1. What is our state, what is the ground of our quarrel, what are the ends and motives in all contests that we have with others.
2. If the cause of the quarrel be never so good and just, yet it may be carried on with too great heat and animosity against godly brethren ; bitter zeal argueth some breach made upon brotherly love : James iii. 14, ' If ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.' Those that have this bitter contention, or feverish kind of zeal, have seldom a true zeal for God, but a partiality to their own interests, if not a hatred against their brethren. It is a spirit of carnal envy against the credit and reputation of others, a kitchen, not a celestial fire ; and though it be not downright mis- chievous hatred, yet it is a great unkindness, as Job was too deeply censured by his godly friends.
3. There may be a secret rising of heart and envy against the purity and strictness of others, even by some of those who are right for the main themselves. It should promote holy emulation and imitation ; so the apostle saith, ' Your zeal hath^provoked many,' 1 Cor. ix. 2, and Heb. X. 24, ' Let us provoke one another to love and good works.' But many times it draweth envy, and then natural malignity beginneth to work. You had need to suppress it betimes, for lusts stirred will grow more tumultuous. One eminently godly man may reprove the conscience of another by his life ; they cannot look upon it without some shame and check : it should stir in us only a holy emulation, not a carnal envy.
4. In opposing those that are godly, you had need be tender, that you go upon sure grounds, and that your opposition proceedeth not to mischievous violence : Mat. xviii. 6, ' He that offendeth one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone
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were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.' As was said concerning Paul, ' Take heed what you do, for this man is a Roman.' Men that know the danger will not easily kick against the pricks, at least do not join with the opposite: 'Eat and drink with the drunken, and beat your fellow-servants,' Mat. xxiv. 49 ; and cry up a confederacy with wicked men to promote your private differences with more advantage ; there may be much of the hatred of godliness in it. The devil will be a defender of the truth and church with a bloody and killing zeal, so the soundest and holiest members be destroyed ; those go in the way of Cain, Jude 11, if slaughters and massacres will do, and so think they serve God by murdering his servants, John xvi. 2.
5. If you be glad when you find any blemish to eclipse the lustre and glory of their innocency, this argueth a secret hatred to them as godly : ' Charity rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth,* 1 Cor. xiii. 6 ; and Phil. iii. 18, ' For many walk, of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, they are enemies to the cross of Christ.' They were not real christians, but enemies to the cross of Christ. You are glad at the miscarriages of some, and those few are cast upon all.
Secondly, The heinousness and greatness of the sin.
1. A malicious opposing of those that are good, and do belong to God, under that consideration, bordereth near to the great transgression, Avhich is a malicious desertion or opposition of the truth after sufficient conviction ; it is not it, but it cometh near to it in the height of it.
2. Eeligion is a commendation of kindness on the one side, so it is an aggravation of malice on the other : Mat. x. 40, ' Whosoever shall give to drink to one of these little ones, a cup of cold water only, in the name of a disciple, he shall not lose his reward.' Therefore to hate men for their godliness is a provoking sin.
3. It is a mark of a child of the devil, the express image of Satan. Thereby our Saviour convinced the Jews to be of their father the devil, because they hated him that came from God, John viii. 40. You express Satan's image to the life when this is the ground of hatred.
4. When you have no other quarrel against them but their goodness, that which should be the cause of the greatest love is the cause of the greatest hatred ; and so God himself is despised when his image is despised and the devil's had in reverence and honour.
5. This sin is the greater because of the many blessings we enjoy by them ; they are the honour and blessing of a country. Elijah, that was counted the troubler of Israel, yet is by the prophet called the chariots and horsemen of Israel, 2 Kings ii. 12, that is, the defence of the country. When such are gone, it is the worse for any people : Gen. xix. 22, ' I cannot do anything till thou art gone thither; ' Acts xxvii. 24, ' And I have given thee the lives of all that sail with thee in the ship.'