Love one another: A tub lecture, PREACHED  
At Watford in Hartfordshire at a Conventicle on the 25. of December last, being Christmas day, by JOHN ALEXANDER, a joiner.  
His text was taken out of the Epistle of Saint John, and himself was taken by captain Bird, Lieutenant Rock, and other officers, from whom he received such usage as his doctrine did deserve; for which the said officers were commended by the Parliament.  
Printed in the year of private instructing.   

Love one another.  
BEloved, you are well met in this solemn Synagogue to hear from me those words of Truth, and wholesome Doctrine which this day you shall receive from me your teacher. And you are to understand, that although I have had but six shillings at a collection for my other Sermons, which like good seed I have sowed among you, and the fruit whereof in a plentiful increase to your great advantage you have reaped, yet for this Sermon I shall well deserve twelve shillings, both for the solmnesse of the day, and the sweetness of the Doctrine that floweth from my Text, and the gravity, and Authority of me your Teacher, I will dispense a little (with your Christian patience) with the two first reasons, or inducements, and begin first with the last, which is the sufficiency of your Teacher.  
And what man indeed more fitting to direct your understanding in this point, than I, who am your known, your dear, your persecuted Alexander? whose life you have seen, whose Doctrine you have heard, & whose zeal in the holy Cause you have admired. This is not the first time you have heard of my praises, nor shall it be the last. To whom is it more suitable to discourse upon this Text of Love, then unto me, who by profession am a joiner a man ordained to join and settle things in order? and if the husband of the Virgin Mary (as the Text saith) was but a Carpenter, I believe a joiner is not to be despised. A Carpenter Beloved doth raise Seats or forms in the House of God, but it is the office of a joiner to make the Pulpit, but when the joiner doth not only make the Pulpit, but is the Preacher that is in the Pulpit, who joineth Truth to falsehood, Ignorance unto Knowledge, and Misdevotion unto Zeal, what a joiner, nay what a Conjoiner must that be? and this Beloved, is the happiness which you all behold, and enjoy in me this day: and so much briefly for myself, who am your Teacher, I will now return unto my first particular which is the solemness of the day.  
And in the first place not to conceive of me to be so superstitious, as to make any conscience of the solemnity of this day, because the Church hath ordained or doth enjoin, no God forbid I should be so profane, it is a detestation of their blindness, that have brought me hither this day, to enlighten your eyes, and to inform your ears, how much they are abused, and do abuse the ignorant, and a consciousness withal of my present wants, which crave a supply from your Christian charities to relieve them: and in the first place, I give you to understand, that the very name of Christmas is Idolatrous and profane, and so verily, are the whole twelve days wherein the wicked make many daily, and nightly sacrifices to Riot, and sensuality. The Papists Christmas (pardon me, Beloved that I am forced to repeat the word) doth begin in Holland ten days before it doth in England, for so I have been informed by a godly brother from Amsterdam, wherein they make more haste the good speed, and in their doing so, three things offer themselves to our observation.  
There are three sorts of men that make haste.  
The first that make more haste then good speed.  
The second those that make haste with good speed.  
The third those that make neither haste, nor good speed, of these in their order, and first of the first.  
They that make more haste then good speed, those I say, are the Popish and the Idolatrous Churches that in their Superstitious Rites, and Ceremonies follow them, and this indeed is the way of all sinners, and Reprobates whatsoever; thus in the Gunpowder-Treason they made more haste then good speed. Thus Guido Faux that limb of the devil with his dark lantern which was another limb of the devil, for every work of darkness is a limb of the devil, made more haste then good speed. Thus the Earl of Newcastle at this present with his papistical Army, makes more haste then good speed, to overthrow our Jerusalem, and to ●oot out the true Reformed Religion from amongst us, but God I hope will put a bridle in his mouth, and send him back the way he came, or send ●im to those whose battles he fights, whither yet he never came.  
The second sort of those that make haste, are they that make haste with ●ood speed, and those Beloved, (with tears of joy I speak it) are your ●elves, who are met all together to hear me this day: Thus the prodigal makes haste with good speed to discharge the Usurer before the use of his money doth eat into his acres, and leaves him, and his posterity desolate.  
The third sort of those that make haste, are they who neither make haste nor good speed, And these Beloved, (Let it not trouble your patience, for I must needs speak the truth) are our careless servants at home I am afraid now, who while our pots are boiling over, make no haste, ●ill all the fat is fallen into the fire. Thus the foolish Virgins would put no oil into their lamps, until overtaken by the bridegroom, they were refused as unserviceable. And thus the slothful in the Proverbs, deferreth his travel from day until at the last he is enforced to go in the rain, and not able in it either to make haste or good speed, is soused to the skin. And thus I have done with my three observations occasioned on my meitation of my first inducement which was the solemnes of the day, I now come unto the second, which is the sweetness of the Doctrine that is flowing from my Text.  
My Text you hear is Love, a very necessary Text in these contentious times, whenever we ourselves are troubled, are persecuted, and routed in in our Synagogues, when we cannot have those expositions, and preachings with that privilege and security as becometh us, when the Reprobate and profane intrude themselves into our assembly, and catch at our words to make us or odious, or ridiculous. When our feastings are made the admiration of the gluttons, and our Graces thought longer than the Prayers of the Liturgy-mongers, when our honest desires of competency in wealth is accounted covetousness, and the closeness, and wisdom of our carriages passeth for hypocrisy. Brethren, and Sisters, these are the last days, into which we are fallen, and it behooveth us, (mark what I say) to be as wife as Serpents, and because we are pursued, derided and traduced, (though if all things succeed according to our prayers) there will a speedy and happy period be put unto our sufferings and revilings, and we shall live to revile the reviler, and to spit in the faces of those that have opposed us let us (I say) join all together in one close desire, and do as the Text enjoins us, Love one another.  
The words you hear are few, yet very remarkable, if you consider in them the drift of the Apostle, it is an exhortation to Love, wherein you shall find the Object, the Subject, and the Abject. The Object is Love, the Subject which is also the Abject is one another; I call the Subject the Abject, because we should think ourselves as Abjects in this world, and not mind it nor any thing that doth belong unto it, no more than needs must, but settle our affections altogether, on the holy Assembly of ourselves, defying any sociation with the wicked and profane: from this ariseth those two Doctrines,  
First, that we must hate all those that be against us.  
Secondly, that the best way to love one another, is to Love ourselves first.  
First we must hate all those that be against us, for how can we love ourselves, unless we hate our enemies? how can Peace be setle● in a kingdom, unless all that seek to destroy it be utterly consumed? how can the pure light of the gospel shine, as long as the thick night of Superstition and those monstrous rags of Rome, the Rites, and Idolatrous Ceremonies of our Church, which the proud Prelates do put on, and practise: They are the hay, chaff, and the stubble of Antichrist, which the breath of Reformation shall blow away, and scatter in the deserts, where there shall be none to seek it out. We must bear a perfect hate to those men and to their Arts: If we will Love one another. We must hate the Bishops as Hell, and the Prelates as the flaming smoke of Brimstone that proceedeth from it. It is no matter in what they have transgressed, for they are enemies to us, and to the music of our Assemblies, and we are bound to hate them. They hate our Love, and we do love their hate: What though we are not learned as the Clergy, what though we are not so great Scholars as they, Let us love one another, and make ourselves not only one Church, but one family, and be as it were one family of Love. Away with all Learning, away with all immodesty, and the trumpry of the Arts: the very Grammar is profane, and instructs our children in the obsceneness of Conjunctions copulative, and what a smell think you are they like to have when they come to Tully's Offices: Verily brethren, were that mystery of iniquity laid open to us in our mother tongue, I do believe that the vilest jakes about this town would not be so unsweet in the nostrils of good men, as that book of Offices: much more may be aleadged, but I hasten to my second Use. Which serves for terror and astonishment of heart, to all those who style themselves by that Reprobate ti●le of Cavaliers, whether horsemen, or footmen, or of what degree or sex soever, these be they, who tooth and nail labour to pluck up Reformation by the root, who will have their dinners, as long as ours, and their hair longer, men of no piety, nor grace at all, who oursweare the French, out drink the Dutch, out Paramour the Turk. Bold sons of Belial, begotten on the daughters of Anak. O that they were within my reach, now Beloved, with this hand, would I hurl Seas of water to overwelm them, and with this hand balls of wildfire to consume them, with this would I throw fearfulness, and trembling, and with this utter ruin and desolation on them, Mark what I say, and mark well what I do. Here would I maim them and there would I brain them: Here would I quash them, and there would I thrash them: Here would I thrum them, and there would I burn them, & quite overcome them: here would I wound them, & there would I— O my brethren my zeal is enlarged, and methinks I am all on a fire, which certainly at this instant would exhale me, did not your Christian patience assist me, which leads me to the third sort of men, on which we must exercise our hate, and in the first place I beseech you,  
Look not my beloved so amazed and distractedly on one another, for I will speak unto you in a softer tone, and in the voice of gentleness. There be a third sort of men, I say, who live amongst us yet are not of us, nay they are rather directly against us, and they are they who inveigh against our assemblies, deride the purity of our doctrine, and scorn our instructions, of these we ought to be more wary, the more slily they carry themselves amongst us, and the nearer they are unto us they will prove more dangerous.  
As he was preaching this, captain Bird and one eels his quartermaster were with some others at the outside of the house where this congregation was assembled, and overheard this doctrine, and with some impatience attended the end of this Sermon.  
Beloved, we have more ill birds I am afraid than Wren, and some fish too that are even as bad as Fish the Proctor. Beloved, there are fish known to most of this assembly by the name of eels: these eels as the gravest writers do affirm delight in the most nethersome part of the water, or in the mud from whence they do proceed: Besides, they are of a slimy and slippery nature, slimy by reason of their propensnes unto the act of generation, and slippery by reason of their craft and fickleness; this fish beloved (if we may believe Antiquity) hath a head and body resembling the old Serpent from whence it doth derive its subtlety, and instead of speaking, it hisseth. I pray God (my brethren) we have not some such fish near us, and who sometime like the Serpent in paradise come creeping in, even into this congregation of the Saints. Beloved, we ought I say with all care and circumspection to look about us, and to prosecute them with the extremest hate; wherefore if any such shall attempt to circumvent us, and bear ill will unto our assemblies, let one of them be as Anathema, and the other as Maranatha. I will speak now but a word or two by the way of motive to exhort you to love one another, and so I will conclude. Do you labour to love one another? do you instantly and earnestly desire it? then you must love me who am your teacher, who takes pains to inform and direct you in the right way, who do distil into your ears the doctrine of sincerity, and keep more close unto my text then the aged man unto his chimney, or the lame man to his stilt, or the hungry man to his food: But some may here object, how may we express our love unto you: My brethren and sisters I will answer it briefly by enlarging your stipends and contributions to me, do it beloved cheerfully, cheerfully, a cheerful giver is most excepted. You know when my son Iqnathan was borne what trouble I endured, what charges I was put to because I refused to have him buried according to the superstition of the English Church, and when my daughter Abigall was borne, you know again what persecutions ensued on me, because out of the tenderness and pureness of my conscience (which I hope you all have) I would not have him baptised at any profane Font, which hath been corrupted with the superstitious liturgy of the Church of England, and made odious to all good Christians by the often figuring of the Idolatrous sign of the cross. These troubles beloved have befalen me, and you know not how soon they may come upon yourselves, wherefore deal bountifully with me who am ordained to be your example, and if you will ever love one another learn to love me in the first place, so shall the text and I and you come together in the end, and agree in this great and happy point of loving one another.  
FINIS.