Page:The pastor in his closet.djvu/68

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54
THURSDAY.

be in all her borders and within all her walls. Let not Satan, the author of confusion, have such an advantage over us. But, Lord, let us not seek for peace which is no peace, nor abandon our pure doctrine for peace’ sake. I pray also for those who have committed schism, or are in schism, wilfully or through ignorance, that they may repent and return. Eestore, most loving Saviour, those who have gone from us; restrain those who incline to depart. Give more light to those who from their birth have belonged to bodies schismatical, as they have the lesser sin. Grant that all occasions of schism may be done away, all such sins in us as may provoke to schism impatient and unstable souls.

Let me not forget our sins, while I remember these schisms, for should it not be confessed that we ourselves and our fathers have in part caused these offences to abound? Though we be now warmed with a rekindled fire of faith, we were once cold; though now through Thine undeserved grace we have manifest renewings of the Holy Ghost, we once slept, and our enemy sowed tares in our field. Tor these sins we are now punished. In our schisms we behold our sins; this is the rod wherewith a careless ministry and a careless people have been stricken. In our