The Cure of Church Divisions, Directions to pastors 2 · Direction 3
DIRECT. III.
In all your publick Doctrine and private Conference, inculcate still the necessary conjunction of Holiness and Peace; and of the Love of God and Man; And make them understand that Love is their very Holiness, and the sum of their Religion; the end of Faith, the heart of Sanctification, and the fulfilling of the Law: And that as Love to God uniteth us to Him, so Love to man, must unite us to one another; And that all Doctrine or practice is against God and against Christ and against the great work of the Spirit, and is enmity to the Church and to mankind, which is against Love a…d Unity. Press these things on them all the year, that your hearers may be bred up and nourished with these principles from their youth.
IF ever the Church be recovered of its wounds, it must be by the peaceable Disposi…ions of the Pastors and people. And if ever men come to a peaceable Disposition, it must be by peaceable Doctrine and principles: And if ever men come to peaceable Principles, it must be by the full and frequent explication of the nature, pre-eminence, necessity and power of Love: That they may heat of it so much, and so long, till Love be made their Religion, and become as the very Natural Heat and Constitution of their souls. And if ever men be generally brought to this, it must be by daily sucking it from those breasts which nourish them in the infancy and youth of their Religion, and by learning it betimes as the sum of Godliness and Christianity. And if ever they come to this, the Aged experienced ripe and mellow sort of Ministers and private Christians, must instil it into Schollars and into the younger sort of Ministers, that they may have nothing so common in their ears and in their studies, as Uniting-Love: That they may be taught to know that God is Love, and tha… he that dwelleth in Love dwelleth in God, and God in him. 1 Ioh. 4. 16. And that the Love of God, doth ever work towards his image in man: 1 Ioh. 4. 7, 11, 12, 20. And that all men as men have some of his Image in their Nature, as they are Intellectual, Free Agents exalted above the bruits. Gen. 9 6. And therefore we must Love men as men, and Love Saints as Saints; That it is Love to God and man, which is the true state of Holiness, and the New creature, and which Christ came to recover lapsed man to, and which the Holy Ghost is sent to work, and all the means of grace are intended and fitted for, and must be used for, or they are misused. In a word, that FAITH WORKING BY LOVE; or LOVE and THE WORKS OF LOVE KINDLED BY THE SPIRIT BY FAITH IN CHRIST; is the sum of all the Christian Religion. Gal. 5. 6, 13, 22. 1 Tim. 1. 5.
He that crieth up Holiness and Zeal, without a …ue commemoration of Love and Peace, doth first deceive the hearers about that very Holiness and Zeal which he commendeth, whilest he lamely and so falsly representeth and describeth it; and doth not make them know how much of Holiness consisteth in Love; nor that true zeal is Love it self in its ferv…ur and intense degree: And so people are enticed to think that Holiness is nothing but the passions of fear and grief, and earnest expressions in preaching and praying, or scrupulousness and singularity about some controverted things, or some other thing than indeed it is. And they are tempted to think that Christian zeal is rather the violence of partial passions, and the fervor of wrath, and the making things sinful which God forbiddeth not, than the fervors of Love to God and man. And when the mind is thus mocked with a false Image of Holiness and Zeal, it is cast into a sinful mold, and engaged in the pursuit of an erroneous dangerous course of life; And at last it cometh to an enmity and contempt of that which is Holiness and Zeal indeed: For it accounteth Love but a Moral-vertue (which they ignorantly take for a diminutive title of the great and primitive duties required by the light and law of nature it self.) And zealous Love is accounted by them but a carnal and selfish compliance and temporizing, and a pleasing of men instead of God; And … zealous promoting of Unity and Peace, is taken but for a cowardly neutrality and betraying of some truth, which should be earnestly contended for.
And on the other side they that preach up Love to man, and Peace and Concora without putting first the Love of God, and a Holy and Heavenly mind and life, they will cheat the poor ignorant carnal people, by making them believe that God and Heaven may be forgotten, and good neighbourhood to each other is all that is needful to make them happy.
And they will tempt the more religious sort to sin more against Love and Peace than before: Because they will think that it is but a confederacy for Satan against Christ, and a submission to the wills of proud usurpers, to strengthen their worldly interest against godliness, which these preachers mean when they plead for peace. And thus as I have known ungodly Preachers by crying down Schism, bring Schism into request, while it was no such thing as real schism, which they meant in the…r exclamations (till at last the true eruption of schism with its monstrous effects, made good people see that such an odious sin there is;) Even so I have known that a carnal Preacher, contemning Holiness, and crying up Love and Peace, hath tempted the people to have too light thoughts of Love and Peace, (because it was but a confederacy in sin with a neglect of godliness, which the preacher seemed to cry up.) Till riper knowledge better taught good people to perceive, that Love and Peace are more Divine and excellent things, than carnal preachers or hearers can imagine. The wisedome from above is first pure then peaceable: Let it therefore be a true conjunction of Holiness and Peace which you commend.