shall be exposed to the many temptations of falling into those sins of an extravagant tongue whose Iniquities are so exceedingly both mischievous and insuperable This may perhaps seem a Mystery that there should be so vast a disproportion between the bulk and effects of the tongue But there is yet a greater Mystery behind Hitherto the fire or poyson may vye with it but there is another mystery wherein the whole world cannot match it with a parallel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 v. 11 c. It is a ridling mischief What fountain is that which out of the same hole casteth forth salt water fresh sweet water and bitter What root is that which beareth branches leaves of one sort and fruit of another What cause is that which produceth contrary effects The Sun indeed hardeneth clay softeneth wax but he doth not beam out heat and cold the difference is not in his light but in the objects which receive it But the tongue can at the same time bless God and curse man whom God made like himself and to be loved for his sake v. 9. You cannot finde in all the creation such another the heart of man it self which is comprehensive and deceitful above all things yet is deceived if it think it can do this 1. John 4.20 He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen The tongue can really bless and curse but the heart cannot really it may feignedly the love of God if true will expel the hatred of our brother if this dwell there the other will not however the stock and branches and leaves speak a Fig yet the fruit declares an Olive Talk of Wisdom and extraordinary gifts and yet stir up Divisions in the Church Pretend the love of Christ and yet live contrary to his Example and commands These things ought not so to be If you will be Christians indeed let it be known by your Love let your Wisdom appear by your meekness For if you nourish strife and envy all your pretences of religion are but specious lyes and vain brags Love is of God and malice of the Divel Christ taught you to learn of him to be lowly and meek and finde rest but faction destroyeth the peace and happiness of mankind and therefore This is not the wisdom which cometh from above c. Thus we see the greatest cheat in the world detected and arraigned In the 15. v. his disguise pull'd off by shewing both that he is not what he pretendeth and is what he most professeth to loathe In the 16. vers he is indicted as the most pernicious malefactor in the world First His cheat discovered by shewing his fountain 1. Negatively not from above 2. Positively It is earthly c. 2. His crime impleaded by discovering the sea of confusion and mischief which he bringeth upon the world And these are the two Offices of the 2. verses of my Text. In prosecution whereof what shall I do shall I exercise the same vehemence as my Apostle doth I must then exspect to be my self accused of contentiousness even while I speak against it Shall I then use gentleness I may more justly expect to be censured as an unfaithful Sollicitor of the cause of God and his Church I will endeavor to offend on the better side And if I shall then be accused of bitterness I will appeal to my Apostle who is far more invective If of coldness I will appeal to him too who hath taught to beware of strife so I shall on the one side imitate his ardour or on the other practice his Doctrine First then for the discovery of the fountain and that Negatively It cometh not from above cannot say to God as David did Psalm 87.7 1 John 1.5 Chap. 4.8 16. All my Springs are in thee God is called in the Abstract Light and Love He is called Light with so much solemnity as will hardly be matched and we are told after great preparations that this is the very summe of the Gospel He is called Love twice in one Chapter of the same Epistle And they very well set forth each other The proper Office of light and Love is to reconcile the greatest enemies multiplication and union They are both the greatest multipliers and uniters The greatest multipliers for it is the proper work of Light to Shine that is to multiply and furnish the world with it's self The Sun is such a Fountain as to stream out his light on every little atome of every side and every beam like the Fountain multiplieth into new beams so that whether we believe the Sun to be the Centre of the world it is admirable that he should extend himself to every atome of so vast a Circle or if he be not the Centre it is yet more wonderful that his light should reach the most distant Star and from thence return again to shine upon the earth Light is the greatest yea and the onely multiplier every seed multiplieth by reason of a spark of astral fire kindled in it which if it might be husbanded would fill the whole world with it's posterity As Light so Love too is ready to distribute willing to communicate Again the beams of light do so scatter themselves abroad as to keep close together not the least piece of the air where they do not embrace each other unless some gross body force a separation and even then they use all possible diligence to meet again And this doth Love too If it be possible as much as in it lyes lives peaceably with all men Thus light which Plato well honoured by calling it the shadow of God setteth forth the Divine Love in it 's two great effects liberality and peaceableness Which will more particularly appear if we consider him manifested in each office of the three persons As creator redeemer and sanctifier we shall finde that Love not strife cometh from above from the Father Son and Holy Ghost 1. First As Father and creator God is light and being so multiplied himself in begetting a world from himself Love was the procatartik Light the instrumental cause of the creation Which the Divine word describeth to have been performed after this manner Genes 1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth The heaven as the principle of light and heat and life and beauty and love The earth as the principle of darkness and cold and death and horrour and hatred And thus it was There was darkness over the face of the deep vast Abyss and the Spirit of light moved upon the face of that liquid Chaos and in a moment compassed it round and so distilled it that the purer parts drew toward the light and the grosser fled from it The purer made that light inaccessible which is the throne of God the third heaven and the evening and the morning that exalted light and that baffled darkness were the first day Then the
Spirit of light did again distil the now darker residue of the Chaos and refined its better part into the ethereal heaven the mansion of the Sun and Stars but this second days work is not expressed to have any blessing because the second number breaketh unity The Spirit of Light the third time invaded the yet darker deep and distilled the better part of it into air the rest remaining a thick water with a caput mortuum so all the darkest and horridest parts of the Chaos flying the Light were precipitated to the Centre and being not capable or not worthy of a new distillation the waters were so removed that some parts of the earth might receive the Light and furnish bodies for such living souls as the heavenly influences should kindle Thus we see in the work of Creation the best still kept highest and all the darkness of the Abyss fled to the Centre And as the world was created so is it still preserved by light and love which is the universall soul of the whole knitting the higher parts with the lower and maintaining life here with the continual influences from above and again tying the lower with such a band of love that all conspire the mutuall good This I might largely prove and confute the vulgar Philosophy which dreameth of a continual war between the elements and fancieth privation a principle of generation But I may fear to have already wearied some readers with these abstruser considerations I shall only remember this which every unlearned man may observe That the very air and water have so much love as to forget their own interest when a neighbour stands in need of their help That will descend and this will ascend to supply a vacuum which is the communicative part of love and again if the arrow or the ship make a violent division they presently hast to come together again which is the unitive part of love Only the earth is void of both parts of charity it will not communicate but sticketh to it self and as far as it can prevail freezeth the water to the same selfishness nor it loves not union but unless it be glued together with some moisture or hindred for want of place it crumbleth to pieces and all the love it hath even to it 's own children is kindled in it by the influences of heaven Thus from the work of creation which sheweth that as any thing is higher so it proportionably is filled with light love I am 1.17 it appeareth that strife is none of those good perfect gifts which are from above and come down from the Father of Lights but riseth from the uncharitable earth the seat of darkness 1 Iohn 2.9 11. Heb. 1.3 For he that hateth his brother is in darkness and walketh in darkness 2. The Son the Redeemer of the world is the brightness of his Fathers glory the express image of his Person Brightness is so expresly the image of Light that none but Philosophers know the one from the other and they tell us that brightness conveyeth light from it's fountain Christ came from heaven to bring heaven to us and us thither and he brought love as the means to reconcile God to us us among our selves The angels proclaimed his coming to be for this end that there might be peace on earth and good will both towards and among men the word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth both This great business he promoted in all his Sermons and in all his actions and all his passions in his life at his death and after his death Taught to have a love so extensive as to reach our greatest enemies so intense as that which himself exemplifyed even to dy for one another This was his old and his new his first and his last his great and his peculiar and his critical commandment Iohn 13.34 c. and 15.12 c. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples if you love one another Every disciple is known by the caracteristical precepts of his Master the disciples of Pythagoras by their silence the disciples of Plato by their sublime notions of Zeno by their apathy of Moses by their circumcision of the Sadducees by their denying the resurrection of the Pharisees by their broad phylacteries and mine by their love Their love which shall be more ardent and more large then any other in the world and that in so eminent a degree that all men even of the weakest understandings shall see and admire it Mens goods are known by their marks their Servants by their liveries soldiers by their arms and my disciples by their love And it shall be so conspicuous that all men shall see it All men know the Sun by his light and fire by it's heat the Aethiopian by his blackness and the Camel by his bunch and all men shall know my disciples by their love Thus was love Christs commandment his proper and peculiar commandment It was his commandment and it was his legacy He left a love-token to be remembred by which was not only a remembrance of his love to us but an embleme of our mutuall love among our selfs The bread which we break is the Body of Christ and teacheth us to remember that we are one bread and one body i Cor. 10.17 The same bread teacheth that he was broken for us and that we must be knit together among our selves This is the wisdome which cometh from above brought from heaven by our Saviour and by him recommended to us by all possible endearments Those practices which oppose this cannot be the cognizance of Christians of Antichrist they may be 3. When he left the world he took care to have this his dear commandment promoted in his Church by the Holy Ghost which the Apostle thus describeth Eph. 4 8. When he ascended on high he gave gifts to men Acts 2. viz. the gift of the holy Spirit whereby he installed Officers coming solemnly and visibly upon every of them in the likeness of flames of fire which resemble cloven tongues licking the air the Holy Ghost is Light too And these Officers were thus installed that they might kindle in the Church the flames of Divine Love That speaking the truth in love c. vers 15.16 i.e. That Love being the common soul of the whole Church might knit every several member with every other in one common affection and so the whole body Ecclesiastical grow up like a body natural whereof every member shareth with the rest as in one soul so in one interest and one affection To this office they were principally installed and this work they principally advanced No duty so often so ardently recommended as Love If the graces be compared the greatest of them is charity and above all we must have perfect charity If their titles be considered Love is the royal law the bond of perfection If vertues it covereth a multitude of sins it fulfilleth the law it
Hereticks That the King hath no power in Ecclesiasticall matters That in some cases the Subjects may lawfully resist the King That all men are damned who are not of our Party These and the like positions we must avoid not so much because they are Popish though indeed they be so and Jesuiticall too the worst sort of Popery as because they are both false and factions But if we lay it down crudely that we must neither do nor say as the Papists do what shall become of our Religion Must we turn Turks or Iewes or Heathens to avoid Popery If we should yet must we retain some of their belief unlesse we deny a God too Nay if we drive home this principle we must as the Apostle saith go out of the world It is by some of the Popish Writers made a character of the English Nation that they think they are so much the nearer Heaven as they are further from Rome They have too much colour to speak it of some but they betray too much malice in applying it to all This is the great difference between the Fathers of our Church and the Children of disobedience the one would have such a form of worship as might invite the soberer Papists to communicate with us the other would have either no form at all or so slovenly an one that the Papists may nauseate it the one would go as far as they may to meet the Papist in hope that at least the more moderate and uninteressed of them would go some few steps to meet us the other will go as far from them as they can that there never may be a meeting Now Ibeseech you mark which of these two they are which cause division and hinder union and avoid them Which of these best followeth the Apostles precept commanding us If it be possible and as much as in us lyeth to live peaceably with all men Which best imitateth his example that became all things to all men He that to the Iews became as a Iew that he might gain the Iewes would he not to the Papists become as a Papist that he might gain the Papist It is no groundlesse conjecture of an observing judicious person that if the Ceremonies of the Church of England had been kept among the reformed in France all the French would long since have turned Protestants Their own Cardinal it seems is of the same mind who suppressed the use of them because the people began to entertain more charitable thoughts of our religion and he feared that at next step they might preferre it before their own It was wisely done the earthen pot ought to keep distance but the brasen need not fear to come up close to it let them fear a meeting who distrust their own strength to keep distance from the means of reconciliation is the figne either of an heretick or at least of a schismatick And by this I suppose it appeareth how we ought to value that objection which is usually made against our form of Common Prayer That it is taken out of the Mass-Book If that be a sufficient accusation we must condemn our religion too When the Papists ask us Where our Religion was before Luther we have no better answer then to say It was in their own we fet it thence as the refiner fetcheth metal out of the oar We reformed from them by keeping the silver and leaving the drovs we reformed the old did not make a new It is so far from being a fault in our liturgy that it may be truly called Common so common that all Christians Papists and all may joyn with us that I doubt not to reck on it among it's excellencies and I fear not to wish that the Popish Missal were so reformed that it might be lawfull for our Protestant Merchants to communicate with them Obs It may perhaps be thought sufficient for an answer to all this to say That while we use ceremonies to draw on the Papists we thereby drive away our own brethren we cause strife at home by endeavouring peace abroad and so this very position must be marked and avoided as a causer of division Ans The Pharisees were angry with Christ for eating with Publicans yet he thought a soul well purchased with a Pharisees discontent The whole have no need of a physician you think your selves such then there is no need of complying with you And this is the present case By complying with the Papists in some innocent Ceremonies we may have hope and therefore it is charity to endeavour to reduce them to the truth You are angry and complain of Scandal By the way he that hath learned of the incomparable D. Hammond to understand what a Scandal is will see that it is a flat contradiction to complain that I am scandalised it is as if a man should say he cannot choose but stumble at that which he knoweth to lye in his way that he cannot avoyd being caught in such a trapp as he knoweth to be tilled for him whereas the very formality of a stumbling block and a trapp do consist in not being known And require that we should be really scandalous to the Papists by tempting them to hate to be reformed that you may not be angry with us for our desire to save them You disobediently quarrel at your superiors charity and to this disobedience adde a false accusation as if they brought in that strife which your selves have risen But can you thus father the division upon the Church Iudge by this case Two families are at difference The master of one of them out of love to Christ seeketh reconciliation with the adversary and useth means to procure it some of his children obey him and joyn with him in so good an enterprise others that are more implacable refuse and make a faction among the servants and then declare the good man to be a litigious person a raiser of strife among those of his houshold This is the true state of the quarrel and I beseech you mark them which are the true causes of the division and avoid them What puffing is there among some to blow up the old coales and kindle our old ridiculous but tragical fears and jealousies What crying out that Popery Popery is coming in Liturgy and Organs and Surplices c. Indeed Popery would come in apace if once we grant it to be as ancient as those things We must no longer call it an innovation nor deny it our veneration how quickly would Popery come in among us if the schismatical party could do the Papists service in that work wherein their endeavours are plainly united the destruction of that government which all the Fathers of the Church but one venerate for Apostolical and that one in his greatest bitternesse against it acknowledgeth to have been instituted as a bulwark against heresies and these men would demolish as a piece of heresy that their new discipline might be advanced How aptly are these men