the name of God and his doctrin may be blassphemed 1 Tim. 6. v. 1 Ah wilt thou dishonour and wrong the honourable cause for which thou sufferest by thy negligent walk and unsutable conversation O look to your selves that ye lose not those things ye have wrought but receive the great reward 2. Ioh. 8. there may be much done and much sufferred for a good cause and all amount to nothing 1 Cor 13. v. 2 3. O watch over your hearts and wayes ye are now placed sentinels the enemy is ready to break in and make a prey of all if he find us sleeping Satan will be now ready to tempt knowing what a provocation it is to sin in the face of judgements and in a time of wrath and indignation Remember Lots wif. 3. Walk prudently as wise not as fools Eph. 5. v. 15. hearken to Christs Counsell and joyn prudence with your innocency Mat. 10. v. 16. now satan will be ready to sow his tares to put on his surplice and transform him self into an Angel of light if he Cannot make thee split on the rock of profanity looseness he will strive to sink thee in the gulf of errour and irregularities O be Intreated therfore not to Believe every spirit but try whither it be of God or not 1 Joh. 4. v. 1. take heed what ye hear and how ye hear 1 Thess 5. v. 21. Act. 17. v. 11. O what a noble ornament is prudence to religion and how ready are imprudent Zelots to cast a stumbling block in the way of the profane and to furnish the triumph of Papists by their heady rash irregular actings and wild fancies O better you had never been born then thus to raise an evil report on Religion to cast a stumbling-block in the way of them who are ready to break their necks without your help and to harden those in their evil way who are but too resolute to go on therein 4. Redeem time from the world its work business fellowship and lay it out for God and for eternity and ye shal be ye can be no loosers for then ye will trade with Christ and for his gold that will make you Rich indeed you will not run as uncertain and beat the air you will not pursue shadowes and perish in the pursuit but will run and obtain fight and prevaile and carry the prize and Crown of Glory Eph. 5. v. 16. Rev. 3. v. 18. 1 Cor. 9. v. 26. 5. In a time of such perplexity and uncertainly Labour to secure 1. the treasure and pearle of prize 2 Pet. 1. v. 10. if it be in saftie what need we value the loss of perishing trifles 2. Provide a retiring and resting place and when you espy no city of refuge run to the strong rock and provid you Chambers there and however tempestuous the storm may become ye need not fear Isa 26 v. 20. Pro. 18. v. 10. Psal 61. v. 23. 3dly while there is so litle love and kindness to be pected from men and so litle truth and fidelyty among them so that we may take up the word Mic. 7. v. 5.6.4 rejoyce that ye have a friend in heaven to whom ye may run and whom ye may safely trust and when ye find litle comfort in conversing with men let your Conversation be in heaven be frequent and servent in your udresses to God and carefull to mantain a fellowship with the father his son Jesus Christ be much in prayer Meditation reading take heed how ye perform these duties Phil. 2. v. 20. Joh. 2. v. 3. Luk. 8. v. 18. Heb. 4. v. 2. Jam. 1. v. 2 22 23. but you will say what could discourage us if these were secured But how may that be don Ans as to the first an heavenly Conversation is the best way to secure the heavenly treasure Coloss 3. v. 2 4. As to the second run in to that rock and these Chambers of security by faith if thou thus cast thy self and all thy burdens on the Lord he shall sustain and care for thee Psal 55. v. 22. 1 Pet. 5. v. 7 If with him Psal 61. v. 4. thou trust in the Covert of his wings thou mayest with him Psa 63. v. 7. Rejoyce under their shadow O then when thy heart is overwhelmed say with that eminent Believer Psa 61. v. 12. Hear my cry o God and lead me to the Rock that is higher then I. As to the 3d our Blessed Lord assures you that ye are his friends and shal abide in his love if ye keep his Commandments and do what soever he bids you Joh. 15. v. 10 14. 6. Set the Lord allways befor you and walk as under his all seeing eye and as hearing the sound of the last trumpet in your eares and summoning you to judgement to give an accompt of all ye have don and said Psa 16. v. 9. 2 Cor. 5. v. 5 10. 7. Be tender and * Audaciam existimo de bono divini precepti disputare nec quia bonum est i. e. nobis videtur auscultare debemus sed quia Deus pracepit Tertul. de panit tremble at the word of God at the whole word not daring to cast any part of it behind thy back O said noble Luther let the word of God come and tho we had a hundred necks let them all stoop to it and O said Cypr loquere magister bone libenter te audio cum adversariis mihi cum irasceris O do not wound Conscience in the Least as knowing that ye Cannot please God in any thing unless ye carefully endeavour to please him in all things Coloss 1. v. 10. Jam. 2. v. 10 11. Act. 24. v. 16. and think it not enough to leave off the practise of some sins unless ye forsake all and unless ye forsake and loath and find in your selves that indignation and Revenge against and carefullness to avoid it 3 Cor. 7. v. 11. 8. Beware of doing any thing out of a doubting Conscience not being persuaded of its lawfullness Rom. 14. v. 14 23. and O beware of going against thy light if thou act against conscience thou art not subject to Gods authority but despisest him speaking as thou supposest by his deputy Jam. 1 v. 5. But saith Mr. Butroughs take heed the Devil be not in the Conscience as the place where he thinketh he may lodge with least suspicion that must be no sanctuary to him but he must be pulled from the horns of that Altar and saith he if a man be proud and turbulent in his Carriage 2. if he will not make use of means to inform his Conscience 3. if he Can give no rationall account for his actings 4ly if he go against his own principles c. we fear the Devill is in that mans Conscience 8. Let self deniall be thy dayly study that being the first Lesson of Christianity if we be Christians indeed it must be our dayly task it being so necessary so hardly Learned
an open shew of your sufferings I cannot observe any foot step of violence done you either in your persons or families Your bodyes are sound and healthy You suffered no loss of your goods You are free men and your trade and commerce has suffered little alteration What then happened they threatned you with a few dragoons and presently you were struck dead with fear and all your good resolutions vanished into smoak But is simple fear a lawfull excuse for a crime which neither tortures themselves if we consider the merit of the cause nor the most cruell punishments can excuse According to the discipline of the first Christians one's defection from the faith thô torn in pieces with talions of Iron and bruised on the rack was esteemed an abominable erime The very spectators of so odious a weakness trembled and were affraid lest the dreadfull lightnings of the vengeance of God should surprise them They expected no less then Claps of thunder from heaven or that the earth should open its large abyss to punnish a miscreant Church where but one was found to deny Christ What would they have said or done if they had seen a whole Church yeeld to the first attackes of fear their bodies untouched and their strength entire Acknowledge ye therefore the truth and by a sincere Confession of the evil you have done give us some ground to hope of your repentance Confess you have fallen by a temptation that ought not to have shaken you It seems it was of you that a (a) Cypr. de Laps Holy Bishop of the third age spake there is so great a conformity between you and those whose defection he Laments You have betrayed your faith all on a sudden at the first threats of the ennemy you were not overthrown against your wills by the violence of the persecution but you overthrew your selves by a voluntary defection Does it not seem on your account that he addeth what follows They did not wait when they denied the truth till they were asked a reason of their faith or till they were apprehended and constrained to burn incense to Idols but were vanquished before the Combat overthrown before they were encounter'd they did not so much as reserve the excuse That violence was offered them They ran to the Palace or to the Idol Priests of their own accord and hasted to deliver themselves up to death as if it had been a thing they long desired and as if they had embraced an occason that they had long waited for Had the Gospell preached by Christ and his Apostles made so great a progress in the world if it had been received Only by those of your temper Had truth triumphed over error whose Empire was established by a long prescription of ages and mantained by all the powers on earth if it had not found more faithfull disciples then you Had Christ been received in the remotest parts of the world by a barbarous and savage people and adored by the Kings of the earth if the first guardians of his Truth had so ill perserved it as you have don He is not beholding to you that he has any faithfull servants yet remaining There would be none to Confesse his name if those who were threatned by the ennemy and exposed to his stratagems and power had not had more courage then you The Authors of the desolation of our Churches were ashamed of their own Persidy and cruelties and to colour the matter they boasted of the pretended conversions they procured which struck all Europe with amazement for they gave out that they forced no body that the people obeyed the first orders of their own accord and that they retnrned to the Religion of their ancestors at the first summons This is that they publish by their hired writters whose pens are sold to impudence and lying to disguise publick and notorious deeds Had they not reason thus to write if all your brethren had been as Cowardlie as you were Your example confirmes their excuses and makes an Apology for them In vaine have so many thousands saved themselves poor and naked thorow so many difficultes and snares in vaine have they filled all the Estates of Europ with their complaints and the account of their miseries your conduct has belyed so many thousand witnesses And if it praised be God it cannot suffice not to destroy their testimony yet it renders their complaints in some manner suspected of being too much aggravated who can beleive all they say tho many of them carry yet about them the Scars of their sufferings when they see a considerable Church thus overcome and yeeld without fighting But you may still reply That you were so much constrained that it appeared in your Countenance then when you signed the Abjuration You were pale and trembling as if you had been led to the slaughter and tho you spoke not against the compliance they required of you your looks groans and trouble of mind were a silent protestation against the force they used But these excuses convict you and give the greatest ground to condemne you When one has recourse to the deceit of a frivolous excuse it is almost as much as if he had committed the erime over again Can any thing more clearly convict you that you have sinned against your own Light then to confess that you feit in your Consciences so strong opposition or can you take that for an excuse that is the clearest indication of your weakness should I draw your Portraiture that which Dems of Alexandria made of some weak spirited Christians of his time is as proper as if it had been drawn for you Some said he were seen approaching the Altars pale and trembling as if they were not come to sacrifice to idols but to offer themselves for victimes and on this account the multitude of spectators disdained them as those who made it openly appear that they came neither to dy nor to sacrifice Do you not know yourselves by the draught of this Picture You had neither the courage to retaine the profession of your faith nor the resolution to renounce it neither hot nor cold in an occasion that required the one or other neither holy enough to prefer the glory of God above all nor cold enough to shew your indifferency then when you repudiated and put away the holy one Judge ye of the effects of this Lukewarmness and of what your pretended converters may think when they see you give so many publick marks of the basest weakness What should we have then done you will ask mee What side should we have taken in the extremity we were in You had two measures to take either to have resisted or to have fled if you had no courage to stand it out It is not given to all to be proof against tortures and to arrive at the highest degree of victory But a victory may be obtained by a retreat as well as by resisting Even thefirst ages tho severe in this
giving the least token of Repentance What and do you yet expect to recover yourselves How long will ye put off your conversion that is so necessary Who promised you that the patience of God would not be wearied out with your delayes but would attend your leasure Come out of Babylon my People too much estranged from God! Come out of Babylon that you may draw neer unto him If you will not do it for fear of her sins do it at least for fear of being partakers of her plagues You have time to escape seing vengeance is not yet begun but you cannot avoid it except you seperate from that impure Church on whom the justice of God who is the Protector of Truth is ready to be revealed You know there is a kind of wilfull sin after having received the knowledge of the Truth that is never pardoned a sin for which there remains no more sacrifice a sin that leaves no issue to sinners but a fearfull looking for of judgment and of fire which will consume without mercy I will not say that yours is of this nature I think and hope better things of you I would a wake your Consciences by just fears but I would not sound a mortall alarme to you I would grieve you but not put you into despaire Happy I if I could work in you a sorrow that conduceth to your salvation I would then bless the severity of my complaints I would rejoice to have made you sorrowfull not because you sorrowed but because your sorrow wrought Repentance in you Therefore I will not say that the sin that you have committed against God is that sin for which there is no remission I will only say they do not much differ Nor shall I aggravate your Crime tho I say there is but one step between you and death You have sinned against truth after you had handled the word of life and were enlightned with the knowledge of God Your sin is accompanyed with such circumstances as give ground to beleive you sinned wilfully and deliberately against the dictates of your mind and the motions of your heart Would you know if there be any ground to hope for pardon It is easily known there is one Character that distinguisheth the unpardonable sin from all others It is impossible for those that commit it to recover by repentance Repent therefor and you may be assured your sin has not yet proceeded to so dreadfull a degree but repent quickly I have already told you that Repentance delayed grows every day more difficult and if the freshness of your sin be not enough to strike you with horror and remorse you will come to it more uneasily when sin is rendred familiar to you by a long continued practice (a) Cypr. Ep. ad Pompon You must carefully with draw your ship from dangerous places lest it split against the shelves and rocks you must quickly save your goods from burning before the threatning fire reach them It is impossible to be secure if you remaine long on the frontiers of danger It had been glorious for you to have continued Stedfast and not to have given to your enemies the joy of vanquishing your faith But every one has not the courage to overcome by heroick actions it is necessary therefore for those that have stumbled and fallen in the way to the Heavenly Kingdom to recover and establish themselves by repentance Tho the Crown be properly for those that run the race without falling yet there remains praise and honour to those who rise by repentance (b) Cypr. Ep. 55. ad Cornel. The first degree of happiness is without doubt not to sin but the second is to acknowledge the fault amend And the second doth not so much differ from the first when the amendment is not delayed We do not find in other persecutions that all those who fell continued in their defection they very oft recovered before they departed from the presence of their Judges The faithfull of Lions gloryed that those whom fear struck down were raised with honour and returned to the Combat with renewed courage Bibliade a woman who denyed thorow weakness and whom the Devil thought he was already sure of regained her courage in the midst of her Torments and Confessed she was a Christian many others guilty of the same sin were restored with her Those who had already escaped death and were restored to their life and liberty by the Orders of the Emperours who then as it is now in use recompensed Cowardize and punished Constancy who were exposed in publick to be absolved of the reproach of being Christians those I say recovered their first zeal and made open Confession of the name of Christ loving rather to die in the communion of the truth than to enjoy life and liberty as the price of their denying it (c) Cypr. Epist ad Cornel. St. Cyprian congratulating Cotnelius Bishop of Rome for the Constancy of his Church writes thus How many fell who were restored by a glorious Confession and who became more bold and valiant in the battle even by the anguish of repentance It was without doubt a great joy to that faithfull Bishop to see his Church imitat his zeal who was so far from seeing it diminish'd by the defection of its children that he saw it encreased by the publick Conversion of those who had faln in the former persecution What a glorious spectacle in the eyes of God what joy of the Church in the presence of Christ to see her march to the battle offered by the enemy not souldiers singly but a whole army of generous Confessors You have fallen very short of this example You among whom not one would signalize himself by a single discovery of Constancy But do not add to the singular property of your fall which has been common to all another fault more shamefully singular by continuing in your defection It is enough that you could all fall but it would be a prodigy if in so generall a fall none of you should rise again Repent then and let your Conversion be as generall if possible as your sin You have hitherto had some pretence of not awaking from this sleep of sin The same affrightment that was the cause of your sin has made you persevere in it the same love of your estates that perverted you has detained you in your error the same complyance that made you forget God has deprived you of the courage of reconciling yourselves to God lest you should offend men since that time you have learnt of none who has laboured to bring you back or thought of curing the deep wounds that you pierced your souls with you have not been ashamed of your fall because there was none who reproached you with it But the case is now altered I come to awake you with my cryes and to call you to repentance Take heed that my Labour be not in vaine and that you be not offended with my
where these humble serious sincere Christians But now on the one hand profanity and open impiety and on the other pride animosity contention and saying stand by thy self for I am holier then thou hath suckt out the power and life of religion so that some have no more but and others not so much as a name that they live What may you say are these the words of one so often upbraided for his charity But 1 If I had more of Charity yet 2 what pretence to charity can these plead who so apparently walk in the broad way and carry their ditty in their forehead who will call these clean who are wallowing in the mire and lying in it but 3. as for others I judge not any as to their state there is one who knoweth and will judge 4. in the worst of times God hath his hidden and chosen ones his thousands who have not bowed the knee to any idol whether bodily or spirituall and the most sincere usually least seen and make litle noise with their feet while they are walking to heaven but of many who have taken on a bigge profession we may boldly with a zealous Ancient say vel hoc non est Evangelium vel isti non sunt Evangelici either this is not the Gospel that we preach or these have not embraced it and * Sinunc Adam resurgerâ—t videret hanc insaniam omnium ordinum prosecto credo quod praestupore tanquam lapis staret Luth. in Gen. cap. 3. are not Christians If Adam were now risen again he would said Luther stand as astonished at the madness of all ranks of persons walking as if they did not mind eternity 1. Ye earthly minded ones who have Religion in your mouth and the world in your heart ye Mammon-worshippers cannot Worship God in spirit and in truth Mat. 6. v. 24. Eph. 5. v. 5 1 Tim. 6. v. 9. 2. Ye proud arrogant saucie supercilious ones who have not â—â—â—rnt of Christ tobe meek and lowly in heart Mat. 11. v. 29. Jam. 4. v. 26. Psa 138. v. 6. the factious turbulent implacable censorious uncharitable the evil speaker who cannot bridle his tongue not sparing the most innocent if not of his lure who is never so in his element as when sowing discord among bretheren and reviling the faithfull have abandoned the divine Character of those who will abide in Gods Tabernacle and who are precious in his sight Jam. 3. v. 14.15 16 17. Gal. 5. v. 22. 1 Cor. 13. Psa 15. v. 33. Pro. 6. v. 19 3. Ye Herodians who hear gladly and doe many things but your right hand and right ey must be spared saying Naaman-like in this Lord pardon thy servant and thou shalt be my master ye who have indented with Christ on terms of your own choice and with a reserve and the permission and consent of your darling and master lust may suppose ye have two masters but Christian be none of them ye cannot serve God and an idol-lust Mat. 6. v. 24 Christ must have the whole heart or he can have none of it if Satan get a part he hath all one lake and chink if not stopt will as certainly sink the vessel as a thousand Jam. 2. v. 10. If I might here insist how many particulars fall under this head But in a word how can these think to find life in the scriptures who will not acknowledge them to be the divine infallible unerring rule of life who dare presume to judge the rule by which they must be judged who reject and embrace so much of it as seemeth good in their eyes thou art inexcusable O man and self condemned who professest thou art a Christian and wilt hearken to Christs voice acknowledging all his commands and wayes to be equall and just and yet darst cast so many of them behind thy back and set up a new and Antiscripturall way to heaven in which thou and thy lusts may walk together Ah dost thou profess thy self to be one of those who tremble at Gods word and yet art not afraid thus to adde or take from it and dost not tremble when thou readest the dreadfull curse Rev. 22. v. 18 19. these few British wretches who having disowned the late King his authority dealt more ingenouously tho most balsphemously in razing out of their Bibles as I heard some sectaries befor them did the word King where ever they found it but before they arrived to that hight of impiety they had fallen into many vile and abominable errors at length burnt the whole scriptures now tho ye abhor the thoughts of doing such a wicked thing yet have ye not too far homologated with them have ye not rejected and cast Gods word behind your back so many clear and weighty commands so pithily pressed and so often inculcated ye durst not raze them on t of your Bibles yet would not suffer them to be written in your hearts may not ye who have thus taken a way from the word of life fear lest God take away your part out of the book of life and tho yo have some room and may be a name in the church here yet shall find no place in the assembly of the first born in heaven ye will be ready with the first sadly to regrate and complain of papall and Cefarian indulgences and dispensationes with lawes divine and humane and yet the pope and Cesar within your own bowells are cherished in their dispensing with so many expresse commands of God and in indulging you to live in those sins he hath so severely forbidden What hopes can there be of such almost Christians what hopes of ignorant and formall professours and what hopes of hypocriticall zelots self-seeking worshippers or scandalous ranters that they will stand and ride out the storm if the winds become more boisterous But supposing they may for a naturall conscience a name credit and reputation may engage to do and suffer much yet what credit gain or advantage to the Gospell could their sufferings bring but Oh what a sad reproach and discredit to the honourable cause for which they suffer must their unholy walk and conversation be and what a wofull scandall and stumbling block to those that are without while as the sufferings of the upright and sincere from time to time have proven such a noble attractive to draw such into Christ and a prevailing inducement to embrace the Gospell hence the saying not more common then certain sanguis martyrum semen Ecclesiae the blood of the Martyrs the seed of the Church plures efficimur quoties metimur the more as Tertullian said they were thus cut down they encreased and multiplied the more But Ah will ye thus put Christ and his glorious Gospell to an open shame while ye pretend to suffer for him and his cause will ye lose the honour and reward of your sufferings by your ungospel-like life and deportment But O ye in whom are any grains of sincerity and uprightness in
Iren. advers Haeres lib. 4. c. 62. Irenaeus Whatever good be pretended to Come by SCHISM it cannot counterballance the evil of SCHISM which saith (f) Apud Gratian. caus 24. quest 3. c. Inter. Jerome cannot long continue without Heresy and (a) Optat. de Schis Donatist lib. 1. Optatus Milevitanus is not affraid to say that Schism is the chief of evils and judicious (b) Ames de Conscient cas lib. 5. c. 12. D. Ames durst call it Peccatum Gravissimum a most grievous sin but Optatus goes on telling us that it is a greater sin then Homicid or Idolatry and (c) August de Baptis contra donat lib. 1. c. 8. Austin comes not short of him while he saith having his eye as I suppose on what our Lord saith to Scribes and Pharisees Mat. 23. v. 15. if any be converted by Schismaticks from Idolatry and infidelity they are not gained but desperatly hurt by the wound of Schism and Denis of Alexandria in his Epistle to the famous Church divider NOVATVS (d) Apud Euseb hist Eccl. lib. 5. cap. ult speaketh to the same purpose thou shouldst saith he rather have suffered any thing then suffered the Church to be divided it is a glorious nay I count it a more glorious Martyrdom that the Church may not be divided then to be kept from sacrificing to an Idol not as if these judicious fathers would compare Schism with Idolatry and infidelity as to the immediat object or ultimat end as if the glory of God were as directly and immediatly concerned in Schism as in Idolatry but they considered the consequents and good of the Church because as Denis tells us a multitude is concerned in the michief from Schism they lookt upon it as so pernicious an evil and thus (e) 2. 2 Quest 39. Art. 2. Aquinas doubted not to affirm that no sin against the second table was so great as Schism and that in some respect it was greater then the sin of infidells and if we would (f) Ibid. quaest 37. art 2. quaest 37. art 2. consult that Author we will find its geneologie and parentage as also its daughters and ofspring to be very dishonourable As for the properties of Schismaticks and separatists the Apostle tells us that 1. they are carnall and walk as men not as saints 1 Cor. 3. v. 3. 2. that they are deceitfull creeping in to houses and by good words and fair speeches seek to deceive the hearts of the simple 2 Tim. 3. v 6. 3 that they have a form of godliness but deny the power of it and are such as should be avoided and marked ibid. v. 5. and Rom. 26 v. 17 18. 4. that whatever they pretend yet they are sensuall not having the spirit and cannot in that mischievous work serve the Lord Jesus tho saith (g) Par. in Rom. 16. v. 17. D. Pareus divisions may be in the Church yet they are the Divels work We may not stay to discover those divisive principles ye must disclaim these divisive passions and affections ye must abandon and those divisive practises ye ought to guard against and beware of but for a discovery of these with their proper remedies let me remit you to M. Burroughs his golden IRENICVM but O if Schismaticks would but consider that the Lord accounteth the injury don to his Church as offered to himself that they who touch it touch the apple of his ey now if the touch be so smarting as thus to cut rend and divide how must he be concerned we have not saith the Apostle Heb. 4. v. 15. an high priest that cannot be touched with the feeling of our sores and infirmities how neerly then must he be touched with such a wound as thus teareth and divideth his body is not the Church his body Eph. 1. v. 23. and are not we Members thereof and of his flesh and bones Eph. 5. v. 30. will he not then reckon Schismaticks amongst the piercers of his body and esteem the violence thus offered to the Church as if to himself and Ah must he not have the heart of a tiger who in a day of such distress dare thus wound the afflicted and can he call himself a friend who while enemies are seeking to destroy it dare divide rent and cut it in pieces Schism being as * Par. in 1 Cor. 11. v. 18. D. Pareus speaketh as great a destruction to the Church as the cutting of the hands or feet or the dividing of the head in two is to the body Now let us shut up this direction with the words of great Austin to whom †Aug. de Baptis contra donat lib. 2. c. 5. saith he will God reveale his truth but to those who walk in the way of peace O remember we are men and to mistake and erre is a tentation common to men but to love our own judgment so as to break the unity of the Church in pressing it is devilish presumption to erre in nothing is the Angels perfection and wanting the perfection of Angels let us not run upon the presumption of Devils hence 17. Let us not be easily provoked nor think evil of our Bretheren because they differ from us in some points far removed from the foundation having no direct influence on holyness and perhaps not so clearly revealed which may be are among the more sober and judicious amicably debated according to the analogy of faith for while we know but in part and see but through a glass Darkly it is not supposable but there will be different apprehensions and judgments concerning such matters and questions in order to which the exhortation hath place and when will we be so wise and selfdenied as to hearken to it hast thou faith have to thy self befor God. Rom. 14. v. 22. and is not the rule clear Philip. 3. v. 15 16. Wherto we have already attained let us walk by the same rule and if in other things there be diversity of sentiments let us forbear one another till God reveale his mind to us Concerning these Ah there being a sweet harmony and unity in the faith will we not come or continue under the bond of peace and with all lowliness and meekness forbear one another in love Eph. 4. v 2 3. Oh who reflecting on the seven divine cords and bonds of love and unity held forth in the 4 5 6. following verses could imagine that a saint indeed could cast these of hence 18. Let me obtest you not to mistake nor put a wrong gloss on the Commands to seperat Come out from among to have no fellowship with yea not to eat or drink with such and such sinfull persons 2 Cor. 6. v. 15 17. 1 Thess 3. v. 14. 1 Gor. 5. v. 11 c. else you may cast your selves into a Labyrinth of intolerable miscarriages errours and inconveniences and be tempted to cast of these bonds the light of nature morality and reason have laid on and may