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A42806 Catholick charity recommended in a sermon before the Right Honorable the Lord Mayor and Aldermen of London : in order to the abating the animosities among Christians, that have been occasion'd by differences in religion / by Jos. Glanvill ... Glanvill, Joseph, 1636-1680. 1669 (1669) Wing G801; ESTC R13297 24,826 40

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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 ●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