your foul back-biting reviling censorious contentious tongues do not prove the contrary 13. who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you Let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisedome that is Let him that would be thought more knowing and religious than his neighbours be so much more blameless and meek to all men and excel them in good works v. 14. But if ye have a bitter zeal for so is the Greek word and strife in your hearts glory not in such a zeal or in your greater knowledge and lie not against the truth 15. This wisdome descendeth not from above as you imagine who father it on Gods word and spirit but is earthly sensual or natural and devillish O doleful mistake that the world the flesh and the Devil should prove the cause of that conceited spiritual knowledge and excellency which they thought had been the inspiration of the spirit v. 16. For where zeal and strife 〈◊〉 that is a striving contentious zeal against brethren there is confusion or tumult and unquietness and every evil work O lamentable reformers that set up every evil work while they seemed zealous against evil v. 17. But the wisdome that is from above is first pure then peaceable gentle and easie to be intreated full of mercy and good fruits without partiality or wrangling and without Hypocrisie And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace when peace-breakers that sow in divisions and contention shall reap the fruit of unrighteousness though they call their way by the most religious names Thus I have briefly shewed you what Vâ—nity and Division are that wrong apprehensions draw you not to sin DIRECT VIII When any thing needeth amendment in the Church remember that the best Christian must be the forwardest to reformation and â—he backwardest to Division and must search and try all means of Reforming which make not against the concord of the Church I Do not here determine in what cases you may or may not separate from any company of faulty Christians I only say that you must never separate what God hath conjoyned the Holiness and the Vnity of believers If corruptions blemish and dishonour the Congregation Do not say Let sin alone I must not oppose it for fear of division But be the forwardest to reduce all to the will of God And yet if you cannot prevail as you desire be the backwardest to divide and separate and do it not without a certain warrant and extream necessity Resolve with Austin I will not be the chaff and yet I will not go out of the floor though the chaff be there Never give over your just desire and endeavour of Reformation And yet as long as possibly you can avoid it forsake not the Church which you desire to reform As Paul said to them that were ready to forsake a sea-wrackt vessel If these abide not in the ship ye cannot be saved Many a one by unlawful flying and shifting for his own greater peace and safety doth much more hazard his own and others DIRECT IX Forget not the great difference between casting out the wicked and impenitent from the Church by discipline and the godlies separating from the Church it self because the wicked are not cast out The first is a great duty The second is ordinarily a great sin THe question is not Whether the impenitent should be put away from Church-Communion That 's not denied But whether you should separate from the Church because they are permitted This is it which we call you to beware Not but that in some cases a Christian may lawfully remove from one Church to another that hath more light and purity for the edification of his soul. But before you separate from a faulty Church as such as may not lawfully be communicated with you must look well about you and be able to prove that thing which you affirm Many weak Christians marking those Texts which bid us avoid a man that is an Heretick and to have no company with disorderly walkers and not to eat with flagitious persons do not sufficiently mark their sense but take them as if they call'd us to separate from the Church with which these persons do communicate Whereas if you mark all the Texts in the Gospel you shall find that all the separation which is commanded in such cases besides our separation from the Infidels or Idolatrous world or Antichristian and Heretical confederacies and no-Churches is but one of these two sorts First either that the Church cast out the impenitent sinner by the power of the Keyes Secondly or that private men avoid all private familiarity with them And both these we would promote and no way hinder Thirdly but that the private members should separate from the Church because such persons are not cast out of it shew me one Text to prove it if you can Let us here peruse the Texts that speak of our withdrawing from the wicked 1 Cor. 5. Is expresly written to the whole Church as obliged to put away the incestuous person from among them and so not to eat with such offenders So is that in 2 Thes. 3. and that in Tit. 3. 10. A man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid Unless it be a Heretick that hath already separated himself from our communion And then it can be put private familiarity which we are further to avoid In brief there is no other place of Scripture that I know of which commandeth any more I have before shewed that abundance of Church corruptions or of scandalous members were then among them and yet the Apostle never spake a syllable to any one Christian to separate from any one of all those Churches Which we cannot imagine that the Holy Ghost would have wholly omitted if indeed it had been the will of God Obj. But then why did Luther and the first Pretestants separate from the Church of Rome and how will you justifie them from Schisme Ans. Its pity that sloth and sortishness should keep any Protestant or Papist either in such ignorance as to need any help to answer so easie a question at this day Let not equivocal names deceive us and the case is easie By the word Church the Scripture still meaneth first either the Universal Church which is the body or Kingdome of Christ alone Secondly or particular Congregations associated for personal communion in Gods worship But the Pope hath feigned another kind of thing and called it The Church That is The Vniversality of Christians as headed by himself as the constitutive and governing head Whereas first God never instituted or allowed such a Church Secondly nor did ever the Universality of Christians acknowledge this usurping Head Shew me in Scripture or in Church-History that either there ever was de facto or ought to be de jure such a thing in the world as they call the Church and I profess I will immediately turn
aggravate the faults of all that are against their way As if every infirmity were a crime and had no excuse yea they are oft glad to hear of some miscarriage in them for which they may speak against them And very readily take up such reports and are the willing-tongues of slanderous fame And in all this their faction maketh them impenitent For they think it tendeth to the disgrace of the other Party and so of their Cause which they account an errour and consequently that God hath use for their malicious Calumnies to his glory What company can you come into of forward Christians but they are talking against those of other parties except a few true entire Christians who are throughly possessed with the loving compassionate spirit of their Lord and have received the true impression of the Gospel And if you mark the cause you will find it as a sectarian spirit that prevaileth against the Catholick spirit of Christianity And in no sect more than in those that pretend to be the only Catholicks and to do all this against the Sectaries as such What bitter lies do the Popish sects under the name of Catholicks daily vent not only against Luther Calvin and other Reformers but any that stand against the peculiar interest of their party And they that can get the upper hand-and by worldly advantages become the domineering sect do think that thereby they are exempted from the name and number of sectaries and that all are sectaries that question their authority and do not absolutely obey them In all their discourse the stigmatizing of dissenters is an ordinary part One side reproacheth the other as Hereticks and Schismaticks And the other reproacheth them as hypocrites formalists and pharisaical persecutors And every party think that all this is a part of Christian zeal and if they did it not they should be guilty of lukewarmness and neutrality and consenting to the sins of others And thus the Church of Christ is engaged in a war against it self And when all men should know them to be Christs disciples by loving one another most men may perceive that they have too much contrariety to the Christian nature by their endeavouring to make each other odious And all because instead of distinguishing the members of the same Body by their several offices and degrees we are grown to make several Bodies of them and to set one part against another How many a Kingdomes conversion from Infidelity hath been hindered and how many a faithful Minister silenced or reproached and how many excellent Christians slandered and vilified and how many blamless customs forms and practises accused and how many infirmities aggravated as mortal crimes by a siding factious disposition and to promote the cause and interest of a Sect. Therefore as you love your integrity and peace keep up an impartial universal love and honour to all Christians as such and take heed of a dividing spirit DIRECT XX. Be very suspicious of your Religious passions and carefully distinguish between a sound and a sinful zeal lest you should father your sin on the spirit of holiness and think that you are most pleasing God when you offend him WE are seldome more mistaken in justifying our selves than in our Passions And when our Passions are Religious the mistake is both most easie and most perillous Easie because we are apt to be most confident and not suspect them the matter seeming so great and good about which they are exercised And Perilous because the greatness and goodness of the matter doth make the errour the greater and the worse I have shewed before how easie it is to think that our Religious passions are all the works of the spirit of God For we are apt to estimate them by the depth and earnestness which we feel But excellent persons have been here mistaken as Iames and Iohn were And not only so but when the passion is up the judgement it self is seldome to be far trusted For it inclineth us to err in all things that concern the present business Therefore still remember the difference between true zeal and false And know that he that is upright in the main and whose zeal for Christianity is sound may yet have much zeal that is unsound with it First It is an ill sign when your zeal is raised about some singular opinion which you have owned and not for the common salvation and substance of the Christian faith or practise Or at least when your odd opinion hath a greater proportion of your zeal than many more plain and necessary truths Secondly when your zeal is moved by any personal interest of your own By honour or dishonour By any wrong that is done you or any reputation of wisdome or goodness which lieth on the cause Or at least when your own interest hath too large a proportion in your zeal Thirdly when your zeal is more for the interest of your party than for the Universal Church and the common cause of Godliness and Christianity and can be content that some detriment to the whole may further the interest of the party Fourthly when your zeal tendeth to hurt and crueley and would have God rather to glorifie his Iustice by some present notable judgement than his Mercy by patience and forgiving And when your secret desire of fire from heaven or some destruction of the adversaries is greater than your desire and prayer for their conversion The sure mark of true zeal is that it is zealous Love It maketh you love your neighbours and enemies more fervently than others do But false zeal maketh you more inclined to their suffering and to reproach and hurt them Fifthly It is an ill signe when your zeal is beyond the proportion of your understanding And your prudence and experience is as much less than other mens as your zeal is greater True zeal hath some equality of Light and Heat Sixthly It is an ill sign when it is a zeal which is easily kept alive and hardly restrained For that sheweth the slesh and the Devil are too much its friends The true zeal of the spirit doth need the fuel of all holy means and the bellows of meditation and prayer to kindle it and all is too little to keep it up in the constancy that we desire But carnal zeal will burn of it self without such endeavours Seventhly It is an ill signe when some sect or false-teacher was the kindler of it and not the sober preaching of the truth Eighthly And it is an ill sign when it burneth in the same soul where lust and wrath and pride and malice burn And when it prospereth at the same time when the love of God and a heavenly mind and life decay The zeal of a sensualist of a proud man of a covetous man of a self-conceited empty person can hardly be thought a spiritual zeal 9. And it is an ill sign wâ—en it carrieth you from the holy rule and pretendeth to come from a spirit which will
many very good men think that publick interest may be allowed much power upon their minds though private and personal must be denied Is it not a wonder to see not only that almost all Christians are incorporated into one sect or party or other but how easily the inconsiderable reasons of their party can prevail with them and how hardly the better reasons of their adversaries seem to them of any weight or worth Not only the parties of Papists and Protestants Lutherans and Reformed c. shew this but in the same Church the Regulars and Seculars the Bishops and the Jesuits the Dominicans and Jesuits the Thomists Scotists c. declare it And the difference made by natural capacities is yet more than all this When one man is born to a duller understanding and another hath a quick and clear apprehension All that these men read and hear and meditate on is like to make different impressions on their minds And this is the greatest thing of any one which maketh many controversies endless and maketh both Divines and people run away from one another as dangerously erroneous If a few men have clearer understandings than the duller and unstudied sort they are like to be the minor part For the dull and slothful and yet self-conceited will ever be the greater part many to one till the golden age return And when all the world feeleth the consequents of this difference can we doubt of it or so far dote as to think it possible to cure it Yet the various degrees of the Grace of God do certainly also make great variety of apprehensions When God giveth to some those true illuminations those â—hirsting desires after truth those heart-experiences those delightful relâ—shes those powerful effects and victories which he giveth not to others they are made to differ must needs have different apprehensions of such things In which sense Christ saith that he came not to send peace but division that is to be such an object and preach so holy a doctrine and give such grace as would â—ccasion divisions by making his sanctified ones differ from the world and occasioning the erritation of the worlds malignity And indeed the grand difference between the seed of the woman and of the serpent the holy and the carnal seed is that which is the root of the greatest and sorest divisions in the world which will never be reconciled till Christ at the day of judgement shall say to one part Come ye blessed and to the other Go ye cursed For the carnâ—l mind is enmity against God and is not subject to his law nor indeed can be in sensâ— compâ—sito Rom. 8. 6 7 8. It was not for nothing that God permitted that great eruption of it in the first man that ever was born into the world against his innocent brothers life on the bare account of their religious sacrifices And the Cainites are still too strong for Alel's successors and too numerous And why did he kill his brother But because his own works were evil and his brothers righteous Gen. 4. 10 11. 1 Joh. 3. 12. And as Paul saith of the two sons of Abraham as he that was born of the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit even so it is now Gal. 4. 29. For the flesh fighteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary the one to the other Gal. 5. 17. And that which is born of the flesh is flesh that which is born of the spirit is spirit Joh. 3. 6. And they that are of the flesh do savour mind or understand the things of the flesh and they that are after the spirit do mind the things of the spirit Rom. 8. 5 6. Our heavenly teacher told his disciples that if they were of the world the world would love them but because they are not of the world but he had chosen them out of the world the world would hate them even as it hated him Ioh. 15. 18 19 24 25. Ioh. 17. 14. And every one that doth evil hateth the light Ioh. 3. 19 20. Nothing then can be surer or plainer to a believer than that there will be still as great divisions and diversitie of apprehensions as radicated enmity can breed And to prevent many objections let these three things be noted First That this grand difference which lieth in the greatest matters in head and heart must needs have influence upon abundance of inferiour controversies Both as the Persons and main cause are concerned in them Reason and experience have put this past controversie Secondly That this doth not concern only the visible Church and the world but the visible Church within it self For all the Hypocrites and carnal worshippers have still the Cainish serpentine nature Yea those that by advantages and interest are brought over to the Orthodox as well as Christian side And it is a happy Church where the Hypocrites are not the greater part And it is neither great Learning nor degrees nor the Pastoral office nor the profession of the highest zeal which will serve turn to cure the carnal enmity without the sanctifying spirit of grace So that when controversies arise we see not in the hypocrites that carnal mind which in the strictest proâ—ession or greatest learning or most venerable function will work against the interest of holiness But we are sure that there it is though we know not the persons in whom but by the full effects Thirdly And note also that there is a mixture or remnant of this unhappy root and principle even in the sanctified themselves And it is hard in a controversie to perceive in our selves much more in others how much our judgements may be moved by this party and what influence it may have into our conclusions So that all this maketh it but too manifest what a certainty there is of perpetual differences in the Church upon all these foresaid accounts Add also this great and unavoidable cause that one errour leadeth in another And no man being without some and every one being generative and inferring more what will it come to when all those also shall have their off-spring and the further they go the more they will increase and multiply And as the judgement by one is laid open to another even as truth inferreth truth so the will is engaged and espouseth mens own opinions as their interest which maketh them stretch their wâ—ts in study to maintain what once they have received and asserted And alas how often have I heard wise and reverend persons cry out against this pride and partiality in others who in their next discourse or the same have shamefully shewed it in themselves making much of their own inconsiderable reasonings and vilifying cogent evidence against them and being so intent on their own inventions and cause that they could scarce have patience to hear another speak And when they have heard him their first words shew that they never well weighed the
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
Physician and with your Estates as well as a studyed Lawyer And why do no Sea-men trust any other to govern the ship as well as an experienced Pilot Do you not see that all men ordinarily are best at that which by long study they have made their profession I know those that I have now to do with will say that Divinity is not learnt by labour and mens teaching as other Sciences and Arts are but by the teaching of the spirit of God and therefore the youngest may have as much of it as the eldest Answ. There is some truth and some falshood and much confusion in this objection It is true that the saving knowledge of Divinity must be taught by the Spirit of God But it is false that labour and humane teaching are not the means which must be used by them who will have the teaching of the spirit And the objection confoundeth 1. The spirits teaching us by inditing the Scripture with the spirits teaching us the meaning of the Scripture 2 And it confoundeth the common knowledge of Divinity with the saving knowledge of it No man commeth to a common knowledge fit for a Teacher of others without the spirits teaching us by the Scripture For that was the first part of the spirits teaching us to inspire the Prophets and Apostles to deliver a teaching Word to the Church by which we might all be taught of God through all generations But many men have excellent common knowledge by this word and by the common help of the spirit without that special help which begetteth saving knowledge Many prophesied and workt miracles in Christs name who had no saving knowledge of him Mat. 7. 22 23. And Paul rejoyced that Christ was preached even by them that did it of strife and envy to add affliction to his bonds Phil. 1. 15 16 17 18. saving knowledge must have a special help of grace And they which had but Solomons knowledge may by the spirit have saving knowledge in a little time by bringing it to the heart and making it clear and lively and effectual But that may be a means of saving others which saveth not the man that hath it And all knowledge requireth time and labour to obtain it though the Spirit giveth it and though it may be sanctifyed to us in a little time 1. Consider I pray you why else it is that God hath so multiplied commands to dig for it as for Silver and search for it as a hidden treasure to cry for Knowledge and lift up our voice for understanding to wait at the posts of wisdoms doors to search the Scriptures and meditate in them day and night Is not this such study and labour as men use to get understanding in other kind of professions Are not these the plain commands of God and are they not their deceivers who contradict them 2. Is it not a blaspheming of Gods spirit to make it the Patron of mens sloth and idleness under pretense of magnifying grace When so many Texts command us diligence and slothfulness is so great a sin And none are so forward to preach as these same men that cry down mens teaching 3. Why hath God setled a Teaching Office in his Church and commandeth all to attend and hear and learn if we are taught by the Spirit without mans help Why were the Apostles sent out into all the world And why are they commanded to teach all Nations and to teach the Church all that Christ commanded them and why doth he promise to be with them to the end of the world but that this is the way of the Spirits teaching to teach those first who are our outward teachers and then to help us to understand them And those are taught of God who are taught by those who are sent of God to be their teachers and have the inward concurrence of his grace 4. Advise with the experience of all the world who was the man that ever you knew able to expound one Chapter in the Bible by the inward teaching of the Spirit alone without any labour of his own or help from others by voice or writing Where dwelleth that man who by meer inspiration can turn one Chapter out of Hebrew or Greek into the vulgar tongue The first part of our preaching or publishing the Scriptures is by Translating them into a language which is understood When Ezra in his Pulpit of wood did read the Law and give the sense the meaning is that he read it in the ancient Hebrew tongue in which it was written and turned it into the language which the Jews then used who were grown much strangers to their ancient speech Where is the man that can solidly unfold any Doctrine of Divinity which he never read or heard of or can teach that truth and defend that Religion which he was never taught by man He is a stranger in the world who seeth not that as in Law and Physick and other professions though some are ignorant even when they are old yet commonly all men are wisest and ablest in their own profession and those know most who having natural capacities have had best help and longest time and hardest studies the Spirit assisting them by his common help to make it Knowledge and by his special grace to make it a sanctifying knowledge Therefoâ—e remember to give due respect to them that have been longer in Christ than you and to them that have longer studyed the Scriptures and to them that have had greater helps and experience And do not too easily imagine that those who are below them in all these advantages are yet above them in sound understanding Though such a wonder may sometime come to pass DIRECT II. Observe well the secret and subtil workings of spiritual pride and how deep-rooted and dangerous a sin it is and what special temptations to this odious sin the younger and emptyâ—headed Christians have that the resistance of them may be your daily care PRide is the self-idolizing sin the great rebel against God the chief part of the Devils image that one sin which breaketh every commandment the Heart of the old man the root and Parent and summary of all other sin the Antichristian vice which is most directly contrary to the life of Christ the principal object of Gods hatred and disdain and the mark of those whom he delighteth to tread down and the certain Prognostick of dejection and abasement either by humbling repentance or damnation It is called Spiritual Pride from the Object when men are proud of spiritual excellencies real or supposed And this is so much worse than Pride of Beauty apparel riches high places or high birth as the abuse of great and excellent things is worse than the abuse of vanities and triâ—les and as things spiritual are in themselves more contrary to the nature of pride and therefore the sin hath the greater enormity The common exercise of this Religious or spiritual Pride is first about our Knowledge and secondly
as a profession of Christianity And as to the Act it must be first A signification of the mind by word or writing or some intelligible sign Secondly it must seem to be understood For no man consenteth to that which he understandeth not But herein any intelligible sign of a tollerable understanding must be accepted though we find that the persons conceptions are raw and not so distinct and clear as they ought nor the expressions ready orderly or compt Thirdly it must seem to be serious For that which is apparently dissembled or Iudicrous is null Fourthly It must be de presenti a present giving up our selves to Christ and not only a promise de futuro that we will hereafter take him for our Saviour and Lord and not at present Fifthly it must seem to be voluntary and not constrained for then it is not serious Sixthly it must seem to be deliberate and resolute and setled and not only the effect of a mutable passion This goeth to make it a real Profession in the common sense of all mankind Obj. But how few among us do so much as seem be understanding serious and resolved in covenanting with Christ Answ. In the Degree of these we all fall short of that which is our duty But if you accuse any of the want of so much as is necessary to an acceptable Profession First you must be sure that you speak not by uncharitable surmise and hear-say but upon certain proof or knowledge Secondly and that therefore you speak it not at a venture of whole Parishes or families but only of those persons by name whom you know to be guilty Thirdly and that you remember that it is the Pastors office to judge and that you expect not that every one must give an account of their knowledge to you And if there be a mis-judging it is the fault of the Pastor and not yours of which more anon Fourthly that persons Baptized are already admitted into the Church and therefore if they make profession of Christianity they must not be put to bring any other proof of their title but it lies on you to disprove it if you will have it questioned And to reject them from communion without a proved accusation is Tyranny and Lording it over the Church of God These are Gods terms of Church-communion And if you will needs have stricter you must have none of his making but your own Obj. But all visible Christians and Churches are visible Saints and Regenerate and so are not ours Answ. To be a Visible Saint is to profess to be a Saint And whosoever doth profess the Baptismal Covenant professeth to be a Saint Conversion Regeneration Faith and Repentance are all contained into taking God the Father Son and Holy Ghost for our Father Saviour and Sanctifier Obj. But you may teach a Parrot to speak those words Answ. It s true And perhaps to speak any words which you use your selves But if you will thence conclude that words must not be taken as a Profession you grosly err or abusively wrangle or if you infer thence that your neighbour understandeth himself no more than a Parrot doth you must prove what you say to the Pastor of the Church For God hath not allowed him to excommunicate baptized persons because you say that they are ignorant And if they are willing to learn it is fitter to teach them than to excommunicate them And here I must lament it that I have met with many censorious Professors who would not communicate with the Parish Churches because the people are ignorant who when I have examined themselves have proved ignorant of the very substance of Christianity so that I have been much in doubt whether I ought to admit them to the Lords Table or not They knew not whether Christ was Eternal or whether he was God when he was on earth or whether he be Man now he is in heaven nor what Faith is or what Iustification or Sanctification is nor what the Covenant of grace is nor what Baptism or the Lords Super are nor could prove the Scripture to be the word of God or prove mans soul to be immortal but gave false or impertinent answers about all these And yet could not joyn with the ignorant Churches And next I desire you here to observe the different Priviledges as well as the different Conditions of Visible and Invisible Churchmembership The members of the Church mystical or Regenerate have the pardon of all sin and acceptance with God and communion with him and with his Church in the spirit and are the adopted children of God and heirs of everlasting life and shall live in heaven with Christ for ever The meer Visible Members of the Church that are not regenerate by the spirit as well as sacramentally by water have only an outward Communion with the Saints and have only the Bread and Wine in the Sacrament and only a name to live when they are dead And are these such great matters that we should envy them to poor sinners that must have no more Have we the Kernel and do we envy them the Shell Have we the Spirit and do we envy them the flesh or outward signes alone Yea consider farther that it is more for the sake of the truly faithful than for their own that all Hypocrites have their station and priviledges in the Church God maketh use of their Gifts and Profession for his elect to many great services of the Church And is it not then a foolish ingratitude in us to murmur at their presence Understand well the conditions and Reasons of this visible state of membership and how far it is below the state of the Regenerate and it will turn your separating murmuring into a thankful acknowledgment of the wisdom of God DIRECT VII Get right and deep aprehensions of the Necessity and Reasons of Christian Unity and Concord and of the sin and misery of Divisions and Discord WHen we have but slight apprehensions of a duty we easily neglect it and scarce reprove our selves for it or repent of our omission And when we have but slight apprehensions of the evil of any sin a little temptation draweth us to it we are hardly brought to through-repentance for it And there is in many Christians a strange inequality and partiality in their apprehensions of good and evil Some duties they dare not omit and they judge all ungodly who omit them when some others as great are past by as if they were no part of religion And some sins they fear with very great tenderness when we can scarce make their consciences take any notice of others as great And usually they let out all their zeal on one sâ—de only while they over-look the other The Papist seemeth so sensible of the good of Unity and the evil of Divisions that he thinketh usurpation of an Universal Church-Monarchy and Tyranny and horrid bloud-shed to be not only lawful but necessary for the prevention and the cure
upon all your prayers that ever he will teach you in this life the sense of every text of Scripture If ever he promised this he will perform it And is it to One Christian or to every praying Christian that he hath promised it If to every one why are we not all of a mind Why be not all as wise as you What need we Commentaries then Or what need have others of your Revelations If it be but to some who be those some And how shall we know them And how know you that you are one of them And why do not those some condescend to write an infallible Commentary upon all the Bible when they themselves are taught it of God that so we may doubt and differ no more But if you say that it is not the meaning of every text that God hath promised to make known to you when you pray but of some few how will you know which those few be And where is the promise which maketh this difference Except only that to all true Christians he hath promised to reveal so much as is necessary to their salvation But if you will pray for more your belief of your success must not go beyond the promise If you will promise to your selves you must perform for your selves Obj. But hath not God bid us believe that we shall receive what ever we ask and promised to believers that they shall receive it Answ. He hath first made a Law to command you prayer and then made a promise to grant what you pray for according to his will that is according to his command and promise and hath made your believing of this promise one of the conditions of his fulfilling it to you So that if you believe not his power and promise you shall not have right immediately to the thing promised But if you pray and believe and withall use those other means with diligence and patience which God hath appointed you you shall know in that measure as is suitable to your state For God hath not promised the same measure of knowledg to all true believers So that this is all that the promise giveth you and not that you shall know all that you pray to know and that immediately Obj. But then you leave us at utter uncertainty whether we have the answer of our prayers or not Answ. Not so But the answer of your prayers must not be tried by your conceits but by Gods rule If you pâ—ay for that which you have neither a command nor promise for your prayer is sin and your answer can be nothing but Gods rebuke or your own delusion But if you pray for that which you have a command for but no particular promise then you have only the General promise that your prayer shall not be lost but shall bring down either the thing you pray for or something else which the wisdome of God seeth to be best for you and others and to his ends And this is all that you can warrantably believe But if you pray for that which hath both a command and a particular promise as the pardon of sin and necessary grace and life eternal to a believer you may be sure that this prayer shall be granted in kind So that you are not to judge of the answer of prayers by your feelings and passions and impulses but by the promise of God which you must believe will be fulfilled what ever you feel Faith and not feeling must tell you whether your prayer be accepted Nay if you should receive health or wealth or gifts for your selves or others when you have prayed for them you cannot tell whether it be a merciful answer to your prayer or a judgement unless you try it by faith according to the promise I have nothing now to say of the case of miracles but this If God promise a miracle you may believe it because it is promised If he perform it without a promise then either you must not believe it till it is done or else your faith must be a miracle also And then the faith it self is its own justification But miracles are now so rare that all sober Christians will take heed how they expect them or over-hastily believe them and especially how they take their own belief for a miracle All the talk that some men make of a particular faith may be tried by what I have here said To conclude the warning which I give you in this case is from long and sad experience I have known too many very honest hearted Christians especially melancholly persons and women who have been in great doubt about the opinions of the Millenaries the Separatists the Anabaptists the Seekers and such like and after earnest prayer to God they have been strongly resolved for the way of errour and confident by the strong impression that it was the spirits answer to their prayers and thereupon they have set them into a course of sin If you say How know you that they were mistaken I will tell you how First Because they have been resolved contrary to the word of God And I know that Gods spirit did first make a standing Rule to try all after-impulses by And what ever impulse is contrary to that Rule is contrary to Gods spirit The Law and the testimony are now sealed and all spirits to be tried by them Isa. 8. 20. Secondly Because I have found their impulses contrary to one another One hath been resolved for Infant baptism and another against it One hath had a revealation for a prelacy like the order of Aaron and the Priests and another against all Prelacy One hath been confident of an answer of prayers for Antinomianism and another against it for Arminianism One for publike Communion and another to detest it And both came in in the same way And Gods spirit is not contrary to it self Thirdly Because I have seen abundance of prophesies of things to come which people have this way received with the greatest confidence to prove all false Fourthly Because I have staid till many of the persons have found by experience that they were deceived and have confessed it with lamentation And fifthly because perhaps I know more of the nature of prejudice affection melancholy feminine weakness and self-conceit and of tempting God in the way of prayer and of satans transforming himself into an Angel of light than every Reader will know till they have paid for their learning DIRECT XXVIII Do not too much reverence the impulses or revelations or most confident opinions of any others upon the account of their sincerity or holiness but try all judiciously and soberly by the Word of God MAny that have no such impulses themselves are yet so much taken with the reverence of others that they are very apt to be seduced by their confidence When so great a man as Tertullian was deceived by Montanus and his prophetess when such a one as Hacket could deceive not only Coppinger and Arthington but
abundance more some taking him for the Messiah and some by his breathing on them thinking that they received the Holy Ghost When David George in Holland and Iohn of Leyden in Munster and Behmen Stiefelius and so many more pretended Prophets in Germany could deceive so many persons as they did When the pretended revelations of the Ranters first and the Quakers after could so marvellously transport many thousand professours of religion in this land I think we have fair warning to take the counsel of St. Iohn Believe not every spirit but try the spirits whether they be of God It is a pitiful instance of the good old learned Commenius who so easily believed the prophesies of Daubritius and the rest which he hath published Yea when he saw the prophesies fail yet when he adjured the prophet to speak truth and got him to swear as before the Lord that it was truth this seemed enough to confirm his belief of him whereas if he had been as well acquainted with the nature of Melancholy and Historical passions as many others are he would have known that as strange things as that he recordeth of the man or women may be done without any Divine inspirations and that it is no wonder if that person swear that his words are true who is first deceived himself before he deceive others For a crackt brain'd person to believe his delusions to be real verities is little wonder I have many a time my self conversed with persons of great honesty and piety though of no great judgment who have some of them affirmed that they had angelical revelations and some of them thought that the Spirit of God did bring this Scripture or that Scripture to their mind in answer to their prayers and were so very confident that what they affirmed was the certain truth or voice of God that I have been stricken with a reverence to their professions and with a fear lest I should resist God in resisting them But resolving to take none on earth for the master of my faith but to try the Spirits whether they be of God by going to the Law and Testimony I was constrained to turn my reverence into pity For I found that their seeming revelations were some of them Scripture-doctrine and some of them contrary to the Scripture As for that which is already in the Scripture what need I further revelation for it Is it not there sufficiently revealed Can their words add any authority to the Word of God And have I not Gods own Ministers and means to help me to the knowledge of his word And as for that which is contrary to Scripture I am sure that it is contrary to the will of God And if an Angel from Heaven should preach another Gospel to me I must hold him accursed Gal. 1. 7 8. so that if these persons should have the appearance voice of an Angel speaking to them I would despise it as well as the words of a mortal man if they be against the recorded word of God But by what I have seen and heard I know that it is a great temptation to some weak Christians to hear one that is much in prayer say Take heed what you do Have no Communion with this sort of men nor in this or that way of worship nor in this or that opinion for I am sure it is against the mind of God I once thought as you do but God hath better made known his mind unto me But saving the due respect to the honesty of such persons ask them How shall I know that you are in the right If they say I will not reason the case with you but I know it to be the mind of God Tell them that God hath made you reasonable creatures and will accept no unreasonable service of you and you have but one Master of your Faith even Christ Therefore if they believe that themselves which they can give you no reason to believe they must be content to keep their belief to themselves and not for shame perswade any other to it without proof If they say that God hath revealed it to them Tell them that he hath not revealed it to you and therefore that 's nothing to you till they prove their divine revelation If God reveal it to them but for themselves they must keep it to themselves If he reveal to them for others he will enable them to make some proof of their revelations that others may be sure that they sin not in believing them If they say that the Scripture is their ground Tell them that the Scripture is already revealed to all And if indeed what they speak be there you are ready to believe it But if they pervert the Sâ—â—pture by false interpretation or abuse it and mâ—â—apply it none of this is the work of the Spirit of God If they say that the spirit hath told them the meaning of the Scripture say as before that is not told for you which is not proved to you The Scripture is written in such words as men use of purpose that they might understand it and is to be understood by all men that hear it though they have no revelation God hath set Pastors in his Church to teach it If therefore revelations be still necessary to the understanding of the Scripture revelations then the Scriptures seem to be in vain and these last revelations must again have new revelations to the right understanding of them also The truth is it is very ordinary with poor fanciful women and melancholy persons to take all their deep apprehensions for revelations And if a text of Scripture come into their minds they say This text was brought to my mind and that text was set upon my spirit As if nothing could bring a text to their thoughts but some extraordinary motion of God And as if this bringing it to their mind would warrant their false exposition of it To conclude Decry not the necessity of the ordinary sanctifying work of the spirit to bless the Scripture to your true illumination and sanctification And if any pretend to any other revelations or inspirations or expositions of the Scripture which they cannot prove to youâ— despise them not but modestly leave them to themselves But take heed that the reverence of any ones holiness tempt you not to depart from the certain sufficienâ— word of God and draw you not into any 〈◊〉 Heresie or Separation or Opinion contrary to Gods standing Law DIRECT XXIX Take heed lest the trouble of your own disquieted doubting minds do become a snare to draw you to some uncouth way of cure and so make the fancy of some new Opinion Sect or Practise to seem your Remedy and give you ease and thereby perswade you that it is the certain truth THis is the pitiful Case of the ignorant and ungrounded and troubled sort of religious persons that they are looking every way for ease and comfort And having not wisdom enough to
so many prescribed words or forms of teaching And if we may use forms of Teaching as well as the Apostles why not also forms of praying If you say that the Apostles prescribed the Church no Liturgy I answer That only proveth that no one is universally necessary nor to be universally imposed but not that therefore no use of forms of prayer are lawful May we not now use the Lords Prayer or pray in some other Scripture form Obj. But the Apostles compelled none to use them Answ. Christ and his Apostles assumed not the civil Sword and therefore so compelled men to nothing But yet their authority bound the conscience when Christ said when ye pray say Our Father c. he bound them in duty to do as he bid them though he forced them not But Secondly tell me if you can where God forbiddeth you to use good and lawful words in prayer meerly because the Magistrate or Pastor bids you use them Is this the meaning of all the Precepts of honouring and obeying your Superiors Do nothing which they bid you do though otherwise lawful O strange exposition of the Fifth Commandment If you command your Child to learn a Catechism or Form of Prayer before his meat or for other times will you teach him to say Father or Mother it had been lawful for me to use this Form if neither you nor any body had bid me But because you bid me now it is unlawful O whither will not partiality lead men Obj. But though it be lawful to impose forms on children yet not upon aged Christians Answ. Aged persons have too many of them as much need of such forms as children Age maketh not the difference We are fain to teach many aged persons forms of Catechism as well as children Why not therefore forms of prayer Obj. But it is not lawful to impose forms publikely on whole Congregations of Believers Answ. All sects in the world do it I never heard any Separatist or Anabaptist or any other publike Minister but he imposed a form of prayer upon all the Congregation He is void of common sense that thinketh that his extemporary prayer is not as truly a form to all the people as if it had been written in a book The order and words are not of your own invention but invented by another to your hand and imposed upon you to use For I hope you come together to pray and not to hear a prayer only But the difference is First that one imposeth every day a new form on you and the other imposeth every day the same Secondly And that one telleth you not what words you shall pray in before you hear them and the other writeth them down for you to know before hand For my part I wonder why written or unwritten long-premeditated or suddenly expressed prayers should be taken for unlawful But however do not think the difference to lie where it doth not For doubtless to the people they are both formes and both imposed though not imposed by the same persons and authority Obj. But at least you have no proof for imposing forms â—n the Ministers themselves Ans. First I know no man that questioneth but some form of prayer and praise were imposed by God himself on the Iewish Ministers And one was taught by Christ to his Apostles And a form of Profession of faith and of Baptism and the Lords supper is imposed on all the Ministers of the Church And Ioel 2. 17. a form of prayer is taught the Priests Secondly But we are not now pleading for the needless imposing of any forms nor the causless restraint of extemporarary prayers I have fully born my testimony against that in due season But many things are lawfully and necessarily obeyed which are not lawfully commanded as I shall shew you more anon I could heartily wish that we could say that all Ministers of any party were such as were wholly above the need of forms Or at least such whose own composures were better for for the Church than any that could be offered them by others If it were not a contradiction But all that I now expect from the Objectors is that they tell me or themselves what proof they have that it is a sin for a Minister only to use an imposed form when all the Congregation else may use it Answer this well before you go And I pray let all the people note here that it is not nor cannot be denied but that a form even a new one every day may be lawfully be imposed upon all them and that the question is only of the Ministers use of imposed forms Obj. But our Ministers do not impose their prayers by forcâ— Answ. Do you think that there is no imposition but by force Your Pastor is your guide in the worship of God and God hath imposed it on you to to follow him and joyn with him in lawful prayer And what the words shall be and what the matter and order chosen for that time time the Speaker chooseth for you And so he bindeth you by his Ministerial authority which is a true and lawful imposing though he compel you not by the sword or force Obj. But Christ hath given gifts to all his Ministers and commanded them to use them And they use them not when they use imposed formes Therefore we must not obey men against Christ. Answ. No doubt but all that are lawful Ministers have such gifts as are necessary to the essential works of their office But the degrees of their gifts have very great variety as Paul fully sheweth in 1 Cor. 12. and oft elsewhere And the necessary gift for hearty acceptable prayer is true Desire excited by the spirit of supplication which sometime venteth it self but by sighes and groans Rom. 8. 16 26. But the Ministerial gift of prayer is Knowledge and Utterance by which a Minister may be able to express the desires and wants of the people unto God which includeth memory in some degree Even as Knowledge and Utterance are his Gift of preaching And some have more Knowledge and worser Vtterance And some have better Vtterance and less Knowledge And some through want of memory are defective in both The lowest rank of lawful Ministers may be so defective in their own gifts both of Knowledge Memory and Utterance as to have need of the help of the gifts of others who much excel them As a Minister who hath tollerable Gifts for preaâ—hing may yet need the writings of other men before hand and may bring both their Matter and Method into the Pulpit yea and oft times their words so that though he have Gifts yet being weak he may use the gifâ—s of others I have been counselled since I was silenced to compose Sermons my self and give them in writing to some weak Minister that hath an excellent Voice and utterance and to let him preach them And really if I had not known that such have good books enough at hand for such a use
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
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