A saint or a brute the certain necessity and excellency of holiness, &c. ...…

2. You may see that Godliness is not the adhering to a Party, though such a Party as pretendeth to some special excellency, or calls it self the only Church, or the purest Church. It is a sin to make and cherish parties, divisions, and factions in the Universal Church, and it is not Godliness to sin. A Godly man through weakness may be of a sinful party, but that is contrary to his Godliness. He will worship God with his best, and be where be ⟨p. 9⟩may have best advantage to his Soul, and therefore if he can, will hold personal local communion with the best and purest congregations; but not as separating from the rest, and betaking himself to a Party set against the Church universal, or a Party sinfully distant from others in the Church universal. The grand design of the Devil is, when men will needs look after Religion, to make them believe that to be of such a Church, or Party, is to be Religious, and to trust to that instead of Godliness for the saving of their Souls. And carnal self-seeking Teachers are the principal instruments of this deceit; who for their honour or commodity would draw away Disciples after them, and make poor Souls believe that they must be their followers, or of their side, or opinion, or Church, if they will be saved: The Papist saith, You must follow the Pope, and be of our Church, or you are no true Catholics, nor in the true Church, and cannot be saved: And some other Sects say the like of their Churches. And how many thousand ungodly wretches do think to be saved, because they are such a Church or party. But the Catholic or Universal Church, is the whole company of Believers Headed only by Christ: and Godliness must prove thee a Living member of this society, unless thou wilt be burnt with the withered branches: And God will never condemn any one that is truly Godly because be is not of this sect or party, or of that: And the Papists that are the most notorious sect and grand dividers of the Church, and condemners of the justified, shall know one day, that Ambition was not true Religion; and that the name of unity, and universality and Antiquity, were unmeet instruments to be used to the destruction of Unity, and contradiction of Universality and Antiquity: and that God hath set apart himself the man that is Godly, though the Accuser of the Brethren would cast such out, Psal. 4. 3.

2. You may see that Godliness is not the adhearing to a Party, though such a Party as pretendeth to some special excellency, or calls it self the only Church, or the purest Church. It is a sin to make and cherish parties, divisions, and factions in the Universal Church, and it is not Godliness to sin. A Godly man through weakness may be of a sinful party, but that is contrary to his Godliness. He will worship God with his best, and be where be