yet, I confess, there seemeth to have been likewise a natural reason that very much promoted it. For the Christians then were few and scattered, living under persecution by the heathens round about them, in whose hands was all the civil and military power; and there is nothing so apt to unite the minds and hearts of men, or to beget love and tenderness, as a general distress. The first dissensions between Christians took their beginning from the errors and heresies that arose among them; many of these heresies, sometimes extinguished and sometimes reviving, or succeeded by others, remain to this day; and having been made instruments to the pride, avarice, or ambition of ill-designing men, by extinguishing brotherly love, have been the cause of infinite calamities, as well as corruptions of faith and manners, in the Christian world.

The last legacy of Christ was peace and mutual love; but then he foretold that he came to send a sword upon the earth. The primitive Christians accepted the legacy, and their successors down to the present age have been largely fulfilling his prophecy. But whatever the practice of mankind hath been or still continues, there is no duty more incumbent upon those who profess the gospel, than that of brotherly love; which, whoever could restore in any degree among men, would be an instrument of more good to human society than ever was or will be done by all the statesmen and politicians in the world.

It is upon this subject of brotherly love that I intend to discourse at present; and the method I observe shall be as follows:

First, I will inquire into the causes of this great want of brotherly love among us.

Secondly, I will lay open the sad effects and consequences which our animosities and mutual hatred have produced.

Lastly, I will use some motives and exhortations, that may persuade you to embrace brotherly love, and continue in it.

First, I shall inquire into the causes of this great want of brotherly love among us.

This nation of ours hath for a hundred years past been infested by two enemies, the papists and fanatics who each in their turns filled it with blood and slaughter, and for a time destroyed both the church and government. The memory of these events hath put all true protestants equally on their guard against both these adversaries, who by consequence do equally hate us. The fanatics revile us as too nearly approaching to popery, and the papists condemn us, as bordering too much on fanaticism. The papists, God be praised, are

by the wisdom of our laws put out of all visible possibility of hurting us; besides, their religion is so generally abhorred that they have no advocates or abettors among protestants to assist them. But the fanatics are to be considered in another light; they have had of late years the power, the luck, or the cunning to divide us among ourselves; they have endeavored to represent all those who have been so bold as to oppose their errors and designs under the character of persons disaffected to the government; and they have so far succeeded that, now-a-days, if a clergyman happens to preach with any zeal and vehemence against the sin and danger of schism, there will not want too many in his congregation, ready enough to censure him as hot and high-flying, an inflamer of men's minds, an enemy to moderation, and disloyal to his prince. This hath produced a formed and settled division between those who profess the same doctrine and discipline; while they who call themselves moderate are forced to widen their bottom, by sacrificing their principles and their brethren to the encroachments and insolence of dissenters; who are therefore answerable as a principal cause of all that hatred and animosity now reigning among us.

Another cause of the great want of brotherly love is, the weakness and folly of too many among you of the lower sort, who are made the tools and instruments of your betters to work their designs, wherein you have no concern. Your numbers make you of use, and cunning men take the advantage, by putting words into your mouths which you do not understand; then they fix good or ill characters to those words, as it best serves their purposes; and thus you are taught to love or hate, you know not what or why; you often suspect your best friends and nearest neighbors, even your teacher himself, . without any reason, if your leaders once taught you to call him by a name which they tell you signifieth some very bad thing.

A third cause of our great want of brotherly love seemeth to be, that this duty is not so often insisted on from the pulpit as it ought to be in such times as these; on the contrary, it is to be doubted whether doctrines are not sometimes delivered by an ungoverned zeal, a desire to be distinguished, or a view of interest, which produce quite different effects; when upon occasions set apart to return thanks to God for some public blessing, the time is employed in stirring up one part of the congregation against the other, by representations of things and persons, which God in his mercy forgive those who are guilty of

The last cause I shall mention of the want of brotherly love is,

that unhappy disposition towards politics among the trading people which hath been so industriously instilled into them. In former times the middle and lower sorts of mankind seldom gained or lost by the factions of the kingdom, and therefore were little concerned in them further than as matter of talk and amusement; but now the meanest dealer will expect to turn the penny by the merits of his party. He can represent his neighbor as a man of dangerous principles, can bring a railing accusation against him, perhaps a criminal one, and so rob him of his livelihood, and find his own account by that, much more than if he had disparaged his neighbor's goods or defamed him as a cheat. For so it happens, that instead of inquiring into the skill or honesty of those kind of people, the manner is now to inquire into their party, and to reject or encourage them accordingly which proceeding hath made our people in general such able politicians, that all the artifice, flattery, dissimulation, diligence, and dexterity in undermining each other, which the satirical wit of men hath charged upon courts, together with all the rage and violence, cruelty and injustice, which have been ever imputed to public assemblies, are with us (so polite are we grown) to be seen among our meanest traders and artificers in the greatest perfection. All which, as it may be matter of some humiliation to the wise and mighty of this world, so the effects thereof may perhaps in time prove very different from what I hope, in charity, were ever foreseen or intended.

I will therefore now, in the second place, lay open some of the sad effects and consequences which our animosities and mutual hatred have produced.

And the first ill consequence is, that our want of brotherly love hath almost driven out all sense of religion from among us, which cannot well be otherwise for since our Savior laid so much weight upon his disciples loving one another, that he gave it among his last instructions, and since the primitive Christians are allowed to have chiefly propagated the faith by their strict observance of that instruction, it must follow that in proportion as brotherly love declineth Christianity will do so too. The little religion there is in the world hath been observed to reside chiefly among the middle and lower sorts of people, who are neither tempted to pride nor luxury by great riches, nor to desperate courses by extreme poverty; and truly I upon that account have thought it a happiness that those who are under my immediate care are generally of that condition: but where party hath once made entrance, with all its consequences of hatred,

envy, partiality and virulence, religion cannot long keep its hold in any state or degree of life whatsoever. For if the great men of the world have been censured in all ages for mingling too little religion with their politics, what a havoc of principles must they needs make in unlearned and irregular heads, of which indeed the effects are already too visible and melancholy all over the kingdom.

Another ill consequence from our want of brotherly love is, that it increaseth the insolence of the fanatics; and this partly ariseth. from a mistaken meaning of the word moderation; a word which hath been much abused and bandied about for several years past. There are too many people indifferent enough to all religion; there are many others who dislike the clergy, and would have them live in poverty and dependence: both these sorts are much commended by the fanatics for moderate men, ready to put an end to our divisions and to make a general union among protestants. Many ignorant well-meaning people are deceived by these appearances, strengthened with great pretences to loyalty; and these occasions the fanatics lay hold on to revile the doctrine and discipline of the church, and even insult and oppress the clergy wherever their numbers or favorers will bear them out; insomuch, that one wilful refractory fanatic hath been able to disturb a whole parish for many years together. But the most moderate and favored divines dare not own that the word moderation with respect to the dissenters can be at all applied to their religion, but is purely personal or prudential. No good man repineth at the liberty of conscience they enjoy; and perhaps a very moderate divine may think better of their loyalty than others do, or, to speak after the manner of men, may think it necessary that all protestants should be united against the common enemy, or, out of discretion or other reasons best known to himself, be tender of mentioning them at all. But still the errors of the dissenters are all fixed and determined, and must upon demand be acknowledged by all the divines of our church, whether they be called, in party phrase, high or low, moderate or violent. And further, I believe it would be hard to find many moderate divines who, if their opinion were asked whether dissenters should be trusted with power, could according to their consciences answer in the affirmative; from whence it is plain, that all the stir which the fanatics have made with this word moderation was only meant to increase our divisions, and widen them so far as to make room for themselves to get in between. And this is the only scheme they

ever had (except that of destroying root and branch) for the uniting of protestants they so much talk of.

I shall mention but one ill consequence more, which attends our want of brotherly love-that it hath put an end to all hospitality and friendship, all good correspondence and commerce between mankind. There are indeed such things as leagues and confederacies among those of the same party; but surely God never intended that men should be so limited in the choice of their friends; however, so it is in town and country, in every parish and street; the pastor is divided from his flock, the father from his son, and the house often divided against itself. Men's very natures are soured and their passions inflamed, when they meet in party clubs, and spend their time in nothing else but railing at the opposite side: thus every man alive among us is encompassed with a million of enemies of his own country, among which his oldest acquaintance and friends, and kindred themselves, are often of the number; neither can people of different parties mix together without constraint, suspicion, or jealousy, watching every word they speak for fear of giving offence; or else falling into rudeness and reproaches, and so leaving themselves open to the malice and corruption of informers, who were never more numerous or expert in their trade. And as a further addition to this evil, those very few who, by the goodness and generosity of their nature, do in their own hearts despise this narrow principle of confining their friendship and esteem, their charity and good offices, to those of their own party, yet dare not discover their good inclinations for fear of losing their favor and interest. And others again, whom God had formed with mild and gentle dispositions, think it necessary to put a force upon their own tempers, by acting a noisy, violent, malicious part, as a means to be distinguished. Thus hath party got the better of the very genius and constitution of our people; so that whoever reads the character of the English in former ages will hardly believe their present posterity to be of the same nation or climate.

I shall now, in the last place, make use of some motives and exhortations that may persuade you to embrace brotherly love and continue in it. Let me apply myself to you of the lower sort, and desire you will consider, when any of you make use of fair and enticing words to draw in customers, whether you do it for their sakes or your own. And then, for whose sakes do you think it is that your leaders are so industrious to put into your heads all that party rage and virulence? Is it not to make you the tools and instru