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

There is no part of Religion which Satan doth not endeavour to destroy, under pretence of promoting it: And his way is to overgo Christ and his Apostles, and to seem more zealous than ever they were, and to mend their work by doing it better or doing more. Christ was not strict enough for the Pharisees, in keeping the […], nor in his company, nor in his diet. Sata•• hath always two ways to destroy both truth and duty; The first is by direct opposing it; But […] that will not do, the next is by overdoing and pretending to defend it. If he cannot destroy zeal, by scorning it, and quenching it; he will try to do it by overheating and distempering it. If he cannot destroy knowledge, by the way of gross ignorance, he will try to spin it out into the finer threads of vain and innumerable questions and speculations, and to crumble it into such invisible atoms, that it shall be reduced to scepticism or nothing. If he cannot destroy faith by open infidelity, he will try to make men believe too much, by making the objects of their own belief▪ and calling that a particular faith, & altering God ⟨p. 271⟩word, and casting away the Reasons and evidences of faith, to show the strength and nobleness of their faith, which needeth no such helps as these; till by over-doing they have raised their edifice in the air, and rejected their foundations, and put out their eyes in honour of the sun, and of their Physician, lest either of them should be accused as insufficient.

THere is no part of Religion which Satan doth not endeavour to destroy, under pretense of promoting it: And his way is to overgo Christ and his Apostles, and to seem more zealou• than ever they were, and to mend their work by doing it better or doing more. Christ was not strict enough for the Pharisees, in keeping the 〈…〉, nor in his company, nor in his diet. Sata•• hath always two ways to destroy both truth and duty; The first is by direct opposing it; But 〈…〉 that will not do, the next is by overdoing and pretending to defend it. If he cannot destroy zeal, by scorning it, and quenching it; he will try to do it by overheating and distempering it. If he cannot destroy knowledge, by the way of gross ignorance, he will try to spin it out into the finer threds of vain and innumerable questions and speculations, and to crumble it into such invisible atomes, that it shall be reduced to scepticisme or nothing. If he cannot destroy faith by open infidelity, he will try to make men believe too much, by making the objects of their own belief and calling that a particular faith, & altering God