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

DIRECT. XX.

Be very suspicious of your Religious passions; and carefully distinguish between a sound and a sinful zeal; lest you should father your sin on the spirit of holiness, and think that you are most pleasing God, when you offend him.

WE are seldom more mistaken in justifying our selves than in our Passions: And when our Passions are Religious the mistake is both most easy and most perilous: Easy, because we are ⟨p. 122⟩apt to be most confident, and not suspect them, the matter seeming so great and good, about which they are exercised. And Perilous, because the greatness and goodness of the matter, doth make the error the greater and the worse. I have showed before how easy it is, to think that our Religious passions, are all the works of the spirit of God; For we are apt to estimate them, by the depth and earnestness which we feel. But excellent persons have been here mistaken, as James and John were. And not only so, but when the passion is up, the judgement it self is seldom to be far trusted; For it inclineth us to err in all things that concern the present business. Therefore still remember the difference between true zeal and false: And know that he that is upright in the main, and whose zeal for Christianity is sound, may yet have much zeal that is unsound with it.

WE are seldome more mistaken in justifying our selves than in our Passions: And when our Passions are Religious the mistake is both most easie and most perillous: Easie, because we are