The moderator

For whereas they were lately in a capacity to be as happy within themselves, and as profitable to the Kingdom of Christ abroad, as any of all the Ministers on earth if they had continued in their unity, now they are like to be more unsettled and more miserable within themselves, and less respected by others, and less useful both at home and abroad towards the cause of Christ, then any that are elsewhere in all the Churches, & this only, because they have suffered themselves in their profession to be divided, and have not regarded nor do they yet regard the duties of their Christian Brotherhood¹ so much as outward concernments. For by this means they have corrupted the Covenant, and are become partial in the Law, and caused many to stumble at the Law, and therefore the Lord ²hath made them contemptible, and caused all their adversaries to prevail against them, so that they have just cause to give▪ glory unto him, to lay their hands upon their mouths, to be sensible ⟨p. 73⟩of their guiltiness, and to accept of the punishment of their transgressions. For if the very vocation wherewith all the professors³ of the Gospel are called unto God, doth oblige them to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace one with another; far more doth it oblige the Ministers, to intend before others this great and fundamental duty in the vocation wherewith they are called. And if all the members of the mystical body of Christ are by Gods appointment fitly joined together, and ought to be compacted in their stations to make the increase of the body unto the edifying of it self in love, by that which every joint supplieth, then it must needs also be granted, that the chief joints of these members are more especially appointed by God, and obliged in conscience to be united in their relations, and compacted in the duties of their ministerial employments. But how far they are not only distant from this conjunction, but have even an aversion unto it, I need not at all to mention (the thing is clear as the Sun at noon day) nor shall I search at whose door the fault doth principally lie, whether here or there (for I know that every one will justify his own proceedings). But this I shall freely say, and I say it with grief of heart; and therefore I hope without offence to either side;