were in bondage to: "we ourselves were sometimes foolish and disobedient, serving divers lusts and pleasures; living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another." Titus iii. 3. Well what was the physic that recovered them? See verse 4. "But after the kindness and love of God our Saviour towards man appeared, not by works of righteousness, which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Ghost." As if he had said, Had not this love of God to us in Christ appeared, and we been thus washed by his regenerating Spirit, we might have lain to this day under the power of those lusts, for all the help that any other could afford Mortification is a work of the Spirit: "if through the Spirit ye mortify the deeds of the flesh, ye shall live." Rom. viii. 13; and the Gospel is the sacrificing-knife in the hand of the Spirit; the Word is called the "sword of the Spirit," as that which he useth to kill and slay sin within the hearts of his people.

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Thirdly, As the Gospel lays the axe to the root of bitterness and strife, to stub that up, so it fills the hearts of those that embrace it with such gracious principles as incline to peace and unity: such are self-denial, that prefers another in honour before himself, and will not jostle for the wall; long-suffering, a grace which is not easily moved and provoked; gentleness, which if moved by any wrong, keeps the doors open for peace to come in at again, and makes him easy to be entreated. See a whole bundle of these sweet herbs growing in one bed: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, goodness, faith, meekness." Gal. v. 22. Mark, I pray, this is not fruit that grows in every hedge, but "fruit of the Spirit" fruit that springs from Gospel-seed. As the stones in the quarry, and cedars as they grew in the wood, would never have lain close and comely together in the temple; so neither could the one cut and polish, nor the other hew and carve, themselves into that fitness and beauty, which they all had in that stately fabric; no: that was the work of men gifted of God for that purpose; neither can men and women, with all their skill and tools of morality, square and frame their hearts so

as to fall in lovingly together into one holy temple; this is the work of the Spirit, and that also, with this instrument and chissel of the Gospel, to do, partly by cutting off the knottiness of our churlish natures, by his mortifying grace; as also carving, polishing, and smoothing them, with those graces which are the emanations of his own sweet, meek, and holy Spirit.

CHAP. XII.

WHEREIN IS SHEWN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE PEACE THAT IS AMONG SAINTS, AND WHICH IS AMONG THE WICKED; THE GREATNESS OF THEIR SIN WHO ARE MINISTERS OF PEACE AND YET STIR UP STRIFE; AND THE REASON WHY THERE IS NO MORE PEACE AND UNITY AMONG SAINTS IN THIS LIFE.

USE 1. This helps us what to think of that peace and love which sometimes is to be found among the wicked of the world. It is not true peace and solid love, because they are strangers to the Gospel, that alone can unite hearts together. What then shall we call this their peace? In some it is a mere conspiracy: "say ye not a confederacy to all them, to whom this people shall say a confederacy." Isa. viii. 12. The peace of some is rather founded in wrath to the saints than love among themselves. They are united, but how? no other way than Samson's foxes, -to do mischief to others rather than good to themselves. Two dogs, that are worrying one another, can leave off to run both after a hare that comes by them; who, when the chase is over, can to it as fiercely as before. "In the same day Pilate and Herod were made friends together, for before they were at enmity between themselves." Luke xxiii. 12. Again, the peace and unity of others is founded upon some base lust that ties them together; thus shall you see a knot

of good fellows (as they miscall themselves) sit over the pot with abundance of seeming content in one another; and a pack of thieves, when upon a wicked design, jug and call one another together, as partridges their fellows, saying, "Come with us, cast in thy lot among us, let us all have one purse." Prov. i. 14. Here now is peace and unity; but, alas! they are only "brethren in iniquity." Thirdly, where it is not thus gross, as it cannot indeed be denied but there are some that never felt the power of the Gospel, so as to be made new creatures by it, who yet hold very fair quarter one with another, and correspond together, and that not on so base and sordid an account, among whom such offices of love are reciprocated as do much sweeten their lives and endear them one to another; and for this they are much beholden to the Gospel, which doth civilize often where it doth not sanctify. But this is a peace so fundamentally defective, that it doth not deserve the name of true peace.

First, It is in cortice, non in corde, superficial and external, not inward and cordial; we may say, rather their lusts are chained from open war, than their hearts changed into inward love: as the beasts agreed in the ark pretty well, yet kept their hostile nature, so do unregenerate men.

Secondly, It is unsanctified peace. First, because, while they seem to have peace with one another, they have not peace with God; and it is peace with God takes away the curse. Secondly, because it proceeds from unsanctified bearts; it is the altar that sanctifies the gift; the heart, the unity. Amicitia non est nisi inter bonos. A heathen could say, True love and friendship can only be between good men; but, alas! he knew not what made a good man. When God intends in mercy to make the hearts of men one, he first makes them new: “and I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within you;" Ezek. xi. 19. the peace of the right kind is a fruit of the Spirit, and that sanctifies before it unites. Thirdly, because the end that all such propound in their love, is carnal not spiritual. As Austin did not admire Cicero for his eloquence and oratory so much as he did undervalue and pity him because the name of Jesus Christ

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was not to be found in him; so this draws a black line upon carnal men's peace and unity; nothing of God and Christ in it. Is it his glory they aim at? Christ's command that binds them to the peace? No: alas! here is the still voice, but God is not in it; their own quiet and carnal advantage is the primum mobile; peace and unity are such good guests, and pay so well for their entertainment, that this makes men who have no grace, if they have but their wits left, desirous to keep up an external peace among themselves.

In a word, it is a peace that will not long last, because it wants a strong cement; stones may awhile lie together without mortar, but not long. The only lasting cement for love is the blood of Christ; as Austin saith of his friend Alypius and himself, they were sanguine Christi glutinati.

Use 2. Is the Gospel a Gospel of peace in this sense, as taken for unity and love? This dips their sin into a deep dye, who abuse the Gospel to a quite contrary end; and make it their instrument to promote strife and contention with. Such the Apostle speaks of, "some indeed preach Christ out of envy and strife." Phil. i. 15. The Gospel of peace is a strange text, one would think, to preach division and raise strife from; and the pulpit as strange a mount for to plant the battering-pieces of contention on. O how strangely do these men forget their Lord that sent them, who is a prince of peace; and their work, which is not to blow a trumpet of sedition and confusion, or sound an alarm to battle, but rather a joyful retreat from the bloody fight wherein their lusts had engaged them against God and one another! Indeed, there is a war they are to proclaim, but it is only against sin and Satan; and I am sure we are not fit to march out against them, till we can agree among ourselves. What would the prince think of that captain who, instead of encouraging his soldiers to fall on with united forces, as one man against the common enemy, should make a speech to set his soldiers together by the ears among themselves; surely he would hang him up for a traitor. Good was Luther's prayer: A Doctore glorioso, à Pastore contentioso, et inutilibus quæstionibus liberet Ecclesiam

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Deus. From a vain-glorious doctor, a contentious pastor, and nice questions, the Lord deliver his church. And we, in these sad times, have reason to say as hearty an amen to it, as any since his age. Do we not live in a time when the church is turned into a sophister's school? where such a wrangling and jangling hath been that the preciousest truths of the Gospel are lost already to many; (whose eyes are put out with the dust these contentions have raised) and they have at last fairly disputed themselves out of all their sober principles: as some ill husbands that light among cunning gamesters, and play all their money out of their purses. O woe to such vile men, who have prostituted the Gospel to such devilish ends. God may have mercy on the cheated souls to bring them back to the love of the truth; but for the cheaters, they are gone so far towards Hell that we cannot look for their return.

Use 3. This gives us the reason why there is no more peace and unity among the saints themselves. The Gospel cannot be faulty, that breathes peace. No: it is not because they are Gospellers, but because they are but imperfectly gospelized, that they are no more peaceful; the more they partake of the spirit of the Gospel, the less will they be haunted with the evil spirit of contention and strife. The best of saints are in part unevangelical in two particulars, from which come all the unkind quarrelling and unbrotherly contests among them.

First, In their judgments. "They know but in part, and prophesy but in part." 1 Cor. xiii. 9. he that pretends to more, boasts without his measure, and doth thereby discover, what he denies, his ignorance, I mean, in the Gospel. And this defect in the saints' judgments exposeth them sometimes to drink in principles that are not evangelical. Now, these are they that make the bustle and disturb their peace and unity. All truth is reducible to an unity, like lines they lovingly meet in one centre, the God of truth; and are so far from jostling and clashing, that, as stones in an arch, they uphold one another. And they which so sweetly agree in one cannot learn us to divide. No: it is this stranger, error, that creeps in among the saints, and will needs be judge: this breaks