* ' Inter juvenile judicium et senile prejudicium omnis Veritas corrumpitur.' ^ Vide TertuUianum hoc fusius et eleganter persequentem sub initio Apologctici acl versus Gentes.
398 MEAT OUT OF THE EATER. [ZeCH. XIV. 9.
serious search, not to an easy credulity, not to play with opinions as if there were no hurt in them, but to examine them in the fear of God, to call in the help of the Spirit, and to use all the outward helps God hath left to the church. The priest's lips are to preserve knowledge ; and the apostle saith, Eph. iv. 12, 14, that ' God hath given pastors and teachers, that we be no more tossed about with every wind of doctrine.' That is a help which God hath provided against this evil, and it is presumptuous arrogance to despise it.
[3.] Do not impropriate Christ to any one party or sort of profes- sors. The apostle reproveth those that said, ' I am of Christ,' as well as those that said, ' I am of Paul,' 1 Cor. i. 13. Those that spake as if Christ were only theirs, they were accounted a faction too. Jude wrote in times of division and delusion, and he calleth the salvation a ' common salvation,' Jude's Epistle, ver. 3 ; mine, and yours, and theirs too. Men should not speak as if they only were holy, they only were saints, and all others but the world at the best, but civil and convinced men. Nothing enrageth more than to confine Christ to an opinion, as if all religion did begin and end with it Naturally we are apt to do so ; we envy the commonness of Christian privileges ; but it should not be so among the Lord's people. There were differences at Corinth, but how doth Paul write to them ? 1 Cor. i. 2, ' To the saints at Corinth, and to all that call on the name of Jesus Christ, theirs and ours.' Mark that clause, ' theirs and ours ; ' he checketh this natural envy in us which would impale and inclose the free Christ, the com- mon salvation. It was an expression Tertullian used of some in his time, illic ipsum esse est promereri — it was religion enough to be one of them.^ Oh ! certainly this is not Christian. We must own that of God that we see in them, though they do not every way come up to our mind. We prize a jewel in a toad's head ; how much more should we love grace in brethren whose blemish is only some petty dissent. Christ loved the young man, Mark x. 21, for the moral good that was in him ; and I remember, in another place, he checketh his disciples for prohibiting one to do miracles in his name, because he did not follow them. It is in Mark ix. 38-40, where he speaketh expressly to this very case ; it is most Christian to own the work of the Spirit everywhere, wheresoever we find it.
[4.] Never serve a faction or party to the prejudice and detriment of truth and religion. Men cry up badges of distinction, and so divide Christ into different bodies and parties : 1 Cor. iii. 4, ' I am of Paul, and I am of Apollos, and I am of Cephas ; ' and so every one serveth the party upon which his interest hangeth, and hence come state broils and divisions, and discontent and quarrelling with one another, even to the apparent prejudice of religion ; all acts of communion and brotherhood are forborne, and men merely condemn and oppose things because asserted or agitated by the opposite faction, blindly admire all that their own party doth, yea, and will rather give up religion and all for a prey to the enemy than lay aside their mutual animosities. Thus Eusebius witnesseth that there was great siding one against another, pastor against pastor, and people against l)eople, some engaged in this faction, some in that, till tlje brethren of
' Tertull. lib. de Prescript adversus Hsereticos, cap. xli
ZeCH. XIV. 9.] MEAT OUT OF THE EATER. 399
the camp brought in Diocletian's persecution, which devoured them all. Nay, when it cometli to this, they are so sworn to then- own faction and party, that they will defend the apparent and open enemies of Jesus Christ, and so as they may strengthen themselves in the lesser differences, they will hazard the main principles ; as Meletius, who formerly suffered for religion, being discontented with Petrus Alexandrinus (though his difference with the church was but small), joined with the Arians, and his Meletians with him. Oh! it is sad when men, to support their own interest and faction, will call in the open enemies of Christ to their aid, and cover them under their buckler. We have an eminent instance in scripture of this matter in Acts xxiii. 6, &c. ; they looked upon Paul as a damnable blasphemer, but when once he pretended to the Pharisees, as, indeed, in the point of the resurrection he held with them, then ' We find no fault in this man ; but if a spirit or angel have spoken to him,' &c. Many things might be spoken under this head, for, indeed, it proveth fatal to religion when once we cry up names, and those names beget parties, for then men look only to the accommodating of their own faction, though it be to the hazard of religion and public welfare.