our intimate and familiar friend: for every one that is not our enemy, is not fit to be our friend; much less one that hath been our enemy, and perhaps is fo ftill. There must be a great change in him that hath been our enemy, and we must have had long experience of him, before it will be fit, if ever it be fo, to take him into our friendship.

All that now remains is, to make fome inferences from the discourse which I have made upon this argument, by way of application. And they fhall be these four.

I. If we think it so very difficult to demean ourselves towards our enemies, as the Chriftian religion doth plainly require us to do, to forgive them, and love them, and pray for them, and to do good offices to them; then certainly it concerns us in prudence to be very careful how we make enemies to ourselves. One of the first principles of human wisdom, in the conduct of our lives, I have ever thought to be this, to have a few intimate friends, and to make no enemies, if it be poffible, to our felves. St. Paul lays a great ftrefs upon this, and preffeth it very earnestly: for, after he had forbidden re venge, Rom. xii. 17. Recompenfe to no man evil for evil; as if he were very fenfible how hard a matter it is to bring men to this, he adviseth in the next words to pre vent, if it be poffible, the occafions of revenge; y 18. If it be poffible, and as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men; that is, if we can avoid it, have no enmity with any man: and that for two weighty reasons.

The firft I have already intimated: Because it is fo very hard to behave ourselves towards enemies as we ought. This we fhall find to be a difficult duty to flesh and blood and it will require great wisdom and confi deration, and humility of mind, for a man to bring down his spirit to the obedience of this command; for the fewer enemies we have, the lefs occafion will there be of contefting this hard point with ourselves.

And the other reason is, I think, yet plainer and more convincing: Becaufe enemies will come of themfelves, and let a man do what he can, he fhall have fome. Friendship is a thing that needs to be cultivated, if we would have it come to any thing; but enemies, like ill weeds, will spring up of themselves, without our care

and

and toil. The enemy, as our Saviour calls the devil, will fow thefe tares in the night; and, when we least difcern it, will scatter the feeds of difcord and enmity among men; and will take an advantage, either from the envy or malice, or the mistakes of men, to make them enemies to one another: which would make one wonder to fee what care and pains fome men will take, to provoke mankind against them; how they will lay about them, and fnatch at opportunities to make themfelves enemies, as if they were afraid to let the happy occafion flip by them. But all this care and fear surely is needlefs. We may fafely trust an ill-natured world, that we shall have enemies enough, without our doing things on our part to provoke and procure them.

But, above all, it concerns every man in prudence to take great care not to make perfonal enemies to himself: for these are the foreft and the fureft of all other, and, when there is an opportunity for it, will fit hardest upon us. Injuries done to the publick are certainly the greateft; and yet they are many times more eafily forgiven, than those which are done to particular perfons: for when revenge is every body's work, it may prove no body's. The general wrongs which are done to human fociety, do not fo fenfibly touch and fting men, as perfonal injuries and provocations. The law is never angry or in paffion; and it is not only a great indecency, but a fault, when the judges of it are fo. Heat of profecution belongs to particular perfons; and it is their memory of injuries, and defire to revenge them, and di-ligence to fet on and sharpen the law, that is chiefly to be dreaded and, if the truth were known, it is much to be feared, that there are almost as few private as publick acts of oblivion paffed in the world; and they commonly pafs as flowly, and with as much difficulty, and not till the grace and good effect of them is almost quite loft.

II. If we ought to be thus affected towards our enemies, how great ought our kindness, and the expreffions of it, to be to others? to thofe who never difobliged us, nor did us any injury by word or deed; to thofe more especially, who stand in a nearer relation to us; to our natural kindred, and to our spiritual brethren, to

whom

whom we are so strongly linked and united by the common bond of Christianity; and, laftly, to our benefactors, and those who have been beforehand with us in obligation? for all these are so many special ties and endearments of men to one another, founded either in nature or religion, or in common justice and gratitude. And therefore, between all thefe and our enemies, we ought to make a very wide and fenfible difference in our carriage and kindnefs towards them. And, if we do not do fo, we represent our Saviour as an unreasonable lawgiver, and do perverfely interpret this precept of his, contrary to the reasonable and equitable meaning of it. For whatever degree of kindness is here required towards our enemies, it is certain that so much more is due to others, as, according to the true proportion of our tie and obligation to them, they have deferved at our hands; nothing being more certain, than that our bleffed Saviour, the founder of our religion, did never intend by any precept of it to cancel any real obligation of nature, or juftice, or gratitude, or to offer violence in the leaft to the common reafon of mankind.

III. Hence we learn the excellency and reasonableness of the Christian religion, which hath carried our duty fo high in things which do fo directly tend to the perfection of human nature, and to the peace of human fociety; and which, if all things be rightly confidered, are molt agreeable to the clearest and best reason of mankind: fo that thofe things which were heretofore looked upon, and that only by fome few of the wifer fort, as heroical inftances of goodness, and above the common rate of humanity, are now by the Chriftian religion made the indifpenfable duties of all mankind. And the precepts of no other religion, that ever yet appeared in the world, have advanced human nature fo much above itfelf, and are fo well calculated for the peace and happinefs of the world, as the precepts of the Chriftian religion are for they ftrictly forbid the doing of injuries by way of prevention; and, in cafe they happen, they endeavour to put a present stop to the progrefs of them, by fo feverely forbidding the revenging of them.

And yet, after all this, it must be acknowledged to be a very untoward objection against the excellency and VOL. II.

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efficacy

efficacy of the Chriftian religion, that the practice of fo many Christians is fo unequal to the perfection of these precepts. For who is there in the changes and revolutions of human affairs, and when the wheel of providence turns them uppermoft, and lays their enemies at their feet, that will give them any quarter ? nay, that does not greedily feize upon the firft opportunities of revenge, and, like an eagle hungry for his prey, make a fudden floop upon them with all his force and violence; and, when he hath them in his pounces, and at his mercy, is not ready to tear them in pieces?

So that after all our boasts of the excellency of our religion, where is the practice of it? This, I confefs, is a terrible objection indeed; and I muft intreat of you, my brethren, to help me to the best answer to it: not by any nice diftinctions and fpeculations about it, but by the careful and honeft practice of this precept of Our religion.

This was the old objection against philofophy, That many that were philofophers in their opinions, were faulty in their lives: but yet this was never thought by wife men to be a good objection against philofophy. And unless we will lay more weight upon the objections against religion, and prefs them harder than we think it reasonable to do in any other cafe, we must acknowledge likewife that this objection against religion is of no force. Men do not caft off the art of phyfick, because many physicians do not live up to their own rules, and do not themselves follow thofe prescriptions which they think fit to give to others: and there is a plain reason for it; because their fwerving from their own rules, doth not neceffarily fignify, that their rules are not good, but only that their appetites are unruly, and too hard and headstrong for their reafon; nothing being more certain than this, that rules may be very reasonable, and yet they that give them may not follow them.

IV. The fourth and laft inference from this whole difcourfe fhall be this, That, being convinced by what hath been faid upon this argument of the reasonableness of this duty, we would refolve upon the practice of it, whenever there is occafion offered for it in the courfe of our lives. I need not to put you in mind, that there

there is now like to be great occafion for it; I fhall only fay, that whenever there is fo, nothing can be tied more strictly upon us than this duty is.

It hath often been a great comfort and confirmation to me, to fee the humanity of the Proteltant religion, fo plainly discovering itfelf, upon fo many occafions, in the practice of the profeffors of it. And, letting afide all other advantages which our religion hath been evidently fhewn to have above Popery in point of reafon and argument, I cannot for my life but think that to be the belt religion, which makes the best men, and, from the nature of its principles, is apt to make them fo; moft kind, and merciful, and charitable; and most free from malice, and revenge, and cruelty.

And therefore our bleifed Saviour, who knew what was in man better than any man that ever was, knowing our great reluctance and backwardness to the practice of this duty, hath urged it upon us by fuch forcible and almoft violent arguments, that if we have any tenderness for ourselves, we cannot refufe obedience to it. For he plainly tells us, that no facrifice that we can offer will appeafe God towards us, fo long as we ourfelves are implacable to men: y 23. of this chapter, If thou bring thy gift to the altar," and there remember eft that thy brother hath ought against thee; leave thy gift before the altar, and go thy way: first go and be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. To recommend this duty effectually to us, he gives it a preference to all the pofitive duties of religion: First go and be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift. Till this duty be discharged, God will accept of no fervice, no facrifice at our hands. And therefore our liturgy doth with great reafon declare it to be a neceffary qalification for our worthy receiving of the facrament, that we be in love and charity with our neighbours; because this is a moral duty, and of eternal obligation, without which no positive part of religion, fuch as the facraments are, can be acceptable to God; efpecially fince, in this bleffed facrament of Chrift's body and blood, we expect to have the forgiveness of our fins ratified and confirmed to us: which how can we hope

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