powerful, awful, amiable thing. If the Christian community moulder, decay, be enfeebled, broken, dispirited, ruined in great part, this ruin shall not rest under my hand." We shall have abundant consolation in our own souls, if we can acquit ourselves, that as to these two things, we lamented the decay and loss, and endeavoured the restitution of them., and therein, as much as in us was, of the Christian interest.

THE

CARNALITY OF RELIGIOUS CONTENTION,

IN TWO SERMONS,

PREACHED AT THE MERCHANTS' LECTURE, IN BROAD STREET.

THE PREFACE TO THE READERS.

THIS title no body can think is meant to condemn all contention about matters of religion as carnal; but since there is too much which is apparently so, it only signifies it to be the design of the following discourse to shew what contention that is, and when, or in what case, though it hath religion for its object, it may not have it for its principle, but that very frequently, the lust of the flesh hides itself under that specious name. And to shew wherein, while it affects to hide, yet unawares it discovers itself, in the management of affairs of that sacred kind. Thus it often really is; and then is that noble cause as ignobly served, as when (according to that* father's observation) a man proves to be unfaithful even for the faith, and sacrilegious for religion.

When in one place (Jude, 3) Christians are exhorted to contend earnestly for the faith; and in another (2 Tim. ii. 24) we are told the servant of the Lord must not strive; 'tis plain there is a contention for religion, which is a duty, and there is a contention even concerning religion too, which is a sin. And that sin the apostle in this context, out of which our discourse arises, doth deservedly expose by the name of flesh, and of the lust, or of the works thereof; such as wrath, variance, envy, hatred, &c. Whence it is easy to collect in what sense it is said in the mentioned place, the servant of the Lord must not strive, viz. as that striving excludes the gentleness, the aptness to instruct, and the patience, which are in the same place enjoined, where that striving is forbidden. And from thence it is equally easy to collect, too, in what sense we ought

* Cypr. de Simplicit. Præl.

to contend for the faith earnestly, i. e. with all that earnestness which will consist with these, not with such as excludes them as earnestly as you will, but with a sedate mind, full of charity, candour, kindness, and benignity towards them we strive with. We ought, we see (in the mentioned place), to be patient towards all men. Towards fellowChristians there should certainly be a more peculiar brotherly kindness.

The difference is very great, and most discernible in the effects, between the church's contention against enemies without it, and contentions within itself. The former unite it the more, increase its strength and vigour. The latter divide and enfeeble it. As to those of this latter kind, nothing is more evident, or deserves to be more considered, than that as the Christian Church hath grown more carnal, it hath grown more contentious, and as more contentious, still more and more carnal. The savour hath been lost of the great things of the gospel, which have less matter in them of dispute or doubt but which only did afford proper nutriment to the life of godliness; and it hath diverted to lesser things (or invented such as were, otherwise, none at all), about which the contentious, disputative genius might employ, and wherewith it might entertain, feed, and satiate itself.

Thereby hath it grown strong and vigorous, and acquired the power to transform the church from a spiritual society, enlivened, acted, and governed by the Spirit of Christ, into a mere carnal thing, like the rest of the world. Carnality hath become, and long been in it, a governing principle, and hath torn it into God knows how many fragments and parties; each of which will now be the church, enclose itself within its own peculiar limits, exclusive of all the rest, claim and appropriate to itself the rights and privileges which belong to the Christian Church in common, yea, and even Christ himself, as if he were to be so enclosed or confined and hence it is said, Lo, here is Christ, or there he is, till he is scarce to found any where; but as, through merciful indulgence, overlooking our sinful follies,