fake, and to be at peace among themselves, Thess. v. 12, 13. and it will also teach fuperiors to condescend to men of low degree, and not to think of themselves above what they ought, but "with all lowliness, meeknels, and long-fuffering, to for

bear one another in love, keeping (this way) the unity of the " Spirit in the bond of peace," Eph. iv. 2, 3.

Direction 5. This gentle language and respectful deportment, would naturally and constantly flow from the uniting grace of wisdom, humility, and love, were they more exalted in the hearts of Chriftians.

Wisdom would allay those unchristian heats, Prov. xvii. 27. a man of understanding is of an excellent spirit, so we render it; but the Hebrew signifies a cool spirit; "the wisdom that is *" from above is gentle, and easy to be intreated," James iii. 17.

Humility takes away the fuel from the fire of contention; only from pride cometh contention, Prov. xiii. 10. How dearly hath pride, especially spiritual pride, cost the churches of Chrift?

Love is the very cement of societies, the fountain of peace and unity; it thinketh no evil, 1 Cor. xiii. puts the fairest sense upon doubtful words and actions, it beareth all things. "Love " me (faith Austin) and reprove me as thou pleasest: It is a radical grace, bearing the fruits of peace and unity upon it.

Direction 6. Be of a Christ-like forgiving spirit one towards - another, Eph. iv. 31, 32. "Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil-speaking be put away from you, " with all malice, and be ye kind one to another, tender-heart"ed, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's fake hath " forgiven you." Hath thy brother offended thee? How apt art thou also to offend thy brother? And, which is infinitely more, how often dost thou every day grieve and offend Jesus Chrift, who yet freely forgives all thy offences? Remember friend, that an unforgiving is a sad fign of an unforgiven perfon. They that have found mercy, pity, and forgiveness, should of all men in the world, be most ready to shew it.

Direction 7. Be deeply affected with the mischievous effects and confequents of schisms and divisions in the societies of the faints, and let nothing beneath a plain neceffity, divide you from communion one with another; hold it fast till you can hold it no longer without fin. At the fire of your contentions your enemies warm their hands, and say, Aha, so would we have it: Your prayers are obstructed, Matth. v. 24. " First be "reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift." Edification is hindered: Feverish bodies thrive not, Eph. iv. 15. God is provoked to remove his gracious prefence from VOL, IV.

Ddd

among you. "Be of one mind (faith the apostle) live in peace, " and the God of peace shall be with you," 1 Cor. xiii. 11. implying that their contentions would deprive them of his bleffed company with them. The glory of your society is clouded; "If ye have bitter envyings and strife in your heart, glory " not," James iii. 14. Glory not in your church privileges, perfonal gifts and attainments; whatever you think of yourfelves, you are not fuch Chriftians as you vogue yourselves for, living in sia so directly contrary to christianity. The name of Christ is dishonoured. You are taken out of the world, to be. a people for his name, that is, for his honour; but there is little credit to the name of Chrift from a dividing, wrangling people. The alluring beauty of Chriftianity, by which the church gains upon the world, Acts ii. 46, 47. is fullied and defaced, and thereby (as I noted before) converfion hindred, and a new stone, as it were, rolled over the graves of poor finners, to keep them down in their impeniteney: Tremble therefore at the thoughts. of divisions and separations. St Augustine notes three fins severely punished in scripture. The golden calf, with the fword; Jehoiakim's cutting the sacred roll, with a dreadful captivity; but the schism of Korah, and his accomplices, with the earth's opening her mouth and swallowing them up quick.

Direction 8. Let all church-members see that they have union with Christ, evidencing itself in daily sweet communion with him Lines drawn from a circumference come the nearest to one another in the center. When God intends to make the hearts of men one, he first makes them new, Ezek. xi. 19. "I will give "them one heart, and I will put a new Spirit within you." And the more any renewed heart tastes the sweetness of communion with God, by so much it is disposed for unity and peace with his people. Our frowardness and peevisiness plainly difcovers all is not well betwixt God and us. Nothing so opposite to or abhorred by a foul that enjoys sweet peace and communion with Christ, than to live in finful jars and contentions with his people. Return therefore to the primitive spirit of love and unity; forbear one another; forgive one another; mortify your dividing lufts; cherish your uniting graces: "mark them

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which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the doctrine ye have learned, and avoid them," Rom. xvi. 17. In a word, and that the word of the apostle in the text, "I befeech you, brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that ye all speak the fame thing, and that there be no divisions among you, but that ye be perfectly joined together in the fame " mind, and in the fame judgment."

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ENGLAND'S DUTY,

UNDER THE PRESENT

GOSPEL-LIBERTY.

From Revelation iii. 20.

TO WHICH IS ADDED,

MOUNTPISGAH:

OR, A

Thanksgiving SERMON for ENGLAND's Delivery from POPERY, Feb. 1688-9.

Candid Reader,
HE

T

following discourse comes to thy hand in that native plainness wherein it was preached. I was confcientioufly unwilling to alter it, because I found by experience, the Lord had bleffed and profpered it in that dress, far beyond any other composures on which I had bestowed more pains. Let it not be cenfured as vanity or oftentation, that I here acknowledge the goodness of God, in leading me to, and blessing my poor labours upon this fubject. Who, and what am I that I should be continued, and again employed in the Lord's harvest, and that with fuccess and encouragement, when so many of my brethren, with their much richer furnitures of gifts and graces, have in my time been called out of the vineyard, and are now filent in the grave! It is true, they enjoy what I do not; and it is as true, I am capable of doing some service for God, which they are not. In preaching these sermons, I had many occafions to reflect upon the mystical sense of that fcripture, Amos ix. 13. "The plowman shall overtake the reaper, " and the treader of grapes him that foweth feed." Sowing and reaping times trode so close upon one another, that (in all humility I speak it to the praise of God) it was the bufiest and blessedeft time I ever faw, fince I first preached the gofpel.

England hath now a day of special mercy: there is a wide door of opportunity opened to it; O that it might prove an effectual door! It is transporting and astonishing, that after all the high and horrid provocations, the atheism, prophaneness and bitter enmity against light and reformation: this sweet voice is still heard in England, Behold, 1 stand at the door and knock. The mercies and liberties of this day are a new trial obtained for us by our potent Advocate in the heavens: if we bring forth fruit, well; if not, the ax lieth at the root of the tree. Let us not be secure. Jerufalem was the city of the great King; the feat of his worship, and symbols of his preTence were fixed there; it was the joy of the whole earth, the house of prayer for all nations; thither the tribes went up to worship, the tribes of the Lord unto the testimony of Ifrael. For there were set thrones of judgment, the thrones of the house of David, Pfal. cxxii. 4, 5. These privileges she enjoyed through the fucceffion of many ages, and had remained the glory of all nations to this day, had the known and improved, in that day, the things that belonged to her peace; but they neglected their season, rejected their mercies, and mife rably perished in their fins: for there ever was, and will be found an infeparable connexion betwixt the final rejection of Christ, and the destruction of the rejecters, Matth. xxii. 5, 6, 7. The contemplation whereof drew those compaffionate tears from the Redeemer's eyes, when he beheld it in his descent from the mount of Olives, Luke xix. 41, 42.

Let all that are wife in heart henceforth depose their animo, fities, sadly reflect on their follies, encourage and affift the labours of their brethren in the Lord's harvest; and rejoice that God hath set them at liberty by law, whose assistance in so great an opportunity is neceffary and defirable. It is against the laws of wisdom and charity, to envy the liberty, and much more the success of our brethren, 1 Cor. xiii. 4. If the workmen contend and scuffle in a catching harvest, who but the owner fuffers damage by it? If, after so miraculous, recent, and common a falvation as this, we still retain our old prejudices and bitter envyings; if we smite with the tongue and pen, when we cannot with the hand; and study to blast the reputation and labours of our brethren; and still hate those we can

not

we

2

not hurt: In a word, if we still bite and devour, one another, we shall be devoured one of another. Let us not lay the fault upon others, we ourselves have been the authors and inftruments of our own ruin; and this must be the inscription upon our tombstone, Q England, thou hast destroyed thyself. I am more afraid of the rooted enmity and fixed prejudices, that are to be found in many against holiness and the serious profeffors of it, and inflexible obstinacy and dead formality in many others, (the tokens of a tremendous infatuation) than I am of all the whispered fears from other hands, or common enemies upon our borders.

To prevent these mischiefs, and promote zeal and unaminity among the minifters of the gospel, I have presumed to address them in the following epistles. I am confcious of my own unworthiness to be their monitor, and of the defects their judicious eyes will easily difcern in the stile wherein it is written; and yet can promise myself a becoming reception of what is so faithfully, seasonably, and honestly designed for their good. I am satisfied that no candid and ingenuous person will put words upon the rack, quarrel at a fimilitude, or expose a trifle, when he finds the design honest, and the matter good and necessary.

As to the treatise itself, thou wilt find it a perfuafive to open thy heart to Christ. Thy foul, reader, is a magnificent structure built by Christ, such stately rooms as thy understanding, will, confcience and affections, are too good for any other to inhabit. If thou be in thy unregenerate state, then he folemnly demands, in this text, admiflion into the foul he made, by the consent of the will: which, if thou refuse to give him, then witness is taken, that Christ once more demanded entrance into thy foul which he made, and was denied it. If thou hast opened thy heart to him, thou wilt, I hope, meet somewhat in this treatise that will clear thy evidences, and cheer thy heart: Pray read, ponder and apply. I am

Thine and the

Church's fervant,

JOHN FLAVEL.