A25467:353
A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practically resolvedA Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved
A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practically resolved by sundry ministers in October, 1682.A Continuation of morning-exercise questions and cases of conscience practicaly resolved by sundry ministers in October, 1682.
London: printed by J.A. for John Dunton, 1683
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Sermon 4: Quest. What may most hopefully be attempted to allay Animosities among Protestants, tha…
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
I shall consider them in the order wherein the Apostle here mentions them, who you see reserves the more important of them to the latter place.
1. The sincere love of Christians to one another, would be an happy means of preserving the truly Christian Interest among us. That this may be understood, we must rightly apprehend what kind of love it is that is here meant. It is specified by what we find in conjunction with it, The understanding, and acknowledgement of the mystery of Christianity. Therefore it must be the love of Christians to one another as such. Whence we collect, lest we too much extend the object of it on the one hand, or contract it on the other,
1. The sincere love of Christians to one another, would be an happy means of preserving the truly Christian Interest among us. That this may be understood, we must rightly apprehend what kind of love it is that is here meant. It is specifi'd by what we find in conjunction with it, The understanding, and acknowledgment of the mystery of Christianity. Therefore it must be the love of Christians to one another as such. Whence we collect, lest we too much extend the object of it on the one hand, or contract it on the other,
1. That it is not the love only which we owe to one another as men, or humane Creatures merely, that is intended here. That ⟨p. 84⟩were too much to enlarge it, as to our present consideration of it. For under that common notion, we should be as much obliged to love the enemies we are to unite against, as the friends of Religion we are to unite with, since all partake equally in humane nature. It must be a more special love that shall have the desired influence in the present case. We cannot be peculiarly endeared and united to some more than to others, upon a reason that is common to them with others. We are to love them that are born of God, and are his children, otherwise than the children of men, or such of whom it may be said they are of their father the Devil; them that appear to have been partakers of a divine nature at another rate, than them who have received a mere humane, or also the diabolical nature.