A Christian Directory, Part 3: Christian Ecclesiastics

Quest. O but, say the Romanists, why then do you cut off yourselves from us? the division is made by you, and we are the church, and you are dead till you return to us. How will you know which part is the church, when a division is once made? Answ. |Whether papists or protestants are schismatics.|Are you the church? Are you the only christians in the world? The church is, all christians united in Christ their Head. You traitorously set up a new usurping head; and proclaim yourselves to be the whole church, and condemn all that are not subjects to your new head: we keep our station, and disclaim his usurpation, and deny subjection to you, and tell you that as you are the subjects of the pope, you are none of the church of Christ at all; from this treasonable conspiracy we withdraw ourselves; but as you are the subjects of Christ we never divided from you, nor denied you our communion.¹⁵³ Let reason judge now who are the dividers. And is it not easy to know which is the church in the division? It is all those that are still united unto Christ: if you or we be divided from Christ and from christians that are his body, we are then none of the church; but if we are not divided from Christ, we are of the church still: if part of a tree (though the far greater part) be cut off or separated from the rest, it is that part (how small soever) that still groweth with the root that is the living tree. The Indian fig tree, and some other trees, have branches that take root when they touch the ground: if now you ask me whether the branches springing from the second root, are members of the first tree, I answer, 1. The rest that have no new root are more undoubtedly members of it. 2. If any branches are separated from the first tree, and grow upon the new root alone, the case is out of doubt. 3. But if yet they are by continuation joined to both, that root which they receive their nutriment most from, is it which they most belong to. Suppose a tyrant counterfeit a commission from the king to be vice-king in Ireland, and proclaim all them to be traitors that receive him not; the king disclaimeth him, the wisest subjects renounce him, and the rest obey him but so as to profess they do it because they believe him to be commissioned by the king. Let the question be now, who are the dividers in Ireland? and who are the king's truest subjects? and what head it is that denominateth the kingdom? and who are the traitors? This is your case.

2. Divisions are the deformities of the church. Cut off a nose, or pluck out an eye, or dismember either a man or a picture, and see whether you have not deformed it. Ask any compassionate christian, ask any insulting enemy, whether our divisions be not our deformity and shame, the lamentation of friends, and the scorn of enemies?

3. The church's divisions are not our own dishonour alone, but the injurious dishonour of Christ, and religion, and the gospel. The world thinketh that Christ is an impotent king, that cannot keep his kingdom at unity in itself, when he hath himself told us, that "every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation, and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand," Matt. xii. 25. They think the gospel tendeth to division, and is a doctrine of dissension, when they see divisions and dissensions procured by it; they impute all the faults of the subjects to the King, and think that Christ was confused in his legislation, and knew not what to teach or command, because men are confounded in their opinions or practices, and know not what to think or do. If men misunderstand the law of Christ, and one saith, This is the sense, and another saith, That is the sense, they are ready to think that Christ spake nonsense, or understood not himself, because the ignorant understand him not: who is there that converseth with the ungodly of the world, that heareth not by their reproach and scorns how much God and religion are dishonoured by the divisions of religious people?

4. And thus also our divisions do lamentably hinder the progress of the gospel, and the conversion and salvation of the ungodly world: they think they have small encouragement to be of your religion, while your divisions seem to tell them, that you know not what religion to be of yourselves. Whatever Satan or wicked men would say against religion to discourage the ungodly from it, the same will exasperated persons in these divisions say against each other's way; and when every one of you condemneth another, how should the consciences of the ungodly persuade them to accept salvation in any of those ways, which you thus condemn? Doubtless the divisions of the christian world have done more to hinder the conversion of infidels, and keep the heathen and Mahometan world in their damnable ignorance and delusions, than all our power is able to undo; and have produced such desolations of the church of Christ, and such a plentiful harvest and kingdom for the devil, as every tender christian heart is bound to lament with tears of bitterness. If it must be that such offences shall come, yet woe to those by whom they come!

5. Divisions lay open the churches of Christ, not only to the scorn, but to the malice, will, and fury of their enemies. A kingdom or house divided cannot stand, Matt. xii. 25. Where hath the church been destroyed, or religion rooted out, in any nation of the earth, but divisions had a principal hand in the effect? Oh what desolations have they made among the flocks of Christ! As Seneca and others opened their veins and bled to death, when Nero or such other tyrants did send them their commands to die; even so have many churches done by their divisions, to the gratifying of Satan, the enemy of souls.

6. Divisions among christians do greatly hinder the edification of the members of the church; while they are possessed with envyings and distaste of one another, they lose all the benefit of each other's gifts, and of that holy communion which they should have with one another.¹⁵⁴ And they are possessed with that zeal and wisdom, which James calleth earthly, sensual, and devilish, which corrupteth all their affections, and turneth their food to the nourishment of their disease, and maketh their very worshipping of God to become the increase of their sin. Where divisions and contentions are, the members that should grow up in humility, meekness, self-denial, holiness, and love, do grow in pride, and perverse disputings, and passionate strivings, and envious wranglings; the Spirit of God departeth from them, and an evil spirit of malice and vexation taketh place; though, in their passion, they know not what spirit they are of: whereas if they be of one mind, and live in peace, the God of love and peace will be with them. What lamentable instances of this calamity have we in many of the sectaries of this present time; especially in the people called quakers, that while they pretend to the greatest austerities, do grow up to such a measure of sour pride, and uncharitable contempt of others, and especially of all superiors, and hellish railing against the holiest ministers and people, as we have scarce known or ever read of.

7. These divisions fill the church with sin, even with sins of a most odious nature. They introduce a swarm of errors, while it becomes the mode for every one to have a doctrine of his own, and to have something to say in religion which may make him notable. "Of your own selves shall men arise, speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after them," Acts xx. 30. They cherish pride, and malice, and belying others, (the three great sins of the devil,) as naturally as dead flesh breedeth worms; they destroy impartial, christian love, as naturally as bleeding doth consume our vital heat and moisture. What wickedness is it that they will not cherish? In a word, |The Greek word is zeal.|the Scripture telleth us that "where envying and strife is, there is confusion, and every evil work." (And is not this a lamentable way of reformation of some imaginary or lesser evils?)

8. These divisions are the grief of honest spectators, and cause the sorrows of those that are guilty of them. They make all their duties uneasy to them, and turn their religion into a bitter, unpleasant, wrangling toil; like oxen in the yoke that strive against each other, when they should draw in order and equality. What a grievous life is it to husband and wife, or any in the family, if they live in discord? So is it to the members of the church. When once men take the kingdom of God to consist of meats, or drinks, or ceremonies, which consisteth in righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, and turn to strive about unedifying questions, they turn from all the sweetness of religion.¹⁵⁵

9. Sects and divisions lead directly to apostasy from the faith. Nothing is more in the design of Satan, than to confound men so with variety of religions, that they may think there is no certainty in any; that so both the ignorant spectators may think all religion is but fancy and deceit, and the contenders themselves wheel about from sect to sect, till they come to the point where they first set out, and to be at last deliberately of no religion, who at first were of none for want of deliberation. And it is no small success that Satan hath had by this temptation.

10. The divisions of christians do oft proceed to shake states and kingdoms, having a lamentable influence upon the civil peace; and this stirreth up princes' jealousies against them, and to the use of those severities, which the suffering party takes for persecution; yea, and Turks, and all princes that are enemies to reformation and holiness, do justify themselves in their cruelest persecutions, when they see the divisions of christians, and the troubles of states that have followed thereupon. If christians, and protestants in special, did live in that unity, peace, and order as their Lord and Ruler requireth them to do, the consciences of persecutors would even worry and torment them, and make their lives a hell on earth, for their cruelty against so excellent a sort of men; but now when they see them all in confusions, and see the troubles that follow hereupon, and hear them reviling one another, they think they may destroy them as the troublers of the earth, and their consciences scarce accuse them for it.

The aggravations of schism.

IV. It is necessary also for your true understanding the malignity of this sin, that you take notice of the aggravations of it, especially as to us. 1. It is a sin against so many, and clear, and vehement words of the Holy Ghost, (which I have partly before recited,) that it is therefore utterly without excuse: whoredoms, and treasons, and perjury are not oftener forbidden in the gospel than this.

2. It is contrary to the design of Christ in our redemption; which was to reconcile us all to God, and unite and centre us all in him: "To gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad," John xi. 52. "To gather together in one all things in Christ," Eph. i. 10. "To make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace," Eph. ii. 15. And shall we join with Satan the divider and destroyer, against Christ the reconciler, in the very design of his redemption?

3. It is contrary to the design of the Spirit of grace, and contrary to the very nature of christianity itself. "By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body – and have all been made to drink into one Spirit," 1 Cor. xii. 13. "As there is one body and one Spirit, so it is our charge to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," Eph. iv. 3, 4. The new nature of christians doth consist in love, and desireth the communion of saints as such; and therefore the command of this special love is called the new commandment, John xvii. 21; xiii. 34; xv. 12, 17. And they are said to be taught of God to love one another, 1 Thess. iv. 9. As self-preservation is the chief principle in the natural body, which causeth it to abhor the wounding or amputation of its members, and to avoid division as destruction, except when a gangrened member must be cut off, for the saving of the body; so it is also with the mystical body of Christ. He is senseless and graceless that abhorreth not church wounds.

4. These divisions are sins against the nearest bonds of our high relations to each other:¹⁵⁶ "We are brethren, and should there be any strife among us?" Gen. xiii. 8. "We are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus," Gal. iii. 26. We are the fellow-members of the body of Christ; and should we tear his body, and separate his members, and cut his flesh, and break his bones? Eph. v. 23, 30. "For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body being many, are one body, so also is Christ," 1 Cor. xii. 12. "As we have many members in one body – so we being many are one body in Christ; and every one members one of another," Rom. xii. 4, 5. He that woundeth or dismembereth your own bodies, shall scarce be taken for your friend; and are you Christ's friends, when you dismember or wound his body?¹⁵⁷ Is it lovely to see the children or servants in your family together by the ears? Are civil wars for the safety of a kingdom? Or doth that tend to the honour of the children of God, which is the shame of common men? Or is that the safety of his kingdom, which is the ruin of all others? "We are all fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God," Eph. ii. 19. "We are God's building," 1 Cor. iii. 9. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God; and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy: for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," 1 Cor. iii. 16, 17. Will he destroy the defilers, and will he love the dividers and destroyers? If it be so great a sin to go to law unnecessarily with our brethren, or to wrong them, 1 Cor. vi. 8, what is it to disown them, and cast them off? And if they that salute and love only their brethren, and not also their enemies, are not the children of God, Matt. v. 47, what are they that separate from and condemn even their brethren?

5. Church dividers either would divide Christ himself between them, or else would rob him of a great part of his inheritance: and neither of these is a little sin. If you make several bodies, you would have several heads; and is Christ divided? saith the apostle, 1 Cor. i. 13. Will you make him a sect-master? He will be your common head as christians; but he will be no head of your sects and parties. (I will not name them.) Or would you tear out of the hands of Christ any part of his possessions? Will he cut them off, because you cut them off? Will he separate them from himself, because you separate from them, or separate them from you? Will he give them a bill of divorce, whenever you are pleased to lay any odious accusation against them? Who shall condemn them, when it is he that justifieth them? Who shall separate them from the love of God? Can your censure or separation do it, when neither life, nor death, nor any creature can do it? Rom. viii. 33, &c. Hath he not told you, that "he will give them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of his hand?" John x. 28. Will he lose his jewels, because you cast them away as dirt? He suffered more for souls than you, and better knoweth the worth of souls! And do you think that he will forget so dear a purchase? or take it well that you rob him of that which he hath bought so dearly? Will you give the members and inheritance of Christ to the devil, and say, They are Satan's, and none of Christ's? "Who art thou that judgest another man's servant?"

6. Church dividers are guilty of self-ignorance, and pride, and great unthankfulness against that God that beareth with so much in them, who so censoriously cast off their brethren. Wert thou ever humbled for thy sin? Dost thou know who thou art, and what thou carriest about thee, and how much thou offendest God thyself? If thou do, surely thou wilt judge tenderly of thy brethren, as knowing what a tender hand thou needest, and what mercy thou hast found from God. Can he cruelly judge his brethren to hell upon his petty differences, who is sensible how the gracious hand of his Redeemer did so lately snatch him from the brink of hell? Can he be forward to condemn his brethren, that hath been so lately and mercifully saved himself?

7. Church dividers are the most successful servants of the devil, being enemies to Christ in his family and livery. They gratify Satan, and all the enemies of the church, and do the very work that he would have them do, more effectually than open enemies could do it. As mutineers in an army may do more to destroy it, than the power of the enemy.

8. It is a sin that contradicteth all God's ordinances and means of grace; which are purposely to procure and maintain the unity of his church. The word and baptism is to gather them into one body, and the Lord's supper to signify and maintain their concord, as being one bread, and one body, 1 Cor. x. 17. And all the communion of the church is to express and to maintain this concord. The use of the ministry is much to this end, to be the bonds and joints of this unity of believers, Eph. iv. 13, 14, 16. All these are contemned and frustrated by dividers.

9. Church division is a sin (especially to us) against as great and lamentable experiences as almost any sin can be. About sixteen hundred years the church hath smarted by it. In many countries where the gospel prospered, and churches flourished, division hath turned all into desolation, and delivered them up to the curse of Mahometanism and infidelity. The contentions between Constantinople and Rome, the eastern and the western churches, have shaken the christian interest upon earth, and delivered up much of the christian world to tyranny and blindness, and given advantage to the papacy to captivate and corrupt much of the rest, by pretending itself to be the centre of unity. Oh what glorious churches, where the learned writers of those ages once lived, are now extinct, and the places turned to the worship of the devil and a deceiver, through the ambition and contentions of the bishops, that should have been the bonds of their unity and peace! But doth England need to look back into history, or look abroad in foreign lands, for instances of the sad effects of discord? Is there any one, good or bad, in this age, that hath spent his days in such a sleep, as not to know what divisions have done, when they have made such ruins in church and state, and kindled such consuming flames, and raised so many sects and parties, and filled so many hearts with uncharitable rancour, and so many mouths with slanders and revilings, and turned so many prayers into sin, by poisoning them with pride and factious oppositions, and hath let out streams of blood and fury over all the land? He that maketh light of the divisions of christians in these kingdoms, or loveth not those that speak against them, doth show himself to be so impenitent in them, as to be one of those terrible effects of them, that should be a pillar of salt to warn after-ages to take heed.

10. Yea, this is a heinous aggravation of this sin, that commonly it is justified, and not repented of, by those that do commit it. When a drunkard or a whoremonger will confess his sin, a church divider will stand to it and defend it; and woe to them that call evil good, and good evil! Impenitency is a terrible aggravation of sin.

11. And it is yet the more heinous, in that it is commonly fathered upon God. If a drunkard or whoremonger should say, God commandeth me to do it, and I serve God by it, would you not think this a horrid aggravation? When did you ever know a sect or party, how contrary soever among themselves, but they all pretended God's authority, and entitled him to their sin, and called it his service, and censured others as ungodly, or less godly, that would not do as bad as they? St. James is put to confute them that thought this wisdom was from above, and so did glory in their sin, and lie against the truth, when their wisdom was from beneath, and no better than earthly, sensual, and devilish. For the "wisdom from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy," &c. James iii. 17.

12. Church divisions are unlike to our heavenly state, and in some regard worse than the kingdom of the devil, for he would not destroy it by dividing it against itself, Matt. xii. 26. Oh what a blessed harmony of united holy souls, will there be in the heavenly Jerusalem, where we hope to dwell for ever! There will be no discords, envyings, sidings, or contendings, one being of this party, and another of that; but in the unity of perfect love, that world of spirits with joyful praise will magnify their Creator. And is a snarling envy or jarring discord the likely way to such an end? Is the church of Christ a Babel of confusion? Should they be divided, party against party, here, that must be one in perfect love for ever?¹⁵⁸ Shall they here be condemning each other, as none of the children of the Most High, who there must live in sweetest concord? If there be shame in heaven, you will be ashamed to meet those in the delights of glory, and see them entertained by the Lord of love, whom you reviled and cast out of the church or your communion, causelessly, on earth.

Remember now that schism, and making parties and divisions in the church, is not so small a sin as many take it for: it is the accounting it a duty, and a part of holiness, which is the greatest cause that it prospereth in the world; and it will never be reformed till men have right apprehensions of the evil of it. Why is it that sober people are so far and free from the sins of swearing, drunkenness, fornication, and lasciviousness, but because these sins are under so odious a character, as helpeth them easily to perceive the evil of them. And till church divisions be rightly apprehended, as whoredom, and swearing, and drunkenness are, they will never be well cured. Imprint therefore on your minds the true character of them, which I have here laid down, and look abroad upon the effects, and then you will fear this confounding sin, as much as a consuming plague.

Two hinderances of our true apprehensions of schism.

The two great causes that keep divisions from being hated as they ought, are, 1. A charitable respect to the good that is in church dividers, carrying us to overlook the evil of the sin; judging of it by the persons that commit it, and thinking that nothing should seem odious that is theirs, because many of them are in other respects of blameless, pious conversations. And indeed every christian must so prudently reprehend the mistakes and faults of pious men, as not to asperse the piety which is conjunct; and therefore not to make their persons odious, but to give the person all his just commendations for his piety, while we oppose and aggravate his sin; because Christ himself so distinguisheth between the good and the evil, and the person and the sin, and loveth his own for their good while he hateth their evil; and so must we; and because it is the grand design of Satan, by the faults of the godly to make their persons hated first, and their piety next, and so to banish religion from the world; and every friend of Christ must show himself an enemy to this design of Satan. But yet the sin must be disowned and opposed, while the person is loved according to his worth. Christ will give no thanks for such love to his children, as cherisheth their church-destroying sins. There is no greater enemy to sin than Christ, though there be no greater friend to souls. Godliness was never intended to be a fortress for iniquity; or a battery for the devil to mount his cannons on against the church; nor for a blind to cover the powder-mines of hell. Satan never opposeth truth, and godliness, and unity so dangerously, as when he can make religious men his instruments. Remember therefore that all men are vanity, and God's interest and honour must not be sacrificed to theirs, nor the Most Holy be abused, in reverence to the holiest of sinful men.

The other great hinderance of our due apprehension of the sinfulness of divisions, is our too deep sense of our sufferings by superiors, and our looking so much at the evil of persecutions, as not to look at the danger of the contrary extreme. Thus under the papacy, the people of Germany at Luther's reformation were so deeply sensible of the papal cruelties, that they thought by how many ways soever men fled from such bloody persecutors, they were very excusable. And while men were all taken up in decrying the Roman idolatry, corruptions, and cruelties, they never feared the danger of their own divisions till they smarted by them. And this was once the case of many good people here in England, who so much hated the wickedness of the profane and the haters of godliness, that they had no apprehensions of the evil of divisions among themselves: and because so many profane ones were wont to call sober, godly people, schismatics and factious, therefore the very names began with many to grow into credit, as if they had been of good signification, and there had been really no such sin as schism and faction to be feared: till God permitted this sin to break in upon us with such fury, as had almost turned us into a Babel, and a desolation. And I am persuaded God did purposely permit it, to teach his people more sensibly to know the evil of that sin by the effects, which they would not know by other means: and to let them see when they had reviled and ruined each other, that there is that in themselves which they should be more afraid of, than of any enemy without.

Direct. V. Own not any cause which is an enemy to love; and pretend neither truth, nor holiness, nor unity, nor order, nor any thing against it.¹⁵⁹ The spirit of love is that one vital spirit which doth animate all the saints. The increase of love is the powerful balsam that healeth all the church's wounds; though loveless, lifeless physicians think that all these wounds must be healed by the sword. And indeed the weapon-salve is now become the proper cure. It is the sword that must be medicated, that the wounds made by it may be healed. The decays of love are the church's dissolution; which first causeth scissures and separations, and in process crumbleth us all to dust: and therefore the pastors of the church are the fittest instruments for the cure, who are the messengers of love, and whose government is paternal, and hurteth not the body; but is only a government of love, and exercised by all the means of love. All christians in the world confess that love is the very life and perfection of all grace, and the end of all our other duties, and that which maketh us like to God; and that if love dwelleth in us, God dwelleth in us; and that it will be the everlasting grace, and the work of heaven, and the happiness of souls; and that it is the excellent way, and the character of saints, and the new commandment. And all this being so, it is most certain that no way is the way of God, which is not the way of love; and therefore what specious pretences soever they may have, and one may cry up truth, and another holiness, and another order, and another unity itself, to justify their envyings, hatred, cruelties, it is most certain that all such pretences are satanical deceits.¹⁶⁰ And if they bite and devour one another, they are not like the sheep of Christ, but shall be devoured one of another, Gal. v. 15. "Love worketh no ill to his neighbour: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law," Rom. xiii. 10. When papists that show their love to men's souls by racking their bodies, and frying them in the fire, can make them apprehensive of the excellency of that kind of love, they may use it to the healing of the church. In the mean time as their religion is, such is their concord, while all those are called members of their union, and professors of their religion, who must be burnt to ashes if they say the contrary. They that give God an image and carcass of religion, are thus content with the image and carcass of a church for the exercise of it. And if there were nothing else but this to detect the sinfulness of the sect of quakers, and many more, it is enough to satisfy any sober man, that it cannot be the way of God. God is not the author of that spirit and way which tends to wrath, emulation, hatred, railing, and the extinction of christian love, to all save their own sect and party. Remember, as you love your souls, that you shun all ways that are destructive to universal christian love.

Direct. VI. Make nothing necessary to the unity of the church, or the communion of christians, which God hath not made necessary, or directed you to make so.¹⁶¹ By this one folly, the papists are become the most notorious schismatics on earth; even by making new articles of faith, and new parts of worship, and imposing them on all christians, to be sworn, subscribed, professed, or practised, so as that no man shall be accounted a catholic, or have communion with them, (or with the universal church, if they could hinder it,) that will not follow them in all their novelties. They that would subscribe to all the Scriptures, and to all the ancient creeds of the church, and would do any thing that Christ and his apostles have enjoined, and go every step of that way to heaven that Peter and Paul went, as far as they are able, yet if they will go no further, and believe no more, (yea, if they will not go against some of this,) must be condemned, cast out, and called schismatics by these notorious schismatics. If he hold to Christ the universal Head of the church, and will not be subject or sworn to the pope, the usurping head, he shall be taken as cut off from Christ. And there is no certainty among these men what measure of faith, and worship, and obedience to them, shall be judged necessary to constitute a church member: for as that which served in the apostles' days, and the following ages, will not serve now, nor the subscribing to all the other pretended councils until then will not serve without subscribing to the creed or council of Trent; so nobody can tell, what new faith, or worship, or test of christianity, the next council (if the world see any more) may require: and how many thousand that are Trent catholics now, may be judged heretics or schismatics then, if they will not shut their eyes, and follow them any whither, and change their religion as oft as the papal interest requireth a change. Of this Chillingworth, Hales, and Dr. H. More have spoken plainly.¹⁶² If the pope had imposed but one lie to be subscribed, or one sin to be done, and said "All nations and persons that do not this, are no christians, or shall have no communion with the church," the man that refuseth that imposed lie or sin, is guiltless of the schism, and doth but obey God, and save his soul; and the usurper that imposeth them, will be found the heinous schismatic before God, and the cause of all those divisions of the church. And so if any private sectary shall feign an opinion or practice of his own to be necessary to salvation or church communion, and shall refuse communion with those that are not of his mind and way, it is he, and not they, that is the cause of the uncharitable separation.