Schism & Separation the greatest enemy of edification & reformation

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“If union be the great step to edification as dissention and strife are the door that lets in distraction, then division and separation cannot be the cure, but union is the first and great step of edification. Therefore separation cannot be the cure. Separation has ever been the greatest enemy of edification and reformation.” James Durham, “A Sermon on Ephesians 4:11–12,” Collected Sermons of James Durham: Sixty-one Sermons (Naphtali Press and Reformation Heritage Books, August 2017), 933. This sermon is the one previously unpublished sermon in the collection. This text is considerably smoothed out and reader friendly than the straight transcription published in 2016 in The Confessional Presbyterian journal.
See previous: https://www.puritanboard.com/threads/collected-sermons-of-james-durham-2-vols-with-rhb.93220/
 
I'd be interested in any thoughts and comments you have on this quote and the sermon it's part of.
 
That is sort of open ended.:) Durham's comments have to be taken in the light of a single established reformed church in a nation which was divided into contending parties and in some instances holding competing presbytery meetings. Durham's fullest comment on curing schism is in his work Concerning Scandal (Naphtali Press, 1990).
 
Hmm, not fair. :) I can understand the different context of his day. Still, the assertion is intriguing for our day.

Indeed. Though many of us are blessed to search out a church that has a unifying agreement with our confessions. Sad to say I often wonder the percentage of RE's in my current denomination who have ever read them much less studied them.
 
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