O how zealous were
these to practise, and as with one shoulder to do that that was upon
their hearts for God! I might further add, how often have we agreed
in our judgment? and hath it not been upon our hearts, that this and
the other thing is good to be done, to enlighten the dark world, and
to repair the breaches of churches, and to raise up those churches
that now lie gasping, and among whom the soul of religion is
expiring? But what do we more than talk of them? Do not most
decline these things, when they either call for their purses or
their persons to help in this and such like works as these? Let us
then, in what we know, unite, that we may put it in practice,
remembering, that if we know these things, we shall be happy if we
do them.
4. This unity and peace consists in our joining and agreeing to
pray for, and to press after, those truths we do not know. The
disciples in the primitive times were conscious of their
imperfections, and therefore they with one accord continued in
prayer and supplications. If we were more in the sense of our
ignorance and imperfections, we should carry it better towards those
that differ from us: then we should abound more in the spirit of
meekness and forbearance, that thereby we might bring others (or be
brought by others) to the knowledge of the truth: this would make
us go to God, and say with Elihu, Job xxxiv.
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