OF UNITY IN RELIGION.
Religion being the chief bond of human society, it is a happy thing
when itself is well contained within the true bond 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
bonds; 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 humour, 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”—[“Lo ! it is in the desert”]
another saith, “Ecce in penetralibus”—[“Lo ! it is in the
sanctuary”]—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 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.” 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 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 politics, 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 labours of writing and reading controversies into treatises
of mortification and devotion.
Concerning the bonds 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.” Peace is not the matter,
but following and party. Contrariwise, certain Laodiceans 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 arbitrement 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;” 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, nor 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 colours; whereupon he
saith, “in veste varietas sit, scissura non sit”—[“in the
garment let there be variety, but no rent”] 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 scientæ”—[“Avoid profane and vain babblings, and
oppositions of science falsely so called.”] 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 colours 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—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 the 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, 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 authorise 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:
“Tantura religio potuit suadere
malorum.”
[“So many evils could religion
cause.”]
What would he have said, if he had known of the massacre in
France, or the powder treason of England? 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;” 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 to damn and send to hell for ever, those facts and
opinions tending to the support of the same, as hath been already in good part
done. Surely in councils concerning religion, that counsel of the apostle would
be prefixed, “Ira hominis non implet justitiam Dei”—[“Man’s
anger satisfies not the justice of God”]; 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.
