Section 7.

SECTION 7.

Some directions how to secure the blessings of peace and brotherly love. “Do all things without disputings,” says St. Paul, “that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke. Be at peace among yourselves; and if it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men:” but especially with your brethren in Christ. “Nor quench the Spirit,” by destroying its most excellent fruits, which are peace and love. And that we may not be guilty of this crime, the apostle exhorts us to “avoid contentions,” and assures us, that God will “render indignation to them that are contentious, and do not obey the truth.” It highly concerns us, therefore, to inquire how we shall escape the curse denounced against the contentious, and live peaceably with our fellow professors. And if we ought to do “all that lieth in us,” in order to obtain and keep the blessing of peace; surely we ought to follow such directions as are agreeable to Scripture and reason. I humbly hope that the following are of this number. DIRECTION I. Let us endeavour to do justice to every part of the Gospel; carefully avoiding the example of those injudicious and rash men, who make a wide gap in the north hedge of the garden of truth, in order to mend one in the east or south hedge. Let every evangelical doctrine have its proper place in our creed, that it may have its due effect on our conduct. Consideration, repentance, faith, hope, love, and obedience, have each a place on the scale of Gospel truth. Let us not breed quarrels by thrusting away any one of those graces, to make more room for another. While the philosopher exalts consideration alone; the Carthusian, repentance; the Solifidian, faith; the mystic, love; and the moralist, obedience; thou, man of God, embrace them all in their order, nor exalt one to the prejudice of the rest. Tear not Christ’s seamless garment, nor divide him against himself. He demands our reverential obedience as our King, as much as he requires our humble attention as our Prophet, and our full confidence as our Priest. It is as unscriptural to magnify one of his offices at the expense of the others, as it would be unconstitutional to honour George III. as king of Ireland, and to insult him as king of England or Scotland. And it is as provoking to the God of truth and order to see the stewards of his Gospel mysteries make much of the dispensation of the Son, while they overlook the dispensation of the Father, and take little notice of the dispensation of the Holy Ghost, as it would be provoking to a parent to see the persons, whom he has entrusted with the care of his three children, make away with the youngest, and starve the eldest, in order to enrich and pamper his second son. Where moderation is wanting, peace cannot subsist: and where partiality prevails, contention will soon make its appearance. II. Let us always make a proper distinction between essential and circumstantial differences. The difference there is between the Christians and the Mohammedans is essential: but the difference between us and those who receive the Scriptures, and believe in the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, is in general about non-essentials: and therefore such a difference ought not to hinder union; although in some cases it may and should prevent a close communion. If we fancy that every diversity of doctrine, discipline, or ceremony, is a sufficient reason to keep our brethren at arm’s length from us, we are not so much the followers of the condescending Jesus, as of the stiff and implacable professors, mentioned in the Gospel, who made much ado about mint, anise, and cummin; but shamefully neglected mercy, forbearance, and love.

III. Let us leave to the pope the wild conceit of infallibility; and let us abandon to bigoted Mohammedans the absurd notion that truth is confined to our own party, that those who do not speak as we do are blind, and that orthodoxy and salvation are plants, which will scarcely grow any where but in our own garden. So long as we continue in this error, we are unfit for union with all those who do not wear the badge of our party. A Pharisaic pride taints our tempers, cools our love, and breeds a forbidding reserve, which says to our brethren, “Stand by; I am more orthodox than you.” IV. Let us be afraid of a sectarian spirit. We may indeed, and we ought to be more familiar with the professors with whom we are more particularly connected; just as soldiers of the same regiment are more familiar with one another, than with those who belong to other regiments. But the moment this particular attachment grows to such a degree as to make a party in the army of King Jesus, or of King George, it breaks the harmony which ought to subsist between all the parts, and hinders the general service which is expected from the whole body. In what a deplorable condition would be the king’s affairs, if each colonel in his army refused to do duty with another colonel: and if, instead of mutually supporting one another in a day of battle, each said to the rest, “I will have nothing to do with you and your corps: you may fight yonder by yourselves, if you please: I and my men will keep here by ourselves, doing what seems good in our own eves. As we expect no assistance from you, so we promise you that you shall have none from us. And you may think yourselves well off if we do not join the common enemy, and fire at you; for your regimentals are different from ours, and therefore you are no part of our army.” If so absurd a behaviour were excusable, it would be among the wild, cruel men, who compose an army of Tartars or savages; but it admits of no excuse from men who call themselves believers, which is another name for the “followers of Him” who laid down his life for his enemies, and perpetually exhorts his soldiers to love one another as brethren, — yea, as he has loved us. Let us then peculiarly beware of inordinate self love. It is too often the real source of our divisions; when love to truth is their pretended cause. If St. Paul could say of fallen believers in his time, “They all seek their own;” how much more may this be said of degenerate believers in our days? Who can tell all the mischief done by this ungenerous and base temper? Who can declare all the mysteries of error and iniquity, which stand upon the despicable foundation of the little words, I, me, and mine? Could we see the secret inscriptions which the Searcher of hearts can read upon the first stones of our little Babels, how often would we wonder at such expressions as these: — My church, my chapel, my party, my congregation, my connections, my popularity, my hope of being esteemed by my partisans, my fear of being suspected by them, my jealousy of those who belong to the opposite party, my system, my favourite opinions, my influence, &c, &c! To all those egotisms let us constantly oppose those awful words of our Lord, “Except a man deny himself, he cannot be my disciple.” Till we cordially oppose our inordinate attachment to our own interest, we “sacrifice to our own net,” in our public duties; and even when we “preach Christ,” it is to be feared that we do it more “out of contentions” than out of a real concern for his interest. What Dr. Watts writes on this subject is striking: — “Have we never observed what a mighty prevalence the applause of a party, and the advance of self interest have over the hearts and tongues of men, and inflame 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. When they put to death [or bitter reproach] the ministers of the Gospel, they boast like Jehu, when he slew the priests of Baal, ‘Come and see my zeal for the Lord.’ And as he designed hereby to establish the kingdom in his own hands; so they to maintain the reputation they have 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!”

V. Let us be afraid of needless singularity. The love of it is very common, and leads some men to the wildest extremes. The same spirit which inclines one to wear a hat cocked in the height of the fashion, and influences another to wear one in full contrariety to the mode, may put one man upon minding only the first Gospel axiom, and the blood of Christ, while another man fancies that it becomes him to mind only the second Gospel axiom, and the law of Christ. Thus, out of singularity, the former insists upon faith alone, and the latter recommends nothing but morality and works. May we detest a temper, which makes men delight in an unnecessary opposition to each other! And may we constantly follow the example of St. Paul, whose charitable maxim was, to “please all men to their edification!” So shall “our moderation be known to all men:” nor shall we absurdly break the balance of the various truths which compose the Gospel system.

VI. Let us never blame our brethren but with reluctance. And when love to truth, and the interest of religion, constrain us to show the absurd or dangerous consequences of their mistakes, let us rather underdo than overdo. Let us never hang unnecessary f72 or false consequences upon their principles: and when we prove that their doctrine necessarily draws absurd and mischievous consequences after it, let us do them the justice to believe that they do not see the necessary connection of such consequences with their principles. And let us candidly hope that they detest those consequences.

VII. Let us, as far as we can, have a friendly intercourse with some of the best men of the various denominations of Christians around us. And if we have time for much reading, let us peruse their best writings, to be edified by the devotion which breathes through their works. This will be an effectual mean of breaking the bars of prejudice, contempt, fear, and hard thinking, which want of acquaintance with them puts between them and us. Why are savages frighted at the sight of civilized men? Why do they run away from us as if we were wild beasts? It is because they have no connection with us, are utter strangers to the good will we bear them, and fancy we design to do them mischief. Bigots are religious savages. By keeping to themselves, they contract a shyness toward their fellow Christians: they fancy that their brethren are monsters; they ask, with Nathanael, “Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?” By and by they get into the seats of the Pharisees, and peremptorily say, that “out of Galilee there ariseth no prophet.” And it is well if they do not turn in a rage from the precious truths delivered by some of the most favoured servants of God; fondly supposing, with Naaman, that the Jordan of their brethren is not to be compared with the rivers of their own favourite Damascus; and uncharitably concluding, with the pope and Mohammed, that all waters are poisonous except those of their own cistern. The best advice which can be given to these prejudiced people, is that which Philip gave to Nathanael, who fancied that Jesus was not a prophet: “Come and see.” I would say to Calvinian bigots, “Come and see” your Arminian brethren; and to Arminian bigots, “Come and see” pious Calvinists; and you will be ashamed to have so long forfeited the blessing annexed to brotherly communion; for “they that fear the Lord, speak often one to another, and the Lord hearkens and hears it, and a book of remembrance is written before him for them. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels.”

VIII. Let our religion influence our hearts as well as our heads. Let us mind the practice as well as the theory of Christianity. The bare knowledge of Christ’s doctrine “puffeth up, but charity edifieth.” “He that loveth not, knoweth not God, for God is love,” and would have us to be loving and “merciful as he is.” He receives us notwithstanding our manifold weaknesses and provocations; and he says, by his apostle, “Forgive one another, as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you; that ye may with one mind, and with one mouth, glorify God.” How far from this religion are those, who, instead of receiving one another, keep at the greatest distance from their brethren, and perhaps pronounce damnation against them! The men who rashly condemn their “weak brother to perish,” cannot be close followers of our “merciful High Priest,” who “died for him,” who “is touched with a feeling of our infirmities, and has compassion on them that are ignorant and out of the way. If any man say, I love God, — the love of Christ constraineth me, — and yet hateth his brother,” or shuns a reconciliation with his fellow servants, “he is a liar; for he who loveth not his brother, whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen? This commandment have we from Christ, that he who loveth God, love his brother,” yea, his enemy also. And love is “pure, peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, and full of mercy. It suffereth long, and is kind, it envieth not, is not puffed up, it does not behave itself unseemly, it seeketh not its own, it beareth all things, it endureth all things, it believeth and hopeth all things,” and it attempteth many things, that Christians may “be made perfect in one,” and may “keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” Where this love is not, the practice of Christianity is absent. We may have the brain of a Christian, but we want his tongue, his hands, and his heart. We may indeed say many sweet things of Christ; but we spoil them all if we speak bitterly of his members; for he who toucheth them, toucheth the apple of his eye; and he who wounds them, wounds him in the tenderest part. Hence the severity of our Lord’s declarations: “Whosoever offendeth one of these little ones, who believe in me, it were better for him that a mill stone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea. And whosoever shall uncharitably say to his brother, Thou fool! shall be in danger of hell fire,” as well as a murderer, Matthew 18:6; 5:22. So dreadful is the case of those who make shipwreck of the faith which works by charity, while they contend for real or fancied orthodoxy.

We shall readily set our seals to the justice and propriety of these terrible declarations, if we remember that when Christians offend against the law of kindness, they stab their religion in her very vitals, because Christianity is the religion of love. From first to last, it teaches us love — free, distinguishing, matchless love. The Father so loved the world as to give his only begotten Son that we might not perish. He freely delivered him up to death for us all, and with him he gives us all things; forgiveness, grace, and glory. The Son, who, when he was in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with him, influenced by obedient love to the Father and tender pity toward us, assumed our nature, became a prophet to teach the religion of love, a king to enforce the law of love, a priest and a victim dying for the breaches of the law of love. He lived to keep and enforce the law of love: he wept, prayed, and agonized, to show the force of sympathizing love: he died on the cross to seal with the last drop of his vital blood the plan of redeeming love. He sunk into the grave, and descended into hades, to show the depth of love. He rose again to secure the triumph of love: he ascended into heaven to carry on the schemes of love: from thence he sent, and still sends, upon obedient believers, the spirit of burning; baptizing them with the Holy Ghost, and with the fire of love, which many waters cannot quench; and from thence he shall come again, to send the unloving and contentious to their own place, and to crown loving souls with honour, glory, and immortality. The office of the Holy Ghost answers to the part which the Father and the Son bear in our redemption. When we receive him according to the promise of the Father, we receive him as the Spirit of love: he sheds abroad the love of God in our hearts; he testifies to us the love of Christ; and his fruit, in our hearts and lives, is “love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, and meekness.” This loving spirit is so essential to Christianity, that if you ask St. Paul and St. John an account of their religion, the former answers, The end of Christianity is “charity out of a pure heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned:” and therefore if any Christian loveth not the Lord Jesus in his person and in his mystical members, he is accursed. Maranatha, the Lord cometh to cut in sunder that wicked servant, and to appoint him his portion with hypocrites in outer darkness. As for St. John, he thus describes Christianity: — “Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God: every one that loveth is born of God. We love him because he first loved us. And every one that loveth God who begat believers, loveth them also that are begotten of him: and this commandment we have from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also.” St. James’ testimony to the religion of love will properly close that of St. Paul and St. John. “Hearken, my beloved brethren. If ye fulfil the royal law, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: but if ye have respect to persons,” much more if ye bite and devour your brethren, “ye are convinced of the law as transgressors: for whosoever shall keep the whole law [of love] and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.” He shows himself a bad Christian — a fallen believer. Therefore, “Speak not evil one of another, brethren, nor grudge one against another, lest ye be condemned: behold, the Judge standeth at the door.” And Christ the Judge confirms thus the testimony of his apostles, in his awful account of the day of judgment: — Then shall the king say unto them on his right hand, “Come, ye blessed, inherit the kingdom prepared for you, for” ye were kind and loving to me. “The head of every man is Christ,” and therefore, “inasmuch as ye have done it [that is, inasmuch as ye have been kind and loving] unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me:” ye have been kind and loving to me: and I will give you “the reward of the inheritance. Then shall he say unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed:” for ye were not kind and loving to me: and if they plead “Not guilty” to the charge, he will “answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, inasmuch as ye did it not unto one of the least of these, ye did it not unto me:” that is, inasmuch as ye were not kind to one of these, ye were not kind and loving to me. And these unloving men “shall go away into everlasting punishment; but the righteous, [that is, the loving and merciful,] into life eternal.” How plain is this religion! and how deplorable is it that it should be almost lost in clouds of vain notions, wild opinions, unscriptural systems, empty professions, and noisy contentions! Were professors to embrace this practical Christianity, what a revolution would take place in Christendom! The accuser of the brethren would fall as lightning from heaven, and genuine orthodoxy would combine with humble charity to make the earth a paradise again. IX. Lastly: if we will attain the full power of godliness, and be peaceable as the Prince of Peace, and merciful as our heavenly Father, let us go on to the perfection and glory of Christianity; let us enter the full dispensation of the Spirit. Till we live in the pentecostal glory of the Church: till we are baptized with the Holy Ghost: till the Spirit of burning and the fire of Divine love have melted us down, and we have been truly cast into the softest mould of the Gospel: till we can say with St. Paul, “We have received the Spirit of love, of power, and of a sound mind;” till then we shall be carnal rather than spiritual believers; we shall divide into sects like the Jews, and at best we shall be like the disciples of John and of Christ before they had received the gift of the Holy Ghost. We shall have an envious spirit: we shall contend about superiority, and be ready to stop those who do good, because they do it not in our way, or because they follow not with us. And supposing we once tasted the first love of the Church, and had really the love of God and our neighbour “shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost given unto us;” yet if this “love be grown cold,” or if we “have left it,” by grieving or quenching the Spirit, we are fallen from pentecostal Christianity, and instead of continuing in disinterested fellowship, like the primitive Christians, we shall “seek our own,” as the fallen Philippians; or we shall divide into parties like those Corinthians to whom St. Paul wrote: — “Some of you have not the knowledge of the God of love; I speak this to your shame. I cannot speak to you as to spiritual, but as to carnal believers, even as to babes in Christ. For ye are yet carnal: for whereas there is among you envying, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as the men of the world? Examine yourselves therefore whether ye be in the faith: prove your own selves.” Is Christ in you? Have ye the Spirit of power, or have ye obliged him to withdraw? And are ye shorn of your strength, as Samson was, when the Spirit of the Lord was departed from him? Alas! Who can say how many believers are in this deplorable case without suspecting it? The world knows that they are fallen, but they know it not themselves. They make sport for the Philistines by their idle contentions, and they dream that they are the champions of truth. O may they speedily “awake to righteousness,” and see their need of “righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost!” And may “power from on high” rest again upon them! So shall they break the pillars of the temple of discord, rebuild the temple of peace, and be “continually in it, praising and blessing God,” instead of accusing and provoking their brethren.