and approved of (wise and sober) men. Therefore he followeth after things which make for peace, and things wherewith one may edify another; and will not for meats, &c. destroy the work of God.' He stayeth not till peace be offered him, or brought home to him, but he followeth peace with all men, as well as holiness.' If it fly from him, he pursueth it if it be denied him, he seeketh it, and will not refuse to stoop to the poorest for it, and to beg it of his inferiors, if it were upon his knees, rather than be denied it, and live an unpeaceable disquiet life. For he believeth, that 'blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God.'

2. And the weak Christian hath the same spirit, and therefore the love of peace is most predominant in him. But alas, he is too easily tempted into religious passions, discontents, contentious disputations, quarrelsome and opprobrious words; and his judgment lamentably darkened and perverted whenever contentious zeal prevaileth, and passions do perturb the quiet and orderly operations of his soul. He wanteth both the knowledge and the experience and the mellowness of spirit, which riper Christians have attained. He hath a less degree of charity, and is less acquainted with the mischiefs of unpeaceableness and therefore it is the common course of young professors, to be easily tempted into unpeaceable ways: and when they have long tried them (if they prove not hypocrites) to come off at last upon experience of the evils of them; and so the young Christians conjunct with some hypocrites make up the rigorous, fierce, contentious and vexatious party,

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and the aged riper Christians make up the holy, moderate, healing party, that groan and pray for the church's peace, and mourn in secret both for the ungodliness and violence which they cannot heal. Yea the difference is much apparent in the books and sermons which each of them is best pleased with. The ripe experienced Christian loveth those sermons that kindle love and tend to peace; and love such healing books as do narrow differences, and tend to reconcile and heal, such as Bishop Hall's Peacemaker, and Pax terris, and all his writings; and Bishop Davenant's, Bishop Morton's, and Bishop Hall's Pacificatory Epistles to Duræus, and Mr. Burroughs's Irenicon, Ludov. Crocius, Amyraldus, Junius, Paraus's, and many other Irenicons written by foreign divines, to say nothing of those that are upon single controversies. But the younger uncharitable Christians are better pleased with such books and sermons as call them aloud to be very zealous for this or that controverted point of doctrine, or for or against some circumstance of worship or church discipline, or about some fashions, or customs, or indifferent things, as if the kingdom of God were in them.

3. But the seeming Christian is either a mere temporiser, that will be of that religion whatever it be which is most in fashion, or which the higher powers are of, or which will cost him least: or else he will run into the other extreme, and lift up himself by affected singularities, and by making a bustle and stir in the world about some small and controverted point, and careth not to sacrifice the peace

and safety of the church, to the honour of his own opinions. And as small as the Christian church is, he must be of a smaller society than it, that he may be sure to be amongst the best; while indeed he hath no sincerity at all, but placeth his hopes in being of the right church or party or opinion: and for his party or church, he burneth with a feverish kind of zeal, and is ready to call for fire from heaven; and to deceive him, the devil sendeth him some from hell, to consume those that are not of his mind: yet doth he bring it as an angel of light to defend the truth and church of Christ. And indeed when the devil will be the defender of truth, or of the church, or of peace, or order, or piety, he doth it with the most burning zeal you may know him by the means he useth. He defendeth the church by forbidding the people to read the Scriptures in a known tongue, and by imprisoning and burning the soundest and holiest members of it, and abusing the most learned faithful pastors, and defendeth the flock by casting out the shepherds, and such like means; as the murders of the Waldenses, and the massacres of France and Ireland, and the Spanish inquisition, and Queen Mary's bonfires, and the Powder-plot; yea and the Munster, and the English rage and frenzies, may give you fuller notice of. He that hath no holiness, nor charity to be zealous for, will be zealous for his church, or sect, or customs, or opinions. And then this zeal must be the evidence of his piety: and so the inquisitors have thought they have religiously served God by murdering his servants: and it is the badge of their honour to be the devil's

hangmen, to execute his malice on the members of Christ; and all this is done in zeal for religion by irreligious hypocrites. There is no standing before the malicious zeal of a graceless Pharisee, when it riseth up for his carnal interest, or the honour, and traditions, and customs of his sect. ' And they were filled with madness, and communed with one another what they might do to Jesus.' The zeal of a true Christian consumeth himself with grief to see the madness of the wicked: but the zeal of the hypocrite consumeth others, that by the light of the fire his religiousness may be seen. You may see the Christian's fervent love to God, by the fervent flames which he can suffer for his sake: and you may see the fervent love of the hypocrite, by the flames which he kindleth for others. By these he crieth with Jehu, Come and see my zeal for the Lord.'

LV. 1. A Christian indeed is one that most highly esteemeth and regardeth the interest of God and men's salvation in the world; and taketh all things else to be inconsiderable in comparison of these. The interest of great men, and nobles, and commanders; yea and his own in temporal respects, as riches, honour, health and life, he taketh to be things unworthy to be named in competition with the interest of Christ and souls. The thing that his heart is most set upon in the world, is that God be glorified, and that the world acknowledge him their King, and that his laws be obeyed, and that darkness, and infidelity, and ungodliness may be cast out; and that pride, and worldliness, and fleshly

lusts may not hurry the miserable world into perdition. It is one of the saddest and most amazing thoughts that ever entereth into his heart, to consider how much of the world is overwhelmed in ignorance and wickedness, and how great the kingdom of the devil is, in comparison of the kingdom of Christ; that God should forsake so much of his creation; that Christianity should not be owned in above the sixth part of the world; and popish pride and ignorance, with the corruptions of many other sects, and the worldly carnal minds of hypocrites, should rob Christ of so much of this little part, and leave him so small a flock of holy ones, that must possess the kingdom. His soul consenteth to the method of the Lord's Prayer, as prescribing us the order of our desires. And in his prayers he seeketh first (in order of estimation and intention) the hallowing of God's name, and the coming of his kingdom, and the doing of his will on earth as it is done in heaven, before his daily bread, or the pardon of his sins, or the deliverance of his own soul from temptations and the evil one. Mark him in his prayers, and you shall find that he is, above other men, taken up in earnest petitions for the conversion of the heathen and infidel world, and the undeceiving of Mahometans, Jews, and heretics, and the clearing of the church from those papal tyrannies, and fopperies, and corruptions, which make Christianity hateful or contemptible in the eyes of the heathen and Mahometan world, and hinder their conversion. No man so much lamenteth the pride, and covetousness, and laziness, and unfaithfulness of the pastors