A Christian Directory

§. 30. Direct. 10. Take heed of engaging your selves in a Sect or Faction! For when once you depart¹ from Catholic Charity, there groweth up instead of it, a partial respect to the interest of that Sect to which you join: And you will think that whatsoever doth promote that Sect, doth promote Christianity, and what ever is against that Sect, is against the Church or cause of God. A narrow Sectarian separating mind, will make all the truths of God give place, to the opinions of his party; and will measure the prosperity of the Gospel in the world, by the prosperity of his party; as if he had forgot, that there are any more men on the face of the earth, or thought God, regarded none but them. He will not stick to persecute all the rest of the Church of Christ, if the interest of his Sect require it. When once men incorporate themselves into a party, it possesseth them with another spirit; even with a strange uncharitableness, injustice, cruelty and partiality! What hath the Christian world suffered by one Sects persecuting another, and faction rising up in fury, to maintain its own interest, as if it had been to maintain the being of all Religion! The bloodthirsty Papists, whose Inquisition, Massacres, and manifold murders have filled the earth with the blood of innocents, is a sufficient testimony of this. And still here among us, they seem as thirsty of blood as ever▪ and tell us to our faces, that they would soon make an end of us, if we were in their power: As if the two hundred thousand lately murdered in so short a time in Ireland, had rather irritated than quenched their thirst. And all faction naturally tendeth to persecution. Own not therefore any dividing opinions or names: Maintain the Unity of the Body of Christ (not of the body of the Pope)! Let Christian and Catholic, be all your titles, as to your Religion. Mark those that cause divisions and offences, and avoid them, Rom. 16. 17.

§. 30. Direct. 10. Take heed of engaging your selves in a Sect or Faction! For when once you depart¹ from Catholick Charity, there groweth up instead of it, a partial respect to the interest of that Sect to which you joyn: And you will think that whatsoever doth promote that Sect, doth promote Christianity, and what ever is against that Sect, is against the Church or cause of God. A narrow Sectarian separating mind, will make all the truths of God give place, to the opinions of his party; and will measure the prosperity of the Gospel in the world, by the prosperity of his party; as if he had forgot, that there are any more men on the face of the earth, or thought God, regarded none but them. He will not stick to persecute all the rest of the Church of Christ, if the interest of his Sect require it. When once men incorporate themselves into a party, it possesseth them with another spirit; even with a strange uncharitableness, injustice, cruelty and partiality! What hath the Christian world suffered by one Sects persecuting another, and faction rising up in fury, to maintain its own interest, as if it had been to maintain the being of all Religion! The bloodthirsty Papists, whose Inquisition, Massacres, and manifold murders have filled the earth with the blood of innocents, is a sufficient testimony of this. And still here among us, they seem as thirsty of blood as ever and tell us to our faces, that they would soon make an end of us, if we were in their power: As if the two hundred thousand lately murdered in so short a time in Ireland, had rather irritated than quencht their thirst. And all faction naturally tendeth to persecution. Own not therefore any dividing opinions or names: Maintain the Unity of the Body of Christ (not of the body of the Pope)! Let Christian and Catholick, be all your titles, as to your Religion. Mark those that cause divisions and offences, and avoid them,