QUESTION XI. 1l9 SECT. II. Inconvenience I. What a most uncomfortable communion would christians have among brethren and sisters, in the same communityof such wild and distant principles, asthose ten differences of christiansI have reckoned up under the former question ? Read over - all their opinions again, and say, how utterly inexpedient is it that these should be united in one church ! What fellowship has righteousness withunrighteousness? And what communion has light with darkness? And whatcon- cord has Christ with .Belial, or what part hath he that believeth with an infidel? Andwhat agreement hath the temple of God with idols? 2 Cor. vi. 14-16. For he that disbelieves any necessary articles of thechristian faith, we may rank him among the infidels. Christian communion, in the pleasure and profit of -it, con- sists very much in an union of hearts inconstant public worship, in praying occasionally with one another, and conferring together about divine things : But what bonds of charity can unite their hearts, where one justly suspects the other's faith in points of greatest importance? How can they join with pleasure in hear- ing the same word of God, while their sense and meaning under those words is so extremely different, and contrary to each other, aslight and darkness, as God and the creature, as heaven and earth? What pleasure in joining to address the same Saviour, while one believes him to be the true and eternal God, the other thinks himbut a mere man ? What harmony is there in their joys and praises, while one adores this Redeemer for bearing the punishment of 'all his sins, and dying as a sacrifice in his stead ; and the other, by the same expressions of adoration, only gives him thanks for confirminghis doctrine of remission of sins by be- coming a martyr for it? What delight can the members of the same church take in conversing with each other, who differ so widely even in things 'of experimental and practical godliness ? While one is relating the power and freedom of divine grace in convincing him of sin, and shining into hit heart,to give him the saving knowledge of the gospel in turning his mind from earth' to heaven, and changing his whole soul, with all the powers of it, into a divine temper, in securing him from this and that tempta- tion, and over rulinghis spirit to persevere in the paths of holi- ness-; the other believes that divinegrace and power has no hand in all this, but what is only providential, by external means and helps ; and that this piety is really to be abscribed to the freedom of his own will ; and perhaps a third person shall interpose, and say in Antinomian language, as There is no need you should be so solicitous about these lesser matters of freedom from tempta- tion, or the mortification of sin, either by divine grace, or by your own will : if you are but a believer in Christ, and your faith be strong, sin cannot do you hurt, and you shall certainly be saved," What wretched communion in prayer, or holy
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