they behold some beloved texts, and their negligence of all others, or at least by the colours of prejudice that they throw upon them, each triumphs in his own sentiments, and pronounces the apostles and prophets of his side. Then he lets fly many a sharp invective against all the men that presume to oppose him; for in his sense they oppose the apostles themselves, and fight against the authority of God.

But when a man takes a bible into his hand without a preconceived scheme in his head, and though he may make use of systems to secure himself from inconsistencies, yet he puts them not in the place of the holy scriptures, but resolves to form his body of divinity by the New Testament, and derive all his opinions and practices thence: he will then find so many expressions that seem to favour the several contending parties of christians, that in some points he will perhaps be tempted to doubt of all opinions, and sometimes have much ado to secure himself from the danger of eternal scepticism: When in any doubtful point his judgment is led to a determination, it is always with great caution, and by slow degrees: He is not carried by violence to any dogmatical conclusion; he is modest in his assertions, and gentle towards all whose judgment and conscience have determined them another way, because he met with so many probable arguments on their side, in the time of his dubitation and enquiry that had almost fixed his opinion the same way too.

If I may be permitted to speak of myself, I might acquainta the world with my own experience. After some years spent in the perusal of controversial authors, and finding them insufficient to settle my judgment and conscience in some great points of religion, I resolved to seek a determination of my thoughts from the epistles of St. Paul, and especially in that weighty doctrine of justification: I perused his letter to the Romans in the original, with the most fixed meditation, laborious study, and importunate requests to God, for several months together; First without consulting any commentator, and afterwards called in the assistance of the best critics and interpreters. I very narrowly observed the daily motions of my own mind: I found it very hard to root out old prejudices, and to escape the danger of new ones: I met with some expressions of the apostle that swayed me towards one opinion, and others that inclined the balance of my thoughts another way, and it was no easy matter to maintain my judgment in an equal poise, till some just and weighty argument gave the determination; so many crossing notions, perplexing difficulties and seeming repugnances lay in my way, that I most heartily bless the divine goodness that enabled me at last to surmount them all, and established my judgment and conscience in that glorious and forsaken doctrine of the justification of a sinner in

the sight of God, by the imputation of a perfect righteousness, which is not originally his own.

From my own experiment I can easily guess what confounding intricacies of thought others pass through in their honest searches after truth. These conflicts did exceedingly enlarge my soul, and stretched my charity to a vast extent. I see, I feel, and am assured that several men may be very sincere, and yet entertain notions in divinity, all widely different. I confess now and then some opinions, or some unhappy occurrences are ready to narrow and confine my affections again, if I am not watchful over myself; but I pray my God to preserve upon my heart a strong and lasting remembrance of those days and those studies, whereby he laid within me the foundation of so broad a charity.

V. Fifthly. Another cause of uncharitableness, is a want of reflection, on the grounds of our own opinions. We should be more just to ourselves, and more gentle to others, if we did but impartially review the reasons why we first embraced our several principles and practices. Perhaps it was education determined most of them, then let us chide ourselves severely for building upon so careless and slight a bottom: Or let us be civil to the greatest part of mankind, who came by all their principles the same way. Perhaps we were led into particular notions by the authority of persons whom we reverence or love; then we should not upbraid our neighbours that have been influenced into different sentiments by the same springs. Perhaps we have felt interest sometimes ready to bias our thoughts, and give us a secret inclination or aversion to a party; let us then pity the frailty of human nature, and have compassion upon men whose judgments are exposed to so mean a bribery, and sometimes have been warped aside from the truth. Or finally, perhaps it was deep meditation, a daily search into scripture, and fervent prayer were the methods by which we pursued knowledge, and established our principles upon solid reason. Let us then be so eharitable to those whom we contend with, as to suppose they sought after truth the same way, and then our contentions will have less fire and spleen in them; less of clamour and indignation against those that differ from us.

The true reason why we kindle our anger against our christian brethren that are not entirely of our party is, because we not only have the vanity to fancy ourselves always in the right, and them in the wrong; but we judge their consciences and their sincerity too, that they did not come honestly and fairly by their principles, while we never consider how we ourselves came by our own. But there are still more ways to arrive at this uncharitable temper: I must proceed to,

VI. Sixthly. Which is a common method, and thus to be

performed. If we will but trace the principles of those that dissent from us, through all the length of remote and feeble consequences, and be sure to find some terrible absurdity at the end of them, we shall not easily maintain our charity. O how often do we put their opinions upon the rack! we torture every joint and article of them, till we have forced them to confess some formidable errors which their authors never knew or dreamed of: Thus the original notions appear with a frightful aspect, and the sectators of them grow to be the object of our abhorrence, and have forfeited their right to every grain of our charity.

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Evangillo believes that Christ Jesus has completely answered the demands of the law in order to our justification, and that in the room and stead of all believers. Norineus hears this doctrine, and thus begins his chain of severe and false deductions; then, saith he, the law has no power to demand obedience of us; then we are not to be charged with sin; though we break the law hourly and profanely; then we may contemn all the commands, sport with the threatenings, and defy God the lawgiver and the avenger. He proceeds then to pronounce Evangillo a wicked antinomian, and in the name of the Lord delivers him up to Satan, that he may learn not to blaspheme; 1 Tim. i. 20. Evangillo, on the other hand who has been well instructed in the way of salvation, and has learned the duties of faith and hope, but is not yet so well improved in the charity of the gospel, hears Nomineus preaching up repentance and sincere obedience, as the conditions of our justification and acceptance with God to eternal life: He smites his breast with his hand, and cries, Surely this man knows no use of Christ in our religion, he makes void his righteousness and his death, he is a mere legalist, a papist, a rank socinian, he preaches another gospel, and though he were an angel from heaven let him be accursed; Gal. i. 8, 9.

Thus when men dress up their neighbours in all the strained consequences of their opinions with a malicious pleasure they pursue this thread of argument, they impose horrid conclusions which can never be drawn from their doctrines, and never leave the pursuit till they have pushed each other to blasphemy and damnation. Whereas, if the doctrines and the persons now mentioned were put into the balances of truth and charity, perhaps the principles of Evangillo would be found to have most weight of scripture on their side, and Nomineus more of the fair shews of reasoning: But neither the one would be found to throw Christ out of his religion, nor the other to make void the law: And both of their lives would appear shining in holiness, but that they want the bright garments of charity. Let me name

VII. A seventh spring of this uncharitable humour; and that is, when we magnify circumstancial differences into substantial ones, and make every punctilio of our own scheme a fundamental

point, as though all the law and the prophets hung upon it, as though it were the ground and pillar of all the truth in the gospel. Crucius will not allow his dissenting neighbour to be a member of the christian church, because he seperates from the modes of worship in the church of England; he cannot believe him to be a friend to Christ crucified, because he refuses to have his child baptised with the airy sign of the cross. Again the dissenting neighbour pronounces Crucius to be a mere formalist, and to have nothing of the Spirit of God in him, because he seeks not much to obtain the gifts of the Spirit, and scarce ever addresses himself to God in prayer without the assistance of a form.

Sabbaptes, that lives within two door of them, will not be lieve either of his neighbours to be a christian, because they have never been plunged under water, that is, in this sense they were never baptised: And both of them in requital agree to call Sabbaptes a Jew, because he worships only on a Saturday. Where as the all-knowing God looks down into all their hearts, beholds the graces that his Spirit hath wrought there, owns them all for his children and the disciples of his Son, though they are not yet perfect in love. They have all one commou God and Father, one Lord Jesus, one faith, one spirit of prayer, one baptism, though they quarrel so bitterly about times, and modes, and forms.

It is a very uncharitable practice to think that a man can never journey safely to heaven, unless his hat and shoes be of the same colour with ours, unless he tread the very tract of our feet, and his footsteps too be of the same size. It is a censorious and perverse fancy to pronounce a man no christian because every thought of his soul, and all the atoms of his brain are not just arranged in the same posture with mine. How ridiculously unreasonable it is for a man of brown hair to shut his brother out from the rank and species of men, and call him an ox or a lion, because his locks are black or yellow. I am persuaded there is a breadth in the narrow road to heaven, that persons may travel more than seven a breast in it: And though they do not trace precisely the same track, yet all look to the same Saviour Jesus, and all arrive at the same common salvation: And though their names may be crossed out of the records of a particular church on earth, where charity fails, yet they will be found written in the Lamb's book of life, which is a record of eternal love, and shall for ever be joined to the fellowship of the catholic church in heaven. This iniquity of uncharitableness has more springs than there are streams of branches belonging to the great River of Egypt and it is as fruitful of serpents and monsters too: Itself is a Hydra of many heads; I have drawn seven of them out at length into open light, that they may be cut off for ever: But there are others still remain as full of fire and infection. Shall I mention

VIII. An eighth here, the applause of a party, and the advance of self-interest? Have we never observed what a mighty prevalence this has over the hearts and tongues of men, and inflames them with malice against their neighbours? They assault every different opinion with rage and clamour: They rail at the persons of all other parties to ingratiate themselves with their own; and when they find their account in it, their tongues are sharpened as drawn swords, they fight for honour like young volunteers, or like the switzers for pay. When they tear away men from their habitations, cast them into the noisome prisons, and put to death the ministers of the gospel, they boast, like Jehu when he slew the priests of Baal, come and see my zeal for the Lord; 2 Kings x. 16. And as he designed hereby to establish the kingdom in his own hands, so they to maintain the preferments aud possessions, as well as the reputation they had acquired among their own sect. But Ah! How little do they think of the wounds that Jesus the Lord receives by every bitter reproach they cast on his followers! Nor will it be found a sufficient reason for the persecution of them one day, that they did not conform to human inventions. The Jansenists in France have made some reformation in the doctrines of popery, and they have been sometimes traduced for approaching the tents of Calvin: They have been in danger of being degraded and losing their spiritual dignities, and they are pushed on by this fear and ambition, to write at every turn some severe invectives against the calvinists, to shew that themselves are true sons of that uncharitable church of Rome.

Sicco has lately departed from a baptist society, and he hardly thinks himself sufficiently come out of the water till he is kindled into a flame against all those that baptize by immersion; he rails at his former brethren, to make the presbyterian and independent churches believe that he is a true convert: How art thou mistaken poor Sicco, to attempt this method of caressing thy new acquaintance? For they had rather receive a baptist into their fellowship, whose faith and holiness are conspicuous in his life, than open their doors to an uncharitable wretch that proves his conversion only by the change of an opinion, and placing his religion in railing.

Acerbion has left the communion of his father, and is become an ecclesiastic of high note in a more powerful and splendid church He seldom puts a volume into the press without sourness and hards words in it, against the society which he has forsaken, his pen is dipped in gall daily, and he grows old in malice and censure: It is pity he should so far expose the church to which he now belongs, as to think that she will esteem him a more dutiful son, by how much the less charity he has for his dissenting brethren. And I am sorry also that there should be a church in Great Britain which has devoted christiaus to the