The sin of ministers who stir up strife 1/2

           Use Second.  Is the gospel a gospel of peace in this sense as taken for unity and love?—this dips their sin into a deep die, who abuse the gospel to a quite contrary end, and make it their instrument to promote strife and contention withal.  Such the apos­tle speaks of, ‘Some indeed preach Christ even of en­vy and strife,’ Php. 1:15.  The gospel of peace is a strange text, one would think, to preach division and raise strife from; and the pulpit as strange a mount for to plant the battering pieces of contention on.  O how strangely do these men forget their Lord that sent them, who is a Prince of peace! and their work, which is not to blow a trumpet of sedition and confusion, or sound an alarm to battle, but rather a joyful retreat from the bloody fight wherein their lusts had engaged them against God and one another.  Indeed there is a war they are to proclaim, but it is only against sin and Satan; and I am sure we are not fit to march out against them till we can agree among our­selves.  What would the prince think of that captain who, instead of encouraging his soldiers to fall on with united forces as one man against a common ene­my, should make a speech to set his soldiers together by the ears among themselves? surely he would hang him up for a traitor.  Good was Luther’s prayer, A doctore glorioso, à pastore contentioso, et inutilibus quæstionibus liberet ecclesiam Deus—from a vainglorious doctor, a contentious pastor, and nice questions, the Lord deliver his church.  And we, in these sad times, have reason to say as hearty an amen to it as any since his age.  Do we not live in a time when the church is turned into a sophister’s school? where such a wrangling and jangling hath been that the most precious truths of the gospel are lost already to many. Their eyes are put out with the dust these contentions have raised, and they have at last fairly disputed themselves out of all their sober principles; as some ill husbands that light among cunning gamesters, and play all their money out of their purses.  O woe to such vile men, who have prostituted the gospel to such devilish ends!  God may have mercy on the cheated souls to bring them back to the love of the truth, but for the cheaters, they are gone too far towards hell that we can look for their return.

          This gives us the reason why there is no more peace and unity among the saints themselves.  The gospel cannot be faulted that breathes peace.  No! it is not because they are gospellers, but because they are but imperfectly gospelized, that they are no more peaceful.  the more they partake of the spirit of the gospel, the less will they be haunted with the evil spirit of contention and strife.  The best of saints are in part unevangelical in two particulars, from which come all the unkind quarrellings and unbrotherly contests among them.