Chapter II.
Commendations of love and unity — Their proper objects, with their general rules and measures — Of love toward all mankind in general — Allows not salvation unto any without faith in Christ Jesus — Of the differences in religion as to outward worship.
The foundation of our discourse might be laid in the commendation of Christian love and unity, and thereon we might easily enlarge, as also abound in a collection of testimonies confirming our assertions; but the old reply in such a case, — “By whom ever were they discommended?” — evidenceth a labour therein to be needless and superfluous. We shall therefore only say, that they are greatly mistaken who, from the condition whereinto at present we are driven and necessitated, do suppose that we value not these things at as high a rate as themselves, or any other professors of Christian religion in the world. A greater noise about them may be made, possibly, by such as have accommodated their name and notion to their own interests, and who point their pleas about them and their pretences of them to their own secular advantage; but as for a real valuation of the things themselves, as they are required of us and prescribed unto us in the gospel, we shall not willingly be found to come behind any that own the name of Christ in the world. We know that God hath styled himself the God of love, peace, and order in the church, because they are eminently from him, and highly accepted with him. And as love is the new commandment which Jesus Christ hath given unto his disciples, so he hath appointed it to be the bond of perfection unto them; which nothing else will ever be, however finely invented for them, or forcibly imposed on them. Without this love, in what relates to church communion, whatever else we are, we are but as “sounding brass and tinkling cymbals.” And all unity or agreement in outward order not proceeding from and animated by this love, are things wherein neither Christ nor the gospel is much concerned. An endeavour also after one mind and one judgment, Phil. ii. 2, 1 Cor. i. 10, amongst all believers, for a help unto us to keep the “unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace,” we acknowledge to be indispensably required of us. And, therefore, where any opinion or practice, in or about religion or the worship of God, do apparently in themselves impair the gracious, holy principles of love and peace, or obstruct men in the exercise of any duties which those principles require or lead unto, it is a great and weighty prejudice against their truth and acceptation with God. As, therefore, we shall not boast of the prevalency of these principles in our minds, seeing that, though we should know nothing to the contrary by ourselves, yet are we not therefore justified; so we are assured that none can justly condemn us for the want of them, unless they can make good their charge by instances not relating to the peculiar differences between them and us, for what doth so will neither warrant any to make such a judgment, nor carry any conviction in it towards them that are judged. Upon the whole matter, we shall not easily be diverted from pursuing our claim unto an equal interest in these things with any other professors of the Christian religion, although at present we do it not by enlarged commendations of them. Much less are we in the least moved or shaken in our minds from the accusations of them who, having the advantage of force and power, do make a compliance with themselves, in all their impositions and self-interested conceptions, the sole measure of other men’s exercise and actings of these principles. We have a much safer rule whereby to make a judgment of them, whereunto we know “we shall do well to attend, as unto a light shining in a dark place.” But, now, whereas all these things, — namely, love, peace, and unity, — are equally dear unto us, yet there are different rules prescribed for the exercise and pursuit of them. Our love is to be catholic, unconfined as the beams of the sun, or as the showers of rain that fall on the whole earth. Nothing of God’s rational creation in this world is to be exempted from being the object thereof. And where only any exception might seem to be warranted by some men’s causeless hatred, with unjust and unreasonable persecution of us, there the exercise of it is given us in especial and strictest charge; which is one of the noble singularities of Christian religion. But whereas men are cast into various conditions on account of their relation unto God, the actual exercise of love towards them is required of us in a suitable variety; for it is God himself, in his infinite excellencies, who is the first and adequate object of our love, which descends unto others according to their participation from him, and the especial relations created by his appointment; whereof we shall speak afterward. Our duty in the observance of peace is, as unto its object, equally extended; and the rule or measure given us herein is the utmost of our endeavours in all ways of truth and righteousness which are required or may have a tendency thereunto: for as we are commanded to “follow peace with all men,” Heb. xii. 14, under the same indispensable necessity as to obtain and observe “holiness” in our own persons, “without which no man shall see the Lord;” so as to the measure of our endeavours unto this end, we are directed, “if it be possible, and as far as in us lieth, to live peaceably with all men,” Rom. xii. 18. The rule for unity, as it is supposed to comprise all church-communion, falls under many restrictions; for herein the especial commands of Christ and institutions of the gospel committed unto our care and observance falling under consideration, our practice is precisely limited unto those commands and by the nature of those institutions.