Crossroads Friends Meeting

If men are allowed to carve for themselves, and to receive such parts of Scriptures as they like, and to reject such as they do not like, and so hew out and contrive a system agreeable to their own condition and inclination, and in their own wisdom, then there must be (as we already see) a very great variety of confessions of faith, and so contradictory as to produce a great scattering of sentiment among the people, tending greatly to infidelity; because when the natural man seeth the liberties taken with Scriptures by professors, to cull and divide and reject for themselves, as well as their disagreement among themselves; as also the bad examples and unholy lives which such constructions naturally lead to; what encouragement has he for trying to be a Christian?  If through faith professors were possessed of this one Spirit, it would enable them to see eye to eye, and to be of one heart and one mind touching the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures, and a great encouragement to others to look towards them.  He that disbelieves any one of the Divine promises or Attributes, as applied to man, and sets his heart against it can have no reason to expect any benefit from such a promise.