9. Sects and divisions lead directly to apostasy from the faith. Nothing is more in the design of Satan, than to confound men so with variety of religions, that they may think there is no certainty in any; that so both the ignorant spectators may think all religion is but fancy and deceit, and the contenders themselves wheel about from sect to sect, till they come to the point where they first set out, and to be at last deliberately of no religion, who at first were of none for want of deliberation. And it is no small success that Satan hath had by this temptation.
10. The divisions of christians do oft proceed to shake states and kingdoms, having a lamentable influence upon the civil peace; and this stirreth up princes' jealousies against them, and to the use of those severities, which the suffering party takes for persecution; yea, and Turks, and all princes that are enemies to reformation and holiness, do justify themselves in their cruelest persecutions, when they see the divisions of christians, and the troubles of states that have followed thereupon. If christians, and protestants in special, did live in that unity, peace, and order as their Lord and Ruler requireth them to do, the consciences of persecutors would even worry and torment them, and make their lives a hell on earth, for their cruelty against so excellent a sort of men; but now when they see them all in confusions, and see the troubles that follow hereupon, and hear them reviling one another, they think they may destroy them as the troublers of the earth, and their consciences scarce accuse them for it.
[Sidenote: The aggravations of schism.]
IV. It is necessary also for your true understanding the malignity of this sin, that you take notice of the aggravations of it, especially as to us. 1. It is a sin against so many, and clear, and vehement words of the Holy Ghost, (which I have partly before recited,) that it is therefore utterly without excuse: whoredoms, and treasons, and perjury are not oftener forbidden in the gospel than this.
2. It is contrary to the design of Christ in our redemption; which was to reconcile us all to God, and unite and centre us all in him: "To gather together in one the children of God that are scattered abroad," John xi. 52. "To gather together in one all things in Christ," Eph. i. 10. "To make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace," Eph. ii. 15. And shall we join with Satan the divider and destroyer, against Christ the reconciler, in the very design of his redemption?
3. It is contrary to the design of the Spirit of grace, and contrary to the very nature of christianity itself. "By one Spirit we are all baptized into one body--and have all been made to drink into one Spirit," 1 Cor. xii. 13. "As there is one body and one Spirit, so it is our charge to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace," Eph. iv. 3, 4. The new nature of christians doth consist in love, and desireth the communion of saints as such; and therefore the command of this special love is called the new commandment, John xvii. 21; xiii. 34; xv. 12, 17. And they are said to be taught of God to love one another, 1 Thess. iv. 9. As self-preservation is the chief principle in the natural body, which causeth it to abhor the wounding or amputation of its members, and to avoid division as destruction, except when a gangrened member must be cut off, for the saving of the body; so it is also with the mystical body of Christ. He is senseless and graceless that abhorreth not church wounds.