Directions for weak distempered Christians, to grow up to a confirmed state of grace…

And he cannot slight such a vehement exhortation, as Rom. 16.17, 18. Now I beseech you Brethren, mark them which cause divisions and offences, contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them. For they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly, and by good words and fair speeches deceive the hearts of the simple. Therefore he is so far from being a divider himself, that when he seeth any one making divisions among Christians, he looketh on him as on one that is flashing and mangling the body of his dearest friend; or as on one that is setting fire on his house, and therefore doth all that he can to quench it: As knowing the confusion and calamity to which it tendeth. He is of a Christian, and therefore of a truly Catholic spirit; that is, He maketh not himself a member of a divided Party or a Sect: He regardeth the interest and welfare of the body, the universal Church, above the interest or prosperity of any party whatsoever: And he will do nothing for a party which is injurious to the whole, or to the Christian cause. The very names of Sects and Parties are displeasing to him; And he could wish that there were no name but that of Christians among us; save only the necessary names of the criminal, such as that of the Nicolaitans, Rev. 2.6.15. By which those that are to be avoided by Christians must be known. Christianity is confined to so narrow a compass in the world, that he is unwilling to contract it yet into a narrower. The greatest party of divided Christians, whether it be the Greeks or Papists, is too small a body for him to take for the Catholic (or Universal) Church: He admireth at the blindness ⟨p. 131⟩and cruelty of faction, that can make men damn all the rest of the Church, for the interest of their proper sect; and take all those as no Christians that are better Christians than themselves. Especially the Papists, who unchurch all the Church of Christ, except their Sect; and make it as necessary to salvation to be a subject of the Pope as to be a Christian; and when by their great corruption and abuses of Christianity, they have more need of charitable censures themselves than almost any sort of Christians, yet are they the boldest condemners of all others.

And he cannot slight such a vehement exhortation, as