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A63904 Charity recommended, in a sermon preached at the assizes held at Norwich, upon Thursday the 29th of July, 1686 by John Turner ... Turner, John, b. 1649 or 50. 1686 (1686) Wing T3304; ESTC R5344 20,642 37

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to the same Degree to which he Loved us who lived a Life laden with Reproach and Scorn and died a painful and ignominious Death for our sakes and this therefore he calls a new Commandment a Friendship so strict inviolable and Sacred that it was never heard of in the World before A new Commandment I give unto you that ye Love one another as I have Loved you that ye also Love one another by this shall all Men know that ye are my Disciples if ye have Love one to another And how very great stress the Apostles in their Writings lay upon this eminent Gift and Grace of Charity I need not tell you but shall content my self barely to take notice First That St. Paul in the Thirteenth Chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians imputes so very much to this one Grace of Charity that without it he makes all other things however Pompous or Specious they may seem to signifie just nothing at all Though I speak saith he with the Tongue of Men and Angels and have not Charity I am become as sounding Brass or a tinkling Cymbal and though I have the Gift of Prophecy and understand all Mysteries and all knowledg so that I could remove Mountains and have not Charity I am nothing and though I bestow all my Goods to feed the Poor and though I give my Body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing Secondly Whereas most other Miraculous Gifts and Graces were in due time to cease having done the Errant upon which they were employed which was to give sufficient evidence and such as without willful blindness could not be resisted to the Truth and Divine Authority of our most holy Religion yet Charity was still to remain to the very end of the World So that whereever there is a true Church of Christ there must be a charitable Spirit visible and reigning in it Charity saith he never faileth but whether there be Prophecies they shall fail whether there be Tongues they shall cease whether there be Knowledg it shall vanish away And again a little after And now abideth Faith Hope Charity these three but the greatest of these is Charity As it were to answer that Passage in St. John There are three that bear record in Heaven the Father the Word and the Holy Ghost and these three are one And there are three that bear witness in earth the spirit and the water and the blood and these three agree in one For in this partition of St. Paul Faith answers to the Blood it is Faith in a crucified and bleeding Saviour Hope to the Water or the Sacrament of Baptism in which we make Profession of this Faith and of the Hope that is in us which is built upon it And Charity which is the best and most peculiar Gift of the Holy Ghost that answers to the Spirit which is a Spirit of universal Friendship and Love the essential root and spring and source of Kindness abstractum in concreto the utmost mercy compassion and good-will assuming a Person and breathing forth its likeness upon every Subject capable of receiving it Faith and Hope are like Pisgah with respect to Canaan they afford us a prospect of the Land of Promise but they are not the Land flowing with milk and honey themselves but Charity in its utmost perfection and extent is that which in other words we call Salvation and Heaven it is the single Food and it affords the mutual relish and enjoyment of God and Angels and of the spirits of just men made perfect through all the vast Periods of an eternal Duration But wo to us vile wretches and miserable sinners if without Charity there be no true Church nor any true Disciple O generation of vipers that we are who shall deliver us from the wrath to come or will it not be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon for Chorazin and Bethsaida nay for Gomorrah and for Sodom too at the great and dreadful Day than for us who professing outwardly the Religion are yet so far removed from the inward Spirit of Christ and as if we had reason to blush and be ashamed of him and of his Gospel which is the power of God unto salvation have cast away the Badge of Charity that Men might not know us to be his Disciples We are unjust in our Dealings uncharitable in our Censures irreconcileable and implacable in our Animosities turbulent and uneasie in our Tempers contentious and litigious in our Conversations false to our Promises treacherous to our Friendships hypocritical in our Pretences and yet we pretend to be Christians all this while Nay so very far have we revolted from the true Christian Spirit so far is it now from being thought the Characteristick and essential Mark of a Christian to be of an humble meek and charitable Disposition that even Religion it self or at least the vain pretence and colour of it is made the fatal Bone of Contention and the Apple of Strife We quarrel about that very thing which was intended to unite us and which hath made no Promises but to Unity and Peace to the candid quiet and ingenuous frame of Spirit as if the nature of our Profession were inverted since the Apostolical Times when it was pronounced as a certain Maxim If any Man among you seem to be Religious and bridleth not his Tongue but deceiveth his own Heart that Man's Religion is vain We mistake Brawling and Contention for Zeal and when our Tongues are set on fire of Hell we imagine them tipt and sanctified by a Coal from the Altar not but that every Man ought to be very obstinate in what he firmly believes upon his best Enquiry to be the very Truth every Man 's own Conscience being without question his only rule and measure of Action and to relinquish or disown that of whose truth we have all the inward assurance our present light is capable of giving us is to betray the great Pillar and Principle of Life by which all Humane Society is supported which is bound up in truth and consists in the faithfulness of its Members to each other But there may be a Charity every whit as obstinate as the most fierce and most intemperate rage and Humility will stand its ground and gain upon its Adversaries by gentle but resistless Motions when Clamour an● Passion shall be put to silence and will be ashamed o● themselves or if there appear reason sufficient to persuade it Humility can own a conquest without shame and is easily induced to change its mistaken Sentiments for the better when Passion though it be inwardly convinced yet blushes nay faints and even dies to think of being reconciled But though I have said what I believe to be true That every Man's private Conscience is his only private and personal measure of Action yet I would not by any means be so interpreted as if I were about to insinuate That the non-execution of Laws against religious Dissenters