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OTHER CAUSES OF THE DECAY OF HOLINESS. 215
hoped, seeing and observing those other distempers among them, are really alienated from all the good they do profess; and not only 80, but do from thence justify and approve themselves in their im- morality and profaneness, as those which allow them a better condi- tion than such wranglers can afford them. By this means hath _ religion lost much of that awful authority in the world whereby it ofttimes put a restraint on the minds and consciences of men who were never acted by its power. What are the rules whereby we ought to walk under the continuance of these differences, and what are the best means to put an issue unto them, I have inquired in a treatise unto that purpose.’ But it must be acknowledged that for the most part attempts for the rebuking of these distempers, the reconciliation of dissenters, and the uniting of professors, have been managed from such principles and in such a frame of spirit as have heightened and increased rather than allayed or diminished them. 2. Great offence is given to the world by the uselessness of pro- Jessors, and in that they are not, what they ought to be, the common good and blessing of mankind. There is a selfish spirit on many of them, whence, contenting themselves with abstinence from known sins, and the performance of the religious duties of divine worship, they are of little or no use unto others. Some will be kind, benign, helpful, good, in some measure unto other men, but yet will and do give undue bounds and limits unto their actings in this kind. Their own household, and the household of faith, according unto that measure which from opinion or prejudice they take of it, they will alone regard. As for love, condescension, benignity, kindness, readi- ness to help, assist, and relieve all mankind, yea, the worst of men, as they have opportunity, they understand them not, yea, have many pretences that they are not required of them. But if we are Chris- tians, it is required of us to “abound in love toward all men,” 1 Thess. iii. 12; and our doing good unto all, being useful unto all, exercising loving-kindness in the earth towards all, is the principal way whereby we may express our sincere obedience unto the gospel. One professor that is kind, benign, condescending, charitable, useful, ready to become all things unto all men for their good, brings more glory to the gospel than a hundred who are looked on as those who live too much unto themselves. When the old saying was, “ Bonus vir Caius Sejus, sed malus quia Christianus,’—“Such an one is a good man, evil only in this, that he is a Christian,” religion did by such convictions insensibly get ground amongst men. If the world can- not see that it hath any advantage by professors, but hath trouble on the other hand by the hatred which it cannot but have of their profession, it is no wonder if it desire to have no more to do with 1 See vol, xv., in his treatise on Hyangelical Love, Peace, and Unity.—Ep.
216 ‘THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF APOSTASY.
them. Did men find that so soon as any gave themselves unto the strictest ways of profession, therewithal they became benign, kind, merciful, charitable, useful, and helpful unto all men, it could not but give an honourable reputation in their minds unto that reli- gion which they do profess; but an observation of a contrary frame and temper in such persons, and of how little use they are in the world, must needs produce contrary effects. By reason of such mis- carriages as these, and others of an alike nature, whereby some pro- fessors are so far from adorning the gospel of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as that they cast, what lies in them, a blemish and reproach upon it, others are every day hardened in their alienation from all its concerns.
These few instances have I given of the means and ways whereby a general apostasy from the holy precepts of the gospel, as the rule of our obedience, hath been begun and carried on. Many others of an alike nature might be added unto them; but it is to no purpose to insist long on the nature of a disease when we find it to despise all possible remedies. Sovereign grace yet remaineth, whereunto this state of things is referred.
And this apostasy, in its measure and proportion, partakes of the guilt of that described in the text, which we made the foundation of this discourse: for therein also is Christ “ crucified afresh, and put to an open shame;” for,—
1. All persons who profess the Christian religion, and yet are thus
fallen off or alienated from its holiness, do really renounce and forego the commands of Christ, and those as enlivened by his promises, jor the pleasure and wages of sin. And herein do they openly declare and avow, as the judgment and resolution of their minds,
that there is not that excellency in his precepts, nor that goodness,
beauty, desirableness, or satisfaction in obedience unto them, or not that assurance in his promises, or worth in the things promised, as that they ought to be preferred before the course of the world and the pleasures of sin. Hence some commands of the gospel (and those of no small importance unto the furtherance of holy obedience) are neglected and cast from among the generality of Christians. Such are the commands for mutual love, whereof there is scarce any shadow left in the world: for that pretence of it which some seem to rest in and plead for as satisfactory, in the peaceable, and, as they say, loving converse of persons in their civil and ecclesiastical distri- butions, is no other than what is found among Mohammedans and Pagans on the like occasion; which, as it is good and commendable so far as it proceeds from and is suited unto the light of nature, so it no way answers, either in the kind of it or in its acts and fruits, unto that evangelical love which the Lord Christ requires among his