This parable comes from Andrew Fuller, via a Scotch Baptist*:
In one of the new Italian republics, two independent companies are formed for the defense of the country. Call the one A. and the other B. In forming themselves, and learning their exercise, they each profess to follow the mode of discipline used by the ancient Romans. Their officers, uniforms, and evolutions, however, are after all somewhat different from each other. Hence disputes arise, and B. refuses to march against the enemy with A. as being disorderly. A. gives his reasons why he thinks himself orderly; but they are far from satisfying B., who not only treats him as deviating from rule, but as almost knowing himself to do so, and wilfully persisting in it.
A., tired of jarring, marches against the enemy by himself. B. sits at home deeply engaged in studying order and disicpline. ‘If your form and rules,’ says A., ‘are so preferable to ours, why do you not make use of them? Discipline is a means, not an end. Be not always boasting of your order, and reproaching others for the want of it; let us see the use of it. It is true, like the Quakers in 1745, you have bought waistcoats for our soldiers, and we thank you for them; but we had rather you would fight yourselves.
The application here is vast. So, I will leave you to think through it and apply it to your own situation.
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*That is a Baptist from Scotland—and not one that likes to drink Scotch.
