Uncharitableness is a loathsome part of the image of the fallen angel: It is a-kin to the hatred of God. For he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen; 1 John iv. 20. He that hates his fellow-christian, and brings railing accusations against him for a difference in little opinions, how can he expect to be beloved of God, who beholds in the best of us so many monstrous follies, and guilt of a more aggravated nature? By the word uncharitableness here, I would not include our neglect of charity to the poor and hungry, nor our aversion to errors of the grosser kind; but I mean our aversion to such persons who not only profess to be christians, but who also agree with us in the chief doctrines of christianity, viz. the pardon of our sins by the atoning sacrifice of Christ, and the sanctification of men by the powerful operations of the Holy Spirit, and the necessity of faith in Christ, and good works, &c. I mean our aversion to those who differ from us in little punctilios of doctrine or duty which are not expressly and plainly written in the New Testament; those who maintain such an aversion to their fellow-christians, as to pronounce damnation upon them, or some terrible and unchristian censures, because they do not come up to our sentiments and practices in things which are of little moment, while we agree in all fundamental points, and such as are of most importance. This uncharitableness is a vice attended with such a train of mischiefs, that I would set all my biggest powers in array to fight against it. It is a fountain of such bitter waters, that I would fain dam up the spring. It is a plant of so poisonous a product, that I would dig deep and search for the roots, and tear up all the fibres of it, though they twined about my heart-strings.

SECTION I.

THE CAUSES OF UNCHARITABLENESS.

AN uncharitable humour springs generally from some of these following causes : I. From a malicious constitution of nature, an acrimonious or a choleric temper of blood. There are some animal engines of human flesh, that have their juices all soured in their very formation; and there is an ill ferment raised in such persons at the perception of every object that is not just suited to their present fancy and inclination: And by the hard laws of union between soul and body in this our fallen state, the spirit too often complies with the fretful distempers of the flesh. There are but few that attempt to suppress the ferment, and to resist the angry motions of the animal; and of those few that attempt it, scarce one in ten is very successful: For it is a work of toil and difficulty, perpetual watchfulness and unceasing prayer.

This ill humour mixes itself with religion, as well as with civil affairs. It diffuses its malignity through all the studies and the manners of the man, and gives a visible tincture to his notions and his practices. Furio can never converse about the calmest and most speculative points of divinity, but his indignation kindles against every different opinion, his fiery temper breaks out and blazes, and he bestows on his own deportment the honourable names of shining light and burning zeal. His peevish and angry passions are so blended with his understanding, that hard names are his best arguments; most convincing to himself, though they are the just scorn of the wise. He stabs his brethren that differ from him to the heart, with pointed railing; and from

an aversion to an opinion rises to an immortal hatred of the person. If our great Creator has united any of our souls to bodies that are less infected with this vicious juice, we have reason to adore his sovereign goodness.

II. Self-love and pride, and a vain conceit of our own opinions, is another spring of uncharitable carriages. Did you ever see a weak and humble soul sensible of its own poverty and ignorance, and ready to esteem others above himself, easily indulge this uncharitable humour? Alas! poor foolish mankind is very prone to esteem itself wise and knowing. Little Laudillus, who is almost always in the wrong, has much ado to persuade himself, that he was ever capable of mistaking. He secretly thinks all his opinions to be divine truths, and therefore he is very lavish in pronouncing error and heresy upon every notion and practice that differs from his own. He takes the freedom to choose a religion for himself, but he allows no man besides the same liberty. He is sure that he has reason to dissent from others, but no man has reason to dissent from him. He sets up for infallibility without a triple crown, and fixes a see of ecclesiastical sovereignty on this side the water. He awes some slavish spirits into submission, and they become treacherous to their own souls and to the rights of human nature, by delivering up their faith and consciences to his imperious dictates: Then the man grows haughty, surly and severe, especially if he be advanced to any degree of honour and authority in the church. Then in his inflexible justice he delivers up the humble and inquisitive christian unto Satan, because he cannot assent and consent to all and every thing contained in his scheme; and he teaches perhaps his elder brethren the doctrines and discipline of the gospel, as Gideon did the elders of Succoth, with the briars and thorns of the wilderness; Judges viii. 16.

III. This hateful vice may be derived from a third original; and that is a constant and friendly acquaintance with the men and books of our own opinion, and an avoidance of all the writers and persons that differ from us. This has a mighty influence to beget and maintain uncharitable notions; yet this is the constant practice, not only of the unlearned, but of too many of the learned world. Hermes sits all the year in his own cell, and never looks abroad beyond the clan of his own fraternity: Hermes reads the controversies as they are described only by one party, and disputes them over only in the books that are written on one side. He finds a great appearance of argument and scripture there, and then proclaims it impossible that the adverse party should shew equal reason or revelation: And thus he proceeds to censure them as men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith, and twisting the scriptures to their own damnation. Cicero in his treatise "De natura deorum," marks this humour, and brands it, Vestra solem legitis, vestra amatis, cæteros causa incognita condemnatis.*

But let you and I, my friend, who delight in charity, let us converse a little with authors that differ from our present opinions, and we shall see their sentiments dressed up so plausibly, and set in so fair a light, that might easily persuade men of sincere consciences to embrace them; and this will prevent us from censorious thoughts concerning our candid adversaries, and their disciples. There is scarce any thing that enlarges the mind more, and more disengages it from narrow and selfish principles, than a free converse with the virtuous and ingenious of all parties.

There is a memorable story to this purpose, concerning two neighbours in an

"You read only your own books, you love only your own, and you condemn others before you know sufficient season, for want of knowing their opinions."

unsociable town, who were always quarrelling about the private meeting and the parishchurch: Both places of worship in that town were well supplied with preachers of good sense and serious religion: But each of them was the subject of unmerciful reproach between these two neighbours, whensoever they met, and their different methods of worship were mutually reviled; the one as formal and spiritless, the other as enthusiastical and indecent: At last Pacifico their common friend persuaded them to hear each others minister, and accompanied them both one day to their different assemblies; and they were both surprized to hear the gospel preached with a due degree of decency and fervour, both at meeting and at church: And though they continued still to adhere to their own party, as judging it, in somere spects, suited best to their edification; yet they maintained hearty friendship, with each other, and delightful society in religious conference: Thus the quarrelsome mistake was rectified by better acquaintance: They lived many years together in peace; they composed the animosities of different parties, that dwelt in the town; they died in perfect charity, and left a sweet influence behind them, and a honourable example.

IV. A fourth spring of uncharitableness is, our reading the word of God with a whole set of notions established before-hand: And yet how common a method, and how constant is this? Diacion has long ago determined, that bishops must be superior to presbyters; he has received ordination from episcopal hands and hopes one day himself to be capable of ordaining others. Thus while he is growing up towards the mitre, he reads the scriptures only to confirm his own determined opinions. He stretches and torments many an unwilling text, to make it speak the language of his own thoughts. He neglects the passages that favour all other forms of government and methods of ministration; or else he constrains them to mean episcopacy too: Every word that he reads, hath a diocesan aspect; and the first verse of Genesis can prove prelacy, for ought I know, as it has been able heretofore to demonstrate papacy, when In principio creavit Deus cœlum et terram, decided the controversy, and set the pope above the emperor: For God made all things from one beginning, and not from two.

Synodias reads the Bible with a presbyterian glass, and Fratrio with a congregational optic: They can find nothing there but their own opinions, and both of them wonder that Diacion should not see them too. Fratrio turns over the scriptures with great diligence and meditation, and as often as he finds the word "church" there, he thinks of nothing but a congregation of faithful men; as the church of Jerusalem, Alexandria, and Antioch, are so many single congregations. When Synodias meets the same word in his Bible, he is often in the midst of an assembly of divines; and especially when any power is attributed to the church, he is sure it must intend a classis of presbyters, or consistory of elders. When the same word falls under the eye of Diacion in his course of reading the New Testameut, he cannot imagine any thing is meant short of a diocess: All his churches are or should be as big as counties or shires. And I might add, that when poor Parochianus the mason finds leisure to read a chapter, and lights upon the mention of a church in it, he thinks immediately of a tall stone building with a steeple upon it, a bell or two, and a weather-cock. I might give the like instances of many other terms and expressions in scripture, to which men have unalterably fixed. their several different ideas, and raised consequences from them, and interpret the word.

of God by them, without enquiring whether their ideas are comformable to the sense in which the scripture uses those expressions: And then it is no wonder that their schemes of ecclesiastical government are so different: And yet each of these prepossessed opiniators think their own exposition of the text so evident, that they chide the perverseness of all other men, as though they were resolved to wink against the light. It is like a person of a fretful constitution, whose eyes are also tinged with the jaundice, he quarrels with every man that he meets, because he will not consent to call all things yellow. Thus by the false light of affection in which 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 acquaint 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 righ teousness, 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 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 charitable 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.

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. Nomineus 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 law-giver and the avenger. He proceeds then to pronounce Evangillo a wicked antinomian, and in the name of the