in the Catalogue viz. those of Peace Long-suffering Gentleness Goodness Meekness ver 22.23 He advanceth it above all Gifts and graces 1 Cor. 13. above the Tongues of Men and Angels ver 1. and above Prophesy and Mysteries and Knowledge and Faith ver 2. And the beloved Disciple St. Iohn who lay in the Bosom of his Dear Lord and seems to partake most of his Spirit is transported in the commendation of this Grace He tells us that God is Love 1 Iohn 4.7 and repeats it again ver 16. He makes it an Argument of our being born of God and Knowing Him ver 7. and the want of this an evidence of not Knowing God ver 8. He counts it the mark of Discipleship and the contrary a sign of one that abideth in Death 1. Iohn 3.14 He calls him a Murtherer that hates another ver 15. and a Lyar if he pretends to Love God and loveth not his Brother 1 Iohn 4.20 In fine he out-speaks the greatest heights of Praise when he saith God is Love and he that loveth dwelleth in God and God in him 1 Iohn 4.16 I might represent further that we are commanded to Love without dissimulation Rom. 12.9 to be kindly affectioned one towards another ver 10. to put on the Breast-plate of Faith and Love 1 Thess 5.8 to be pittiful and courteous 1 Pet. 3.8 to provoke one another to love and to good works Heb. 10.24 to serve one another Gal. 5.13 to love as Brethren 1 Pet 3.8 We are minded of Christ's New Commandment 1 Ioh. 3.23 and of the Message which was from the beginning That we should Love one another ver 11. and are urged by the consideration of Gods loveing us 1 Iohn 4.1 Thus the Apostles exhort and teach and they Pray that our Love may abound Phil. 1.9 and 1 Thess. 3.12 and give solemn Thanks for it when they have found it 2 Thess. 1.3 And now considering the expresness of all these places I cannot see but that any Duty of Religion may be more easily evaded than this and those who can phansie themselves Christians and yet continue in the contrary Spirit and Practice may conceit themselves Religious though they live in the constant commission of the sins of Drunkenness and Theft And if such can quite their Consciences and shuffle from the edge of all these plain Recommends and Injunctions they have found a way to escape all the Laws of God and may when they please become Christians without Christianity For the evidence I have suggested to prove the necessity of this Duty doth not consist in half Sentences and doubtful Phrases in phansied Analogies and far-fetcht Interpretations but in plain Commands and frequent Inculcations in earnest Entreaties and pressing Importunities in repeated Advices and passionate Commendations And those whom all these will not move are Incapable of being perswaded against their humour or their interest to any Duty of Religion So that though I see never so much eagerness for an Opinion or Heat for an indifferent Circumstance without the conscience of Christian Love I shall never call that forwardness for those little things Zeal or Religion Yea though those warm men should sacrifice their Lives to their beloved Trifles I should not think them Martyrs but fear rather that they went from one Fire to another and a Worse And in this I have the great Apostle to warrant me who saith Though I give my body to be burned and have not Charity it profiteth me nothing 1 Cor 13.3 Thus of the first Head the Necessity of this Duty I come to the second the Extent of it Our Love ought I. To be extended to all Mankind The more general it is the more Christian and the more like unto the Love of God who causeth his Sun to shine and his Rain to fall upon the Good and upon the Evil. And though our Armes be very short and the ordinary influence of our kindness and good will can reach but to a very few yet we may pray for all men and desire the good of all the world and in these we may be charitable without bounds But these are not all Love obligeth us to relieve the Needy and help the Distressed to visit the Sick and succour the Fatherless and Widows to strengthen the Weak and to confirm the Staggering and Doubting to encourage the Vertuous and to reprove the Faulty and in short to be ready in all the offices of Kindness that may promote the good of any man Spiritual or Temporal according to the utmost of our power and capacity The good man is Merciful to his Beast and the Christian ought to be Charitable to his Brother and his Neighbour and every man is our Brother and every one that Needs us is our Neighbour And so our Love ought to extend to all men universally without limitation though with this distinction II. That the more especial Objects of our Love ought to be those that agree with us in a common Faith Gal. 6.10 that is All Christians as Christians and because such What ever makes our Brother a Member of the Church Catholick that gives him a title to our nearer affections which ought to be as large as that Our Love must not be confin'd by names and petty agreements and the interests of Parties to the corners of a Sect but ought to reach as far as Christianity it self in the largest notion of it To love those that are of our Way Humour and Opinion is not Charity but self-Self-love 't is not for Christ's sake but our own To Love like Christians is to Love his Image from whom we are call'd so And that consists not in demure Looks and affected Phrases in melting Tones and mimick Gestures in Heats and Vehemence in Rapture and Extasie in systemes of Opinion and scrupulosity about Nothing But in Faith and Patience Innocence and Integrity in Love to God and Charity to all the World in a modest sweetness and humble Deportment in a peaceable Spirit and readiness to obey God and Those He hath set over Us. Where ever These are there is the Image of our Lord and There ought to be our Love though the persons thus affected are Ignorant of many things and erre in many though they differ from us in some Opinions we count Orthodox and walk not in the particular ways or Circumstances which We esteem Best And thus briefly of the Extent of the Duty we ought to Love ALL MEN but especially ALL Christians I descend to the Third general viz. III. The Excellency of Christian Love which I represent in the following particulars I. IT is the Image of God and of all the graces renders us most like our Maker For God is Love and the Lover of Men and his tender Mercies are over all his Works And the most sutable apprehension we can form of his Being is to look on him as an Omnipotent Omniscient Immutable Goodness And is it not a glorious Excellency that makes Men like the fountain
all persection Our unhappy First Parents lost Paradise by aspiring to be like God in Knowledge and if we endeavour to be like him in Love we shall be in the way of gaining a better Paradise than they lost II. LOVE is the Spirit of Angels Glorified Souls and the best of Men. There is nothing by which the Angelical nature is so Much distinguish'd from the Diabolical as Love and Goodness for the Devils have Spiritual and Immortal natures and great degrees of Power and Knowledge and those perhaps not much inferiour to what is to be found in some of the better Spirits so that the great difference is not in the excess of natural perfections which the Angels of Light have above those of Darkness but in this that the former abound in Love Sweetness and Benignity and the latter in Malice Cruelty and Revenge these are the very Image of Sathan and Spirit of Hell Whereas all the Celestial Inhabitants live in the joyful exercise of uninterrupted Love and endearments Nor is that Love confined to the blessed and glorified Company but it sheds it self abroad upon the neather world and they are Ministring Spirits for our good Heb. 1.14 They so far Love us that they can stoop from Heaven to serve us There is Joy there at the Conversion of a Sinner and no doubt there is Love to converted Saints and care and pitty for all the rest of Men. For the spirits of the Iust made perfect are freed from their froward humours and pettish natures their mistaken Zeal and sondness of Opinions which straightned their Affections while they were on Earth and now they are inlarged by the vast improvements of their Knowledge and accomplishment of their Vertue by a fuller sense of Divine Love and of their Duty by the genius of their company and the imployment of the happy Place So that in Heaven all are Chatholicks in their Affections And the better any man is the more he is so upon Earth The good man makes not himself his center not are his thoughts wholly engrost about his own concernments but he is carefully solicitous for the general benefit and never so much pleased as when he is made an instrument of Divine Goodness to promote the interests of his Christian brethren 'T was an high strain of Love in Moses exprest towards the Transgressing Israelites when he was content to be blotted out of Gods Book rather than that their Sin should not be blotted out Exod. 32.32 and St. Paul was no less Zealously affectionate towards the Iewes when he said he could wish himself accursed from Christ viz. separated from Christian communion as a most vile and abject person for their sakes Rom. 9.3 These were spirits whom Religion and Divine Love had enlarged and the more any man advanceth in Christianity the nearer he approacheth to this generous heroick temper III. LOVE is an eminent branch of the Divine Life and Nature Love is of God and every one that Loveth is born of God saith the Apostle 1 Iohn 4.7 8. The Divine Nature in us is the Image of God Pourtraid and lively drawn upon the regenerated Soul and we have remark't above that Love is the vital Image of our Maker 't is His spirit infused into us and growing in us and upon that account to be preferred before all Gifts and natural Perfections as St. Paul hath done it in the mentioned 1 Cor. 13. And the common Gifts of the Spirit differ from this special Grace as the Painters Picture doth from his Son His Counterfeit may indeed in a superficial appearance to the Eye resemble him more than his Child but yet it is but an empty shadow destitute and incapable of his Life and Nature So there are a sort of Gifts that have a spiritual appearance and may to those that see things at distance or have not their senses exercised seem more like the divine nature than this modest vertue But those that come near them and are better able to discern perceive that in themselves they are without the Divine Life and Motion and are meer Liveless Pictures And here I dare say that the happiest faculty to Preach Plausibly and Pray with Fluency and Eloquence to Discourse Devoutly and readily to Interpret Sripture if it be not joyned with a benigne and charitable spirit is no participation of the God-like life and nature nor indeed any more Divine than those common gifts and natural parts which those that think highly of themselves upon these accounts despise For very Evil men have been eminent in these accomplishments and Wicked Spirits are without question endowed with them and they are of themselves arguments of nothing but a faculty of Imitation a devotional Complexion and warm Imagination Whereas on the other hand Charity and Christian Love are good Evidence of a Renewed state and nature Our Saviour made it a Character Ioh. 13. and the Catholick Apostle concludes from it 1 Iohn 3.14 By this we know that we are passed from death to life because we love the Brethren And if this be a Mark and St. Iohn be not mistaken I doubt that some who are very gracious by many Signes of their own will want one of Christs to prove their comfortable presumption IV. LOVE is the bond and tye of Christian Communion How can two walk together except they are agreed The Church is a Body consisting of many Members which unless they Vnite and send their mutual supplies one to another the Whole is distempered and in the ready way to Death and Dissolution Now Charity is that vital Cement whereby they are Vnited and the Soul by which the common body lives that whereby the League between the members is preserved and health with it When this decays sad symptoms and mortal evils follow We see in Nature the great Fabrick of the World is maintained by the mutual Friendship and conspiracy of its parts which should they universally fall out and break the bond of Amity that is between them should they act their Antipathies upon each other yea should they but cease to serve one another for the general good the whole frame would quickly be dissolved and all things shuffled into their old Chaos and Abyss And the greatest evils that have or can happen to the Church have been the effects of the Decay of Charity and those intestine Divisions that have grown up in it From these she hath always suffered more than from external persecutions The flames within have consumed her when those from without have only sing'd her garments V. LOVE is the most Catholick grace and upon that account the most excellent since that which promotes the good of the whole is better than any private perfection for which reason things in nature will quit their particular interests when the common good so requireth as heavy bodies will ascend and light bodies descend to prevent a chasm and breach in Nature Now of all the divine vertues there is none of so large an influence
all men excellent yet 't is no more than is expected to be in Persons of Knowledge and right Iudgement But in the Ignorant and Mistaken it thrives under Disadvantages and deserves more to be Cherish'd and Incourag'd And now if 't were possible to bring the divided World to these Ingenuous Acknowledgements men would find their Spirits compos'd and their Animosities qualified They would see they have Friends even in the Tents of their Enemies and this Apprehended and Own'd mutually would be a very hopeful way to endear and reconcile us And II. I recommend this as another Be much in the Contemplation of the Love of God He that knows how much God hath Loved him hath a mighty Reason to Love his Brother The Apostle urgeth the Argument 1 Iohn 4.11 If God so Loved us we ought also to Love one another and he that considers cannot choose for he must needs find himself sweetly Ingaged to Love God of whose Love he is sensible and he that loves Him loves all things in him For all things are his and he tenders every thing he hath made The Love of God doth not Confine us to his single abstracted Essence but requires our Kindness to all that bear his Image and produce it Seraphick Love will be Catholick It doth not burn like a Lamp in a Sepulcher but 't is like the Stars of Heaven that impart themselves to all things And as the Planets that receive their Light from the Sun do not suck it in and ingross it but disperse and shed it abroad upon the most distant Bodies in like manner a Christian Soul that is warmed and lightned by Divine Love doth not keep it within it self but communicates it's benigne Influences to all the Objects that are within it's reach The Love of God in it's proper Nature is diffusive and very opposite to Envy and Animosity It Dispels the Clouds and Allays the Tempests that arise from the Body and it's Appetites and Composeth the Soul to the Sweetest and most even Temper It Inlarges our Minds and Softens our Affections and Calms our Passions and Smooths the Ruggedness of our Natures It destroys our Pride and Selfishness and so strikes up the Roots of Enmity and Divisions and thus disposeth us to the most Generous and Comprehensive Charity In order to which Blessed Issue I Advise further III. Make the great Design of Religion yours and know that the Intent of that is not to Cure heads with Notion or to teach us Systems of Opinion to resolve us a Body of Difficult Points or to Inable us to talk plausibly for lesser Truths But to furnish our minds with incouragements of Vertue and instances of Duty to direct us to govern our Passions and subdue our appetites and self-wills in order to the glory of God the good of Societies and our own present and eternal Interests And if Christians would take this to be their business and conscienciously apply themselves unto it they would find work enough in their own hearts to imploy them and neither have time nor occasion to pry into the Infirmities of others nor inclination to quarrel with them they would see how unwise it is to be seeking and making Enemies when they have so many within themselves and how dangerous to be diverted to a needless and unjust forein War while a deadly domestick Foe is strenghtned by it And methinks 't is wonderful and 't is sad that we should be so mild and indulgent to the enemies that we are bound to engage against by our Duty to God and to our selves by his Laws and our own Reasons by the precepts and examples of his Son our Saviour by his Sacraments and by his Bloud by all things in Religion and all things in Interest and at the same time be so eager against those whom we ought to consider as Friends upon the account of our relation to God and the tie of common nature and the obligations of Divine Commands and the interests of Societies and the practice of the best times past and the hopes of a future happiness This is lamentable in it self and yet the more so for being common And it seems to me such a kind of madness as if a man should be picking causless quarrels with his Neighbours about a chip of Wood or a broken Hedge when a Fire in his house is consuming his Goods and Children Such Frenzies and much greater are our mutual enmities and oppositions while we quietly sit down in our unmortified Affections And we should know them to be so did we understand our Danger or our Duty and seriously mind either the one or other We should find then that a Christian hath no such enemies as the Flesh the World and the Devil that these will require all our care and imploy all our strength and diligence and he that knows this and considers and acts suitably will find too much in himself to censure and oppose and too little to admire himself for above others He will see sufficient reason to incline him to pardon his erring brother and be the more easily induced to exercise charity which himself so many ways needs The last Direction is this IV. Study the moderate pacifick ways and principles and run not in extremes both Truth and Love are in the middle Extremes are dangerous After all the swaggering and confidence of Disputers there will be uncertainty in lesser matters and when we travel in uncertain Roads 't is safest to choose the Middle In this though we should miss a lesser truth which yet is not very likely we shall meet with Charity and our gain will be greater than our loss He that is extreme in his Principles must needs be narrow in his Affections whereas he that stands on the middle path may extend the arms of his Charity to those on both sides It is indeed very natural to most to run into extremes and when men are faln Out with a Practice or Opinion they think they can never remove â—o too great a distance from it being frighted by the steep before them they run so far back till they fall into a precipice behind them Every Truth is near an Errour for it lies between two Falshoods and he that goes far from One is apt to slip into the other and while he flies from a Bear a Lyon meets him So that the best way to avoid the Danger is to steer the middle Course in which we may be sure there is Charity and Peace and very probably Truth in their Company Thus of my DIRECTIONS For CONSIDERATIONS I 'le propose such as shew the Vnreasonable of our Enmities and Disagreements upon the account of different Opinions which will prove that our Affections ought to meet though our Iudgments cannot My first is this I. Love is part of Religion but Opinions for the sake of which we loose Charity are none The First I have proved already and for the other we may consider That Religion consists not in knowing many