Religion being the chief band of human society, it is a happy thing
when itself is well contained within the true band of unity. The
quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the
heathen. The reason was, because the religion of the heathen consisted
rather in rites and ceremonies, than in any constant belief; for you
may imagine what kind of faith theirs was, when the chief doctors and
fathers of their church were the poets. But the true God hath this
attribute, that he is a jealous God; and therefore his worship and
religion will endure no mixture nor partner. We shall therefore speak
a few words concerning the unity of the church; what are the fruits
thereof; what the bounds; and what the means.
The fruits of unity (next unto the well-pleasing of God, which is all
in all), are two; the one towards those that are without the church,
the other towards those that are within. For the former, it is certain
that heresies and schisms are, of all others, the greatest scandals,
yea, more than corruption of manners; for as in the natural body a
wound or solution of continuity is worse than a corrupt humor, so
in the spiritual; so that nothing doth so much keep men out of the
church, and drive men out of the church, as breach of unity; and
therefore, whensoever it cometh to that pass that one saith, “Ecce
in Deserto,”[69] another saith, “Ecce in penetralibus;”[70] that is,
when some men seek Christ in the conventicles of heretics, and others
in an outward face of a church, that voice had need continually to
sound in men’s ears, “nolite exire,” “go not out.” The doctor of the
Gentiles (the propriety of whose vocation drew him to have a special
care of those without) saith: “If a heathen[71] come in, and hear
you speak with several tongues, will he not say that you are mad?”
and, certainly, it is little better: when atheists and profane persons
do hear of so many discordant and contrary opinions in religion, it
doth avert them from the church, and maketh them “to sit down in the
chair of the scorners.”[72] It is but a light thing to be vouched in
so serious a matter, but yet it expresseth well the deformity. There
is a master of scoffing, that, in his catalogue of books of a feigned
library, sets down this title of a book, “The Morris-Dance[73] of
Heretics;” for, indeed, every sect of them hath a diverse posture, or
cringe, by themselves, which cannot but move derision in worldlings and
depraved politicians, who are apt to contemn holy things.
As for the fruit towards those that are within, it is peace, which
containeth infinite blessings; it establisheth faith; it kindleth
charity; the outward peace of the church distilleth into peace of
conscience, and it turneth the labors of writing and reading of
controversies into treatises of mortification and devotion.
Concerning the bounds of unity, the true placing of them importeth
exceedingly. There appear to be two extremes; for to certain zealots
all speech of pacification is odious. “Is it peace, Jehu?”—“What hast
thou to do with peace? turn thee behind me.”[74] Peace is not the
matter, but following, and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans[75]
and lukewarm persons think they may accommodate points of religion by
middle ways, and taking part of both, and witty reconcilements, as if
they would make an arbitrament between God and man. Both these extremes
are to be avoided; which will be done if the league of Christians,
penned by our Saviour himself, were in the two cross clauses thereof
soundly and plainly expounded: “He that is not with us is against
us;”[76] and again, “He that is not against us, is with us;” that is,
if the points fundamental, and of substance in religion, were truly
discerned and distinguished from points not merely of faith, but of
opinion, order, or good intention. This is a thing may seem to many a
matter trivial, and done already; but if it were done less partially,
it would be embraced more generally.
Of this I may give only this advice, according to my small model.
Men ought to take heed of rending God’s church by two kinds of
controversies; the one is, when the matter of the point controverted is
too small and light, not worth the heat and strife about it, kindled
only by contradiction; for, as it is noted by one of the fathers,
“Christ’s coat indeed had no seam, but the church’s vesture was of
divers colors;” whereupon he saith, “In veste varietas sit, scissura
non sit,”[77] they be two things, unity and uniformity; the other is,
when the matter of the point controverted is great, but it is driven
to an over-great subtilty and obscurity, so that it becometh a thing
rather ingenious than substantial. A man that is of judgment and
understanding shall sometimes hear ignorant men differ, and know well
within himself, that those which so differ mean one thing, and yet
they themselves would never agree; and if it come so to pass in that
distance of judgment, which is between man and man, shall we not think
that God above, that knows the heart, doth not discern that frail men,
in some of their contradictions, intend the same thing, and accepteth
of both? The nature of such controversies is excellently expressed by
St. Paul, in the warning and precept that he giveth concerning the
same: “Devita profanas vocum novitates, et oppositiones falsi nominis
scientiæ.”[78] Men create oppositions which are not, and put them
into new terms, so fixed as, whereas the meaning ought to govern the
term, the term in effect governeth the meaning. There be also two
false peaces, or unities; the one, when the peace is grounded but upon
an implicit ignorance; for all colors will agree in the dark; the
other, when it is pieced up upon a direct admission of contraries in
fundamental points; for truth and falsehood, in such things, are like
the iron and clay in the toes of Nebuchadnezzar’s image;[79] they may
cleave, but they will not incorporate.
Concerning the means of procuring unity, men must beware that, in the
procuring or muniting of religious unity, they do not dissolve and
deface the laws of charity and of human society. There be two swords
amongst Christians, the spiritual and temporal, and both have their due
office and place in the maintenance of religion; but we may not take up
the third sword, which is Mahomet’s sword,[80] or like unto it; that
is, to propagate religion by wars, or, by sanguinary persecutions, to
force consciences; except it be in cases of overt scandal, blasphemy,
or intermixture of practice against the state; much less to nourish
seditions, to authorize conspiracies and rebellions, to put the sword
into the people’s hands, and the like, tending to the subversion of all
government, which is the ordinance of God; for this is but to dash the
first table against the second, and so to consider men as Christians,
as we forget that they are men. Lucretius the poet, when he beheld
the act of Agamemnon, that could endure the sacrificing of his own
daughter, exclaimed;—
“Tantum religio potuit suadere malorum.”[81]
What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in France,[82]
or the powder treason of England?[83] He would have been seven times
more epicure and atheist than he was; for as the temporal sword is
to be drawn with great circumspection in cases of religion, so it
is a thing monstrous to put it into the hands of the common people;
let that be left unto the Anabaptists, and other furies. It was
great blasphemy when the devil said, “I will ascend and be like the
Highest;”[84] but it is greater blasphemy to personate God, and bring
him in saying, “I will descend, and be like the prince of darkness;”
and what is it better, to make the cause of religion to descend to
the cruel and execrable actions of murdering princes, butchery of
people, and subversion of states and governments? Surely, this is to
bring down the Holy Ghost, instead of the likeness of a dove, in the
shape of a vulture or raven; and to set out of the bark of a Christian
church a flag of a bark of pirates and assassins; therefore, it is most
necessary that the church by doctrine and decree, princes by their
sword, and all learnings, both Christian and moral, as by their Mercury
rod,[85] do damn and send to hell forever those facts and opinions
tending to the support of the same, as hath been already in good part
done. Surely, in counsels concerning religion, that counsel of the
apostle would be prefixed: “Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei;”[86]
and it was a notable observation of a wise father, and no less
ingenuously confessed, that those which held and persuaded pressure of
consciences, were commonly interested therein themselves for their own
ends.