For, be but as charitable to these men, do but bless and pray for them, as you are obliged to bless and pray for your enemies, and then you will find that you have charity enough, to make it impossible for you to treat them with any degree of scorn or contempt.
For you cannot possibly despise and ridicule that man, whom your private prayers recommend to the love and favour of God.
When you despise and ridicule a man, it is with no other end but to make him ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of other men. How therefore can it be possible for you sincerely to beseech God to bless that man with the honour of his love and favour, whom you desire men to treat as worthy of their contempt.
Could you, out of love to a neighbour, desire your prince to honour him with his esteem and favour, and yet at the same time expose him to the scorn and derision of your own servants.
Yet this is as possible, as to expose that man to the scorn and contempt of your fellow-creatures, whom you recommend to the favour of God in your secret prayers.
17. You cannot despise a brother, without despising him that stands in a high relation to God, to his Son Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Trinity.
You would certainly think it a mighty impiety to treat a writing with contempt, that had been written by the finger of God; and can you think it a less impiety to contemn a brother, who is not only the workmanship, but the image of God?
You would justly think it great prophaneness to condemn and trample upon an altar, because it was appropriated to holy uses, and had had the body of Christ so often placed upon it; and can you suppose it to be less prophaneness to scorn and trample upon a brother, who so belongs to God, that his very body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, 1 Cor. vi. 15.
18. *But to return: Intercession is not only the best arbitrator of all differences, the best promoter of true friendship, the best cure and preservative against all unkind tempers, all angry and haughty passions, but is also of great use to discover to us the true state of our own hearts.
There are many tempers which we think lawful and innocent, which we never suspect of any harm; which, if they were to be tried by this devotion, would soon shew us how we have deceived ourselves.