HENCE see that it is matter of praise, and thankfulness, and a great mercy in declining times, when there is any to come in, and fill his house, that it be not altogether left empty. It is a mercy if there is a remnant that keep up the name of his house, and favour the dust of Zion (Ps. cii. 13, 14). Except the Lord of Hosts had left us a very small remnant, “We had been as Sodom and been made like unto Gomorrah.” Some cry out, O division, division; such and such men are for nothing but schism and division! But when defection becomes general, then division becomes a necessary duty, and a great mercy; otherwise all would run down into the gulf of defection together, making peace and pretensions to brotherly love, a grave for burying all zeal for God and His truths and interests. If Christ’s householders have not salt in themselves, as He commands, Mark ix. 50, how can they have peace one with another unless it be a peace without the salt of the truth, like the peace of a dunghill, where every particle doth but corrupt another? Peace without truth being but a confederacy against heaven, suspect their honesty that cry out, O the schism and division of the day! but never a word of the corruptions and defections thereof. Who are the schismatics and dividers in Scotland? Those that adhere to the covenanted reformation thereof, founded on the Word of God, or those that are razing a covenanted work of reformation to the ground? Suppose a company walking on a road by the side of a ditch, most of them fall into the ditch, and then cry to their fellows:—”If ye come not here and join with us, we will charge you with schism and division.” How ridiculous would that accusation be! Surely these may be said to go out of the house who go out of the way of the house: but these may be said properly to come into the house, and abide in it, who abide by the doctrine, worship, discipline, and government of the house; and I say, in declining times, it is a mercy there are any to come in and fill His house, and to abide in it, and keep possession of it, by zealously testifying and contending for the faith, when others are going out by the door of defection and apostacy, and, perhaps, Christ hath some disciples among them, to whom He is saying:—”Will ye also go away?” May the Lord awaken all the virgins that are asleep in our day.—Ralph Erskine.