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Chapter XLVI.—Let Us Cleave to the Righteous: Your Strife is Pernicious.
Such examples, therefore, brethren, it is right that we should follow; 4244 since it is written, “Cleave to the holy, for those that cleave to them shall [themselves] be made holy.” 4245 And again, in another place, [the Scripture] saith, “With a harmless man thou shalt prove 4246 thyself harmless, and with an elect man thou shalt be elect, and with a perverse man thou shalt show 4247 thyself perverse.” 4248 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 4249 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? 4250 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?” 4251 Remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, how 4252 He said, “Woe to that man [by whom 4253 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.” 4254 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.
Literally, “to such examples it is right that we should cleave.”
243:4245 243:4246 243:4247 243:4248 243:4249Or, “war.” Comp. James iv. 1.
243:4250Comp. Eph. iv. 4-6.
243:4251 243:4252This clause is wanting in the text.
243:4253This clause is wanting in the text.
243:4254Comp. Matt. 18:6, Matt. 26:24, Mark 9:42, Luke 17:2.