8. It is a sin that contradicteth all God's ordinances and means of grace; which are purposely to procure and maintain the unity of his church. The word and baptism is to gather them into one body, and the Lord's supper to signify and maintain their concord, as being one bread, and one body, 1 Cor. x. 17. And all the communion of the church is to express and to maintain this concord. The use of the ministry is much to this end, to be the bonds and joints of this unity of believers, Eph. iv. 13, 14, 16. All these are contemned and frustrated by dividers.
9. Church division is a sin (especially to us) against as great and lamentable experiences as almost any sin can be. About sixteen hundred years the church hath smarted by it. In many countries where the gospel prospered, and churches flourished, division hath turned all into desolation, and delivered them up to the curse of Mahometanism and infidelity. The contentions between Constantinople and Rome, the eastern and the western churches, have shaken the christian interest upon earth, and delivered up much of the christian world to tyranny and blindness, and given advantage to the papacy to captivate and corrupt much of the rest, by pretending itself to be the centre of unity. Oh what glorious churches, where the learned writers of those ages once lived, are now extinct, and the places turned to the worship of the devil and a deceiver, through the ambition and contentions of the bishops, that should have been the bonds of their unity and peace! But doth England need to look back into history, or look abroad in foreign lands, for instances of the sad effects of discord? Is there any one, good or bad, in this age, that hath spent his days in such a sleep, as not to know what divisions have done, when they have made such ruins in church and state, and kindled such consuming flames, and raised so many sects and parties, and filled so many hearts with uncharitable rancour, and so many mouths with slanders and revilings, and turned so many prayers into sin, by poisoning them with pride and factious oppositions, and hath let out streams of blood and fury over all the land? He that maketh light of the divisions of christians in these kingdoms, or loveth not those that speak against them, doth show himself to be so impenitent in them, as to be one of those terrible effects of them, that should be a pillar of salt to warn after-ages to take heed.
10. Yea, this is a heinous aggravation of this sin, that commonly it is justified, and not repented of, by those that do commit it. When a drunkard or a whoremonger will confess his sin, a church divider will stand to it and defend it; and woe to them that call evil good, and good evil! Impenitency is a terrible aggravation of sin.
11. And it is yet the more heinous, in that it is commonly fathered upon God. If a drunkard or whoremonger should say, God commandeth me to do it, and I serve God by it, would you not think this a horrid aggravation? When did you ever know a sect or party, how contrary soever among themselves, but they all pretended God's authority, and entitled him to their sin, and called it his service, and censured others as ungodly, or less godly, that would not do as bad as they? St. James is put to confute them that thought this wisdom was from above, and so did glory in their sin, and lie against the truth, when their wisdom was from beneath, and no better than earthly, sensual, and devilish. For the "wisdom from above, is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, easy to be entreated, full of mercy," &c. James iii. 17.
12. Church divisions are unlike to our heavenly state, and in some regard worse than the kingdom of the devil, for he would not destroy it by dividing it against itself, Matt. xii. 26. Oh what a blessed harmony of united holy souls, will there be in the heavenly Jerusalem, where we hope to dwell for ever! There will be no discords, envyings, sidings, or contendings, one being of this party, and another of that; but in the unity of perfect love, that world of spirits with joyful praise will magnify their Creator. And is a snarling envy or jarring discord the likely way to such an end? Is the church of Christ a Babel of confusion? Should they be divided, party against party, here, that must be one in perfect love for ever?[158] Shall they here be condemning each other, as none of the children of the Most High, who there must live in sweetest concord? If there be shame in heaven, you will be ashamed to meet those in the delights of glory, and see them entertained by the Lord of love, whom you reviled and cast out of the church or your communion, causelessly, on earth.