ages she hath had some glorious company professing her Religion even in points their adversaries now impugne There makes for them all that may or can be of any Christian man required Literal Text of holy Scripture approved Tradition general Councils ancient Fathers Ecclesiastical Histories Christian Laws Conversion of Nations divine miracles heavenly Visions Vnity Vniversality Antiquity Succession their true Mission Ordination c. all Monuments all Substance all accidents of Christianity No wit of man can find out Arguments more convincing in themselves the truth of Religion than plain Texts and literal Sense of holy Writ the infallible Decrees of Church and general Councils the indubitable Writings and unanimous consent of ancient Fathers the credible Histories of all times and places and often the common light of Nature and Reason it self And ad hominem for prevention of all evasions no victory more certain no objection more unanswerable than the plain confession of their adversaries themselves The Volumes of Fathers and Councils in the eldest and purest times be so clear in themselves for Romish Faith that the primest and most learned Reformists studying the same are enforced through evidence of their words and deeds to acknowledg as Master Bierly in King James's time produceth clear testimonies If that Church erred or changed by little and little or that the true Church was invisible c. they require some humane reason to shew it catigorically In what time in what Articles what Pope changed what tumults rise thereupon what Councils withstood c. which in all innovations they can shew easily a total change and in what particular points as by Arrians Sabellians Donatists Pelagians Protestants c. What places what Countries changed with them what Catholicks set against them what kept the old paths To say the Church was extinct a thousand years or unknown is expresly against the Scripture Christs Promises and Providence and Reason it self If the Church were invisible whether should Gentiles address for their Conversion or the doubtful for resolution or all faithful for their direction was our Saviour who was promised to all Nations brought to that streight that he had not a visible Chappel reserved to him in the whole world Is it not good reason God would preserve his Church which he had planted and watered with his Blood Is it not a denyal of Gods Providence and to say Jesus Christ was unjust or an Impostor to oblige all men to indispensible obedience to her if erroneous or invisible if men were changed into beasts they may be thus perswaded Is not the Church compared to a City to a Light to the Sun c. can the Church which is a Sun be drawn into a chinâ—k or all her Beams into the center of a Burning-glass Can any Proposition be more reasonable than to ask of those who maintain a thing to be in former ages to produce some marks thereof to shew where they had a being or a Company successively holding the same Articles with them The Building is perpetual where God layeth the Foundation The Church is the Pillar of truth 1 Tim. 3. cannot err Irenaeus l. 3. c. 4. Mat. 28. Act. 3. Go teach all Nations and I am with you all days to the consummation John 17. Father keep them in â—hy name whom thou hast given me See his Petition to keep his Church gathered of all Nations and his continual protection I will give you another Comforâ—â—â— â—o aâ—iâ—e with you for ever John 16. When the spirit of truth cometh he shall â—â—ach you all truth This assistaâ—ce promisâ—d was ever in all ages no Heresie or Jew could ever prevail against it The guard and strength of Truth in point also of antiquity is ever such that she resteth still accompanied attended and fortified with surest friends strongest towers and best munition Priority and ancestry is so specially affected by the Wisdom of God and maligned by the enemy of man that in first planting the Church it s said Mat. 4. 13 24 25. 5. Mat. 13 17. Luk. 8. 12. that he first sowed good seed in the field and after the enemie came and oversowed Cockle not obscurely intimating true Faith and Religion that is good seed was first and ancient to Sects and Heresies Even as temporal nobility is most honourable which is derived from the aâ—cientest Blood and in earthly possessions that Title strongest which pleadeth longest prescription or ancientest evidence So it cannot be denied but truth was before falshood substance before shadows the Gospel Faith Religion c. which is first and eldest is only the true Gospel Faith Church and other Congregations afterwards arising or going out from thence are only malignant inventions of the enemy In which respect to find out truth in all occurring difficulties we are specially forewarned to recurre to antiquity to suspect novelty Moses Deut. 32. before his death leaving documents to the Children of Israel saith Remember the old days ask thy Father c. so Bildab Jobs friend 1 Job 8. advised him in greatest extremities ask the old generation and search diligently Solom Eccl. 9. 8. 11 12. let not the â—â—rration of the ancient escape thee c. and Jer. c. 16. stand upon the ways and ask the old paths which is the good way c. on the contrary God reproveth such as walk in a way not trodden and Solomons lesson is Transgress not the ancient bounds which thy Father hath put So Saint Paul to Timothy to keep the Depositum avoiding profane novelties It 's very ordinary with the Fathers to confute Hereticks by their innovation So Tertullian reproveth Novelists of his time saying to them who are you when and from whence came you what do you in my grounds by what right Marcion didst thou cut down my woods by what licence Valentine dost thou overthrow my Fountains c. It is my possession long since I possessed it I possessed it first So Saint Hierom. of the Luciferians Why do you go about after four hundred years to teach that we knew not before until this day the world was Christian without that Doctrine So Athan. confuteth the Arrians Saint Hilarie and Saint Aug. Donatists These reasons may induce us to take new measures of that ancient Church and may easily perswade persons as Doctor Taylor in his Treatise of Liberty of Prophecying of much reason and more piety to retain that which they know to have been the Religion of their forefathers especially when her Soveraign Rights Titles and Prerogatives are admitted and acknowledged by her professed enemies Whence Chillingworth confesseth that Protestants cannot with coherence to their own grounds require of others the belief of any thing besides Scripture and the plain irrefragable and indubitable consequences of it without most high and schismatical presumption Dr. Bramh. Reply p. 264. We do not saith he hold our 39 Articles to be such necessary truths extra quas non est salus without which there is no salvation nor enjoin ecclesiastical
visible executioners This premised I argue thus Where there is a liberty of examining and judging there must be a freedome of election upon such judgment but the Church of England v. g. in her Doctrine alloweth men to search the Scriptures and examine whether her Doctrine be agreeable to Scripture or no Therefore the Church of England and other Reformed cannot in reason and equity persecute such men as in foro conscientiae shall upon such due examination of judgment dissent from their Doctrine If this principle pass current amongst us that every one may read judg and interpret Scripture which is by us the judg of Controversies the only rule to guide us to Faith we are bound to give Liberty of Conscience to others Whence one of our own Doctors saith Our Bishops who have declared the Doctrine of giving freedome of Conscience what every one in their private judgments do of discretion hold to be most conformable to Gods Word yet they very inconsequently and disingenuously excite our Governours to force their Conscience to an exterior Conformity Secondly We confess the Church of England and all Churches may erre and for ought we know do erre and lead into error and such an uncertain and fallible guide or ground to rely on is not proportionable to the nature and quality of Faith which must be certain and infallible with an internal consent of the Will and subjection of our understandings to revealed Truths Our Senses may be deluded but Faith not for it must be more firm and certain than any thing we see or feel Supposing then the Reformed Churches fallible will it not be a most unreasonable thing to be still exacting of Recusants by rigorous Sequestratious Oaths and what other penalties they think fit to leave and forsake the Church and Faith which they so groundedly hold to be the infallible guide appointed by God himself as the only means to direct them securely to eternal Salvation And to yield exterior conformity to our own new moulded Church we all profess to be fallible Or to be forced to embrace a Doctrine deduced by fallible interpretations out of Scripture which interpretations the far greater and learneder part of this very age reject as Heretical and which as such were rejected by almost all visible Christianity for these thousand years And which perhaps may shortly be rejected by us We having oft-times rejected that which we cryed up before for verity and the Religion now in vogue not many years ago was cryed down If our Church be not then infallible in what we teach against them but may embrace a lye for a divine Truth they need not to vindicate and justifie their most just recusancy in refusing to submit when we provide them no better security but force them to refuse due submission to that infallible direction appointed by divine Writ to bring them securely to their end To which the most religious the most learned and the major part of Christians ever yet thought and submitted too If I should disobey the sentence of the Church upon what other authority can I more prudently rely What Labyrinths and Abysmes should I fall into How can we force and draw others to our Churches if we cannot agree where and how to lay our Foundation How can we impose upon and restrain others whom we are so far from assuring of Truth as we pretend to be but uncertain of it and are not able to do so much for our selves being liable to change and no ways certain of our own belief to be the most infallible as our multiplied Concessions are pregnant instances What is this but to put certain penalties upon an uncertain Faith And if our Teachers agree not in all points of Religion the Dissenters in controversie are obliged to allow a mâ—tual toleration If we say the Roman Church erred for 900. years till our Reformation we exclude our selves from all possible assurance of true Faith or Salvation And to arrogate to our Selves or to attribute to private persons or Pastors the all-defining Spirit which we deny to the whole Church represented in a general Council is absurd His presumption must needs be vast that builds more on his own tenet then the mature judgment of all successive Fathers While he cryes down others for infallible he lifts himself up to be so as if God revealed more to him than all the Doctors and Propagators of his Church Now let us hear what our own Divines acknowledge Doctor Taylor saith but alas notwithstanding our Religion thus framed by our Divines yet it seems not sufficiently marked or the cognizance of Schism taken away for yet we have no particular positive points among us setled for undoubted Truths those being rather a medley of all Religions and new Sects professed among us or a negation of those tenets of the Church we went out of and which stood a thousand years before us as Histories and Monuments witness which is but a negative Faith in effect for what is positive or of Order and Government is wholly derived and taken from that Religion which not long since we pulled down abominated and so violently persecuted Doctor Gauden saith I see not why Papists may not in reason of State have and enjoy that liberty without perturbing the Publick Peace which Presbyterians and Independents do enjoy in their new ways For nothing will savour more of an imperious or impotent Spirit whose Faith and Charity are Slaves to Secular Interests than for those who have obtained liberty to their Novelties to deny the like freedome to other mens Antiquity which hath Ecclesiastical practise and precedency of a thousand years besides the preponderancy of much reason Scripture and holy examples All which to force godly grave and learned men to renounce or comply with other ways against their judgments must be a crying Self-condemning sin in those men who lately approved the ancient Church way and after dissenting at first desired but a modest toleration And in another place saith To Fleece and depress Popish Recusants by pecuniary mulcts exactions c. is to set Religion to sale and make Merchandize of Conscience and mens errors rather than fairly to perswade and win them by proper and perswasive engines of true Religion Thorndike a learned Divine saith also Cerâ—ainly it may be justiâ—â—able for the secular power to grant Papists exercise of their Religion in private places under such moderate penalties as disobeying the Laws of a mans Country requires For Persecution to Death in that case the whole Reformation condemns the Church of Rome And I conceive there is no reason for that which will not condemn Persecution to Banishment The State may easier be secured of Papists against all such power in the Pope then of our Sectaries against that Dispensation to their allegiance which the pretence of Gods Spirit may import when they please Whereas it is manifest that many Papists hold against those equivocations and reservations which destroy all confidence in the
State I answer who is swayed by this motive runs but the indirect way of State-Policy and makes use of a title of that name only to support what his ambition malice or interest inforces him too and is guilty not only of his own Evils but whatever others are thereby occasioned in oppression of others These mysteries of Machiavel have been to far discovered to be of no use in this Nation for the future This Cloak of formal Godliness is now worn thredbare and almost all men sees it to be but a Cloak Such specious devises appear now to be but like Flock-work upon Canvas scattered over with glittering Copper or Tinsel Experience hath made almost every Body able to look not only on the Colours and Pretext but the depth and motive of every such design The infinite eye and wisdome of God doth pierce through all our pretences and his justice doth require no other accuser then our own consciences which neither the false beauty of our actions nor all the formality which to pacifie the opinions of men we put on can in the least kind cover from his knowledge We know that a good pretence cannot justifie a bad action and therefore we ought to be as sollitous about the lawfulness of the means as about the goodness of the end it is a maxime in morality that bonum oritur ex integris and in Christianity that we must not do evil that good may come of it There is nothing that God's pure and undeluded eye looks on with more abhorrence then Pseudopolicy we may deceive men but it s in vain to put Ironies upon God A Counterfeit Religion shall find a real hell And who have conspired with the wrath of God in the stupefaction of their consciences though they may for a time struggle with those inward checks yet there will be a day if not in this life when that Witness that Judge that Jury will not be bribed Let it be part of our dayly orisons that God would banish this cursed Policy out of Europe and the whole World and damn it down to Hell from whence it originally came and such as delight to abuse others think of that self-cousenage with which in the interim they abuse themselves God permitting the Devil to wrong the Impostor Admit that for some worldly respect Laws were necessary in State-Policy for the time wherein they were enacted yet the time changing and those causes entirely ceasing which made them seem necessary now it will not only be safe but necessary to repeal them when after such triaâ—s there is no cause of suspition remaining nâ—r â—olour of jealousie at least none but what may easily be removed by the wisdom of the State and plenary satisfaction in behalf to themselves Wary superpoliticks are over curious Spirits plead policy against Piety and prefer outward safety before inward peace subject Faith and Truth to Policy our private and civil good to interest Religion is suited to Government and Conscience to connivency What is Policy against Religion If it be iniquity injustice and oppression to treat men so without cause or demerit it is not any feigned imaginary reason of State will excuse those who act and give counsel to such unchristian acts lest the Blood of Souls lie upon their account another day More Families have been ruined more persons imprisoned more moneys spent by the cruelty of persecution than by all Law-Suits in the Courts of Judicature or payments and ordinary Taxes Our Church-wardens are perjured that swear to present them to every Sessions though imposing of such an Oath is breach of the Fundamental Laws of the Land and those Church-wardens that are not perjured but pursue the Oath in persecuting their neighbors are plunged with a horrid guilt of Conscience Now there are above 9285 parishes in England and seventy four thousand Church-wardens and Sides-men in England every year and what a dreadful thing is it to have all these yearly either perjured persecuted or Persecutors I am by many reasons induced to conclude that this severe ungospellary way of proceeding hath been the cause of ruin of Trade impoverishing and many afflictions of this Nation It hath made us an Obloquy to all our Neighbors hinders Traffique becomes a prejudice to the Reformed beyond Seas a discontenting our Friends at Home a Scandal to all the World a disheartning of a great many good Subjects Persecution stops all our Friends mouths weakens their hands and droops their hearts on this account many families have left the Land to remove into some country where they may have liberty by this means the trading stock of the Nation is conveyed away To use external force in matters purely of Faith and Religion you must side with and support all corrupt interest tire and weary out your selves with never-failing troubles and anxious difficulties attended with a hundred fears and in conclusion if you prosper in such practices you would but leave Posterity partakers of the Bondage you entail upon the People What benefit or credit was ever got by persecution these eighty years have not many noble persons on that account left the Land many Religious men and women cloistered to retire to spend their means and lives in other Countreys have not Princes and States of that Religion expressed much disatisfaction to see them unmercifully used hath not a general consumption of comfort unity affection settlement and content and many sad mischiefs befallen us the last Century on this only score hath not God shewed his just chastisements judgments upon the chief actors complices contrivers and abetters of such inhumane proceedings as in Cromwel Cecil Dudley Leicester Somerset Walsingham Bacon c. We deceive our selves to promise or exspect to King or Kingdome Prince or Subject Peace or Safety or Deliverance from our Troubles if we subordinate Fundamentals in Religion and necessary Truths of Faith to our private or civil Interest If he be an unwise man who provides means where he designs no end persecutors will never be able to accomplish their end For experience tells us that punishments and persecutions never lessens the resolution of Christians but alwaies heightens Zeal and sometimes draws men into leagued Factions which indulgence and favour would prevent It is observed by all lookers into Antiquity that Christian Religion still got ground in the world not by persecuting but by being persecuted And our penal Laws rather increased then hindred the growth of Popery Whence King James observed that Sanguis Martyrum est semen Ecclesiae the spilling of Christian Blood is but the watering of Christ's Vineyard This Pine-Tree the more it is pressed the higher it groweth This Camomile the more it is troden the thicker it cometh up This Walnut-Tree the more it is beaten the more fruitful it waxeth Yea even the Non-Conformists are likely still to increase as from Edward the sixts time to this they have gradually done notwithstanding the rigour of Ecclesiasticks agaâ—nst them and that which we cannot
not take it upon them For any indifferent Judg would wonder you should have better intelligence of their Religion than they themselves Thirdly All examples and practices of the Primitive Churches mentioned in the Ecclesiastical Histories the custom was when any Dispute did arise concerning the integrity of the Doctrine professed in any particular Church that Church so question'd did always set down in writing a Confession of their Faith and transmit it either to the Patriarch or some general Council that so the sincerity of their belief might be tried by the touchstone of the Church universal Fourthly Faith being an internal consent of our will and subjection of our understanding to truths revealed in absolute justice none but we our selves can make an authentical manifestation of what passeth in our souls of that nature And besides it being the duty of every Christian not only to make open profession of his Faith when occasion requires it but also to make such a profession with all possible sincerity and truth for to use any falsity or dissimulation in a case of this concern were not only to deceive men but even to belye the holy Ghost It will necessarily follow first no judgment can be made of anothers faith but by the confession of the party himself and secondly that a greater assurance cannot be given between man and man of veracity and secret dealing than when we publickly declare our faith upon any point of Controversie Upon these grounds and these circumstances I presume their Antagonists will be so reasonable as not to question the truth and reality of their meaning in what they declare concerning their Tenets in the points of Allegiance or Doctrine Here I will set them down submitting to the honour and conscience of all sober men and to any indifferent Judges who will not retain the animosity and prejudice of parties to give sentence whether they are not consistent with loyalty and the duty of good Subjects and Christians v. g. They hold CHARLES the II. is their true and lawful Soveraign Secondly that no Power on earth shall absolve them from their natural Allegeance Are ready by Oath in the face of Heaven to profess their loyalty indispensable from which no power can free them Thirdly that they are bound with their lives and fortunes to defend the sacred Person of his Majesty in his just Rights against all opposers whatsoever domestick or forraign Fourthly that Faith is to be kept with all men indifferently and equally whether they be Roman Catholicks or of any other Religion And that our engagements promises and contracts cannot lawfully be broken or dispensed with by any power on earth to the prejudice of any third Person They believe the holy Scriptures to be of infallible authority and assent to it as the word of God They believe the sacred mystery of the blessed Trinity one eternal almighty and incomprehensible God whom only they adore and worship as alone having soveraign dominion over all things to whom only is due from Men and Angels all glory service and obedience abhorring to give their CREATORS honour to any creature whatsoever Whence they solemnly profess that by the Prayers they address to Angels and Saints they intend no more but to sollicite their assistance before the throne of God as we desire the Pravers of one another here upon earth not that they hope any thing from them as original authors thereof but from God through Jesus Christ our only Mediator and Redeemer Neither do they believe any Divinity or Virtue to be in Images for which they ought to be worshipped as the Gentiles did their Idols But they retain them with due and decent respect in their Churches as instruments which we find by experience do often assist our memories and excite our affections Pictures may be of good use saith our learned Bacon if the representation of divine stories as well work upon them to contemplate those things as lascivious Pictures do Obscenity Charity obligeth us no other construction of the words of men than what they profess to be their own sense but I never heard or read Images absolutely to be worshipped or Saints absolutely prayed to They firmly believe that no force of nature or dignity of our best works can merit our justification but we are justified freely by grace through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ and though we should by the Grace of God persevere in a godly life yet are our hopes of eternal Glory built upon the mercy of God and the merits of Christ Jesus All other merits according to the sense of that word signifie no more than actions done by the assistance of Gods Grace to which it has pleas'd his Goodness to promise a reward A Doctrine so suitable to the sense of holy Scripture that nothing is so frequently repeated in it as his gratious promises to recompence with everlasting Glory the Faith and Obedience of his Servants 1 Tim. 4. 8. Rom. 2. 6 8 13 Heb. 6. 10. Luke 16. 38. thus we believe the merit or rewardableness of holy living both which signifie the same with us arises not from the value even of our best actions but from the grace and bounty of God And for ourselves we sincerely profess when we have done all we are are able or commanded we are unprofitable servants Luke 17. 10. These they sincerely and solemnly profess as in the sight of God the searcher of all hearts taking the words plainly without any equivocation or mental reservation And now let them that judg so severely lay their hands on their hearts and with the same justice and equity with which they expect to be judged themselves at the last day Let them pronounce whether or no their Doctrine or Principles are inconsistent with the duty of good Christans or Subjects and the peaee and safety of Government In Law and Reason every man à fortiori a society of men ought to be esteemed honest and just till the contrary appear to be proved but nothing hath hitherto appeared to be proved against the loyalty of Catholicks therefore in reason and justice they ought to be esteemeed good Subjects and Neighbours and it is a meer Calumny to asperse them That nothing can be proved is evident their accusers being often pressed thereunto were never able to produce any particular or any proof sufficient to satisfie any rational man But dwelling in vain general suspicions triflings and false presumptions laying to their charge extravagant crimes that have not the least proof or probability objecting positions of some private and disavowed persons the crimes and indiscretions of particular men to all the party to traduce and defame the whole we aggravate the failings of a few The world knows it were no difficulty to recriminate in this kind and repay them with the same dirt If such accusations pass current who would or could be innocent No people on the earth can be safe at this rate Would not this Logick make the
to give no candid allowance to others in many failings this is utterly inexcusable The way indeed may not be broad in respect of practice or sensual indulgence yet it hath a latitude in respect of judgment and circumstantial opinion A middle moderate paâ—ifick way He that stands in the middle path may extend the arms of his charity on both sides Extreams are dangerous Our affections ought to meet though our judgmenâ—s cannot Christian love is necessary but agreement in opinion is neither necessary nor possible Love and goodness prevail Where nothing else will these win and captivate the Soul And such conquests are more noble and better than either those of arts or arms Now to attain this excellent Catholick temper we are to love virtue in a Heathen and S. Paul 1 Cor. 7. saith If any brother hath a wife an Infidel and she consent to dwell with him let him not put her away what can be said more to oblige Christians to charity and meekness to forbear one another than an injunction of an Apostle to live peaceably even with an Infidel The excellency of christian love is preferred before all gifts and natural perfections Cor. 13. it is the image of God it is his vital Spirit infused into us and renders us most like to our Maker It is the Spirit of Angels and glorified Souls The Celestial Inhabitants live and abide in love sweetness and benignity 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 for there is joy at the conversion of a sinner and consequently love to converted Saints care and pity for the rest of men Love and charity is the vital grace of Christian Religion and though mens understandings are convinced already that charity is their duty yet there is too much need to represent some of the vast heap of Injunctions that make it so to incline their wills I shall therefore briefly lay together a few of the chief instances of this kind Our Saviour urgeth it in his command John 13. 34. he maketh it a distinguishing note of his Disciples 13. 35. and enjoins them to love their enemies Mat. 3. 24. And the want of it the reason of the curse pronounced on those on the left hand at the solemn judgment Mat. 41. 42. This love and union was so recommended to all Christians by the Apostles that they inculcated nothing more than the necessity thereof Saint Paul attributed thereto all the persecution of Christian Religion saying qui diligit proximum legem implevit Rom. â—3 3. and Galat. 3. 22. reckons it five times over under the names of peace long-suffering gentleness goodness and meekness Gal. 22. 23. He advanceth it above all gifts and graces 1 Cor. 13. above prophecy and mysteries and knowledge of faith And the beloved Disciple Saint John attributes unto it our being born of God And the want of this an evidence of not knowing God and a sign of one that abideth in death 1 John 3. 14. he calls him a murderer that hates another 11. 15. a lyar if he pretend to love God and loveth not his brother 1 John 4. 20. we are commanded to be kindly affected one towards another and to be pitiful and courteous 11. 10. S. Peter exhorteth to mutual charity above all things mutuam charitatem ante omnia c. Pet. 1. 8. and 4. 14. This our charity gentleness goodness meekness c. ought to extend to all men universally without limitation but especially to all Christians as Christians because such are the more special objects It must not be consined by names and the interest of parties or sects but ought to reach as far as Christianity it self To love those that are of our way humour and opinion is not charity but self-love and it is not for Christs sake but our own It is rare to meet with serious Christians who are not so deeply engaged in some party or other as to darken their judgments and pervert their affections as to all the rest What company can you come into but all their discourse is to stigmatise dissenters what bitter lyes what invectives have been raised against most grave solid and ancient Christians how blindly do they look on all that is good in those that differ from them how partially do they aggravate the faults of all that are against their way and how small a thing will serve their turn to excuse the faults of their own party and they think all this is a part of Christian zeal as if Christians engaged in a war against themselves And when all men should know them to be Christs Disciples by loving one another most men may perceive that contrary to the essence of Christianity they endeavour to make each other odious So that though I see never so much eagerness for an opinion I shall never call that zeal or religion without the conscience of christian love Yea though such men should sacrifice their lives I should not think them martyrs and in this I have the warrant of the great Apostle 1 Cor. 13. 3. though I give my body to be burned and have not charity it profiteth nothing Even those that killed Christ and his Apostles did it as a duty and a part of service of God John 16. but believe it it is Apostacy to fall from love your Souls die when charity dyeth that which killeth love and charity killeth all grace and holiness The opinions principles sidings practices which destroy love destroys your Souls O what a loathsome sacrifice is it to the God of love if we must leave our gift at the altar till we are reconciled to our offended brother what a gift is theirs who are unreconciled to almost all Churches of Christianity Young unexperienced Christians are ignorant of Satans wiles thinking when a wrathful enemies heat is kindled in them even against men of ancient principles that it is a zeal of Gods exciting spirit and that it is your duty or that you should be luke-warm in the cause of God and truth if you did it not when alas it hath more of wrath than love The white Devil is a killer of Souls as well as the black And now considering the express recommends and injunctions of all the aforesaid and many other places of holy writ to this grand duty of Religion if any can quiet their Consciences and yet continue in the contrary persecuting spirit and practice they have found a way to escape all Laws of God and may conceit themselves religious though they live in the works of the flesh hatred variance sedition c. Gal. 3. 22. There was never a more seasonable time to tell men of this great sin than when the temptation to it is greatest when God hath been so frequently dishonoured by it when the world doth ring of it