A discourse concerning evangelical love, church-peace and unity with the occasions and reasons of…

And it is the fondest imagination in the world, that we must of necessity want Love towards all those with whom we cannot join in all acts of Religious Worship; or that there ⟨p. 68⟩need be any Schism between them and us, on the sole account thereof, taking Schism in the common received notion of it. If we bear unkindness towards them in our minds and hearts, if we desire, or seek their hurt, if we persecute them, or put them to trouble in the world for their Profession, if we pray not for them, if we pity them not in all their Temptations, Errors, or Sufferings, if we say unto any of them when naked, be thou clothed; and when hungry, be thou fed; but relieve them not according unto our abilities and opportunities; if we have an aversation to their Persons, or judge them any otherwise than as they cast themselves openly and visibly under the sentence of Natural Reason, or Scripture-Rule, we may be justly thought to fail in our Love towards them. But if our Hearts condemn us not in these things, it is not the difference that is or may be, between them and us, about Church Constitutions or Order, that ought be a cause, or can be an evidence of any want of Love on our parts: There will indeed be a distinct and separate practice in the things wherein the difference lies, which in it self, and without other avoidable evils, need not on either side to be Schismatical. If by censures or any kind of power, such Churches or Persons would force us to submit unto, or comply with such things or ways in Religious Worship, as are contrary unto our Light, and which they have no Authority from the ⟨p. 69⟩Lord Christ to impose upon us, the whole state of the Case is changed, as we shall see afterwards.

And it is the fondest imagination in the world, that we must of necessity want Love towards all those with whom we cannot join in all acts of Religious Worship; or that there ⟨p. 68⟩need be any Schisme between them and us, on the sole account thereof, taking Schisme in the common received notion of it. If we bear unkindness towards them in our minds and hearts, if we desire, or seek their hurt, if we persecute them, or put them to trouble in the world for their Profession, if we pray not for them, if we pity them not in all their Temptations, Errors, or Sufferings, if we say unto any of them when naked, be thou cloathed; and when hungry, be thou fed; but relieve them not according unto our abilities and opportunities; if we have an aversation to their Persons, or judge them any otherwise than as they cast themselves openly and visibly under the sentence of Natural Reason, or Scripture-Rule, we may be justly thought to fail in our Love towards them. But if our Hearts condemn us not in these things, it is not the difference that is or may be, between them and us, about ChurchConstitutions or Order, that ought be a cause, or can be an evidence of any want of Love on our parts: There will indeed be a distinct and separate practice in the things wherein the difference lies, which in it self, and without other avoidable evils, need not on either side to be Schismatical. If by censures or any kind of power, such Churches or Persons would force us to submit unto, or comply with such things or ways in Religious Worship, as are contrary unto our Light, and which they have no Authority from the