The cure of church-divisions, or, Directions for weak Christians to keep them from being…

1 Thes. 2. 14, 15. For ye also have suffered like things of your own Countrymen, even as they ⟨p. 428⟩have of the Jews: who both killed the Lord Jesus and their own Prophets; and have persecuted us: and they please not God, and are contrary to all men; forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved; to fill up their sin alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost.☞

Luk. 9. 54, 55. Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elijah did? But he turned and rebuked them and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of: for the son of man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them.

Luk. 9. 54, 55. Lord wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven, and consume them, even as Elias did? But he turned and rebuked them and said, ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of: for the son of man is not come to destroy mens lives, but to save them.

I conclude as I began: that the consciousness of our own ordinary and lamentable infirmities, and the greatness of the Churches sufferings thereby, in all fore-going ages and in this, will condemn us of impudent self-ignorance, if Ministers be not compassionate and tender towards the weaknesses of the people, who cannot be expected to equal them in knowledge. Alas, Brethren, what are we (even after so many years study & preparation) that we should be supercilious and cruel to the infirm! what difficulties puzzle us? what a loss are we at in our ordinary studies? How weakly do we preach and pray and write? How easily do we see this in one another, as our mutual censures and severities show? Who troubled Paul and the first Churches, but erroneous Teachers? Who prated maliciously against John, and cast out the brethren, but a Diotrephes? Who brought in the errors of the Millenaries, the corporeity of Angels, the errors of the Arians, Eunomians, Nestorians, Eutychians,