tention withal; such the apostle speaks of, Phil. i. 15 : 'Some, indeed, preach Christ out of envy and strife' The oosijcl of peace is a strange text, one would think, to preach division and raise strife from ; and the pulpit as strange a mount to plant the battering pieces of contention on. O how strangely do these men forget their Lord tliat sent them, who is a prince of peace : and their work, wliich is not to blow a trumpet of sedition and confusion, or sovmd an alarm to battle, but rather a joyful retreat from the bloody fight, wherein their lusts had engaged them against God and one another! Indeed, there is a war they are to proclaim, but it is only against sin and Satan ; and I am siu-e we are not fit to march out against them, till we can agree among ourselves. What would the prince think of that captain, who, instead of encouraging his soldiers to fall on with united forces as one man against the common enemjf, should make a speech to set his soldiers together by the ears among themselves? Surely he would hang him up for a traitor. Good was Luther's prayer, A doctore glorioso, a pustore coiifenfioso, et inutilibus qna!sf/oniI)Ks, liberet ecclcsiam Dens. From a vain-glorious doctor, a contentious pastor, and nice questions, the Lord deliver his church. And we in these sad times have reason to say as hearty an Amen to it as any since his age. Do we not live in a time when the church is tui-ned into a sophist's school? where such a wrangling and jangling hath been, that tlie most precious truths of the gospel are lost already to many, whose eyes arc blinded with the dust these contentions have raised, and they have at last fairly disputed themselves out of all their sober principles; as some ill husbands that light among cunning gamesters, and play all their money out of their purses? O woe to such vile men, who have prostituted the gospel to such devilish ends. God may have mercy on the cheated souls to bring them back to the love of the truth. But for the cheaters, they are gone too far towards hell, that we can look for their return.
Use 3. Thirdly, This gives us the reason why there is no more peace and unity among the saints themselves ; the gospel cannot be faulty, that breaches peace. No ; it is not because they are gospellers, but because they are but imperfectly gospellized, that they are no more peaceful ; the more they partake of the spirit of the gospel, the less will they be haunted with the evil spirit of contention and strife. The best of saints are in part unevangelical in two particulars, from which comes all the unkind quarrellings, and mibrotherly contests among tliem. First, In their judgments, ' They know but in part, and prophecy but in part.' 1 Cor. xiii. 9. He that pretends to more, boasts witliout his measure, and doth thereby discover what he denies, his ignorance (I mean in the gospel). And this defect and craze, that is in the saints' judgment, exposeth them sometimes to drink in principles that are not evan- gelical. Now these are they that make the bustle, and distmb their peace and unity. All truths are reducible to an unity; like lines they lovingly meet in one centre, the God of truth ; and so far from jostling and clashing, iliat (as stones in an arch) they uphold one another. And they which so sweetly agree in one, cannot learn us to divide. No, it is this stranger. Error, that creeps in among tlie saints, and will needs be judge. This breaks 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 distm-bance to a liealtliful 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 v/oful experience. Those from whom we had nothing but sweetness and love, while they fed on the same dish of gospel-truth with us, liow 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. Let us not blame the gospel ; it is innocent as to these sad contentions among us. Paul tells us where to find a fatlier for this brat of strife. See at whose door he directs us to lay it, llom. xvi. 17: 'Now I beseech you, brethren, mark them which cause divisions and oft'ences contrary to the doctrine ye have learned.' Where, pray observe, how he clears the gospel; they never learned it in Christ's school ; and then tacitly implies tliey have ? ome-
394 "^^^ GOSPEL OF PEACE.