Let Us Cleave to the Righteous:  Your Strife is Pernicious.

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 prove⁴²⁴⁶ thyself harmless, and with an elect man thou shalt be elect, and with a perverse man thou shalt show⁴²⁴⁷ 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 wars⁴²⁴⁹ 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, how⁴²⁵² He said, “Woe to that man [by whom⁴²⁵³ 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.