Group Unity, the Formation of a Party

The spirit of a party will contend for a unity within its group, and will inspire a high degree of loyalty to that circle of people and its teachings. It will, in the very nature of things, be obligated to define who is an accepted member and who is not on some other basis than just simply salvation. The effect of such activity is to divide the born again from each other.

The divisions of the Christian church, as they now exist, are a prominent cause of the low state of piety among believers; the greatest single obstacle which now exists to the spread and triumph of our religion in the world…. The moment you separate the church of Christ into distinct divisions, you set up the idol of party. Success or adversity will no longer affect the mind simply as they touch the cause of Christ, but they will be felt, also, as affecting “our side” or “our church.” It is not Christ and His cause to which their whole thoughts and desires are now turned; the idol party has now been set up, and it claims, and receives, part of their regard. The man, I think, is almost more than human that can wholly avoid this influence, at least after he has been long identified with any branch of the church. It is an influence which is all the time at work. The idol has been set up to divide the heart from the blessed Savior and His holy service; and its influence is as ceaseless as the existence of the cause. And this party feeling is, as we have seen, the essence of all sin, so that sinful desire is blended continually in the heart with its love to Christ, and pollutes the worship which it offers Him.

[W. H. Starr—quoted in Daniel S. Warner; Bible Proofs of the Second Work of Grace, “Separation of the Wheat and Chaff”]

The purpose of an apostasy is to produce another sect, another pen for the dividing of God’s children from each other. This is the unholy process by which Babylon doth spawn.