime than of that which I did most against And even for doing so Never more suspected of Carnal compliance than when I exercised the greatest self-denial Never more accused of unpeaceableness than for labouring for the Churches peace Never was I more accused of Schism than for striving with all my power to have united the Ministers and healed the Church or at least prevented further divisions Never more accused of enmity against the true Discipline of the Church than when I have done most and at the dearest rates to stablish it and to prevent its fall In all this I meddle not with my Civil Superiours as thinking it meeter patiently to bear than to aggravate their censures though not all so tolerable as private mens I might give you as many instances of the matters of common Converse He that hath much to do in the world shall hardly escape the censure of many The buyer will say he sells too dear The seller will say he would buy too cheap Every one that expecteth a commodity will censure him that hindereth it and steps in before him If I have a friend or kinsman unworthy of any office or preferment he is nevertheless peremptory in his desires and expectations for being unworthy If I will not speak for him and further his suit I am censured as unnatural and unkind and turn a friend into an enemy If I do speak for him I am false to my conscience and the common good and I must look to be censured accordingly by many But I will add no more instances lest what I intend for instruction seem to be but a complaint But to what purpose is all this It is to let the Reader know that man is not God nor his judgement to be rested in nor his favour to be over-valued To call to you O cease from man whose breath is in his nostrils whose heart is deceitful and desperately wicked For wherein is he to be accounted of Look up to God and take him for your God indeed Rest in his Love and be satisfied in his approbation Despise not man nor lay any stumbling blocks before them but as to your own interest in their esteems farther than Gods service and their benefit requireth it account it but a shadow and a thing of nought And say of it as Paul With me it is a very small thing to be judged of you or of mans day or judgement For I have one that judgeth me even the Lord. 1 Cor. 4. 3. It is GOD Christians it is GOD it is only GOD whose infallibility justification and unspotted truth and goodness you must make your rest It is Heaven it is Heaven it is only Heaven where perfect truth and impartial righteousness and the full vindication of all the just and the fruition of perfect Love and Concord is to be expected and where malice and lies and discord and the father of them are totally and finally shut out As you would not be used as Hypocrites by God and deprived of the true Reward of faith O seek not after the hepocrites reward What is the applause of mortal man Can you not bear the censure of such a shadow How then would you suffer martyrdome for Christ Over-value not the esteem of High or Low of the Great or of the Godly of the many or of the few Gods approbation is sufficient to be your reward See that you be Godly and then be more indifferent though you are thought ungodly See that you be loyal and peaceable and then you may bear it if you be called the contrary Abhor all unwarrantable divisions and then you may bear to be reputed schismaticks Study you to be good and not to be accounted good And what if I should look further to historical fame when I am dead Away with the over-valuing of that too as part of the hypocrites reward I confess God usually blesseth the memory of the just and sets their names above the power of the greatest tyrants and causeth the names of the wicked to rot But this is but a temporal and uncertain thing If one write in my praise to the highest and another write a Volume of false reproaches how shall posterity know which is true who knew neither party nor the cause But yet the nearer reason of all this admonition is to let you know that as contention comes by pride so over-valuing the esteem and censures of men though Good or Great is a dreadful snare and cause of schismes For then you will be stretching your consciences and using your wits to please the party whose censures you must escape And
quench it and hath these fifteen hundred years but especially these thirteen hundred been the wolvish Scatterer of the flocks of Christ And must that be now the way to build it which hath so long been the way to pull it down It is Love that must be our Union and Love that must cause it or we shall never have the Union of a Christian Church By this shall all men know that you are Christs Disciples if you have Love one to another If you believe not this pretend not to believe in Jesus Christ who doth affirm it I confess I am so far guilty of superstition my self that if I had been one of the Changers of our ancient Government I should have been somewhat the more backward for his Name sake to the beheading of Christopher Love lest it should be an ill Omen both to Church and State but especially to the Actors of it 8. Another of the Motives of this Discourse is because I know that times of most temptation are times of greatest danger and commonly of greatest sin And all faithful Pastors must know what are the special Temptations of the Time and Place which they live in When had we ever greater Temptations to Love-killing principles and practices than now except in the times of the miserable Wars I need not name them to you The harder it is for men to Love them that hate them that censure them unjustly that revile them and reproach them and make them odious or that hurt them the more cause have Ministers and all Christians to set a double watch upon their Love Lest before they are aware a flaming and consuming zeal do tell others that they know not what manner of Spirit they are of Luk. 9. 55. 9. Yea it is not only a time of great Temptation to this sin but of common guilt They are multitudes that are overtaken already with this sin Is not the Land in a continual heart war Are there not parties against parties and cause against cause and heart-risings and passions and censurings of Dissenters to say no worse And is it not time to bring water when we see the flames 10. And I perceive few know so heinous a sin to be any sin at all But all factions and parties are still justifying their Love-killing wayes and reproaching those whom they have wronged As if when they have sinfully withdrawn their Love from them it were no crime to take away next their good names and all that they have but power to take away And when they have cast their brethren out of their estimation and affection they think it a piece of commendable zeal or justice to cast them ouâ— of Christian communion and if they could out of the Land and of the world And shall Ministers stand by and see men take such sin for duty and serve God by abusing his Servants and look for a reward for dividing and pulling down his Church and never tell them what they are doing 11. And the old Non-conformists who wrote so much against separation were neither blind nor temporizers They saw the danger on that side Even Brightman on Rev. that writeth against the Prelacy and Ceremonies severely reprehendeth the separatists Read but the writings of Mr. Iohn Paget Mr. Iohn Ball Mr. Hildersham Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Baine Mr. Rathband and many such others against the separatists of those times and you may learn that our Light is not greater but less than theirs and that we see not further into that cause than they did and that change of times doth not change the truth nor will warrant us to change our Religion unless we will make our Religion subject to the wills and interests of men and change it as oft as the times shall change 12. Lastly if your friends tell you not of your faults and errours in Love those whom you account your enemies will do it in wrath And though all sober Christians should learn by the keenest rebukes of their Adversaries yet passion and prejudice maketh it so difficult that it usually hardeneth men more in their sin And this is another thing which causeth me the more to abhor division and to long for the reconciling of the minds of all dissenting Christians Because while they take each other for adversaries nothing that is written or said by any is like to do the Adversaries any good Nay I must confess when I see an adversary tell men of their sin especially with furious spleen and wrath mixing together words and swords I am greatly afraid lest by that temptation Satan will draw the reproved to impenitency and greatly harden them in their sin and make them glory in that as a virtue which such a person doth so reprove But if you will neither hear of your sin nor duty by adversaries nor friends by fair speeches nor by foul you fasten the guilt upon your selves Remember I pray you that I am not kindling fires nor drawing Swords against you nor stirring up any to do you hurt but only perswading all dissenters to love one another and to forbear but all that is contrary to love And if such an exhortation and advice seem injurious or intollerable to you the Lord have mercy on your Souls III. And now without a spirit of Prophecy I will foretel what entertainment this Paper must expect 1. Some on the one side will say It is sharper and rounder dealing than all this that must cure the Schismes in the Church And if you would heal our Divisions why do you not conform you self but stand out as one of the party that divideth 2. Some on the other side will say that it is an unseasonable time when so much anger is breaking forth against those that we account Dividers to mention their faults and so to stir up more I will give these men no other answer than to bid them read the last part of this Book or else do not talk till they know of what 3. And some will say that I am doing that which will prove a hurt to my self and others For if I should draw the People to Communion with the Conformists there would little compassion be shewed to the Ministers that cannot conform But selfish wisdome must be shut out of the Council when we are consulting about the healing of the Churches and the good of Souls And indeed there is little danger of this consequence as long as the people are far more averse to Communion or Concord with the Parish-Churches than the Non-conforming Ministers are But suppose it prove true should we not do good to Souls and save men from sin and heal divisions at the dearest rate What though it cost us more than is here mentioned The reviving of decayed Love and the closure of any of the Churches wounds is a recompence worth our liberties and lives 4. And those that are most guilty of the Love-killing principles here detected and are most eminent in self-conceited ignorance will do by me and by
as wasting fire proceedeth from the incendiaries The Texts recited DIRECTIONS FOR VVeak Christians How they may escape the troubling dividing and endangering of the Church by their Errours in Doctrine Worship and Church-Communion IF we had never been warned by the History of the Sacred Scripture or of the former Ages of the Church yet our experience in this present Age is enough to tell both us and our Posterity how great perturbations and calamites may come to the Church of Christ by the miscarriages of the more zealous Professors of Religion and how great a hinderance such may prove to the prosperity of the Gospel to the Love and Unity of Christians to the Reformation and holy order of the Congregations and to all those good ends which are desired by themselves How great a dishonour they may prove to the Christian name and what occasions of hardening the wicked in their contempt of Godliness to their everlasting ruine and the sufferings of Believers Therefore seeing the peace and welfare of the Church is much more valuable than the peace and welfare of an individual soul as I have Directed you how to escape your own disturbance and undoing so I think it as necessary to direct you how to escape being the Plagues and disturbers of the Church and the instruments of Satan in resisting the Gospel and destroying others And you should be the more willing to hear me in this also because by hurting others you hurt your selves and by wronging the Church of God you cross your own desires and ends if you are Christians indeed and by doing good to others and furthering the cause of Godliness and Christianity you do good to your selves and further your own Cosolation and Salvation DIRECT I. FIrst observe this General direction see that you forget not the great difference between Novices and experienced Christians between the babes and those at full age between the weak and the strong in grace Level them not in your estimation It is not for nothing that the Spirit of God in Scripture maketh so great a difference between them as you may read in Heb. 5. 11 12 13 14 6. 1 2. 1 Tim. 3. 6. 1 Iohn 2. 12 13 14. There are babes strong men and fathers among Christians There are some that are dull of hearing and have need of milk and are unskilful in the word of righteousness and must be taught the principles and there are others who can digest strong meat who by reason of Use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil Novices must not be made Pastors of the Church It is not for nothing that the Younger are so often commanded reverence and submission to the Elder and that the Pastors and Governors of the Church are usually called by the name of Elders because it was supposed that the elder sort were the most experienced and wise and therefore Pastors and Rulers were to be chosen out of them And why is it that children must so much honour their fathers and mothers and must be governed by them It is not meerly because generation giveth the Parents a propriety in their children For God would not have folly to be the governour of wisdom upon pretense of such propriety But it is also because that it must ordinarily be supposed that Infants are ignorant and Parents have understanding and are fit to be their Teachers as having had longer time and helps to learn and more experience to make their knowledge clear and firm If the young and unexperienced were ordinarily as wise as the aged or mature why are not children made governors of their Parents or at least commanded to instruct and teach them as ordinarily as Parents must do their children The Lord Jesus himself would be subject to his mother and reputed father in his Child-hood Luke 2. 51. Can there be a livelier conviction of the arrogancy of those novices who proudly sleight the judgments of their elders as presuming groundlesly that they are wiser than they Yea Christ would not enter upon his publick Ministry or Office till he was about thirty years of age Luke 3. 23. He is blind that perceiveth not in this example a most notorious Condemnation of the pride of those that run with the shell on their head into the Ministery or that hasten to be Teachers of others before they have had time or means to learn and that deride or vilisie the judgments of the aged who differ from their conceits before they understand the things in which they are so confident It was thought a good answer in Iohn 9. 21. He is of age ask him But they that are under age now think their words to be the wisest because they are the boldest and the fiercest The old were wont to bless the young and now the young deride the old It is the character of a truculent people Deut. 28. 50. that they regard not the person of the old that is They reverence not their age How many vehement commands are there in Solomons Proverbs to the younger sort to hearken to the counsel of their Parents The contrary was the ruine of Eli's sons and the shame of Samuels 1 Sam. 8. 1 5. Was Rehoboam unwise in forsaking the counsel of the aged and harkning to the young and rash And are those people wise that in the Mysteries of Salvation will prefer the vehement passions of a novice before the well-setled judgment of the experienced aged Ministers I know that the old are too oft ignorant and that wisdom doth not always increase with age But I know withall that Children are never fit to be the Teachers of the Church And that old men may be foolish but too young men are never wise enough for so high a work We are not now considering what may fall out rarely as a wonder but what is ordinarily to be expected Most of the Churches confusions and diviâ—â—ons have been caused by the younger sort of Christians Who are in the heat of their zeal and the infancy of understanding Who have affection enough to make them drive on but have not judgement enough to know the way None are so fierce and rash in condemning the things and persons which they understand not and in raising clamours against all that are wiser and soberer than they If they once take a thing to be a sin which is no sin or a duty which is no duty there is no person no Minister no Magistrate who hath age or wisdom or piety enough to save them from the injuries of juvenile temerity if they do not think and speak and do according to their green and raw conceits Remember therefore to be always sensible of the great disadvantages of youth and to preserve that reverence for experienced age which God in nature as well as in Scripture hath made their due If time labour were not necessary to maturity of knowledge why do you not trust another with your health as well as a studyed experienced
about our Godliness or Goodness 1 Pride of our understandings worketh thus First a man that was formerly in darkness is much affected with the new-come light and perceiveth that he knoweth much more than he did before And then he groweth to a carnal and corrupt estimation of it valuing it more as Nature is pleased with it than as it is sanctified by it Delighting in knowledge for it self more than for the purity Love and heavenliness which it should effect Then he looketh about him on the ignorant sort of people who know not what he knoweth and seeth how far they are below him And he thinketh with himself what a difference hath God made between Me and Them And because Thankfulness is a duty he observeth not how Pride doth twist it self with it and creep in under the protection of its name And how Thankfulness and Pride have the same expressions and both of them say I thank thee O Father that thou hâ—st hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them to babes I thank thee O God that I am not as other men are extortioners unjust adulterers or even as this Publican Luk. 18. 11. And then he is so taken up with the things which he knoweth that he perceiveth not what knowledge yet he wanteth And the deep affection which his knowledge worketh in him or the tickling pleasure which he hath in knowing joyned with this ignorance of his ignorance in other things doth make him over-confident of all his apprehensions as if every thing which he imagineth were an absolute certainty And so he wanteth that humble suspicion of his own understanding which a true acquaintance with his ignorance would have caused in him And thus he groweth to over-value all his own conceivings and to under-value all the opinions and reasonings of others which are contrary to his own And thence he proceeds to corrupt his Religion with such mis-apprehensions and his rash unsuspected understanding entertains one errour first and then that lets in many more till he have espoused a self-chosen frame of doctrine instead of the sacred truths of God and method of the Gospel And from hence he proceedeth to choose his Religious exercises also according to these mis-apprehensions These make him Duties which are no Duties and sins which are no sins And thus he calleth evil good and good evil and putteth darkness for light and light for darkness bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter And having made him a Religion of his own he confidently thinketh that it is of God And next he valueth all men that he hath to do with according as they are nearer or farther off from this which he accounteth the way of God He chooseth his Church or party whom he will joyn with by the test of this Religion which his pride hath chosen He zealously declaimeth against the opposers of his way as against the adversaries of truth and Godliness and consequently of God himself He prayeth up his opinions and preacheth them up and contendeth for them and prayeth and preacheth and dispâ—teth down all that â—s against them He laboureth to strengthen the party that is for them and to weaken that which is against them And thus he divideth the kingdom and family of Christ He destroyeth first the Love of his brother and neighbour in himself and then laboureth to destroy it in all others by speaking against those that are not of his way with contempt and obloquy to represent them as an â—â—lovely sort of men And if the interest of his cause and party do require it perhaps he will next destroy their persons And yet all this is done in zeal of God and as an acceptable service to him And they think all are Neâ—ters and Lukewarm who prosecute not the Schism as fervently as they and fight not against Love with as much vehemency Yea and in all this they are still conâ—ident that they Lâ—ve the Brethren with a special Love and make it the mark that they are Christs disciples and that they are passed from deâ—th to life because they love the party and persons who are of their own opinion and way And thus PRIDE insensibly while they perceive it not at all doth choke their Opinions their Religions their Parties and make their Duties and their sins and rule their judgments affections and their actions which is all but the same thing which the Scripture in one word calleth HERESY And all that I have said you may find said in other words in the third Chapter of Iames. And there are two things which greatly promote this sin The one is a conceit that all their apprehensions are the Spirits dictatâ—s or the effect of its illumination And the works and teachings of the spirit are not to be contradicted or suspected but to be honoured Therefore they think that it is a resisting of the spirit to resist their judgment And they are perswaded that their apprehensions are caused by the spirit partly because they had no such thing whilest they lived in wickedness but it came in either with their change or shortly after And therefore they think that the same light which shewed them their sinful state doth shew them also all these principles And partly because they find themselves as deeply â—ffected with these misapprehensions as with other which are sound and right therefore they are confident that they come from the same spirit And specially when these thoughts come in upon the reading of the Scripture or in meditation or after earnest prayer to God to teach them by his spirit and lead them into the truth and not to suffer them to err and when they find that they have good ends and meanings and a desire to know the truth all thâ—s perswadeth them that it is the spirit from whom their thoughts proceed when yet it may be no such thing And another much greater and commoner cause of this self-conceitedness is this All mens understandings are naturally imperfect Our knowledge about Natural things is small and dark much more about things supernatural The wisest must say We know but in part And the variety of mens degrees of knowledge joyned with the difference of their educations and advantages and fore-going thoughts doth make as great a diversity of understandings as of complexions And yet it is very hard to any man to have a sufficient diffidence and suspicion of his mistaking mind For what a man knoweth he knoweth that he knoweth But no man that erreth doth know that he erreth For that is a contradiction If I knew that I erred in judgment I must know that the thing is otherwise than I judged it to be which is impossible to the same understanding at the same time For then judging were no judging as being contrary to knowledge When I see such a difficulty about a point as to pass no judgment at all but remain in meer suspence then I can easily perceive that I am ignorant of it But
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