1. We begin with Natures Law and Practice . The Sun in the Firmament does not monopolize its Beams , nor engross its Light , but scatters them abroad , and gilds the whole World , shining more for others than it self . The Fountain binds not in its Streams , but is communicatively fluent , and spends it self with a continual bubling forth . The Earth withholds not its Vital Moisture , but sends it forth liberally to all that expect its Nourishment . God hath fastened on all the Creatures not onely a private desire to satisfie the demands of its own Nature , but a general Charity and feeling of Communion as sociable parts of the Universe or Common Body . So that ( by reason of the mutual Connexion between the Parts ) there can be admitted no Confusion or Divulsion without infinite prejudice to all the Members . Hence if the Body of Nature be like to suffer , Natural Agents for a general good will part with their own Properties and Inclinations , and acquaint themselves with Motions , to which ( as to their determinate Qualities ) they have even an essential Reluctancy . The Air ( for instance ) which naturally mounts upwards , rather than there shall be a Vacuum , Rupture , or Breach , will descend to stop that hiatus . Man himself is a Sociable Creature , born into the world for the good of others ; and so declared by those who never heard of a Jesus . Not a Member but will hazard it self to preserve our Bodies : the Hand will be cut off to preserve the Head from any prejudice , as it is admirably discoursed by S. Paul , 1 Cor . 12. from the 11th . to the 28th . verse . And therefore Menenius Agrippa well applied the Fable to the Romans of the Belly and Members , to shew how unnatural a thing it is to nourish any private Feuds amongst themselves , when the Publick was exposed to apparent hazards and difficulties . Thus the Law and Light of Nature preach down the sordid pursuit of a Private Interest , and proclaim the Excellency of that Love which seeketh not her own as most heroically generous .

2. This sinful Self-love excluded as barbarous in my Text is wholly discountenanced by the Practice of Gods eminent Scripture Saints , and the Primitive Worthies . Pardon , O Lord , this thy people , or else blot me out of the book of life , Exod . 32. 32. so the generous Moses . He had too much in him of a Saint to consult his own Greatness , when it stood in competition with the National Interest , the general Welfare of Gods People and Servants , he prefers the publick above his own very happiness . So S. Paul ( in a zealous Rapture of Ecstatick Devotion ) wished himself accursed from Christ for his brethrens sake , ( the Jews ) his kinsmen after the flesh , Rom. 9. 3. S. Hieronymus , Dr. Hammond , Zegerus , Grotius . Some understand it of his readiness to suffer all imaginable Temporal afflictions . Others ( as Calvin , Clarius , Paraeus , and Catarinus ) understand it with relation to an eternal separation from Gods presence , upon this supposition at least , That it would redound more to Gods Glory to save the Nation of the Jews , than to save a single person , such an one as the Apostle of the Gentiles . The summe is this ; Mr. Gregory inter Criticos . When a Son of Israel would express the utmost of his brotherly kindness to the Jews , he intituled himself to all their miseries , out of an ardent zele of Gods Glory , in their Felicities : Let me be their Expiation , or I am in their place to bear their iniquities . And a greater Zele cannot be shewed for the promotion of the Publick Interest . Thus did Jeremy sympathise with Sion in the Dust ; and his Book of Lamentations is proportionably Tragical with the Churches Afflictions . So Gods People sate by the Waters of Babylon weeping , and hung up their Harps as useless during the Churches calamity and distress . Psal . 137. 1. Nay , let him take all ( said Mephibosheth ) since my Lord the King is returned in peace to his own house . When David is restored once , he hath no Interest to espouse but that of his God and his Prince ; 2 Sam . 19. 30. Thus David 2 Sam . 6. 22. danced for joy at the return of the Ark , saying to his taunting Wife , I will be yet more vile than thus . Uriah could take no complacency in Outward things , when the Ark , and Israel , and Judah abode in Tents ; and Joab and his Servants were encamped in the open Field . Shall Gods Ark be in danger , and can Uriah be secure ? As thy soul liveth I will not do this thing . Pardoning the Oath of a Souldier and a Gentleman , it was a most Heroically Generous Resolution ; 2 Sam . 11. 11. Thus the People brought up the Ark of God with the most publickly joyful Acclamations , with Shoutings , Cornets , Cymbals , Psalteries , and Harps ; 1 Chron . 15. 28. These eight Instances may suffice as to the Generosity of Gods Scripture Saints , who abominated a sordid Interest , and chiefly designed the publick Splendour and Happiness . I pass next from the Holy Oracles to the Primitive Times ; and I shall ( to avoid Prolixity ) content my self with 5 onely Instances or Presidents , Clemens , Nazianzen , Chrysostom , Constantine , and Paulinus . Clemens ( in his famed Epistle to the Corinthians , p. 69. ) having laboured zelously in the suppression of their many Schisms and Disorders , thus exclaims : Let any one ( of a Generous Temper ) say that I have occasioned these Feuds and Contentions , I will be gone wheresoever you please : onely let the Church be preserved in unity and peace . Throw me ( said Nazianzen ) into the Sea to allay the storms , if for my sake there be any tempests in the Church . ( Vit . Greg . Naz . p. 1110. per Gregor . Presbyt . ) So S. Chrysostom ( Hom. 11. on the Ephesians ) having smartly refuted all the petty Cavils of his Enemies , he turns himself to the People of Antioch ; If you suspect these things laid to our charge , we are ready to be gone , to deliver up our power and place ; onely let the Churches of Christ be kept in peace . Such a Generous Soul had the Renowned Euseb . de vita Constantini . Theod . hist . l. 1. c . 11. p. 25. Constantine , witness his passionately zelous Request to the 318 Bishops at the Council of Nice , to be at peace amongst themselves in order to the Settlement of the Church . And when some of the Fathers had scattered their Libels and Accusations , he reconciled their Persons first , then he burnt all their Contentious Papers , solemnly protesting that their Ecclesiastical Ruptures were more fatal to him than any Wars , and created to him greater Troubles than all the other Affairs of his Empire and Territories . But that of Paulinus ( mentioned by Saint Gregory in his Dialogues ) will rather find Admirers than Followers . Having spent his whole Estate in the Redemption of Captives , a poor Woman begs as much Money as would ransom her onely Son a Slave to the Vandals ; he freely gives himself into a voluntary Slavery to release him from that Vassallage . So prevalent a Generosity with the Prince of that Countrey , that he not onely gave Liberty to Paulinus , but at his instance released all the Christian Captives . Thus the Scripture Saints and Primitive Hero's scorned the pursuit of a Contracted Interest , and Self-love is preached down by the Generous Charity of Christs true Disciples .

3. The Self-love condemned in the Text is so horrid a wickedness , that it dares not appear in its own colours . If Absalom have a design to raise his Honour upon the ruine of his Father and his Sovereign , he hath a Vow to perform at Hebron ; and from him all our Rebels since have cloked their Sedition under the notion of Religion and Liberties , 2 Sam . 15. 4. Thus [ Stand and deliver ] is the same thing with [ the High Court of Justice , ] and the Saints who sequestered and seized our Possessions and Estates , against the Laws of God and his Anointed , were the Keepers of our Liberties by Authority of Parliament . Thus the new Pharisees pray ex tempore , and devour their Neighbours ; and Self-love is sheltered under a Self-denying Ordinance ; and such who would swallow up the pitiful remainders of the Churches Patrimony and Revenues , cry out for purer Ordinances and Administrations . The Trafficking Godly are more concerned than ever Julian the Apostate , that the Son of Mary should be served in Plate , and are as ready to rob the Altars of God , as His Holiness ( so called ) to give away the Kingdoms of an Heretick . Yet these very men pretend to groan forsooth for the Power and Purity of Gospel Worship . What a glorious Exchange would a spacious Cathedral make . How sweetly might a Mechanick live in the Palace of a Prelate ? When a Separating Brother presents a Bible to my Hand , and a Sword to my Heart , Scriptum est , The meek shall inherit the Earth . What then signifies the Great Charter or the Petition of Right ? Dominus nobiscum , God with us , was the Motto of the Coin in Engl. when this Ancient Kingdom became a ridiculous Commonwealth . When the disloyal Subject fights for Pay against the Princes Good Conscience , he onely fights to deliver him from his Evil Counsellors , and to bring him back again to his Parliament and Kingdom . 't is for His Majesty's Preservation that they seize all his Forts and Castles ; 't is the Lords Cause and Gospel Reformation for which Five Members and Kimbolton involved three flourishing Kingdoms in Bloud and Confusions , for which they purchased the Title of Patriots , and the Assertors of our Privileges . The Solemn League was to be taken with Self-humbling , Self-denying , Self-abasing Hearts ; which was founded wholly in Ambition and Covetousness , and had no other publick Vindicators than the Aspiring Diotrephes , or the Sneaking Demetrius , ( for so we are told by the greatest Observer of their Projects , and the Charles I. Εικον Βασιλικε most Glorious Sufferer under their most Barbarous Cruelties . ) The main Reformation intended is the Debasing of Prelats , and the Robbing the Church of its Lands and Revenues . 't is the Vineyard makes Naboth guilty and fit to die still , I see ; while the breath of Religion fills the Sails , Profit and Interest are the Compass by which all these steer their Course in all Seditious Commotions . If a Gentleman have a Son that looks as piercing as School-subtilty , and as thin as a Piece of Metaphysicks ; if he be fit for nothing , he is then consecrated to the Service of the Church , and does doubtless expect now Gods blessing upon all his Fortunes , having given him his Son to be his Priest . But why then is the young Divinity Intender left wholly to the bare hopes of Church Preferment , whilest the whole Estate goes sweeping away to the Heir for the Immortality of their Families ? Thus under the notion of promoting Gods Honour they do very sagely design onely themselves and a private Interest .

Thus New Lights ( as the Author of The Decay of Christian Piety well notes ) lead men to their Neighbours Coffers . Powerful Teachers coin at once Opinions for their Disciples , and Money for themselves : and the second Baptism of the Munster Anabaptists was a solemn espousing of the World renounced in the first . Let your moderation be known unto all men , is the great Text of our men of Moderate Principles , who at the same time that they are lukewarm in the things of God and the Church , ( which they christen a Prudential Compliance ) are most passionate pursuers of a Private Interest . They are for a Moderation in Principles , but however by this craft we have our wealth , Acts 19. 25. is the onely Rule they proceed by in all their practises .

Thus our Moderation is a base Compliance for a Secular advantage . This sort of Moderation is no other than a Dutch kind of Traffick and Commerce , and kept up by a sort of Mechanical Preachers , with whom the Salary is more Sacred than all Canonical Obligations . Thus by an unhappy Inversion the Tabernacle is become a Covering for the Goats , and the Levite makes Merchandize of the People's Souls , and at the same time exposeth to sale not onely his Mother Church , but his own very Conscience and Engagements .

Thus Self-love hath many Servants , but no open Patrons . They that take it into their bosoms , throw it again out of their doors . It dares not appear in its own colours .

4. Self-love is repugnant to the true Christian Charity founded in two Fundamental Articles , the holy Catholick Church , and the Communion of Saints . Propriety is a kind of Excommunication in this case . We do thrust our Brethren ( in effect at least ) out of the Church , whilest we appropriate our Love and Devotion wholly to our selves .

Hence the Holy Ghost hath married together Ephes . 4. 16. the Communion of Saints and the Communication of Affections . 't is a good Note of John Calvin upon that of David , Oh pray for the peace of Jerusalem , Psal . 22. 6. That he who will pray aright , must not confine himself to a Sect or a Conclave , but ut Dominus totum Ecclesiae corpus conservet ; he must be concerned for the Church Catholick , and every Member thereof . For the City of Rome ( if Ptolemy be consulted ) is not the whole World ; and there is a Church no doubt out of the Walls of Donatus the Schismatick . What agreement hath Mammon with God ? Self-love with a Church Catholick ? a Private Interest with the Communion of Saints . As the body is one , and hath many members , and those members of the body being many are one body : so also is Christ . 1 Cor . 12. 12. 't is a sordid Self-Interest sits in the Chair of Rome , and is superintendent of our new Presbyteries , and the sole Oracle of the Congregational Churches , with whom Gain is Godliness . This is no more consistent with the Catholick Church , and the Communion of Saints , than Fighting for Reformation with the Primitive Sufferings . To adhere onely to a Sect in Religion is no Communion , but a Combination . 't is either S. Basils concors odium , or S. Augustines unitas contra unitatem , as the Renowned Bishop Laud hath observed ; rather a bandying against the Church it self , than an endeavour to preserve it . They destroy the Publick , who restrain to a Party onely of their own gang the Title of Brotherhood : as if God , I thank thee , &c. did onely qualifie men for Communion with the Saviour of the World , who is the great President of Humility to all Mankind , and especially to those that believe .

This Self-seeking Partiality is the bane of the Churches Peace : not onely England , but all Christendom , groans under the burthen of its many Schisms and Contentions . He that cannot drive on his own Private Projects , and proclaim his Zele for the Lord of Hosts , both at once , hath neither studied Men nor the Times , but onely Books , say our politickly-reserved Persons ; who make the best use of their Religion , that is to say , the best advantage . But these Politick Professors , who never shew themselves but at half-lights , who never unveils himself in publick , but where he is sure of Protection and Countenance ; who is resolved that Christianity shall never cross with his Secular Interests , for his Religion shall stoop to these , whom all sides are deceived in if they take them to be wholly theirs : These men had need that one teach them again which be the first Principles ; for they have forgotten the Catholick Church , and the Communion of Saints . Without a right understanding of both which we vainly flatter our selves in the Title of Christians , or pretend an Interest in the Holy Jesus .

It was a phancy of Plato's , that the most pure and active Souls descended from Heaven to Earth , and there assumed Human Bodies , onely to be beneficial to the Publick Interest . With the Fiction I have nought to do , but I infer hence , that Nature taught the Heathens a Publick-spirited Generosity , which we are so blinded as not to learn of such a Master , in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge . Nature was more prevalent with these than Religion with us , to our just shame and reproach . They acted more generously who never heard of a Jesus , than we , whom our Christianity does every way oblige to be men of Publick Souls and most Heroical Resolutions .

This then is the fourth Particular , the Pursuit onely of our Private Interests is opposite to two of the Creed Articles , the Catholick Church , and the Communion of Saints , and contrary to that Love which seeketh not her own ; the grand Character of Christs true Disciples . A very pregnant Demonstration of the Sordidness of Self-love , which the Generosity of Charity does exclude in the Text .

5. Self-love ( excluded here by the generous Charity of Christs Disciples ) is preached down by the Doctrine and Practice of our onely Jesus . His Doctrine runs thus ; Love one another as I have loved you , John 15. 12. Now the Love of Christ reached to all men in general , 1 Tim . 4. 10. to every man in particular , Heb . 2. 9. to all the world without exception , 1 John 2. 2. without exception of the ungodly , Rom. 5. 6. without exception of Enemies , Rom. 5. 10. or of them that perish , such who deny the Lord that bought them , 2 Pet . 2. 1. So intensively great was our Saviours Love , that he became {αβγδ} , ( say the Evangelists ) a circle of calamities , an Island in his own Inundation of Bloud , Sweat , and Tears , to redeem and save us . Beloved , if Christ so loved us as to die for us , we ought also to love and die for the Brethren , that is , for their Salvation : and this excludes that sordid Self-love that now governs the World , and hath a fatal influence upon the Church and Commonwealth .

And so I pass to the included Positive , That true Love is of that Generous nature , it will do good to all ; it takes in whatsoever will advantage our Neighbours ; and under our Neighbours are included also Enemies . Love seeketh not her own . Love is not confined to it self alone , but is of a Publick Spirit ; a Generous Grace , that respects others as well as our selves , and quits its Private Interest for the General Happiness . And thus the words are equivalent to those of our Saviour , We must love our neighbours as our selves . Of which briefly . But Who is my neighbour ? The Jews of the Synagogue looked upon none as their brother or neighbour but onely a Jew . And the Pharisees expounded , Thou shalt love thy neighbour , and hate thine enemy . By the first they cut off all Mankind but a Jew or a Proselyte : by the second the Jews themselves did not perform due Civilities , no not to a Jew , if an Enemie , upon any account whatsoever . But our Saviour hath fully decided this point ; But I say unto you , Love your enemies , Mat . 8. 44. Hence Castalio ( Rom. 13. 9. ) reads for Neighbour {αβγδ} , Alterum , any man with whom we have or may have to do , is our Neighbour . Strangers that we never saw before , Enemies that our corrupt Nature may probably wish never to see again , they are our Neighbours and our Brethren . The Phylacteries of the Pharisees were broad enough and wide , but their Expositions scant enough , and their Practises as narrow as their Comment , by which Strangers and Enemies were excluded : but we have not so learned Christ and his Truth . We must ( indeed we may and ought to ) preserve a Brother before a Kinsman , a Kinsman before a Countryman , a Countryman before an Alien ; but yet so that the beams of our Love may scatter themselves throughout the whole World by a general affection to all Mankind . Love seeking not her own , includes every man that issued from Adam , especially those of the Christian Profession ; and even amongst them the most Eminent and Exemplary for sound Piety and Devotion . God hath made of one bloud all the nations of the earth , Acts 17. 26. All Angels have indeed the same Intellectual Nature one with another ; but they did not all come from one Angel , but were severally and immediately created : whereas God made but one Man , and out of him all the Race came , and so all Brethren : Fratres jure naturae matris unius ; so Tertullian . To this of Nature we are Tertul . Apol . c . 39. to adde Identitas societatis ; we are alike Fellow-Citizens of the great Corporation of the World , and so designed for the benefit of all Mankind . Again , there is Identitas professionis ; thus as Christians we have all one God and Saviour , one Redeemer and Sanctifier , one Faith , one Baptism , one Supper , one Bread , and one Body ; and therefore should have but one Heart , and one Soul , with the multitude of Believers , Acts 4. 32. especially labouring for the same Eternal Reward , where Love is no small part of our Felicities . The summe is this , Love seeking not her own does good to all , but especially to the houshold of faith , Gal. 6. 10. it loves all mankind , but especially the brotherhood , 1 Pet . 2. 17. Hence 1 Pet . 1. 7. it is said , Adde to your brotherly kindness charity ; the one relating to all men , and the other to the men of the same Christian Profession ; so Erasmus and Grotius upon that Text .