4. Heart-divisions one from another.
Chapter Four Heart-divisions one from another.
W hen they separated from God, they also separated from His people.
They would not join with His people in the way of His worship.
Only those who set their hearts to seek the Lord God of Israel went to Jerusalem to sacrifice to the Lord God of their fathers, as noted in 2
Chronicles 11:16. Only those whose hearts the Lord touched joined, but others, for their own carnal ends, would not join them. They saw trouble attended that way; and having separated themselves from God and His people, it was God's curse upon them that they should be divided from one another. If you are divided from the truth, what can hold you together?
Truth is a single, simple, plain thing, but error is varied and ensnares itself with infinite contradictions. If people go out of the plain path of truth, they wander up and down, God knows where, entangling themselves in briars and thorns, so they cannot extricate themselves.
Consider the ten tribes that initially separated from Judah only in their subjection to the house of David and their worship at Jerusalem. Later, they denied all Scripture except the five books of Moses. They were exceedingly given to sorcery, magic, and witchcraft, growing more notorious until
Christ's time. This is hinted at in the blasphemy of the Jews against our Savior: "Thou art a Samaritan and hast a devil," accusing Him of practicing like those people who commonly had familiar spirits attending them. For otherwise, they knew He was no Samaritan but a Galilean of Nazareth.
They were also exceedingly divided among themselves. Epiphanius recites four different sects: the Offens, Sebuœans, Gorthenians, and Positheans.
Truth is the bond that keeps unity, but error is wild; you know not where to find it or yourselves if you give way to it.
Our present times will testify to this for all future generations. The wild and unruly divisions of our times are to be the subject of future discourse. I am not ignorant nor insensitive to the difficulty, trouble, and danger there is in meddling with such a subject at such a time as this. He who meddles with the divisions of the times may expect to be divided himself, to have his name and reputation cut asunder and thrown this way and that way. It is an unthankful work to meddle with a divided people; a man may with as much safety put his hand into a nest of hornets. A learned man once asked why he did not write his judgment about the controversy of his time answered: "To what purpose? It would not help the cause but much hazard him that should meddle." What one once said to Luther when he was about to involve himself in seeking reformation echoes in my ears when I first thought of engaging with this argument: "O Luther, rather get you into your cell and say, 'Lord have mercy upon us.'"
It is a great part of a minister's skill to divide the Word rightly; but this skill will be tested when he comes to divide the Word among a divided people, giving every part its portion. I would never have ventured to choose a text on purpose for such an argument, but seeing Providence has brought it so fully into my way, I shall now venture upon it with my heart cast and
fixed upon that promise in Proverbs 11:3: "The integrity of the upright shall guide them."
I shall cast what I intend into this structure:
1. The causes of our divisions.2. The evil of them.3. Cautions about them, so we may not misuse them.4. Remedies or cures for them.
**The Causes of Our Divisions** The principal cause from without is the Devil. He seeks to keep his own kingdom free from divisions but seeks nothing more than to cause divisions in the Kingdom of Christ. The Mahometans who worship a cursed impostor; the pagans who worship the sun, moon, and stars; the Egyptians who worship onions, leeks, cats, and dogs never had such divisions among them as the worshippers of Jesus Christ have had and have today among themselves. For all the former are the Devil's kingdom, which he seeks to keep at peace; but he is that envious one who sows seeds of division in the Kingdom of Christ. Hence those who foment divisions among Christians are called devils in 1 Timothy 3:11: "The wives of deacons must not be slanderers." The word may be translated as devils: Women are most liable to the Devil's temptations this way because they are weak and are in danger of running away with sudden apprehensions without due examination; and what can foment division more than slandering? So far as anyone, especially in the Church, has a hand in causing or fomenting division, so far he or she is a devil in Scripture language; they act out the part of the Devil.
I remember Cajetan has a note upon that place in the Gospel where the devils being cast out of the man who had a legion in him prayed Christ that they might not go out of that region. Why would they not go out of that region? says Cajetan; he gives this answer: The devils have certain places to which they assign their work—such devils to such a place for such a service
and others for another service. Now these devils were loath to be displaced from their region, though they were cast out of the man, having further work to do in that place. If this is so, surely the devils appointed to cause and foment divisions and dissensions above all regions love to be in the region of churches, for nowhere do divisions cause such harm as there.
At this time especially, for now the devils see they cannot prevail to get men back to their old superstitious vanities—some reformation there will be
—they now seek to mingle a perverse spirit of division among men, hoping they shall prevail here though they could not hold their own in the former.
God put enmity between Satan and the saints, but it is the Devil who puts enmity between saints and saints.
When we hear fearful thundering and see terrible storms and tempests, many people say that ill spirits are abroad; surely these blustering storms of contention are raised and continued by evil spirits. But the truth is all the devils in hell could do us no great harm in dividing us from God or from one another were it not for the corruption of our own hearts. Wherefore as the Lord says to Israel: "Perditio tua ex te," thy destruction is from thyself; so may we now say of England: "Divisio tua ex te," thy division is from thyself.
The causes of our divisions from ourselves may be referred to three heads:
1. Dividing principles—sometimes our divisions come down from our heads to our hearts.2. Dividing distempers—sometimes they go up from our hearts to our heads.3. Dividing practices—and these come from head and heart; they foment and increase both.
We will begin with Dividing Principles: Unless some care is taken of the head, it will be in vain to meddle with the heart, to cry out against our
heart's distempers. The chief cause of many of our divisions lies here: It is of little purpose to purge or apply any medicine to the lower parts when the disease comes from distillations from the head.