the peace, and kindles a fire in the house, that in a while, if let alone, will be seen at the house-top. Wholesome food makes no disturbance to a healthful body; but corrupt food doth presently make the body feverish and untoward, and then, when the man is distempered, no wonder if he begins to be pettish and peevish; we have seen it by woeful experience. Those, from whom we had nothing but sweetness and love, while they fed on the same dish of Gospel truth with us, how strangely froward are they grown since they have taken down some unevangelical and erroneous principles? that we know not well how to carry ourselves towards them, they are so captious and quarrelsome; yea at the very hearing of the Word, if they have not yet forgot the way to the ordinance, what a distasteful behaviour do many of them shew? as if every word went against their stomach, and made them sick. O sirs, let us not blame the Gospel; it is innocent as to these sad contentions among us. Paul tells us where to find a father for this brat of strife; see at whose door he directs us to lay it: "Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine ye have learned." Rom. xvi. 17. Where, I pray, observe how he clears the Gospel; this dividing quarreling spirit is contrary to the Gospel; they never learnt it in Christ's school; and then tacitly implies they have it somewhere else, from some false teacher and false doctrine or other. "Mark them," saith he; as if he had said, Observe them well, and you shall find them tainted some way or other; they have been warming themselves at Satan's fire, and from thence have brought a coal with them that does the mischief.

Secondly, Christians are in part unevangelical in their hearts and lives. The whole root of sin is not stubbed up at once; no wonder some bitter taste remains in the fruit they bear. Saints in Heaven shall be all grace, and no sin in them, and then they shall be all love also; but here they are part grace, part corruption, and so their love is not perfect; how can they be fully soldered together in unity, never to fall out, as long as they are not so fully reconciled to God, in point of sanctification, but now and then there happens some breaches betwixt

them and God himself? and the less progress the Gospel hath made in their hearts to mortify lust and strengthen grace, the less peace and love is to be expected among them. The Apostle concludes, from the contentions among the Christians at Corinth, that they were of little growth in grace; such as were not past the child's spoon and meat: "I have fed you with milk, and not with meat; for hitherto ye were not able to bear it, neither yet now are ye able, for ye are yet carnal." 1 Cor. iii. 2. Nay, he conceives this to be so clear evidence, that he appeals to their consciences if it be not so: ver. 3. " for whereas there is among you envyings, and strife, and divisions, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?" But as grace strengthens, and the Gospel prevails on the hearts of Christians, so does love and a spirit of unity encrease with it. We say, older and wiser; though children (when young) do scratch and fight, yet when they get up into years, they begin to agree better. Omne invalidum est natura quærulum; those that are young and weak, are peevish and quarrelsome. Age and strength brings wisdom to overcome those petty differences that now cannot be borne. In the controversy between Abraham and Lot's servants, Abraham, who was the elder and stronger Christian, was most forward for peace, so as to crave it at the hands of his nephew, every way his inferior; Paul, who was a Christian higher by the head than others, O how he excelled in love; he saith of himself, "the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant, with faith and love, which is in Jesus Christ." 1 Tim. i. 14. Where, saith Calvin, Fides incredulitati opponitur; dilectio in Christo, sævitiæ, quam exercueritat adversus fideles. Faith is opposed to his former obstinate unbelief, when a Pharisee; love in Christ Jesus, to the cruelty he expressed against Christians, when (breathing slaughter) he went on a persecuting errand to Damascus. Now he was as full of faith, as then of unbelief; now as fire-hot of love to the saints, as then of cruelty against them. But what I quote chiefly the place for is to see how this pair of graces thrive and grow together; if abundant in faith, then abundant in love.

CHAP. XIII.

AN EXHORTATION TO THE SAINTS TO MAINTAIN PEACE

AMONG THEMSELVES, AND PROMOTE IT TO THEIR UT

MOST; FROM THREE ARGUMENTS.

USE 3. It brings a seasonable exhortation to all the saints, that they would nourish peace what they can among themselves. You all profess to have been baptized into the spirit of the Gospel; but you do not shew it when you bite and snarl at one another. The Gospel, that makes wolves and lambs agree, doth not teach the lambs to turn wolves, and devour each other. Our Saviour told the two disciples, whose choler was soon up, that they would be fetching fire from Heaven to go on their revengeful errand, that they little thought from what hearth that wild-fire of their passion came: "ye know not what spirit ye are of." Luke ix. 56. As if he had said, Such fiery wrathful speeches do not suit with the meek master you serve, nor with the Gospel of peace he preacheth to you. And if the Gospel will not allow us to pay our enemies in their own coin, and give them wrath for wrath; then much less will it suffer brethren to spit fire at one another's faces. No: when any such embers of contention begin to smoke among Christians, we may know who left the spark; no other but Satan, he is the great kindle-coal of all their contentions. If there be a tempest in the spirits of Christians, and the wind of their passions be high and loud, it is easy to tell who is the conjuror: Ŏ it is the devil, that is practising his black art upon their lusts, which yet are so much unmortified as gives him too great an advantage of raising many times sad storms of division and strife amongst them. Paul and Barnabas set out in a calm together; but the devil sends a storm after them, such a storm as parted them in the midst of their voyage: "and the contention was so sharp betwixt them, that they departed asunder one from the other." Acts xv. 39. There is nothing (next Christ and Heaven) that the devil grudged believers more than their peace and

mutual love; if he cannot rend them from Christ, stop them from getting to Heaven, yet he takes some plea sure to see them go thither in a storm; like a shattered fleet severed one from another, that they may have no assistance from nor comfort of each others company all the way; though, where he can divide, he hopes to ruin also, well knowing this to be the most probable means to effect it. One ship is easier taken than a squadron; a town, if it can be but set on fire, the enemy may hope to take it with more ease; let it therefore be your great care to keep the devil's spark from your powder. Certainly peace among Christians is no small mercy, that the devil's arrows fly so thick at its breast. Something I would fain speak to endear this mercy to the people of God. I love I confess a clear and still air, but above all in the church among believers, and I am made the more sensible what a mercy this would be by the dismal consequence of these divisions and differences, that have for some years together troubled our air, and filled us with such horror and confusion that we have not been much unlike that land called Terra del fuego, the land of smoke, because of the frequent flashings of lightnings and abundance of smoke found there. What can I compare error to, better than smoke? and contention to, than fire? a kind of emblem of hell itself, where flames and darkness meet together to increase the horror of the place. But to press the exhortation a little closer, give me leave to provoke you by three arguments to peace and unity.

SECT. I.

First, For Christ's sake. And methinks, when begging for his sake, I should have no nay. When you pray to God, and do but use his name in the business, you are sure to speed. And why should not an exhortation, that woos you for Christ's sake, move your hearts to duty, as a prayer put up by you in his name moves God's heart to mercy? Indeed, how can you in faith use Christ's name, as an argument to unlock God's heart to thee, which hath not so much credit with thyself as to open thy own heart into a compliance with a duty which

is so strongly set on his heart to promote among his people? as appears,

First, By the solemn charge he gave his disciples in this particular, John xiii. 34. "A new commandment I give unto you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that ye also love one another." I pray observe how he prepares their hearts to open readily, and bid this commandment kindly welcome; he sets his own name upon it: "A new commandment I give unto you." As if he had said, Let this command, though as old as any other, Lev. xix. 18. yet go under my name in an especial manner; when I am gone, and the fire of strife begins at any time among you, remember what particular charge I now give you, and let it quench it presently. Again, observe how he delivers this precept, and that is by way of gift and privilege. A new commandment "I give unto you." Indeed, this was Christ's farewel sermon, the very cream of that milk which he had fed them with; never dropped a sweeter discourse from his blessed lips; he saved his best wine till the last. He was now making his will, and amongst other things that he bequeathes to his disciples he takes this commandment, as a father would do his seal-ring off his finger, 'and gives it to them. Again, thirdly, he doth not barely lay the command before them, but, to make it the more effectual, he annexeth in a few words the most powerful argument why they should, as also the most clear and full direction how they might, do this that is possible to be given: "As I have loved you, that ye also love one another." O Christians! what may not the love of Christ command you? if it were to lay down your lives for him that loved you to death, would you deny them? and shall not this his love persuade you to lay down your strifes and divisions? This speaks enough how much weight he laid upon this commandment. But then again, observe how Christ in the same sermon, over and over again, reminds them of this; which if he had not been very solicitous of, should not have had so large a room in his thoughts, then, when he had so little time left, in which he was to crowd and sum up all the heavenly counsel and comfort that he desired to leave