Chap. xlvi.—Let us cleave to the righteous: your strife is pernicious

Chap. xlvi.—Let us cleave to the righteous: your strife is pernicious.

Such examples, therefore, brethren, it is right that we should follow;[199] since it is written, “Cleave to the holy, for those that cleave to them shall [themselves] be made holy.”[200] And again, in another place, [the Scripture] saith, “With a harmless man thou shalt prove[201] thyself harmless, and with an elect man thou shalt be elect, and with a perverse man thou shalt show[202] thyself perverse.”[203] Let us cleave, therefore, to the innocent and righteous, since these are the elect of God. Why are there strifes, and tumults, and divisions, and schisms, and wars[204] among you? Have we not [all] one God and one Christ? Is there not one Spirit of grace poured out upon us? And have we not one calling in Christ?[205] Why do we divide and tear in pieces the members of Christ, and raise up strife against our own body, and have reached such a height of madness as to forget that “we are members one of another?”[206] Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how[207] He said, “Woe to that man [by whom[208] offences come]! It were better for him that he had never been born, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my elect. Yea, it were better for him that a millstone should be hung about [his neck], and he should be sunk in the depths of the sea, than that he should cast a stumbling-block before one of my little ones.”[209] Your schism has subverted [the faith of] many, has discouraged many, has given rise to doubt in many, and has caused grief to us all. And still your sedition continueth.