ESSAY VII. 103 point, as though all the law and the prophets hung upon it, as though it were the ground andpillar ofall the truth in the gospel. Crucius will not allow his dissenting neighbour tobe a member of the christian church, because lie seperates from the modes of worship in the church of England ; he cannot believe him to be a friend to Christ crucified, because he refuses to have his child baptised with the airy sign of the cross. Again the dissenting neighbour pronounces Crucius to be a mere formalist, and to have nothing of the Spirit of God in him, because he seeks not much to obtain the gifts of the Spirit, and scarce ever addresses himself to God in prayer without the assistance of a form. Sabbaptes, that lives within two door of them, will not be. lieve either of his neighbours to be a Christian, because they have never been plunged under water, that is, in this sense they were never baptised : And both of them in requital agree to call Sab- baptes a Jew, because he worshipsonly on a Saturday. Where- as the all-knowing God looks down into all their hearts, beholds the graces that his Spirit bath wrought there, owns them all for his children and the disciples ofhis Son, though they are not yet perfect in love. They have all one common God. and Father, one Lord Jesus, one faith, one spirit of prayer, one baptism, though they quarrel so bitterly about times, and modes, and forms. It is a very uncharitablepractice to think that a man can never journey safely to heaven, unless his hat and shoes be of the same colour with ours, unless he tread the very tract of our feet, and his footsteps too be ofthe same size. It is a censorious and perverse fancy to pronounce a man no christian because every thought of his soul, and all the atoms of his brainare not just ar- ranged in thesameposturewithmine. How ridiculouslyunreason- able it is for a man of brown hair to shut his brother out from the rank and species of men, and call him an ox or a lion, because his locks areblack or yellow. I am persuaded there is abreadth in the narrow road to heaven, that persons may travel more than seven a breast in it : And though they do not trace precisely the same track, yet all look to the same Saviour Jesus, and all ar- rive at the same common salvation : And though their names may be crossed out of the records of a articular church on earth, where charityfails, yet they will befound written in the Lamb's book of life, which is a recordof eternal love, and shall for ever be joined to the fellowship of the catholic church in heaven. This iniquity of uncharitableness has more springs than there are streams of branches belonging to the great River of Egypt : and it is as fruitful of serpents and monsters too : Itself is a Hydra of many heads ; I havedrawn seven of them out atlength into open light, that they may he cut off for ever : But there are others still remain as full of fire and infection. Shall I mention Vos. su. N
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