interest of this or that party. And if their sense were put into plain words, this it would be, "I am for my church, or the church whereof I am, whatever becomes of the church of Christ." And so will a zealous endeavour for so narrow an interest, as that of a divided party, engage and engross all the attention of their minds, and their religion be summed up in contention, and such only as hath its root in that division which (on the one side at least, and in great part too probably on both sides) chiefly proceeds from mere carnality. And what is it but religious contention, for the most part, that hath filled the Christian world with blood and ruins for many by-past ages? Carnal contention, under this most specious pretence, as being conversant about spiritual or religious concernments, is the thing animadverted on (though in gentler instances, as later occasions did require) in the following sermons. It was little imagined when they were delivered from the pulpit, they should ever have been made more public. I have in this publication of them partly yielded to the opinion of divers, who judged they might possibly be useful to more than those who heard them, and to them further upon review. But have more complied with a sort of necessity laid upon me, by being told if they were not published by me, the thing would be done (as it could) from broken, mistaken notes, without me. My own memorials and preparations were indeed imperfect enough, as it cannot but be in the case of one, so often in the week, engaged in such work. I have, as I could, by my own recollection, and by such help as I have otherwise had, endeavoured a full account of what was spoken, and am very confident nothing material is omitted. (Some ingeminations or varied expressions of the same thing, that are pardonable, if not useful to a hearer, but not so grateful and less needful to a reader, I reckon not such.) But divers passages (though not distinct heads) that were intended, but through want of time omitted, I have inserted in the places to which they did belong. Wherein none can think there is any wrong done. I am sensible the introductive part should have been in some respects otherwise methodized. But I am content to let it go as it is, though I find, by the notes that were brought me, that some things were somewhat transposed (otherwise than was intended) in the delivery, from a memory not the most faithful.

If it do any good, it must be from the supply of the good Spirit of God, which I admonish all you that read seriously to seek, and ask from him, who hath promised, thereupon, it shall be given. The very expectation whereof will prevent reading with a vain mind, or ill design, and the consequent danger of receiving hurt by what you read. Yours in our common Lord,

J. H.

THE

CARNALITY OF RELIGIOUS CONTENTION

GAL. V. 16.

THIS I SAY THEN, WALK IN THE SPIRIT, AND YE SHALL NOT FULFIL THE LUST OF THE FLESH.

THE last time I spake to you from these words, having largely opened before the import of walking in the Spirit, I undertook to show you how the flesh here is to be understood, against the lusts whereof such walking in the Spirit is the prescribed remedy. In the general you have been told, that flesh is here to be taken morally, and in that latitude, as to signify all sorts of moral evil, or the general depravedness of our corrupt nature; for though sometimes, in the moral acceptation, the sense is limited (as hath formerly been showed) to grosser sins, in contradistinction to more refined, as 2 Cor. vii. 1. and 1 John ii. 16. yet sometimes also it is so far extended, as to signify all sins, as Col. ii. 11. compared with Rom. vi. 6. And in this context it is plain the apostle comprehends sins of both these sorts under this one expression.

But what particular evils he more especially intended here to censure and caution these Galatian Christians against, under this one name, cannot better be understood than by consulting this context itself; in which, though we cannot say we have a full enumeration, we have yet very many instances, of the carnalities against which this remedy is directed. Some of them more gross, (as we have told you they might be distinguished,) adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, murder, drunkenness, revellings; and some other that may seem more refined, not as having less, but only a more subtle, malignity in them; such as hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, &c. It may

here be thought strange that such sins as these should be animadverted upon in Christian churches (as this epistle is inscribed to such, the churches of Galatia, chap. i. 2.) so soon after the Gospel was come among them, the apostle himself thought it strange, for you find him wondering at it, chap. i. 6. I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel. Yea, and after that, with the Gospel, they had received the Spirit too. For 'tis said, chap. iii. 2, 3. This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? And are you so foolish, having begun in the Spirit, do you think to be made perfect by the flesh?

We are, therefore, to consider what sort of persons and doctrines they were that had corrupted and depraved those churches; and whereby it will be the more apprehensible by what kind of insinuations they so far prevailed: and we may collect, in very great part, what they were, from divers passages of this epistle itself; and, indeed, from this very context. Some would have us think the persons were of that sect called gnostics, from their pretended and highly boasted knowledge. We have no evidence that this sect was so early known by this name; but it is very likely they were that sort of men that were afterwards so called. The characters here given them in this and the other apostolical epistles, do much agree with what divers of the more ancient Christian writers, and one pagan one, (Plotinus,) say of that sect. Which pagan, an inter

preter, and great admirer of his,a would fain have pass for | idols, being sold in the shambles, he yet most earnestly

a Christian, because living in a time when the controversy between Christianity and paganism was at the height, he says nothing against Christianity itself, but speaks very much against these pseudo-Christians, whom, though that author mentions not by that name, this his interpreter often doth it for him, inserting "The Gnostics" even when he is but translating into the body of the work itself.

But this less concerns us. It is, however, out of question, that this sort of men, very anciently called gnostics, did highly vaunt their great knowledge. A very tempting specious pretence! Though their sublimer notions (about the Eons, &c.) were imaginations only: fancy and not knowledge, or yvācis Yevdwvvpos, knowledge misnamed, or falsely so called, (as we may borrow the apostle's expression, 1 Tim. vi. 20. though those inventions were later,) and could only serve to fill the minds of their proselytes with wind and vanity.

But their doctrines upon which the apostle animadverts in this epistle, we may collect from the manifest scope and design of it; and that was to assert justification by faith without the works of the law, which they greatly perverted; and sanctification by the Spirit of Christ, or the doctrine of the new creature, which they even quite subverted. With which false doctrines they conjoined a most impurely vicious life and practice; falling in much with the Jews in their corrupt doctrines, and with the pagans in their licentious practice. Which must be equally tempting to carnal minds.

protests against their presuming to mingle and partake in
the horrid diabolical rites and impure practices that were
wont to be used at their festivals in the idol's temples.
All thoughts of being by their Christianity obliged and
enabled unto strict purity and holiness of heart and life,
were out of doors with these seducers, and endeavoured to
be extinguished in such as they could work to a compliance
with them; whereof the apostle seemed deeply apprehen-
sive, when he so earnestly inculcates, that in Christ Jesus
(or in the Christian state) neither circumcision nor uncir-
cumcision were of any avail, but a new creature, and faith
working by love.

But it must seem of all things the most unaccountable and incongruous, that men of so profligate sentiments and practices should be for introducing a justification by the works of the law, in opposition to that by the faith of Christ. 'Tis manifest they hated the holy design of Christian religion, which they professed; and professed it, that they might have better opportunity to undermine it. Hereupon (not opening at once all the arcana of their way) they carry answerably to persons and occasions as they occurred; and as the apostle was all things to all, that he might save some; so were they, that they might pervert and destroy. To the Christian Jews one thing, to the Christian Gentiles another. In this their doctrine they did most plausibly judaize; in their impure practices they verged more to paganism. Pretending to Christian converts from among them, that Christ never intended to tie them to strict severities, or hold them under an uneasy bondage; whereto the apostle seems to refer, chap. v. 13. Ye have been called (he grants) to liberty, but use not (saith he) your liberty for an occasion to the flesh.

And this may make it appear less strange, that all these sorts of carnality that are here mentioned in this context, from verse 15 to 21, should, in reference to the same sort of men, be so put together. For it is evident they were partly a judaizing and partly a paganizing sort of Thus we must suppose that they differently applied themChristians; as (for ends of their own) they affected to call selves to such as they designed to make their proselytes, themselves. They held it lawful for Christians to join endeavouring to accommodate themselves in the one of with pagans in their solemnities of worship, which they these to one sort of men, and to another sort in the other. were wont to celebrate in the temples of their idols. It is In dealing with the Jewish Christians they not only denied notorious how gross impurities and immoralities were in the doctrine of justification by faith, (opposing thereto that those days incorporated into the paganish worship; such of justification by the works of the law,) but calumniated as made it sufficiently reasonable that idolatry should it too, as if it tended to infer a liberty to sin, and make have in conjunction with it fornication and adultery, un- Christianity subservient to wickedness, whereof they knew cleanness and lasciviousness. And for the addition of their own to be more guilty. A piece of monstrous impuwitchcraft, it was not unaccountable, there being also sor-dence (but usual with men of such foreheads) to endeaceries, magical rites, and diabolical incantations observed vour the averting that charge from themselves, to which to have been intermingled with the sacra of the pagans. they were most manifestly liable, by first charging it on the And for which these (misnamed) Christians might have innocent. the greater kindness also, for the sake of Simon Magus, the father of their sect, by whom the affectation thereof was transmitted to some of his noted followers, that thought it a glorious thing to vie with their predecessor in this sort of excellency.

Nor is it alien from this purpose to take notice, that those diabolical rites are said to have obtained among the paganish idolaters, of drinking the warm blood of their sacrifices, and of eating things strangled with the blood in them, upon the imagination that in their so doing, they did partake of the very spirit of their gods whom they worshipped; and 'tis not altogether unsupposable that the devil might, in some unusual manner, enter into them at those times, more violently agitating their blood and other humours; in the higher ferments whereof, if by the directer influence of the great enemy of mankind, quarrels and murders (as was not unlikely) should also sometimes ensue, it could not but heighten the sport and triumphs of hell.

And that the decree of the apostles and elders, Acts xv. might have such a reference, prohibiting these things conjunctly, idolatry and fornication, and things strangled, and blood, that they should by no means mingle with the pagans in these horrid rites, a learned modern writer of our own hath rendered very probable. And hereto those vehement dehortations of the apostle must answerably be understood to refer, 1 Cor x. 11. remonstrating to them, that they could not have fellowship with the Lord's table, and the table of devils. And I would not, says he, that you should have fellowship with devils. For though he did not judge it unlawful to eat of the idolytha, i. e. things offered to

Hereto the apostle hath manifest reference, when having first asserted against them justification by faith only, Gal. ii. 16. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Jesus Christ, that we might be justified by the faith of Christ, and not by the works of the law; for by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified. He then vindicates the assertion against their imputation, that it made Christ a patron to men's sins: If (saith he) while we seek to be justified by Christ, we ourselves alsó are found sinners, is Christ therefore the minister of sin? God forbid. For if I build again the things that I destroyed, I make myself a transgressor. For I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God. I am crucified with Christ, and am in and with him dead unto all sin, so as not to be under the dominion of any; and death never more had dominion over him, when he had once died. And whereas they thus objecting against the doctrine of justification by faith in Christ, that it ministered unto sin, or made Christ a minister thereunto, were liable to have the objection retorted upon them, being a sort of men themselves so very infamously wicked; for this they had a double salvo, both of which the apostle doth industriously refute. That is, from the two parts of the law given by Moses, and the two sorts of the works of the law enjoined thereby, that is, the moral and ritual or ceremonial part. In reference to the former, they fall in with those Jewish conceits of the merit of their good works, done from the principle of free will; and that in order to their justification, this merit was to be measured by the preponderation of their good works to their bad.

c See at large to this purpose Smith's select discourses upon this subject.

guarding it before and behind, viz. hatred, variance, emulation, wrath, strife, seditions, envyings, do all note but one radical evil, and do all agree in one root. Where upon it will be the less needful to insist upon them severally, or to give you the criticism of each word by itself, which it were a great deal more easy to do, than it will be useful, or of any avail to us. What I shall say therefore will be more general; but will however give you the occa-ther the one nor the other may be over-confident or caresion of casting your eye upon the particulars, whereby you will have the more distinct account of that carnality, which is here referred to by the apostle.

2. This is needful to be noted too, that this precept of the apostle, considered as a prescription against fulfilling the lusts of the flesh, has more immediate and direct reference to this sort of carnality. This is plain, if you will but again peruse the words as they lie in their closest connexion. For when he had said in the 14th verse, That all the law is fulfilled in this one word, even in this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, (most of all, no doubt, one's Christian neighbour,) he adds, But if you bite and devour one another, take heed ye be not devoured one of another. Then immediately come in the words of the text, This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh; q. d. The lust of the flesh will be working this way, putting you upon biting and devouring one another. According as sentiments begin to differ, and minds are divided, inclinations will carry one this way, and another that; and then you will be too prone to be at biting, and be ready to fall to devouring one another. Now I have no better remedy to prescribe you against both than this, Walk in the Spirit, and you sha.l not fulfil the lust of the flesh. I should have been a very unfaithful interpreter of this context to you, if I had not taken notice of this so immediate connexion.

3. This is further to be noted that this sort of carnality that lies in strifes, in emulations, in envyings, in hatred, &c. may come to have its occasion of being exercised, of working, lusting, and exerting itself about the doctrines of the Gospel; than which nothing is more evident, in that you find that these things are put in connexion with heresies, which must be understood to be a corruption of Gospel doctrine. Very true indeed it is, that that word heresy, among the more ancient philosophers, was used in a more gentle, and no way infamous sense, signifying only this or that sect of philosophers. But the word coming to be borrowed and transferred by sacred writers into the Holy Scriptures, there it is mostly taken in a very ill sense, (though not always,) as signifying error or corruption in doctrine, of a very high and destructive nature, as Tit. iii. 10, 11. 2 Pet. ii. 1. For though all heresy be error, or carry error in it; yet all error is not heresy: that must be such error as strikes at the root, and is conjunct with heart-disaffection and malignity, (as was noted the last time,) standing in opposition to faith, which is not a merely mental thing, but lies very principally in the heart. Doctrinal matters are however here referred unto, even in the very notion of heresy, and therefore about those matters these carnalities may have place. For when the several passions here mentioned are raised, and do tumultuate in the breasts of this and that particular person, they soon and easily spread and propagate themselves to others, so as to infect the community. And then it comes to the forming of it into parties, or dividing it into two sides, as the word dixosaríai (which we translate seditions) signifies; the one stated and posited as in a hostile posture against the other, till at length the matter arrive to that height and pitch of contumacious and fixed obstinacy, as in matters so important as the apostle's discourse reflects upon, will complete the notion of heresies, viz. on one side, at least; not, perhaps, without great faultiness on the other, which comes next to be noted.

4. As such carnality may have place and exercise about Gospel doctrine, so it is very possible it may show itself on both sides, even on their part who have the truth with them, as well as on theirs who oppose it, and make it their business to propagate the contrary error or false doctrine. The very defence of truth itself may be accompanied with such carnalities, such strife, wrath, malice, envy, as divides the guilt between the divided parties, and leaves neither side innocent.

I am, you know, by mere providence, in the series and tract of a discourse long continued upon this context, led to say what I now do; and I have therefore the more hope, that through the blessing of God, it may be of some use to us. But this comes most directly under our notice; and let it be noted, that whereas in such contests both sides are wont to be confident they are in the right; neiless of not being in the wrong, in what may be of equal or greater importance than the matters themselves, disputed among them that agree in the substantials of religion, or that hold the head, can be. Let us, I say, deeply consider it, that such sinful carnality may have place, and exercise not only about religious concernments, but even on that side where the truth lies; which is from hence evident, that the apostle immediately before the text, as I have noted, says, If you bite and devour one another, take heed that ye be not bitten and consumed one of another. A great aptitude he therefore observed there was, to be biting on both sides, even where the truth lay, and where it lay not. For we are here further to observe, that whereas our apostle sadly considered that many among these Christians of Galatia were lapsed, and fallen from the purity and sincerity of religion; he apprehended too, that they who were not so fallen, took not the best course for the recovery of them that were. Which that admonition of his must mean, chap. vi. 1, 2. Brethren, if a man be overtaken with a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. It seems he reckoned that the sounder part among them, and that ought (and 'tis like thought themselves) to be more spiritual, while they showed not more of a spirit of meekness towards the lapsed, were not so spiritual as they should be, and discovered more carnality than became them, more wrath and bitterness of spirit than could comport with the law of Christ. They will be little awed by this, and be apt for all this to indulge their own furious passions, that think he hath no law. But though one were never so sure he hath the truth on his side, tis in itself a dreadful thing, to whosoever shall allow himself the liberty seriously to think of it. For what must we conceive of such truth, that is to be defended in some cases, I say, that in some cases ought to be so? We must surely conceive of it as a divine, a sacred thing, a heaven-born thing, a thing of heavenly descent, part of a revelation immediately come forth from the very bosom of God; so is the whole Gospel revelation to be looked upon. Now here is carnality that lusts; such a kind of carnality as the context speaks of, wrath, strife, hatred, &c. Here is such carnality, lusting, actually lusting, seeking prey, ravening for food. And what doth it feed upon? No meaner thing than divine truth! evangelical doctrines! Monstrous thought! Consider, I beseech you, my friends, what this comes to? The feeding an impure lust upon sacred things, or upon that which is divine! I must have my lust satis fied, says the proud, contentious spirit: wrath burns, anger boils: sacred things are not spared, but fallen upon, as the prepared food of lust. It will be fed, they are not forborn. All reverence of God is forgotten, heaven is ravaged, the most sacred mysteries of God's own kingdom are violated, and torn this way and that, (O horrid thing!) by harpies, vultures, by most fierce and furious lusts. And if a man would know, recognise, take knowledge of the most deeply inward sensations and intention of his own heart, thus it is, I must now apply my thoughts, bend my mind, to consider a revelation come from heaven: And what, for the end for which it was given, to enlighten, purify, quicken my soul towards God, renew and form it for God, to serve and enjoy him? no, but on purpose to feed, to gratify a lust! We can (too often) make neither better nor worse of it, but just so it is.

These things being premised, I would now go on a little more particularly to show you, wherein carnality may ap pear exerting itself, even about such things; or what will be manifest indications of such a carnality, as is here referred unto, acting about, or in reference to, the things of God, the most sacred and important truths and doctrines of his Gospel.

1. First, When in comparison of some less things,

through Christ, receives Christ, is united with him, or is This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil