1 Clement 46

¹To such examples as these therefore, brethren, we also ought to cleave. ²For it is written; Cleave unto the saints, for they that cleave unto them shall be sanctified. ³And again He saith in another place; With the guiltless man thou shalt be guiltless, and with the elect thou shalt be elect, and with the crooked thou shalt deal crookedly. ⁴Let us therefore cleave to the guiltless and righteous: and these are the elect of God. ⁵Wherefore are there strifes and wraths and factions and divisions and war among you? ⁶Have we not one God and one Christ and one Spirit of grace that was shed upon us? And is there not one calling in Christ? ⁷Wherefore do we tear and rend asunder the members of Christ, and stir up factions against our own body, and reach such a pitch of folly, as to forget that we are members one of another? ⁸Remember the words of Jesus our Lord: for He said, Woe unto that man; it were good for him if he had not been born, rather than that at he should offend one of Mine elect. It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about him, and be cast into the sea, than that he should pervert one of Mine elect. ⁹Your division hath perverted many; it hath brought many to despair, many to doubting, and all of us to sorrow. And your sedition still continueth.