where else, from some false teacher, and false doctrme or other. Mark them, saith he ; as if he had said, o])serve them well, and you shall find them tainted some wa}^ or other. They had been warming themselves at Satan's fire, and from thence have brought a coal with tliem that does the mischief. Secondl}^, 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 between them and God himself? And the less progress the gospel hath made in their hearts to mortify lusts, 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, tliat they were of little growth in grace ; such as were not past the child-spoon and meat, 1 Cor. iii. 2 : ' 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.' 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 increase 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 invalidiim est natura queridum ; those that are young and weak are peevish and quarrelsome. Age and strength brings wisdom to overcome those petty difterences that now cannot be borne. In the controversy between Abraham and Lot's servants, Abraham, who was the elder and stronger Christian, he 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, 1 Tim. i. 14 : ' The grace of our Lord was exceeding abvmdant, with faith and love which is in Jesus Christ.' Where, saith Calvin, Fides incrediditati opponitur ; dilectio In Christo, scevitice, quam exercuerat 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, bi-eathing 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 that I quote chiefly the place for is, to see how this pair of graces thrive and grow together; if abvmdant in faith, then abundant in love.
CHAPTER XIIL
AN EXHORTATION TO THE SAINTS TO MAINTAIN PEACE AMONG THEMSELVES, AND PROMOTE IT TO THEIR UTMOST, FROM THREE ARGUMENTS.
Use 3. Thirdly, It brings a seasonable exhortation to all the saints, that they would nourish peace what they can among themselves. Yovi 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 so 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 ^'reacheth 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 face. 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, not in the air, but in the spirits of Christians, and the wind of their passions be high and loud, it is easy to tell who is the conjurer.
THE GOSPEL OF PEACE. 395