A Christian Directory

§. 81. 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 many profane ones were wont to call sober godly people, Schismatics and Factious, therefore the very names beg•n 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.

§. 81. The other great hinderance of our due apprehension of the sinfulness of divisions, is our too deep sense of our sufferings by superiours, and our looking so much at the evil of persecutions, as not to look at the danger of the contrary extream. Thus under the Papacy, the people of Germany at Luthers Reformation were so deeply sensible of the Papal cruelties, that they thought by how many wayes 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 Prophane and the Haters of Godliness, that they had no apprehensions of the evil of Divisions among themselves: And because many prophan• ones were wont to call sober godly people, Schismaticks and Factious, therefore the very names begn 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 factin 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 perswaded God did purposely permit it, to teach his people more sensibly to know the evil of that sin by the efcts, 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.