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
matter is honest good I would not prefer such a man in a Congregation before an abler man who will speak more composedly agreeable to the matter But yet I would not be so peevish as utterly to refuse to joyn with such a one But as God doth not reject his prayers notwithstanding all his weakness no more would I. And I had rather have such prayers than none at all O that men would discern what is the true worth of prayer and how little God is taken with the Oratory of them in comparison of the faith and love and desire which is the soul of prayer And O that men would lay no greater stress on their peculiar modes and words than God doth and condemn no mens prayers further than they are condemned by God nor separate from any further then God rejecteth them or commandeth our separation I cannot forbear telling you the aggravation of this kind of sin It seemeth to me akind of blasphemy against God As if you would make the world believe that God is so much for your modâ— and words that he overlooketh all the desires of the Spirit and all his promises and all mens interest in Christ and forgetteth all his love to his people so that Christ shal not intercede for them or shal not prevail unless they pray to God in the words and mode which you have fancied to be best whether with a Book or without in these words or in those Me thinks you are renewing the old controversie whether in this Mount or at Ierusalem men ought to worship and knew not that the time is come that God will neither accept men for worshipping at this Mount or at Ierusalem here or there with a book or without book but the true worshippers whom he chooseth do worship him as a Spirit in Spirit and in truth as well with Forms as without them And yet some are more wicked than barely to condemn their brethrens prayers because they be not cloathed just as their own They will also break jests and scorns at them and take this for the ingenuity of their piety Like men of several Countreys who thâ—nk the fashions of all Countryes save their own to be ridiculous and laugh at strangers as if they were cloathed in fools Coats So many do by the cloathing of other mens devotions Some scorn at extemporary prayers and some scorn at Forms and Liturgies And the Litany they call conjuring and the Responses they take for a formal jocular playing with holy things when in all these the humble heavenly Christian is lifting up his soul to God By this petulant carnal kind of zeal I remember our divisions were here raised at the first To deridâ— the Common prayer and deride them that used it was too common with some kind of religious people And they excused it by Elias his example As if Idolaters and the true worshippers of God that differ from us in a Form or Ceremony were all one I remember how some of the contrary mind were inflamed to indignation by such scorns when they were going into the Churches in London and heard some Separatists that lookt in at the Church door say The Devil choke thee art thou not out of thy pottage yet because the Common Prayer was not ended So little did men know what spirit they were of But wise and holy Mr. Hildersham Mr. Iohn â—all Mr. Bradshaw Mr. Iohn Paget and other learned Non-conformists of old did foresee and greatly fear this Spirit It is a dangerous thing to scorn and jest at any thing that is done about Gods worship though it should be it self unwarrantable while you scorn at one anothers worship of God you raise a bold unreverence and contempt of holy things in the heâ—rerâ— and perhaps before you are aware in your selves too And you will teach the Atheist to scorn you all unless 〈…〉 where the very object is to be derided as being no God you should be very suspicious of this way I am afraid of making a mock of the grossest erroneous worship of the true God It is fitter to confute it in a way that more expresseth our reverence to the Object God himself our respect to that pious affection which may be engag'd in it I have seldom seen the best tempered people inclined to this way of jesting at other mens manner of worship nor have I observed much good come by it But I have oft seen that it is the way by which young prâ—ud self-conceited persons do kindle a carnal dividing zeal and a contempt of their brethren and quench all holy sober zeal and love together DIRECT XXXIII When you are sure that other mens way of worship is sinful yet make it not any other or greater sin than indeed it is and speak not evil of that much in it which is Good And accuse not God to be a hater or rejecter of all mens service which is mixed with infirmities AS St. Iames saith 3. 2. In many things we â—ffend all but he that â—ffendeth not with his tongue is the perfect man So we may here say in the same sense In many particulars of our prayers and other worship we all offend God But he that bridleth not his tongue from the reproaching of his brothers different way of worship may prove the greatest Offendor of all It would move a charitable understanding hearer to grief and pity to read and hear one party call all prayer by habit no better than crudities whinings bold talking to God and nonsence and whatsoever bitter scorn can speak And to read and hear many on the other extreme to call the Liturgy no less than Idolatry I desire the Reader to peruse a judicious Treatise of Mr. Tombes in answer to one of this language As much as he and I have written against each others opinion about Infant Baptisme our concenting admonition to you should so much the rather be accepted in this And what pitiful arguments have they to prove this charge of Idolatry False worship of the true God is idolatry as well as worshipping a false God But such is the Liturgy Ergo This is all that these rash preachers must trouble the Church and seduce men into a hating factious zeal with But what mean these men by false worship Do they mean worship contrary to Gods word That is which is sinful And do they mean All such sinful worship or some only If they mean all such sinful worship than these words of theirs are Idolatry For they are part of their preaching which is part of Gods worship in their own sense And it is false doctrine and tendeth to mens perdition And so they and all false Teachers should be idolaters By this they would turn all sins in worship into one It is all Idolatry Is not every confused prayer sinful which hath unmeet expressions and disordered and hath wandering thoughts and dull affections Is there any of these Love-killers that dare say they pray without sin And
this book according to their Principles and as they use to do by others Before they have soberly read it over they will carry about the Sectarian reports of it from hand to hand And when one hath said it the rest will affirm it that I have clawed with one party and have girded at the other and have sought to make them odious by bringing them under the reproach of Separation and of censuring and avoiding the ungodly and that being luke-warm my self and a complyer with sin I would have all others do so too And that these Reconcilers are neither flesh nor fish and attempt impossibilities even to reconcile Light and darkness Christ and Belial And that for the sake of Peace we would â—ell the Truth and would let in Church-corruptions out of an over-eager desire of Agreement And when they have all done neither party will regard them but they shall fare worse than any others and will lose both sides whilest they are for neither I know it is the nature of the disease which I am curing to send forth such breath and scents as these And I intend not to bestow a word to answer them 5. And some of the wise and sober Ministers who mark more the inconveniences of one side than of the other and look more to outward occurrences than to the Rule and to the inward state of Souls especially such as have not seen the times and things that I have seen will think that though all this be true it is unseasonable and may give advantage to such as love not Reformation And to them I shall return this answer 1. That if we stay seven years more for a seasonable time to oppose the radical sin of uncharitableness we may be in our graves and the sinners in their graves and the sin may be multiplied and rooted past all hope of remedy And why may you not as well stay seven years more for a seasonable time to Preach down all other sins as well as this Is this the least malignant or least dangerous sin 2. There was never a more seasonable time to tell men of their sin than when the temptation to it is the greatest when it is most growing and multiplying among us When God hath been so heinously dishonoured by it when the world doth ring of it when many Volumes reproach them for it And when the sensual and ungodly are hardened by it in their scorn of godliness to the apparent peril of their damnation yea more to turn our complaints from our Law-givers upon our selves It is want of Love and it is Dividing principles and practices that have silenced so many Ministers and brought us into all the confusions and calamities which we see and undergo 6. But there are many sincere and considerate Ministers who knowing this which I say to be true will be the more excited by it to lead the younger and passionate sort of Religious people into the wayes of Love and peace and to save them from the dangers here detected and perswade them to the practise of these Directions And for the use of these I write this Book And yet to end as I began I must add these notices for your right understanding of it 1. That this is not my first attempt upon this work but the progress of what I have been upon these three and twenty years About fifteen or sixteen years ago I preacht on the third Chapter of Saint Iames in a larger and a closer manner on this Subject than here I write because the times then called me to it 2. I perswade no Christian to justifie or own the sins or the least defects of any Church Minister or People in their Worship or in their lives though I perswade you to Communion with the Churches persons and worship-actions which have many faults For on Earth there is no person Church or Worship faultless and without corruption I justifie not the faults of my own daily Prayers and yet I never pray without them 3. I am not perswading Ministers to any unwise and unseasonable Preaching against the dividing Principles of the weak when the necessities of the Auditory more require other Doctrine Much less to exasperating railings and invectives And least of all to wrathful violence But only with prudence in season and with Love and gentleness to lead men into the truth If even with Infidels and Hereticks the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. How much more must the Children of Gods family be used with Love and tenderness But if the fierceness of any contradict what I say I only add that it is not an unexperienced person that speaketh it but one who through the mercy of God hath long kept a numerous flock in Love and unity and peace by such like means and hath seen the lamentable effects of the contrary way 4. While I say so much in this Treatise against the rash censuring of others I give you not the rule for mens censuring of themselves They know more by themselves They may search into the depth of their hearts and intentions which we cannot do They are allowed to be more suspicious censorious of themselves than of any others It more concerneth them And they have more to do with themselves and may be bolder with themselves We judg others in order to visible Church-Communion by visible and publick evidence But in order to their preparation for the judgment of God we must direct them to judge themselves according to the truth in the inward parts 5. While I draw you to peace and moderation towards others I desire not to quench the least degree of Christian zeal Nay I endeavour to kill that which would kill it The purified peculiar people of the Redeemer ane zealous but of what not to consume and destroy one another nor to hate and flye from one another nor to vilifie and backbite one another but they are zealous of good works And Paul will tell you what are good works Gal. 5. 22 23. Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Be zealous in Loving all Christians as Christians and all men as men Be zealous for Peace If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. Be zealously patient gentle good meek temperate And the works of the flesh are hatred variance emulation wrath strife sedition heresies A zeal for these is earthly sensual and devilish as Iames telleth you And remember that the word which is translated there Envy is Zeal in the Original But our translators were afraid lest the prophane would have mistaken it if they had translated it Zeal ver 16. where zeal and strife is that is a striving contentious zeal there is confusion and every evil work If you believe
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
1 Cor. 3. 1 2 3 4. II. On the other side if any withdraw from our Communion let us not too hastily accuse them of schism And when we do let us well distinguish of schism and not go further from them than they have gone from us and to be our selves the Schismaticks while we oppose it There are many cases in which local separation may be lawful First As if our callings justly remove us to another place or Country Secondly If our spiritual advantage bind us to remove to a better Minister and more suitable society when we are free Thirdly if our lawful Pastors be turned out of the place and we follow them and turn away but from Usurpers Fourthly If the Pastors turn Hereticks or Wolves Fifthly If the publick good of the Churches require my removal Sixthly If any sin be imposed on me and I be refused by the Church unless I will commit it In these and some other such cases a remove is lawful And when it is not lawful yet it may be but such a blemish in the departers as the departerâ— find in the Church which they depart from which will on neither side dis-oblige them from Christian Love and such Communion as is due with neighbour Churches There is a schism from the Church and a schism in the Church There is a schism from almost all the Churches in the world and a schism from some one or few particular Churches There is a separation upon desperate intollerable principles and reasons and a separation upon some weak but tollerable ones These must not be conâ—ounded The Novatians were tolerated and loved by the sober Catholicks Emperours and others when many others were otherwise dealt with If any good Christians in zeal against sin do erroneously think that an undisciplin'd Church should be forsaken that they may exercise the discipline among themselves which Christ hath appointed It is the duty of that Church to take this warning to repent of her neglect of discipline and then to love and honour those thâ—t have though upon mistake perhaps withdrawn But if when they have occasioned the withdrawing by their corruption they will prosecute the persons with hatred revising slanders contempt or persecution and continue impenitent in their own corruption they will be the far greater Schismaticks and err a more pernicious errour DIRECT LX. 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 a few 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 nâ— censures or contempt of any Sect or party take you off But account it an honour to be a Martyr for Love and Peace as well as for the Faith OF all parts of Religion I know not how unhappily it comes to pass men think that Negatives are sufficient for the service of Peace If a man live not unpeaceably and do no man wrong nor provoke any to wrath this is thought a sufficient friend to peace And therefore it is no wonder that Love and Peace so little prosper When Satan and his instruments do all that they can by fraud and force against it and we think it enough to stand by and do no harm It is the Peace-makers that Christ pronounceth blessed for theirs is the kingdome of heaven Math. 5. 9. Here he that is not with Christ and the Church is against it Why should we think that so much actual diligence in hearing reading praying c. is necessary to the promoting of other parts of holiness and nothing necessary to Love and Peace but to do no hurt but be quiet patients Is it not worthy of our labour And is not our labour as needful here as any where Judge by the multitude and quality of the adversaries and by their power and success Is it a mark of hypocrisie to go no further in duties of Godliness than the safety of our reputation will give us leave And is it not so in the duties of Love and Peace If the Kingdome of God be in Righteousness and Peace then what we would do to promote Gods Kingdome we must do for them Rom. 14. 17. And if dividing Christs Kingdome is the way to destroy it and Satan himself is wiser than to divide his own Kingdome Math. 12. then what ever we would do to save the Kingdom of Christ all that we must do to preserve and restore the peace of it and to heal its wounds I know if you set your selves in good earnest to this work both parties who are guilty will fall upon you with their censures at least One side will say of you that you are a favorer of the Schismaticks and Sectaries because you oppose them not with their unhappy weapons love them not as little as they As they say of Socrates and Sozomen the Historians that they were Novatians because they spake truth of them called them honest men And as they said of Martyn and Sulpitius Severâ—s that they were favourers of unlearned Fanaticks and of the Priscilian Gnosticks because they were not as hot against them as Ithacius and Idacius but refused to be of their Councels or communicate with them for inviting the Emperour to the way of blood and corporal violence And the other side will say that you are a temporizer and a man of too large principles because you separate not as they do And perhaps that you are wise in your own eyes because you fall in with neither Sect of the extreams But these are small things to be undergone for so great a duty And he that will not be a peace-maker upon harder terms than these I fear will scarce be meet for the reward I again repeat Iam. 3. 17. The wisdome from above is first pure and then Peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality without hypocrisie and the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace Rom. 12. 18. If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Heb. 12. 14. Follow peace with all men and holiness Obj. But is it not as good sit still as labour to no purpose What good have ever any peace-makers done among differing Divines Answ. A grievous charge upon Divines and Christians Are they the only Bedlams or drunken men in the world If Princes fall out or if neighbours fall out arbitrators and peace-makers labour not alwayes in vain But I answer you It is not in vain Peace-breakers would have yet prevailed more and made the Church unhappier than it is if some Peace-makers had not hindered them The minds of thousands are seasoned with the Love of Peace and kept from cruelties and Schisms by the wholesome instructions and examples of Peace-makers And it is worth our labour to honour so holy and sweet a thing as Love and Peace and to bear our
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
their controversies when they are weary of contending and will give you the honour of healing the wounds which their rash injudicious zeal hath made DIRECT XXI The Pastors who will preserve the peace of the people must not contend among themselves Especially they must take heed that they engage not in any needless enmity against any of those Divines who for their learning or piety are most highly reverenced in the Church FIrst When Pastors fall into parties they alwayes draw the people with them some will take one part and some another If the Officers divide the souldiers will certainly be divided And though one of the dividing parties may get the advantage of the sword and suppress the other they are nevertheless in the way to increase the schism while the people will think never the worse of the party which is afflicted and trodden down Schismes are most commonly begun or at least formed among the Pastors And among them the cure must be begun and principally performed And when the wound is made it must not be despised but the threatned issues must be foreseen and the necessity of a cure apprehended and scarce any pains or cost must be thought too great to quench the fire The proud and carnal person who thinks all is well if he can but secure his interest and by spurning at dissenters make them seem contemptible doth cast oil upon the flames and may himself feel the greatest heat at last And he that can stand by as unconcerned and deny his service to Love and Peace and to the wounded Church lest it cost him too dear may soon find that he hath lost even that which he hath thought to save O that the Peace-makers would cry aloud and sound the retreat to contending Pastors and O that God would rebuke that pride and carnality self-conceitedness and love of worldly things which will not suffer them yet to hear Secondly And especially when those that are most reverenced and valued by the zealousest Christians are envied or afflicted by the rest it ever tendeth to divisions in the Church For the sufferings of such will never abate their esteem with those who honour them And if fear should stop their mouths for a time the fire will still burn within and be too ready to break out into more open schisms when opportunity serveth them Yea the Churches of old have found great cause to be very tender how they used such reverenced valued Pastors though they should fall into any errour and sometimes to connive or bear with much lest they should occasion a far worse disease by the imprudent curing of a lesser And I dare be bold to proclaim to the contentious Pastors of all the Churches wheresoever that True Piety Love Humility and Prudence can happily heal a great many of dissentions which to the carnal uncharitable proud and imprudent seem uncurable and by their malignant-medicines are still exasperated aâ—d made worse But alas this quarrelsome distemper in Ministers hath had such pernicious effects upon the Church and is still going on to more confusion that it deserveth and calleth for our common lamentation And if we must lament it with despair as an uncurable disease I fear we must with equal despair lament the Churches ruines and the consumption of Religion For how can we expect that the people should hear if the Pastors be obdurate and remediless And who shall cure them if their Physicians themselves be they that do infect them I speak not against the necessary defence of Truth so be it that it be truth indeed which we defend and that the defence be indeed necessary and that the manner be suited to the end and to the nature and rule of Christianity But the itch which caused the Churches scab is of a different description For fiâ—st it proceedeth from a salt acrimoniâ—us humour in the blood Not that there is no blood in our veins which hath better principles and qualities But alas it is tainted with this câ—rroding salt which hath bred our leprosie As if Christ had made us the salt of the earth not to preserve the world from putresaction but to bite and fret all that we have any thing to do with yea and those that we have nothing to do with and by the salt Caâ—aâ—â—hs of our back-bitings and peevish censures and reproaches to bring the Church of Christ into a consumption There is in many of us a love and zeal for Truth in the general and no wonder if we are but men But when we meet it we know it not but â—evile it and scratch it by the face As the Jews did long for the coming of the Messiah but when he came they knew him not but crucified him as a deceiver and blasphemer their prejudice fixing them in the dungeon of unbelief Mal. 3. 1 2 3. The Lord whom ye seek shall suddenly come to his Temple â—ven the Messenger of the Covenant whom ye delight in But who may abide the day of his coming and who shall stand when he appeareth For he is like a refiners fire and like fullers sope and he shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver and he shall purifie the sons of Levi What abundance of the zealous â—â—nourers of Tristh are daily employed in revising and contradicting it As they do by Peace even prosecute it to the death by the most perverse oppositions and unpeaceable principles and practises while they cry up nothing more than Peace And do they deal any better by Holiness it self He that is for a Holiness which consisteth not in Love to God and man to God for himself and to Man for his sake is like the Heathens who are zealous for a God but he must be made of something unlikest to him that is God indeed Or like the Mahometans who are zealous Musselmans or believers but it is in the most gross deceiver And he that will promote Love by snaâ—ling and barking at all that are strangers to him and not of his own house shall at last partake of the fruits of such Love as he promoted And he may as wisely hope at last to bring the Church to Peace also by werrying it by splenetick censures and divisions in despight of the experience of our present age and of all the world What ever is done against LOVE is done against Holiness and against God and against the Life of the Church And therefore if any Love-killer do call himself a servant of Christ and a friend to Holiness or to the Church he must first prove that murdering it is an act of friendship and a service acceptable to Christ One would think by their practise that some men took Abrahams trial for their Law and accounted it the work of justifying faith to kill the Church and offer it up in sacrifice to Christ But before they bring us to believe that such a sacrifice is acceptable to him who offered himself a sacrifice for the Church and who calleth for a