this book according to their Principles and as they use to do by others Before they have soberly read it over they will carry about the Sectarian reports of it from hand to hand And when one hath said it the rest will affirm it that I have clawed with one party and have girded at the other and have sought to make them odious by bringing them under the reproach of Separation and of censuring and avoiding the ungodly and that being luke-warm my self and a complyer with sin I would have all others do so too And that these Reconcilers are neither flesh nor fish and attempt impossibilities even to reconcile Light and darkness Christ and Belial And that for the sake of Peace we would â—ell the Truth and would let in Church-corruptions out of an over-eager desire of Agreement And when they have all done neither party will regard them but they shall fare worse than any others and will lose both sides whilest they are for neither I know it is the nature of the disease which I am curing to send forth such breath and scents as these And I intend not to bestow a word to answer them 5. And some of the wise and sober Ministers who mark more the inconveniences of one side than of the other and look more to outward occurrences than to the Rule and to the inward state of Souls especially such as have not seen the times and things that I have seen will think that though all this be true it is unseasonable and may give advantage to such as love not Reformation And to them I shall return this answer 1. That if we stay seven years more for a seasonable time to oppose the radical sin of uncharitableness we may be in our graves and the sinners in their graves and the sin may be multiplied and rooted past all hope of remedy And why may you not as well stay seven years more for a seasonable time to Preach down all other sins as well as this Is this the least malignant or least dangerous sin 2. There was never a more seasonable time to tell men of their sin than when the temptation to it is the greatest when it is most growing and multiplying among us When God hath been so heinously dishonoured by it when the world doth ring of it when many Volumes reproach them for it And when the sensual and ungodly are hardened by it in their scorn of godliness to the apparent peril of their damnation yea more to turn our complaints from our Law-givers upon our selves It is want of Love and it is Dividing principles and practices that have silenced so many Ministers and brought us into all the confusions and calamities which we see and undergo 6. But there are many sincere and considerate Ministers who knowing this which I say to be true will be the more excited by it to lead the younger and passionate sort of Religious people into the wayes of Love and peace and to save them from the dangers here detected and perswade them to the practise of these Directions And for the use of these I write this Book And yet to end as I began I must add these notices for your right understanding of it 1. That this is not my first attempt upon this work but the progress of what I have been upon these three and twenty years About fifteen or sixteen years ago I preacht on the third Chapter of Saint Iames in a larger and a closer manner on this Subject than here I write because the times then called me to it 2. I perswade no Christian to justifie or own the sins or the least defects of any Church Minister or People in their Worship or in their lives though I perswade you to Communion with the Churches persons and worship-actions which have many faults For on Earth there is no person Church or Worship faultless and without corruption I justifie not the faults of my own daily Prayers and yet I never pray without them 3. I am not perswading Ministers to any unwise and unseasonable Preaching against the dividing Principles of the weak when the necessities of the Auditory more require other Doctrine Much less to exasperating railings and invectives And least of all to wrathful violence But only with prudence in season and with Love and gentleness to lead men into the truth If even with Infidels and Hereticks the Servant of the Lord must not strive but be gentle to all men apt to teach patient in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth 2 Tim. 2. 24 25. How much more must the Children of Gods family be used with Love and tenderness But if the fierceness of any contradict what I say I only add that it is not an unexperienced person that speaketh it but one who through the mercy of God hath long kept a numerous flock in Love and unity and peace by such like means and hath seen the lamentable effects of the contrary way 4. While I say so much in this Treatise against the rash censuring of others I give you not the rule for mens censuring of themselves They know more by themselves They may search into the depth of their hearts and intentions which we cannot do They are allowed to be more suspicious censorious of themselves than of any others It more concerneth them And they have more to do with themselves and may be bolder with themselves We judg others in order to visible Church-Communion by visible and publick evidence But in order to their preparation for the judgment of God we must direct them to judge themselves according to the truth in the inward parts 5. While I draw you to peace and moderation towards others I desire not to quench the least degree of Christian zeal Nay I endeavour to kill that which would kill it The purified peculiar people of the Redeemer ane zealous but of what not to consume and destroy one another nor to hate and flye from one another nor to vilifie and backbite one another but they are zealous of good works And Paul will tell you what are good works Gal. 5. 22 23. Love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness faith meekness temperance Be zealous in Loving all Christians as Christians and all men as men Be zealous for Peace If it be possible as much as in you lyeth live peaceably with all men Rom. 12. 18. Be zealously patient gentle good meek temperate And the works of the flesh are hatred variance emulation wrath strife sedition heresies A zeal for these is earthly sensual and devilish as Iames telleth you And remember that the word which is translated there Envy is Zeal in the Original But our translators were afraid lest the prophane would have mistaken it if they had translated it Zeal ver 16. where zeal and strife is that is a striving contentious zeal there is confusion and every evil work If you believe
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
good whilest they think that they only despise the praise or dispraise of men We are commanded not to please our selves but to please all men for their good to edification Rom. 15. 1 2 3. Our power over them is upon their minds and wills and not like Magistrates upon their bodies or estates Therefore when we have lost their hearts we have lost our power to do them good They will not easily hear him that is despised or abhorred by them Therefore a prudent care must be taken that we be not prodigal of our interest in them lest it prove to be cruelty to their souls Secondly And yet if we give up our selves to their conceits and humours and forsake the way of truth or peace to keep their favour it will prove the more dangerous extream I have before noted the peril of Ministers and the Church by this temptation The rawest and the rashest professours are commonly the most violent and censorious And so ready to scorn and vilifie the gravest wisest Pastors who cross their opinions that many honest Ministers have been overcome by the temptation to forsake their own judgement and to comply with the violent to escape their censures and contempt But this is not the way to the Churches peace It may prove a palliate cure for a time to put by at the present some sudden inconvenience But it prepareth for after troubles and confusions First it will make the rashest and indiscreetest people which is usually the women and young men to be the Governours of the Church Whilest all their Teachers must humour them lest they displease them Secondly When you have followed them a little way and think there to stop you must follow them still further and never can foresee the end For that weakness and passion of theirs which crieth up one errour to day is pregnant with innumerable more and may cry up more to morrow and so on And one errour commonly draweth on more and one miscarriage engageth them to another And the last are usually the worst And the same ends and reasons which made you go out of the way to please them will make you still follow them how far soever they go unless you repent Thirdly And if you repent and leave them it must cost you dearer than prevention would have done And you might have at much cheaper rates forsaken them just there where they forsook the way of truth and peace Fourthly And you will by following the conduct of giddiness and passion disâ—dvantage your Ministry as to all the less zealous and all the more sober and peaceable of the godly And you will bring your selves into contempt with these for your levity injudiciousness and instability And so you will lose much more than you will get Fifthly And in the mean time you will be made but the vulgars instrument to do hurt you will be used by them but to confirm themselves in their errours and to further dividing and unpeaceable designes-Sixthly And when all is done and your consciences are wounded and you are made the heads or leaders of factions at last those of themselves that God sheweth mercy to will see their errour and when they repent they will give you little thanks for your compliance A sinful humouring of rash professours is as great a temptation to godly Ministers as a sinful compliance with the Great ones of the world I mean it is a sin which our station and disposition afford us as great temptations to For though to a worldling wealth and honour be stronger temptations yet to a godly man the applause or censure of those whom we account most wise and godly may tempt much stronglier And alas how ordinarily doth the fire of Church and state which flameth about our own ears convince us of our errour in following those whom we should lead O how many doleful instances of it doth Church history afford us There are not many of the tumults that have cost the lives of thousands about Religion but were kindled by the young injudicious professours who drew in their Teachers to humour them in countenancing too much of their disorders Historians tell us that when King Francis of France had forbid the reproaching of the Papists way of worship and silenced the Ministers for not obeying him many of the hot brain'd people took up the way of provoking them by scornful pictures libels hanging up and down in the streets suchridiâ—ulous and reproachful rhimes and images But this which was none of the way of God began that persecution by provoking the King which cost many thousands if not hundred thousand lives before it ended And the Synod at Rochel which refused the grave counsel of Du Plessis Du Moulin and many such others was stirred up by the peoples zeal and ended in the blood of many score thousands and the ruine of the power of the Protestants in France Abundance of such sad instances might be given if England need to go any whether else for matter of warning than to it self He that after the experiences of this age will think it fit to follow the conduct of injudicious zealots is left as unexcusable as almost any man that never had a sight of hell The dreadful ruine of Ierusalem according to Christs prediction such as the world hath scarce seen besides was just in the like manner brought about by those furious ones whom Iosephus calleth the zealots But if you will do all things good and lawful to win men and offend them by no unnecessary thing and yet stand your ground and stir not an inch from truth or seberness piety or peace to please any people in the world This way shall do your work at last Men will at last perceive the worth of sober principles and wayes At least when Mountebanks have killed most of their patients the rest will repent and wish that tâ—ey had hearkened to the counsellers of peace They that run round when they find themselves giddy and ready to fall will lay hold upon somewhat which is firm and stable Compliance with one of the contentious parties may make you cried up by that party for a time But the contrary faction will as much cry you down and your estimation is but like an Almanack for a year And they themselves that needed your sinful help for some present job will be like enough ere long to cast you off as is aforesaid And if they do not you are objects of pity to sober standers by And in the next age the name of a Melancthon a Bucer a Bergiuâ— a Crocius an Vsher and other such Peace-makers will be pretious to posterity when the memory of fiery dividers will be dishonourable Keep your standing and stick closer to truth and justice and peace than to any party and resolvedly give up your selves to please God and you will be no loosers by it And its two to one but at last some of the contenders will desire you to be the arbitrators of