The barren fig tree, or, The doom and downfall of the fruitless professor showing…The barren fig tree, or, The doom and downfall of the fruitless professor shewing…

O how have some Men made it their Business to preach Contentions, and upon their entertainment of every novel Opinion, to preach Separation! How hath God's Word been stretched and torn, to furnish these Men with Arguments to tear Churches! Have not our Ears heard those Texts, that saith, Come out from among them, and be separate, &c. and, withdraw from every Brother that walks disorderly? I say, have we not heard these Texts, that were written to prevent Disorder, brought to countenance the greatest Disorder that ever was in the Church of God, even Schism and Division? whereas one of these Exhortations was written to the Church of Corinth, to separate themselves from the Idol's Temple, and the Idol's Table, in which many of them lived in the participation of, notwithstanding their profession of the True God; as appears 2 Cor. 6. 16, 17. compared ⟨p. 52⟩with 1 Cor. 8. 7. and 1 Cor. 10. 14, 20, 22, recites. And not for some few or more Members, who shall make themselves both Judges and Parties, to make separation, when and as often as they please, from the whole Congregation and Church of God where they stood related; for by the same Rule, and upon the same Ground, may others start some new Question among these new Separatists, and become their own Judges of the communicableness of them, and thereupon make another separation from these, till at last two be not left to walk together. And for that other Text mentioned 2 Thess. 3. 9. where Paul exhorts the Church of Thessalonica to withdraw themselves from every Brother that walks disorderly; I cannot but wonder that any should bring this to justify their separation, or withdrawing from the Communion of a true (though a disorderly) Church. For,

1. Consider, that this was not writ for a few Members to withdraw from the Church, but for the Church to withdraw from disorderly Members.