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

I speak not any of this to trample upon those whom God in justice hath cast down. (A thing which I so abhorred that I have avoided it to the great displeasure of others) But if you are of the mind, either that Gods justice should not be observed or justified; or that you should not be called to repentance; or that you should be suffered quietly to forget your sin, and die impenitently; or that the nation should forget the effects of religious pride and faction, and so lose the warning which they have had from God at so dear a rate, and be tempted again into the same sin and calamity, for fear of offending the ears of the guilty; I am in all this as far from your minds, as I was in the acting of these crimes: And can no more consent to you, than I should have done to have had all the Israelites murmurings, idolatry and unbelief; and the sins of Noah, Lot, David, Solomon, Peter, &c. forgotten, and the history of them never mentioned in the Bible.

But (I pray you mark it) the way of God is to shame the sinner, how good soever in other respects that the sin may have the greater shame, and Religion may not be shamed as if it allowed men to sin, nor God the Author of Religion be dishonoured; nor others be without ⟨p. 258⟩the warning. But the way of the devil is, To hide or justify the sin, as if it were for fear of disparaging the goodness of the persons that committed it; that so be may thereby dishonour Religion and Godliness it self, and make men believe that it is but a cover for any wickedness, and as consistent with it as a looser life is; and that he may keep the sinner from repenting, and blot out the memory of that warning which should have preserved after ages from the like falls.

But (I pray you mark it) the way of God is to shame the sinner, how good soever in other respects that the sin may have the greater shame, and Religion may not be shamed as if it allowed men to sin, nor God the Author of Religion be dishonoured; nor others be without ⟨p. 258⟩the warning. But the way of the devil is, To hide or justifie the sin, as if it were for fear of disparaging the goodness of the persons that committed it; that so be may thereby dishonour Religion and Godliness it self, and make men believe that it is but a cover for any wickedness, and as consistent with it as a looser life is; and that he may keep the sinner from repenting, and blot out the memory of that warning which should have preserved afterages from the like falls.