Gildas Salvianus: The Reformed Pastor

2. About Church Communion the common extremes are; on one side, the neglect or relaxation of Discipline, to the corrupting of the Church, the encouragement of wickedness, and confounding the Kingdom of Christ and Satan: And on the other side, the unnecessary separation of Proud men, either because the Churches own not their own opinions, or because they are not so reformed and strict in Discipline as they would have them or as they should be. I have ever observed the humblest men very tender of making separations: and the proudest most prone to it. Many corruptions may be in a Church, and yet it may be a great sin to separate from it, so that we be not put upon an owning of their corruptions, nor upon any actual sin. •here is a strange inclination in proud men to make the Church of Christ much narrower then it is, and to reduce it to ⟨p. 298⟩almost nothing, and to be themselves the members of some singular society, as if they were loth to have too much company in heaven. And by a strange delusion through the workings of a proud fancy, they are fuller of joy in their separated societies, then they were, while they kept in the union of the Church. At least such power of Ordinances, and presence of the spirit, purity and peace, is promised to the weak by the Leaders that would seduce them, as if the Holy-Ghost were more eminently among them then any where else in the world. This hath ever been the boasting of Heretics. As the foresaid Vincentius saith, cap. 37. Jam vero illis quae sequuntur permissionibus miro modo incautos homines haeretici decipere consueverunt. Audent etenim polliceri & docere, quod in Ecclesia sua, id est, in Communionis suae Conventiculo, magna & specialis ac plane personalis quaedam sit Dei gratia, adeo ut sine ullo labour, sine ullo studio, sine ulla industria, etiamsi nec quaerant, nec petant, nec pulsent, quicunque illi ad numerum suum pertinent, tamen ita divinitus dispensentur, &c. But their consolations and high enjoyments being the effect of self-conceitedness and fancies are usually so mutable and of short continuance, that either the heat of oppositions, or mutation to other sects must maintain their life, or else they will grow stale and soon decay.

2. About Church Communion the common extreams are; on one side, the neglect or relaxation of Discipline, to the corrupting of the Church, the encouragement of wickedness, and confounding the Kingdom of Christ and Satan: And on the other side, the unnecessary separation of Proud men, either because the Churches own not their own opinions, or because they are not so reformed and strict in Discipline as they would have them or as they should be. I have ever observed the humblest men very tender of making separations: and the proudest most prone to it. Many corruptions may be in a Church, and yet it may be a geat sin to separate from it, so that we be not put upon an owning of their corruptions, nor upon any actual sin. here is a strange inclination in proud men to make the Church of Christ much narrower then it is, and to reduce it to