The dying man's testament to the Church of Scotland, or, A treatise concerning scandal…

3. There is a strength in the tentation, in this, that not only the matter is thought just, but it is thought necessary and of great concernment, if it be, 1. a Question of the most circumstantial truth, (if we may speak so) it looketh out as necessary, and a thing that cannot be quit▪ yea, even those who are engaged to maintain that side where the error lies, will cry up the controversy as in a high point of Christianity. Amongst the Fathers, these that maintained the Millenary opinion, and Christs personal reign, thought it a point of high concernment; Justine Martyr in his Dialogue with Trifo, saith, he is no Christian, Orthodox in all things, who doth think otherwise; and in later Popish Writers, how is the necessity of oil, chrism, and such like pleaded for? which showeth what impression the appearing weightiness of such things will have on them, as if it were a main foundation of Religion. And, 2. if it be a matter of fact or Government, it is thought of such concernment for the good of the Church that they cannot quit it, without being accessory to the corruption and hurt, or to the marring of the authority thereof: Hence so often are the faults and consequents of the adverse part aggreged; canons and constitutions alleged to be broken, as we may see (amongst other instances) in that debate betwixt Rome and Constantinople for precedency before Antichrist was revealed, one alleging an act of Nice, the other, an act of the Council of Chalcedon, and Rome pretending the interest of Saint Peter, and the good of the universal Church. And, 3. if it be a¹ difference about persons, as who is to be acknowledged Bishop or Minister, or if such be lawfully ordained, deposed, &c. then such as they oppose, are conceived to be notoriously heinous; and such as they are for, are believed to be incomparably singular ⟨p. 309⟩and eminent, and therefore it is no wonder that they press vehemently their point, as thinking that much of the good or evil of the Church doth depend upon the admission, or rejection of such men respectively, and this floweth inadvertingly from the former differences; because, when they are confident that themselves are right in a main point, they necessarily must think these wrong and untender who are opposite in such a thing, and the hotter the opposition grow, they think still each other the more grossly obstinate: