people to obey, honour, and encourage their ministers by their docible and flexible disposition, to suspect their own judgements, to allow their teachers to know more than they; not to hamper themselves, nor to censure their brethren, nor to trouble their superiors by ungrounded scruples, or uncharitable prejudices, or unquiet, and, in the end, uncomfortable singularities. How did our Saviour pour out his spirit in that heavenly prayer, for the unity of his people, “that they may be one, and one in us, and made perfect in one!" How doth the Apostle pour out his very bowels in this respect unto the church! "If any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the spirit, if any bowels and mercies, be ye like-minded." Take heed of strife, of vainglory, of pride in your own conceits, of censure of your brethren, of private respects. Lay aside your own reputation; be in the form of servants: have such humble judgements, as that you can be willing to learn any, though unwelcome truth; to unlearn any, though darling error: have such humble lives and purposes, as that you can resolve to obey with duty, whatsoever you are not able with reason to gainsay. The godly princes, how careful have they ever been to suppress and remove dissensions from God's church! Constantine the Great writeth letters, publisheth edicts, makes large orations to the bishops of the Nicene council at their sitting and dissolution, to no other purpose than only for preserving of peace. Anastasius in the great dissensions of the eastern and western churches about the council of Chalcedon, touching the two natures of Christ, how severe was he to require his bishops to promote and conserve peace in the church, as Evagrius and Nicephorus note. To say nothing of the pious examples of our dread sovereign' and his most renowned father, who, both by writings and by injunctions, by pen and power, by argument and by authority, have shewed their care to suppress those unhappy differences, wherewith, by the cunning of Satan, the churches of God have, of late years, been too much disquieted. d e Euseb. de vit. Constant. 1. 2. c. 63. 68. lib. 3. c, 12, et 20. • Nicephorus, lib. 15, c. 25. d Evagrius. King James in his Decla 1. 3. cap. 30. ration to the States against Conradus Vorstius, and in his instructions to his Bishops, anno 1622. Consider, beloved, that we are b brethren; that we have "one body, one spirit, one faith, one hope, one baptism, one calling;" brought out of the same womb of common ignorance; heirs of the same common salvation; partakers of a like precious faith; sealed m with the same sacraments; fed with the same manna; ransomed with the same price; comforted with the same promises; insomuch that ↑ Justin Martyr and Optatus have been charitable so far as to call Judaizing Christians, and Donatists, by the name of 'brethren.' Whosoever, therefore, by pride, or faction, or schism, or ambition, or novel fancies, or arrogance, or ignorance, or sedition, or popularity, or vain-glory, or envy, or discontent, or correspondence, or any other carnal reason, shall rend the seamless coat of Christ, and cause divisions and offences; I shall need load him with no other guilt than the Apostle doth, That he is not the servant of Christ," Rom. xvi. 17. For how can he who is without peace or love, serve that God, who is the God of peace; whose name is love; and whose law is love? Besides this, we, in our calling, are brethren, consortio muneris,' and there is a special tie upon us to be no strikers; (1 Tim. iii. 3) not to strike our fellow-labourers with an eye of scorn, or a tongue of censure, or a spirit of neglect, or a pen of gall and calumny. We need not, in any controversy, flee to stones, so long as our reason and learning holdeth out; not to strike the people of God, either with the rod of Circe, to stupify and benumb them in sensual security; crying, "peace, peace, where there is no peace;" or with unseasonable and misapplied terrors, TUTTE σuveloro, as the Apos tle speaks," to wound the conscience," and to make sad the hearts of those whom the Lord hath not made sad. Christ our master was consecrated to this office by the spirit in the Gen. xiii. 8. Acts vii. 26. Psalm cxxxiii. 1. Ex eodem utero ignorantiæ, Tert. Phil. i. 27. 8 Ephes. iv. 36. * Jude ver. 32. Pet. i. 1. Acts iv. 32. m Unum signum habemus: quare non in uno ovili sumus? Aug. To. 7. serm. ad pleb. in Cæs. Justin Martyr. dialog, cum Triphon. Optat. 1. 1. Aug. contr. Epist. Parmen. lib. 3. cap. 1. Non habent Dei caritatem, Ecclesiæ non diligunt unitatem: Ang. de Bapt. 1. 3. c. 16.-Vid. Greg. Naz. Orat. 14. p. 215, 216. • Ράβδῳ πεπληγεία, και τὰ συφεοῖσιν ἐέργου. Odyss. κ. 238. b Idcirco et in columba venit Spiritus Sanctus; simplex animal et lætum, non felle amarum, non morsibus sævum, non unguium laceratione violentum: Cypr. de Unitat. Ecclesiæ. shape of a dove; an emblem of that meekness which was in him; and which, from him, should descend upon all his subordinate officers. And as the love of brethren should hold us, so our jealousy of enemies should drive us to keep up the tower of David, the peace of the church; that by intestine differences, we cause not the adversary to rejoice, and to speak reproachfully. When all the members of the church are fast joined together vinculo fidei,'' glutine caritatis,' by the bond and cement of faith and love; when governors, teachers, people, join hand in hand; the one, to rule with authority and meekness, the other, to teach with wisdom and compassion; the third, to honour both by humble submission to the judgement, and willing obedience to the guidance, of their governors and pastors; then do they cut off occasion from those who seek occasion, and disappoint the expectation of those, who (as a learned Civilian speaks) do "captare tempora impacata et inquieta ;" whose best fishing is in troubled waters: for as the Devil (as Optatus speaks) is tormented with the peace of brethren; so he is most quickened and put into hopes of success in his attempts against the church, by those mutual ruptures and jealousies, which the members thereof foment and cherish among themselves. When, by the defection of Jeroboam, Judah and Israel were rent asunder; then came Shishak and troubled Jerusalem, 2 Chron. xii. 2. It hath been, we know, one grand objection of the papists against the reformed churches, that the dissensions amongst themselves are evident signs of an heretical spirit, as* Bellarmine, Stapleton, and others argue; and Fitz x • Ηκεν γηθήσαι Πρίαμος. Hom. Iliad. a. Δυσμενέσιν μὲν χάρμα, κατηφείη δέ σοι αὐτῷ, Iliad. γ. 51. μή τις ̓Αχαιῶν Βλήμενον ἀθρήσειε, καὶ εὐχετόφτ ̓ ἐπέεσσιν. Iliad. p. 391. • Commune periculum concordiâ propulsandum. Tacit. in vit. Agric. οὐδὲν οὕτω λυμαίνεται καὶ βλάπτει τῇ θρησκείατῆ ἡμετέρᾳ, ὡς τὸ τοῖς ἀπίστοις λάβην τινὰ παρέχειν, &c. Chry. Hom. 7. in Genes. τοῦτο μάλιστα θαυμαστὸν ὑμῶν καὶ πάσης ὑποδοχῆς ἄξιον, ὅτι πάντες εἷς ἐστὲ ἐν Κυρίῳ, οἱ μὲν καθηγούμενοι πρὸς τὸ ἀγαθὸν, οἱ δὲ ἐφεπόμενο: μετὰ συμπνοίας. Διὸ καὶ κρείτίους ἐστὲ τῆς τῶν ἀντιπά Awv Enixeighσews. Basil. Epist. 296. ad Satalens. Vid. etiam de Spiritu sancto, cap. 30. Nazianz. Orat. 1. page 34. Petr. Erod. decret. lib. Tit. 2. Sect. 8. Dolebat hoc Diabolus, qui semper de fratrum pace torquetur. Optat. lib. 2. Non esset pravis hæresium dogmatibus locus. Μὴ εἰς ἀντίπαλον τάξιν τῶν λο vioμâv Toîs áiŋdeotégois ávtißaivóvlwv. Greg. Nyssen. de vit. Mosis, p. 190 • Bellarm. de notis Eccles. 1. 4. c. 11. Stapleton 2 Sam. i. 20. xii. 20. *brethren b Consider, beloved, that we are one body, one spirit, one faith, one hop one calling;" brought out of the same w norance; heirs of the same common of a like precious faith; sealed TM wit' fed with the same manna; ransom comforted with the same promis Martyr and Optatus have beer Judaizing Christians, and Don? Whosoever, therefore, by pr bition, or novel fancies, o tion, or popularity, or v correspondence, or an seamless coat of Chri shall need load him. That he is "not" how can he wh who is the Gr this irs of happy a note aent, who inaries and nd Kellison, >; the different .oversies between ivated to the Pope's ing of the two hundred d by Pappus, and three ishop of ours amongst the e all this calumny a truth, we egory Nazianzen did those in his argument, ὑμεῖς δὲ οὐδὲν ἦτῖον ἀσεβεῖς, καν at they are never the less faulty, however worthy too. Only this want of charity in want unity within ourselves; a spirit of peace and meekness shew itself in muneris, doctrines, and writings, "Ut nihil de nobis male (1 Tim mendacio possint," that they may never have adwith the same breath, to speak both truly and refully against us. law is love? Besides of scr pen fle ja of our alle Sach ach us never to And hereby, as we shall stop the mouth of the adversary, shall we preserve the honour of our religion, the success ministry, the reverence of our persons and functions the minds of the people, who may haply be apt enough to catch hold, as of others, so most of all of those occasions which ourselves, by our mutual differences, shall at any time administer, to neglect both our preaching and our persons: and when they shall observe hot disagreements amongst learned men in some things, how easily, think we, may such, as are more led by the force of examples, than by the evidence of light, be induced to stagger and to question all! "Domestic calumniæ gravissimum fidei excidium," no greater hindrance to the growth of faith than domestical disagreements. y de princip. fidei doctrinal. 1. 4. c. 13. Kellison's Survey, 1. 2. c. 6. Vid. D. Field of the Church, 1. 3. c. 41, 42. et Jewel. Apol. Greg. Naz. Orat. 13. may be, but hoped it cannot, that, in the there should be no noise of axes and hamin judgements and conceits. While there nature,―narrowness in our faculties,— difficulty in our profession,-cunning rd things in the scriptures,'-and ate; there will still be Tí étéρws erently minded. No instrutune, in which the next hand end something; nor is there any a perspicacious, from which another ngs, find ground of variance. See we nurches those great lights, in their several - amongst themselves? Irenæus with Victor", Stephen, Jerome with Austin, Basil with ,, Chrysostom with Epiphanius, Cyril with Theo In this hard necessity, therefore, when the first cannot easily be avoided, our wisdom must be to prevent he second; that, where there is not perfection, yet there may be peace; that dissension of judgements break not forth into disunion of hearts; but that, amidst the variety of our several conceits, we preserve still the unity of faith and love, by which only we are known to be Christ's disciples. Give me leave, therefore, out of an earnest desire of peace and love amongst learned men, in the farther handling of this argument, briefly to inquire into these two questions: 1. How peace may be preserved amongst men, when differences do arise? 2. How those differences may, in some degree, be composed and reconciled? h For the former, let us first remember, that knowledge is apt to beget pride, and pride is ever the mother of contention; and, in Saint Austin's phrase, the mother of heresies ■ Vid. Vincent. Lirinens. cap. 15, 16, 25.-Isid. Pelus. 1. 2. Epist. 90. Aug. Epist. 105. de Civit. Dei, l. 16. c. 2. De vera Relig. cap. 8. Defence, part 1. p. 319; et vid. Jewel's Reply, artic. 8. p. 294. b Euseb. hist. 1. 5. c. 16. e Euseb. d Aug. et Hier, in Epist. amoeb. apud Aug.Ep. 8. 19. • Basil, Baron. an. 372. Sect. 15, 25. f Sozomen, 1. 8. c. 14, 15. 1 Cor. i. 2, 3. 1. 7. c. 3. Ep. 10, et 77. i Superbia hæreticorum mater· Aug. de Gen. contra Ma nich. 1. 2. c. 8, et Ep. 89. |