lovely but loathsom too when abstracted from the part which is immaterial and for this reason it is that the zealousest Lover of what is worldly and who hath nothing in him of Christ whereby to qualifie and inable him for Spiritual love He I say would not be able to love the Body above the Soul if the Beauty of the Soul did not shine through the Body And if we do not only hear this but lay it up in our Hearts too nor only assent to it as True but consider it also as useful it will be sure of great moment first for the raising of our Thoughts and after that of our Affections from the things that are seen which are temporal to the things that are not seen which are eternal And then believing with S. Paul for without such Belief no such love can be imagin'd That our Life is hid with Christ in God we shall be still making thither to find it out Our Love of Christ will not leave him for being but gon out of our sight but will rather soar up in pursuit of him as far as Heaven and find him out pleading for us at the right hand of God And there beholding him as he is full of Grace and Truth and unimaginable Glory such as eye hath not seen nor Ear heard nor hath ever enter'd into the heart of man to conceive 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Loves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What Longings 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith Plotinus what Exiliencyes of Soul will then transport us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with what weightiness of Bliss shall we then be smitten whilst we love him as he is Good we shall desire him as he is lovely and never cease from desiring till we enjoy him as he is Blessed I mean as the Fountain of Bliss and Glory If any man shall here ask by what means he may behold the unspeakable Beauty which is above that so beholding he may be ravish't with the sweet violence of its Attractions the answer to it may be had from the same Plotinus No man saith he can see true Beauty but by casting the sight of his eyes behind him And again saith that learned and pious Heathen we are to fly from those Pleasures which are but common to us with Brutes as once Ulysses from the charms of Circe and Calypso which if he had not wisely don he had never gone back to his native Countrey And we must do exactly like him if we are bound for that Countrey from whence we came and would fain see the place of our first extraction Now what but Heaven is our Countrey there dwels our Father from thence we came and what we commonly call our life is indeed our Pilgrimage For in the words of the Psalmist we are but strangers upon Earth So as the way to go thither from whence we came in a kind of Exile is to leave both our Horses and Feet behind us saith the Platonist And swiftly mounting up ourselves on the wings of Love and Desire guide we our course with those Eyes which are not without us but within us and with which if any of us are not accustomed to see it is not because we want such Eyes but only because we will not use them Unless we are got into their Classis in whom the God of this world hath blinded the minds in which case only our eyes are darkned that we not only will not but cannot use them But this is so wilful a Disability that whatsoever are the occasions we ourselves are the Causes of it For when a people are abandon'd to vile affections and severely given over to a reprobate mind it is because of their refusing the fear of the Lord and because of their not liking to retain God in their Knowledge Rom. 1. 26 28. where S. Paul's expression is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 They did not think good to have God in their acknowledgment But till then the Apostle tells us the invisible things of God are clearly seen v. 20. not indeed with those eyes we carry outwardly in our Heads but with those other more Angelical which we have inwardly in our Hearts To sum up all in a word Our affections in themselves are indifferent things apt to be cleaving to any object whether evil or good as they shall happen to be directed by carnal Appetite or Reason And if it were not in our power to set our love upon the world in despight of God's Grace or to take it from off the world by making use of its assistance the Apostle would never have exhorted us with so much earnestness as he does To love neither the world nor the things in the world To set our Affections on things above and not to set them on things below To mortifie in our selves our earthly members To cast off the old man to put on the new To cloath our selves with Love as with the bond of Perfection To let the Peace of God reign in our Hearts To afford the word of God an Habitation and Dwelling within our selves From all which together 't is very natural to inferr that if we have not yet wasted the Talent of Grace which God hath given us which undoubtedly of itself is sufficient for us and does competently arm us with Ghostly strength we can see and we can love and can delight in the Lord Jesus and by consequence if we will we can escape the sad effects of being Anathema Maranatha But now 't is time that after the first we put in practice a second instrument whereby to raise up our Love to the Lord Iesus Christ. That is as much as in us lyes we must provoke our selves to jealousie and a religious Aemulation by considering how others have lov'd our Saviour to whom he could not be a Saviour with more obligingness than he is ours We find S. Paul was so inflam'd with the love of Christ who yet a little while before had been a virulent Blasphemer and Hater of him and did so long after a time of being admitted into his presence that in comparison of Christ he counted all things but loss and all things Gain on the contrary which might any way help him in his approach That though there is nothing in the world which Nature hates more than the terrible Face of a Dissolution yet there was nothing which that Apostle did so much long for Not at all for the love of a Dissolution which he detested in one sense whilst he desir'd it in another but for the love of that Christ from whom he was absent in the Body and could not so well be present with as by the favourable Help of a Dissolution That indeed was his Cordolium There it was his shoo pinch't him 'T was his most passionate aspiring to be with Christ which made him groan so very earnestly under the Burden of
that which is True The vulgar sort of professed Christians who are the speculative Solifidians will not submit to any Tryal unless their own Fansie may sit as Iudge And being destitute of obedience to the Commandments of Christ which should be a witness from without of the love they bear to him whereby they might prove it to other men they appeal to the strength of their own perswasion call'd a witness from within of their Love to Christ and whereby they pretend to prove it inwardly to themselves But this is an Error so full of danger and indeed so void of sense that I know not if I may judge it more extravagant in itself or more pernicious in its effects For 't is apt to place presumption on the right hand of Faith and does make the sanguin'sts Hypocrites to pass in disguise for the holiest men Mistake's a callous and a sear'd for a quiet Conscience and sets up every mans heart as the great Touchstone of his Affections though itself needs a Touchstone the most of any For what saith God by the Prophet Ieremie The Heart of man is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it Touching our heads and our hands and other parts of our composition we may be easily supposed to have some knowledge But God alone is the searcher of all our hearts Ier. 17. 10. And are not they in a goodly way of being rectified in judgment both concerning themselves and their love to Christ who take their measures from the Fountain of all deceit God was never more angry in the Times of the Law than with them who were Prophets of the deceit of their own Heart Ier. 23. 25. Those Plaisterers of Satan whose custom 't was to dawb with untemperd morter and to heal the wounds of the people slightly speaking peace to their Consciences before their Consciences had Peace with God And t is as evident from the words of the wise King Solomon Prov. 24. 24. that nothing but Woes and Imprecations belong to those Temporizing and Popular Teachers who do nourish themselves with the peoples Favour by nourishing the people with their deceits For there is no higher way whereby to gratifie the Devil and make him glad than by lulling poor souls into carnal security Nor can a speedier course be taken to make them carnally secure than by making them believe that let their Sins be what they can be they may be lovers of Christ and vessels of absolute Election and can never fall totally much less finally from Grace and that for this reason because they think so because they are inwardly perswaded because 't is set upon their Hearts as they use to word it because they take it for granted and do not make the least doubt A way of reasoning I cannot tell whether more common or more irrational For to say they are assured because they stedfastly believe or that they know they shall be sav'd because they are strongly perswaded of it is to argue that they know even because they know not For Faith and Knowledge in the proper acception of the words cannot be conversant at once about the very same object And that men may take that for the voice of Conscience or else for the whisper of God within them which yet is nothing in the world but either a forgerie of the Head or a Deceitfulness of the Heart is very evident from the Scriptures both of the Old and New Testament For there we read of a Generation who are pure in their own eyes yet are not washed from their filthiness Who bless themselves in their own Hearts saying we shall have peace even whilst they persevere in adding Drunkenness to Thirst. We read of the Hypocrites having an Hope but we read too that it shall perish We read of Priests teaching for hire and Magistrates judging for reward whilst yet they lean upon the Lord and say is not the Lord among us none evil can come upon us Many will plead their great merit who yet shall be damn'd in the day of Judgment Matth. 7. 22 23. And even the children of the Devil may think that God is their only Father Ioh. 8. 11. All which being consider'd I cannot approve of their skill or kindness whereof we have an account in Print who taught an horrible Malefactor to please himself with this Syllogism after his sentence of Condemnation for wilful murder God hath said whosoever repenteth and believeth shall find mercy and be saved My Conscience telleth me and witnesseth to me that I repent and believe and am one of those whosoever therefore Christ is mine I shall find mercy and be saved Now admit that this Murderer was in a very safe state yet sure he took not the way to prove it but only the way that he had been taught For what he took to be the dictate or suggestion of his Conscience might be possibly nothing more than the delusion of his Phansie or the pleasant deceit of his Imagination And this is certain that unless by Repentance he meant Amendment which he could not well discover as he was hastening to the Gallows and unless by believing he meant an Operative Faith such as worketh by love and by such a love too as is the fulfilling of the law which he could not well be sure of as he was going into his Grave there was not so much as a possibility that he should prove himself sure of having an interest in Christ. The murderer should therefore have argued thus Whosoever believeth and repenteth and does both sincerely so as to lead a new life and to bring forth fruits meet for Repentance He hath an interest in Christ and is in a state of Salvation But I believe and repent and I hope sincerely and also hope that if I live I shall lead a new life therefore I humbly hope I have an interest in Christ and in consequence of that am in a state of Salvation In the mean time he should have pray'd and his Teachers should have helpt him both by their Prayers and their advice that God would deliver him from the danger of being deceived by his own Heart into security and presumption which would only have betray'd him into a mischievous consolation he having deserved by his Impieties to be one of their number who are delivered up unto strong delusions and wholly left to believe a lye This I say should have been don because there is nothing more agreeable to the condition of such a Penitent as had been lately by his Confession at once a Robber and a cheat a fornicator and a blasphemer and even a murderer of his brother sleeping innocently by him in the very same bed than to mingle his Faith with pious Fear and his Hope with that holy trembling wherewith we all are to work out our own Salvation Now having hitherto made an Amulet for the contagion of the Times by the negative part
less the greatest which he requires Our obedience unto Christ like Christ's obedience unto the Father must not only be paid to some but to all his Commandments without exception All that Abigail could but say Christ Jesus acted For she desir'd to wash the feet of the servants of her Lord but He de facto did wash the feet of the servants of Himself who yet was their Lord and Davids too So very low went our Saviour in the Active part of his Obedience but his passive was lower yet not only to the Death which is the wages of disobedience but to the Death of the Cross too the worst of Deaths and the most terrible whether we consider its shame or torment By such incomparable Obedience both active and passive did the love of our Saviour express it self And shall not our love to Him express it self in our being clean In the keeping of our selves unspotted from the world Shall we adventure to be the worse for his goodness to us or violate his precepts with peace and comfort because we know he dyed our Sacrifice and is our Advocate with the Father and the propitiation for all our Sins No let us strive against sin though we resist it unto Bloud And resist it so much the rather because obliged to it by Him who is a God ready to pardon If He was prodigal of his life when he could spend it to our advantage why should we niggardly keep our Lives when 't is the thrivingst course to lose them That there is a certain case wherein we may save them to our loss and that again there is a case wherein we may lose them to our advantage is the peremptorie assertion of Christ himself He that will save his life shall lose it and he that will lose his life for my sake the same shall save it Now till we come to this pitch of being able in time of trial to lose a life for Christ's sake we have not satisfied the Text in its full Importance and by consequence till we have we stand in need of being taught from another Topick I mean we ought to be persuaded by seeing the terrors of the Lord or at least to be frighted by them And considering that S. Paul hath comprehended them all at once in that short pandect of Imprecations his dreadful Anathema Maranatha as also considering that the sins by which those Curses are all incurr'd do all arise from this Fountain a most unnatural want of love to the Lord Iesus Christ I cannot think of a fitter Text whereon to continue my Meditations than that Sentence of S. Paul in his first Epistle to the Corinthians If any man love not the Lord Iesus Christ let him be Anathema Maranatha And this I mean shall be the subject of the second part of my Design THE INTRODUCTION TO The Second Part. Sect. 1. AMongst the many obliging Titles which God in reference to Man vouchsafes to take upon Himself there is not any so apt to melt us as that of Eridegroom For whilst in other Relations to us he is the object of our Fear our Adoration our Admiration and the like still in the quality of a Bridegroom all he draws from us is Love And if we weigh the chief ingredients which are prescrib'd to make up and compound a Christian every grain of pure love will go as far as many pounds of our Awe and wonder Faith and Hope are great vertues but Love is greater And that as for many other reasons so in particular also for This that God was never yet said to be Faith or Hope nor is it possible for him to be so but S. Iohn hath said plainly that God is Love And therefore Love of all Graces makes us most to resemble the God that made us 'T is true indeed that Faith and Hope must help to carry us into Heaven But holy Love besides that will keep us company when we are there Our Love indeed shall there be perfected but only perfected into Love that though it shall cease to be incomplete it shall not cease to be it self Whereas our Faith and our Hope shall be for ever don away For that shall dy into experience and so shall this into Fruition Sect. 2. To fear and honour Him that made us is a most acceptable service Mal. 1. 6. But very passionately to love him does please him far beyond both It being absolutely in vain that we do honour him as a Father or that we fear him as a Lord unless we Love him as a Bridegroom who hath betrothed us to Himself Take away Love and Fear hath Torment Or take away Love and Honour degenerates into Hypocrisy Both are servil in themselves until our Love does manumit them and make them free Our Fear and our Honour are only welcom for our Loves sake whereas our sole or single Love is welcome to him for its own Sect. 3. Nor may you think that I have nam'd the utmost privilege of Love above other Graces For Love alone is that Motion or Affection of the Soul by which we render back to God though not ex aequo yet de simili a noble kind of Retaliation If he is Angry we are to Tremble not to be angry with him again If he Commands we must obey and if he censures we must adore him But by no means presume to return the like Nay if he saves us or sets us free we cannot thank him for it in kind we cannot make him a Retribution either of safety or of deliverance But when he condescends to love us we can and must love him without the Arrogance of taking too much upon us For to this very end does he begin to us in Love that though we never can requite yet at least we may pledge him with Love for Love Sect. 4. Again of all the Emanations or Affections of the Soul the Love of God is that alone which carries with it its own Reward I mean a Pleasure and Satisfaction which cannot admit of an allay by either Repentance or Satietie Indeed to love him for somewhat else is to receive no greater Pleasure than somewhat else has the luck to affect us with But to love him for himself is to possess the very end because the object of our Love For the greatest injoyment of such a Lover is still to love what he injoyes Hence it was that S. Austin did argue thus in his Confessions Thou hast commanded me Lord to love thee and dost threaten me with Hell if I love thee not Whereas 't is Hell enough to me that I cannot love thee enough For to love thee as I ought as thou deservest and I desire would be at once the greatest Duty and highest Reward to be imagin'd It would not only be my Task but my Heaven to love thee Sect. 5. Now when Interest and Honour conspire with Pleasure and Satisfaction to make us kind may it not seem a great wonder
over our Hearts This is properly the love of our Lord Iesus Christ. And this again must be considerâ—…d in that degree of perfection wherein 't is taken in the Text. As a love of Christ unto the Death a love which casteth out Fear and such as does not wax cold in the sharpest winter of Tribulation For the curse which here follows seems to relate unto the Gnosticks and to as many of their posterity as should at any time be infected by their opinion Such as were Prodicus and the Adamites and the Sect of the Helkesaitae who were totally for a prosperous not for a persecuted Religion zealous Followers of Christ in Times of Peace but in Times of Persecution Forsakers of him Sect. 2. The sum and upshot of all is this The Love of Christ which is requir'd for the escaping of the Curse is such a Love of his Person as is attended with a Love of his precepts too And such a love of his precepts as shews it self in an Obedience without Exception or Reserve and obedience both active and passive too Nor with respect only to some but in the words of the Psalmist unto all his Commandments Our love of Christ must be set off with a comparative detestation of all below him For if any man come to me saith Christ himself to his Disciples and hate not his Father and Mother and Wife and Children and Brother and Sister yea and his own life also he cannot be my Disciple Luke 14. 26. There we see though we are bound to love our livelihood and our Lives yet we are bound to hate Both in comparison of the Love which we owe to Christ. And that so high a degree of love is indispensably required many parallel words of Christ do put it out of all Question As He that loveth his life shall lose it and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal Whosoever shall deny me before men him will I also deny before my Father which is in Heaven Is any man will come after me let him deny himself and take up his Cross daily and follow me For whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words of him shall the son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his own Glory and in his Fathers and of the holy Angels And when 't is said by the Apostle If we suffer we shall reign it is imply'd we shall not if we do not suffer As therefore he who puts to sea let his design be what it will is to resolve before hand to run the risque of the foulest weather and not to go but to be carried nor so much whither the Pilot shall please to steer him as whither the wind and the waves shall be pleased to drive him so before we do resolve to ingage our selves in Christianity we ought in prudence to make a Reckoning as well of the Price that it will cost us as of the Profit and Advantage 't will bring us in If we conceive that our Reward though yet but future and invisible will yet prove at last an abundant Recompence for whatsoever we can do or suffer here for Christ's sake then resolve we with S. Paul to reckon all things but Dung for the winning of it Ever pressing towards the mark by Mortifications and Self-denials and laying aside the every weight which doth so easily beset us by a fellowship with his sufferings and a conformity to his Death for the Prize of the high Calling of God in Christ Iesus But if on the other side we esteem it too hard a bargain which Christ hath made in the New Testament And that to drink of his deadly Cup will be a bitterer potion than all his Love and his Promises will be able to sweeten then let us never so much as enter into a Covenant with Christ but rather than begin and only begin to do him service fairly leave it unto those who have the patience and the courage to go quite through it He is a mad kind of chapman who makes a contract with Christ for a participation of his Kingdom without resolving upon his Cross too Himself hath told us what 't is like Luke 14. 31. It is just like a King who going to war against another King doth not first sit down and consult whether he be able with Ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with Twenty thousand For even so saith our Saviour at the 33. verse of that chapter whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath be it his Pleasure his Reputation his livelihood or his life he cannot be my Disciple Sect. 3. Yet let not any man here object against his hope of Salvation and ground of Comfort Infoelix ego sum infausto tempore natus sad and evil is my Condition because I live in good times I cannot possibly be a Martyr for want of a Nero or a Domitian a Dioclesian or a Cromwel whereby to evidence my Love of the Lord Jesus Christ and to exercise my Faith with a fiery Trial. For that I may take him out of the Agony which he possibly may be in whilst he considers how great a Love is indispensably requir'd for the escaping of the Curse which is here denounced any man living however prosperous may be a Confessor or Martyr by a generous Resistance of his Prosperities by being under a persecution he wisely brings upon Himself by destroying his wicked Appetites though dearer to him than his Eyes and by retrenching those darling habitual lusts which are as hardly parted with as his hands and feet Be not therefore like King Polycrates too much afflicted with thy Prosperityes nor like the Emperor Mauritius so much terrified from within for want of Troubles from without as to conclude thy self a Bastard in God's account through a defect of that chastisement which is the character of a Son For if thou usest those Talents of Grace and Reason which God hath given thee thy Ambition may be the Nero whom thou resistest unto Bloud Or thy Avarice the Domitian by whom thou art plagu'd for thy Non-compliance Or thy lust the Dioclesian from whom thou suffer'st for thy Dissents Or thy Cruelty may be the Cromwel whom thou refusest to obey at thy great Expense Wilt thou know by what martyrdom thy Love to Christ may be expressed in Times of Peace and how to suffer for God though never persecuted by men Be but contented with all Events and ever rise with an Appetite from the most warrantable Injoyments Envy no mans preferment nor ambitiously covet to make it Thine pay Obedience to thy Superiours though they may seem never so froward do whatever God bids thee though it shall seem never so hard resist the Dalliance of the Flesh though never so pleasant or Importuning and then in all these together thou art a Martyr of Patience with holy Iob of Abstinence with Daniel
himself For what saith our Saviour If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy Brother and then come and offer thy gift As if he should have said Get thee gon and be Honest before thâ—…u talk'st of being Godly Now together with this compare S. Iohn's way of reckoning In this the children of God are manifest and the children of the Devil whosoever doth not righteousness is not of God neither he that loveth not his Brother And we know that we have passed from Death unto Life because we love the Brethren Nor does our Saviour say thus by this shall all men know ye are my Disciples if they see ye love God but by this they shall know it is ye love one another Because our love of one another does presuppose we love God which 't is impossible that we do in case we love not one another For he that hateth his Brother is a Murderer and abideth in Death 1 John 3. 14 15. Thus we see how this Scripture is profitable for Doctrin Sect. 3. And as for Doctrin so also for Reproof Because it serves to convince us of the small proportion of Christianity which is to be found amongst men who are commonly call'd Christians How much there is of the word and how little of the thing When the son of man cometh shall he find Faith on the Earth Yes store of that Faith which will ever be common to men with Devils But when the Son of man cometh shall he find Iustice shall he find Mercy shall he find Love upon the Earth shall he find that Faith which worketh by Love and which worketh by such a Love as is the mother of Obedience and the mother of such obedience as is impartially due to the Law of Christ Alas how frequent a thing is it for Christians to persecute their fellow-Christians and then to reckon it as the character of their Discipleship under Christ As if they read the Text backwards or understood it by an Antiphrasis supposing Christ had meant thus By this shall all men know ye are my Disciples if ye Hate one another It is a Crime the more enormous to hate and persecute a Neighbour under colour of Devotion and zeal to God because it breaks the Commandments against each other For if the same God who saith Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart does also say in the same instant Thou shalt love thy Neighbour as thy self It cannot but follow that to persecute or hate a Neighbor in pretense of affection and zeal to God is to take up the Second Table in anger and to dash it in pieces against the first And what is that in effect but to make the Law it s own Transgressor The character of a Christian recommended here to us by Christ himself is not certainly such a praedatorie and ravenous love of one another as was that of the Scribes and Pharisees wherewith they lov'd widdows Houses so far forth as to devour them and eat them up Nor such a cruel kind of love as that of the Canibals in Herodotus who glutted themselves with the flesh of men because they lov'd it as well as Ven'son For when Professors are transported with such an unnatural kind of love as gives them an appetite to bite and devour each other as the Apostle speaks to the Ephesians or to eat up God's people as if they would eat Bread as the Psalmist thought fit to phrase it it hath a tendency to nothing but mutual Ruin No the note of distinction whereby to know a sincere and a solid Christian is such a divine kind of love as tends to Unity and Peace and so by a consequence unavoidable to mutual safety and preservation If we are rooted and grounded in such a love to one another as that of Christ unto us all we shall be known by the fruit we bear to have been grafted into him who is indeed the true vine We shall not only do to no man what we would that no man should do to us which was the Motto an Heathen Prince would needs have carved in all his Plate But what we wish that all men would do to us we shall earnestly endeavour to do to all men we shall love them for God's sake whom for their own sakes we cannot love If we are mearly weak brethren we shall manifest by our weakness we are not wilful And if strong we shall bear the Infirmities of the weak We shall walk in wisdom towards them that are without I mean the Enemies of Christ both Iewes and Gentiles that we may neither be in danger of being corrupted by their secular and sensual baits nor heighten their prejudice to the Gospel by any matter of scandal in our converse Will it not be a very sad and a shameful thing if Iewes and Gentiles shall rise in judgment against a great part of Christendom whilst Christendom shall justifie both Iewes and Gentiles First for the Jews they are so much at unity amongst themselves that however covetous in their particulars and however cruel to us Christians yet they are kind to one another and full of good works too They suffer not the needy to go without his relief nor the Captive without his ransom Nay the Esseni amongst the Jewes had all things in common and living Virgins themselves bestow'd their cost and their care in breeding other solks children This was one of the Jewish Maximes as the most elegant of their Writers hath set it down that Godliness and Honesty or the love of God and the love of men are a kind of Twin-sisters which every Creature is to espowse who is not so wedded to the world as to admit of a Divorce from the caelestial Bride-groom 'T was never allow'd unto the Jewes to abhor an Edomite or an Egyptian or to count any man as an Enemy although he were scaling the City-walls till he had absolutely refus'd their solemn offers of Reconcilement Then secondly for the Gentiles Homer describes the love of Enemies The Pythagoreans gave it in precept and Antius Restio's brave servant reduc't the doctrin into practice Whilst some of the Heathens do love their Enemies were it not well if some Christians would love their Friends What a scandal is it at this day to the Disciples of Mahomet that grand Impostor that the Spirit of Division should seem to reign more amongst Christians than amongst them Nay are there not diverse great Potentates who profess to be the followers and friends of Christ and yet are ready at any rate to buy peace of the Turk to the end they may break it with one another Or not to go so far from home how little is there of Christianity except the syllables and the sound even in