the person, who is material. That is, no spiritual communion is to be endured with heretical persons, when it is certain they are such, when they are convinced by competent authority and sufficient argument. But the persons of the men are to be pitied, to be reproved, to be redargued and convinced, to be wrought upon by fair compliances and the offices of civility, and invited to the family of faith by the best arguments of charity, and the instances of a holy life. Having your conversation honest among men, that they may, beholding your good works, glorify God in the day when he shall visit them.'3 Indeed if there be danger, that is, a weak understanding may not safely converse in civil society with a subtle heretic; in such cases they are to be avoided, not saluted. But as this is only when the danger is, by reason of the unequal capacities and strengths of the person; so it must be only when the article is certainly heresy, and the person criminal, and interest is the ingredient in the persuasion, and a certain and a necessary truth destroyed by the opinion. We read that St. John espying Cerinthus in a bath, refused to wash there where the enemy of God and his Holy Son had been. This is a good precedent for us, when the case is equal. St. John could discern the spirit of Cerinthus, and his heresy was notorious, fundamental, and highly criminal, and the apostle a person assisted up to infallibility. And possibly it was done by the whisper of a prophetic spirit, and upon a miraculous design; for immediately upon his retreat the bath fell down, and crushed 11 Pet. ii. 12. Tit. iii. 10. 2 Epist. John, 10. 3 Irenæ. lib. iii. c. 3. Euseb. lib. iii. c. 13. Cerinthus in the ruins. But such acts of aversation as these are not easily by us to be drawn into example, unless in the same or the parallel concourse of equally concluding accidents. We must not quickly, nor upon slight grounds, nor unworthy instances, call heretic: there had need be a long process, and a high conviction, and a competent judge, and a necessary article, that must be ingredients into so sad and decretory definitions, and condemnation of a person or opinion. But if such instances occur, come not near the danger nor the scandal. And this advice St. Cyprian gave to the lay people of his diocess: "Let them decline their discourses, whose sermons creep and corrode like a cancer; let there be no colloquies, no banquets, no commerce with such who are excommunicate and justly driven from the communion of the church." ! "For such persons (as St. Leo descants upon the apostle's expression of heretical discourses) creep in humbly, and with small and modest beginnings; they catch with flattery, they bind gently, and kill privily." Let, therefore, all persons who are in danger, secure their persons and persuasions by removing far from the infection. And for the scandal, St. Herminigilda gave an heroic example, which in her persuasion, and the circumstances of the age and action, deserved the highest testimony of zeal, religious passion, and confident persuasion. For she rather chose to die by the mandate of her tyrant father, Leonigildus the Goth, than she would, at the paschal solemnity receive the blessed sacrament at the hand of an Arian bishop.3 "2 Serm. v. de Jejun. decimi mensis. Lib. i. Ep. 3. 3. But excepting these cases, which are not to be judged with forwardness, nor rashly taken measure of, we find that conversing charitably with persons of differing persuasions hath been instrumental to their conversion and God's glory. The believing wife may sanctify the unbelieving husband;' and we find it verified in church story. St. Cecily converted her husband, Valerianus; St. Theodora converted Sisinius; St. Monica converted Patricius, and Theodelinda, Agilulphus; St. Clotilda persuaded king Clodoveus to be a Christian; and St. Natolia persuaded Adrianus to be a martyr. For they, having their conversation honest and holy amongst the unbelievers, shined like virgintapers in the midst of an impure prison, and amused the eyes of the sons of darkness with the brightness of the flame; for the excellency of a holy life is the best argument of the inhabitation of God within the soul: and who will not offer up his understanding upon that altar, where a deity is placed as the president and author of religion ? And this very intercourse of the holy Jesus with the woman, is abundant argument that it were well we were not so forward to refuse communion with dissenting persons upon the easy and confident mistakes of a too forward zeal. They that call heretic may themselves be the mistaken persons; and by refusing to communicate the civilities of hospitable entertainment, may shut their doors upon truth, and their windows against light, and refuse to let salvation in. For sometimes ignorance is the only parent of our persuasions; and many times interest hath made an impure commixture with it, and so produced the issue. 4. The holy Jesus gently insinuates his dis courses. 'If thou hadst known who it is that asks thee water, thou wouldst have asked water of him.' Oftentimes we know not the person that speaks, and we usually choose our doctrine by our affections to the man; but then, if we are uncivil upon the stock of prejudice, we do not know that it is Christ that calls our understandings to obedience, and our affections to duty and compliances. The woman little thought of the glories which stood right against her. He that sat upon the well, had a throne placed above the heads of cherubims. In his arms who there rested himself was the sanctuary of rest and peace, where wearied souls were to lay their heads, and dispose their cares, and there to turn them into joys, and to gild their thorns with glory. That holy tongue which was parched with heat, streamed forth rivulets of holy doctrine, which were to water all the world, to turn our deserts into paradise. And though he begged water at Jacob's well, yet Jacob drank at his: for at his charge all Jacob's flocks and family were sustained, and by him Jacob's posterity were made honourable and redeemed. But because this well was deep,' and the woman had nothing to draw water with,' and of herself could not fathom so great a depth, therefore she refused him; just as we do, when we refuse to give drink to a thirsty disciple. Christ comes in that humble manner of address, under the veil of poverty or contempt; and we cannot see Christ from under that robe, and we send him away without an alms: little considering, that when he begs an alms of us, in the instance of any of his poor relatives, he asks of us but to give him occasion to give a blessing for an alms. Thus do the ministers of religion ask support; but when the VOL. 11. H laws are not more just than many of the people are charitable, they shall fare as their Master did: they shall preach, but unless they can draw water themselves, they shall not drink. But, si scirent, if men did but know who it is that asks them, that it is Christ, either in his ministers, or Christ in his poor servants, certainly they could not be so obstructed in the issues of their justice and charity; but would remember, that no honour could be greater, no love more fortunate, than to meet with an opportunity to be expressed in so noble a manner, that God himself is pleased to call his own relief. 5. When the disciples had returned from the town, whither they went to buy provision, they wondered to see the Master talking alone with the woman. They knew he never did so before; they had observed him to be of a reserved deportment, and not only innocent, but secure from the dangers of malice and suspicion, in the matter of incontinence. The Jews were a jealous and froward people; and as nothing will more blast the reputation of a prophet than effeminacy and wanton affections, so he knew no crime was sooner objected or harder cleared than that: of which, because commonly it is acted in privacy, men look for no probation, but pregnant circumstances and arguments of suspect; so nothing can wash it off, until a man can prove a negative: and if he could, yet he is guilty enough in the estimate of the vulgar for having been accused. But then, because nothing is so destructive of the reputation of a governor, so contradictory to the authority and dignity of his person, as the low and baser appetites of uncleanness, and the consequent shame and scorn; (insomuch that David, having fallen into it, prayed |