13. Christianity teacheth men to forbear and to forgive, as ever they will be forgiven of God, and the strong to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please themselves, but one another to their edification; not to be censorious, harsh, or cruel, nor to place the kingdom of God in meats, and drinks, and days, but in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost; to bear one another's burdens, and to restore them with the spirit of meekness that are overtaken in a fault, and to be peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and hypocrisy, and to speak evil of no man; and where this is obeyed, how quietly and easily may princes govern![107]
14. Christianity setteth before us the perfectest pattern of all this humility, meekness, contempt of worldly wealth and greatness, self-denial and obedience, that ever was given in the world. The eternal Son of God incarnate, would condescend to earth and flesh, and would obey his superiors after the flesh, in the repute of the world; and would pay tribute, and never be drawn to any contempt of the governors of the world, though he suffered death under the false accusation of it. He that is a christian, endeavoureth to imitate his Lord: and can the imitation of Christ, or of his peaceable apostles, be injurious to governors? Could the world but lay by their serpentine enmity against the holy doctrine and practice of christianity, and not take themselves engaged to persecute it, nor dash themselves in pieces on the stone which they should build upon, nor by striving against it provoke it to fall on them and grind them to powder, they never need to complain of disturbances by christianity or godliness.[108]
15. Christianity and true godliness containeth, not only all those precepts that tend to peace and order in the world, but also strength, and willingness, and holy dispositions for the practising of such precepts. Other teachers can speak but to the ears, but Christ doth write his laws upon the heart; so that he maketh them such as he commandeth them to be: only this is the remnant of our unhappiness, that while he is performing the cure on us, we retain a remnant of our old diseases, and so his work is yet imperfect: and as sin in strength is it that setteth on fire the course of nature, so the relics of it will make some disturbance in the world, according to its degree; but nothing is more sure than that the godliest christian is the most orderly and loyal subject, and the best member (according to his parts and power) in the commonwealth; and that sin is the cause, and holiness the cure of all the disorders and calamities of the world.
16. Lastly, Consult with experience itself, and you will find, that all this which I have spoken, hath been ordinarily verified.[109] What heathenism tendeth to, you may see even in the Roman government (for there you will confess it was at the best). To read of the tumults, the cruelties, the popular unconstancy, faction, and injustice; how rudely the soldiers made their emperors, and how easily and barbarously they murdered them, and how few of them from the days of Christ till Constantine did die the common death of all men, and escape the hands of those that were their subjects; I think this will satisfy you, whither men's enmity to christianity tendeth: and then to observe how suddenly the case was altered, as soon as the emperors and subjects became christian (till in the declining of the Greek empire, some officers and courtiers who aspired to the crown did murder the emperors): and further to observe, that the rebellious doctrines and practices against governors, have been all introduced by factions and heresies, which forsook christianity so far before they incurred such guilt; and that it is either papal usurpation (which is in its nature an enemy to princes) that hath deposed and trampled upon emperors and kings, or else some mad enthusiastics that overrun religion and their wits, that at Munster, (and in England some lately,) by the advantage of their prosperity, have dared to do violence against sovereignty; but the more any men were christians and truly godly, the more they detested all such things; all this will tell you that the most serious and religious christians, are the best members of the civil societies upon earth.
II. Having done with the first part of my last direction, I shall say but this little of the second; let christians see that they be christians indeed, and abuse not that which is most excellent to be a cloak to that which is most vile. 1. In reading politics, swallow not all that every author writeth in conformity to the polity that he liveth under. What perverse things shall you read in the popish politics (Contzen, and abundance such)! What usurpation on principalities, and cruelties to christians, under the pretence of defending the church, and suppressing heresies!