“Schism and division among the ministers and members of the church is a grievous malady that we at present labour under. Surely it is a most unnatural distemper that causes the sheep of Christ to bite and devour one another, and the members of Christ to separate as aligns; yea, not only to break up Christian communion, but break out in uncharitable reflections, bitterness, wrath, clamour and evil speaking, one against an other. A strange distemper! that puts those who will delightfully worship God together through a whole eternity, in such a case, that they cannot keep fellowship together here! A distemper that makes men renounce communion with those they once delighted in, and with whom the glorious Head doth still hold communion: that takes many off from the vitals and essentials of religion and employs their time in public controversies about party opinions, the grounds of separation, the characters of preachers, and things which rather tend to be. get alienation of affections, and angry quarrels, than to promote saving knowledge, faith, love, and godly edifying. Oh! how, like a judgment is that spirit of strife and division which God hath poured out upon this land for our former misimprovement of the gospel, and contempt of many glorious evils Christ? and calamities! Ah, what a flood-gate doth it open to many evils and calamities! That is a true doth word it of the apostle, James iii, 16, “Where envying and strife is there is confusion and every evil work.” What a plague must that be that produces every evil work? What a dreadful disease it is, that turns Christian converse into vain janglings, that hinders social prayers, that mars the success of the gospel, weakens the interest of religion, propagates all kind of evil, and exposes the church to the scorn and derision of her enemies! How applicable is that word to us, Lam. ii. 13, “Thy breach is great like the sea, who can heal thee?” Surely none but he that hath the balm of Gilead.”
Whole doctrine catholicity | “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun, and terrible as an army with banners” (Song 6:10)?
West Port Experiment 
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