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put you to death: The time will come, that they will think it a good fervice to God to kill you.

4. That men may do the vileft things, and the most wicked, not only under a grave pretence of religion, but out of a real opinion and perfuafion that they do religiously. Murder is certainly one of the greatcft and most crying fins; and yet our Saviour foretels, that the Jews fhould put his difciples to death, being verily perfuaded, that in fo doing they offered a most acceptable facrifice to God: Yea, the time fhall come, that whofoever killeth you, shall think that he offers a facrifice to God.

5. That fuch actions are never the lefs horribly impious and wicked, notwithstanding the good mind with which, and the good end for which they are done. The Jews were not excufed from the guilt of perfecution and murder, for all they thought they did well in killing the difciples of our Lord.

6. I obferve, that the corruption of the best things is the worst. Religion is the highest accomplishment and perfection of human nature; and zeal for God and his truth an excellent quality, and highly acceptable to God: and yet nothing is more barbarous, and fpurs men on to more horrible impieties, than a blind zeal for God, and false and mistaken principles in the matter of religion; as is plain from the inftances here before us in the text. I fhall speak as briefly as I can to these observations.

I. That the best of men may be separated and excluded from the communion of those who may affume to be the true, and only true church, and that under the notion of very bad and criminal perfons. This our Saviour foretels in the text fhould be the fate of his Apoftles, some of the best and holieft perfons that ever lived: They hall put you out of the fynagogues.

And what the Jews did in the beginning of Christianity to the Apostles of our Lord and Saviour, hath been too frequently practifed fince by fome of the profeffors of Christianity towards one another; and very good men have in feveral ages fallen under the cenfure of excommunication, and have been feparated from the externál communion of the church, and branded with the o

dious names of hereticks and apoftates, by those who have arrogated to themselves to be the only orthodox and true church, and have gotten the external power and management of religion into their hands. Witness the cafe of Athanafius, and others, in the reign and prevalency of Arianifm; and the ill treatment, that not only particular perfons, eminent for their learning and piety, but whole churches, have met with in this kind, from that haughty and uncharitable church, which makes nothing of thundering out this moft fearful fentence of excommunication against perfons and churches much better and more Christian than herself, and against all that will not fubmit to her pretended infallibility, and ufurped authority over the fouls and confciences of

men.

But it is our great comfort, that the Apostles and difciples of our Lord and Master were thus ufed, by a church that made the fame pretences that they do, and upon grounds every whit as plaufible; as I could clearly fhew, if I were minded to purfue and make out this comparison.

II. They who are thus excommunicated by the only pretended true church, may nevertheless be true members of the church of Chrift. Though the Apoftles were thus dealt withal by the Jewish church, they did not ceafe for all this to be real members of the true church of God. For it is not calling hereticks first, that proves them that do fo to be no hereticks, or acquits them from the fame or greater crimes, than thofe which they are fo forward to charge upon other men: nor will God condemn all those who are excommunicated by men, and deny falvation to every one whom they fhall please to separate from their fociety, and to call by fome odious name. Men may be put out of the fynagogue, and yet received into heaven; for the judgment of God is not according to the uncharitable cenfures of men, but according to truth and right.

The fentence of excommunication is certainly very dreadful where it is duly inflicted: and, next to the judgment of God, men ought to be afraid of juftly incurring the danger of this cenfure. And it ought to be upon very plain and evident grounds, that men either fepa

rate

rate themselves, or endanger their being cut off from the communion of the church they live in. But when it once comes to this, that a church is infected with grofs errors and corruptions, plainly contrary to the word of God, efpecially if that church will impofe her errors upon all that are of her communion; then those who refufe to comply, do not feparate themselves, but are cut off; do not depart, but are driven out of the commu→ nion of that church: and feparation in that case is as innocent and free from the guilt of schism, as the cause of it is; for the terms of communion are become fuch, that those who are convinced of those errors and corruptions, can have no falvation, if they continue in that communion and then I am fure their falvation will not be endangered by leaving it, or being excommunicated out of it; for that would be the hardest case in the world, that men should be damned for continuing in the communion of fuch a church, and damned likewife for being caft out of it.

:

Therefore no man ought to be terrified because of the boldness and prefumption of those who, with so much confidence, and fo little charity, damn all that are not of their communion: for we fee plainly from the text, that men may be in the right and fureft way to falvation, and yet be excommunicated by those who call themselves the true church, and will not allow falvation to any but those of their own communion. The difciples of our Lord and Saviour were certainly very good men, and in a safe way of falvation, though they were excommunicated, and put out of the fynagogue, by the chief priests and the rulers of the Jewish church. I proceed to the

III. Third obfervation; which was this, That from uncharitable cenfures men do, by an eafy step, and almost naturally, proceed to cruel actions. After the Jews had put the difciples of our Lord out of their fynagogues, and thereby concluded them to be hereticks and reprobates, no wonder they fhould proceed to kill those whom they thought not worthy to live: They shall put you out of their fynagogues, fays our Saviour; and when they have done that, they will foon think it a thing not only fit and reasonable, but pious and meritorious, and a good piece of fervice done to God, to put you to

death.

death. Uncharitablenefs naturally draws on cruelty, and hardens human nature towards those of whom we have once conceived fo ill an opinion, that they are enemies to God and his truth.

And this hath been the fource of the most barbarous cruelties that have been in the world: witness the feverity of the Heathen perfecution of the Chriftians; which juftified itfelf by the uncharitable opinion which they had conceived of them, that they were defpifers of religion and the gods, and confequently Atheists; that they were pertinacious and obftinate in their opinions; that is, in the modern style, they were hereticks. And the like uncharitable conceit among Chriftians hath been thought a fufficient ground, even in the judgment of the infallible chair, for the juftification of feveral bloody maffacres, and the cruel proceedings of the inquifition against perfons fufpected of herefy; for after men are once fentenced to eternal damnation, it feems a small thing to torment and destroy their bodies.

IV. Men may do the vileft and most wicked things, not only under a grave pretence of religion, but out of a real opinion and perfuafion of mind, that they do religiously. Murder is certainly one of the greatest and moft crying fins; and yet our Saviour foretels, that the Jews fhould put his difciples to death, being verily perfuaded, that in fo doing they fhould offer a moft acceptable facrifice to God: Tea, the time cometh, that whofoe ver killeth you, fhall think that he offers a facrifice to God.

Not but that the great duties and virtues of religion are very plain, and cafy to be understood; and fo are the contrary fins and vices: but then they are only plain to a teachable, and honest, and well-disposed mind; to those who receive the word with meekness, and are not blinded with wrath and furious zeal; to those that receive the truth into an honeft heart, and entertain it in the love of it: they are plain to the humble and meek; for the humble God will guide in judgment, and the meek will he teach his ways fuch as thefe God feldom fuffers to fall into fatal mistakes about their fin, or duty, fo as to call good evil, and evil good; to call light darkness, and darkness light; to think uncharitableness a virtue, and downright murder a great duty.

But

But if men will give up themselves to be fwayed by felf-love and felf-conceit, to be governed by any base or corrupt intereft, to be blinded by prejudice and intoxicated by pride, to be tranfported and hurried away by violent and furious paffions; no wonder if they mistake the nature, and confound the differences of things, in the plainest and most palpable cafes; no wonder if God give up perfons of fuch corrupt minds to ftrong delufions, to believe lies. It ought not to be strange to us, if fuch men bring their understandings to their wills and interefts, and bend their judgments to their prejudices, make them to stoop to their pride, and blindly to follow their paffions, which way foever they lead them: for God ufually leaves fuch perfons to themselves, as run away from him; and is not concerned to secure those from splitting upon the most dangerous rocks, who will fteer their courfe by no compafs, but commit themselves to the wind and tide of their own lufts and paffions.

In these cafes men may take the wrong way, and yet believe themselves to be in the right: they may oppose the truth, and perfecute the profeffors of it, and be guilty of the blackest crimes and the most horrid impieties, malice and hatred, blafphemy and murder; and yet all the while be verily perfuaded, that they are ferving God, and facrificing to him.

Of this we have a plain and full inftance in the fcribes and Pharifees, the chief priests and rulers among the Jews, who, because they fought the honour of men, and not that which was from God, and loved the praise of men, more than the praife of God; because they were prejudiced against the meannefs of our Saviour's birth and condition, and had upon falfe grounds, though, as they thought, upon the infallibility of tradition, and of fcripture interpreted by tradition, entertained quite other notions of the Meffias, from what he really was to be; because they were proud, and thought themselves too wife to learn of him; and because his doctrine of humility and felf-denial did thwart their intereft, and bring down their authority and credit among the people; therefore they fet themselves against him with all their might, oppofing his doctrine, and blafting his reputation, and perfecuting him to death; and all this while did bear up

themselves

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