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

These and abundance other superstitions some men would introduce on the other side. And by all such inventions fathered upon God, and made a part of Religion, the minds of men are corrupted ⟨p. 293⟩and disquieted, and the Churches disturbed and divided; by departing from primitive simplicity.

I shall only now propose this to the consideration of those of the first sort.

Whether they are sure that these superstitions of theirs may not run the round as other superstitions have done before them? Or some of them at least? What if the next age should turn them into a dead formality? And what if the next age after that should make Laws to enforce them? And then Godly people first scruple them, and then fly from them as discerned superstition? And then the worst men b• glad of that advantage to persecute those that would not submit to them? By this circulation, if the same men who invented un-ordained Elders, new and needless Church-Covenants, &c. could but live two or 300 years, they might come to be among the number of those who cry out of them as superstitious, and suffer persecution because they will not use them.

Whether they are sure that these superstitions of theirs may not run the round as other superstitions have done before them? Or some of them at least? What if the next age should turn them into a dead formality? And what if the next age after that should make Laws to enforce them? And then Godly people first scruple them, and then flye from them as discerned superstition? And then the worst men b• glad of that advantage to persecute those that would not submit to them? By this circulation, if the same men who invented un-ordained Elders, new and needless Church-Covenants, &c. could but live two or 300 years, they might come to be among the number of those who cry out of them as superstitious, and suffer persecution because they will not use them.