The True Catholic and Catholic Church Described, Part 11 – Part 12
2. Another cause of our Distractions and Hinderance of Concord is, that very few men have peaceable spirits, even when they are extolling Peace. A peaceable spirit must have these qualifications which most men want.
1. He must be united to Christ the Head and Center of Union, & have a sanctified nature, and value Gods honour above all things else, that so his desires of Peace may flow from a right principle, & may proceed upon right grounds, and to right ends; and he may seek a Holy Peace? And alas, how few such spirits have we?
2. A Peaceable spirit must be a Publike spirit, highly esteeming the wellfare of the whole Body, above any Interest of his own, or of any sect or part. The great grace of self-denyall is of necessity herein. No man hath a Christian Peaceable spirit, that doth not most highly value the peace and prosperity of the universall Church, so far as to submit to losses or sufferings himself for the obtaining of it, and that had not rather his party suffered, then the whole. But, alas, how rare is a publick spirit in any eminency! How private and selfish are the most! The good of the Church can no further be endeavoured, with too many, then selfe will give leave, and then their party will give leave: These must be made the masters of the consultation.
3. A Peaceable spirit must be a Charitable spirit: loving all the Saints as Saints; and that with a pure heart and fervently: This would put by the matter of contentions: This would provoke men to healing endeavours; and it would put the best construction on mens opinions, words and actions that they can beare: [Charity suffereth long, and is kind: Charity envyeth not: Charity vaunteth not it selfe: is not puffed up, doth not behave it self unseemly, seeketh not her own; is not easily provoked, thinketh no evill; rejoyceth not in iniquity, but rejoyceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things; hopeth all things; endureth all things, 1 Cor. 13. 4, 5, 6, 7. O what an effectuall healer is Charity! what a tender hand will it bear to any distressed member! much more to the whole Church: what causeth our Distractions more then want of charity! what else makes men look so scornfully, and speak so disgracefully of every sort of Christians, but themselves? and to endeavour to make others as odious as they can! and to make meer verball differences seem reall; and small ones seem exceeding great, and to find out a heresie or a blasphemy in the smallest error, and perhaps in a harmless word: All is blasphemy with some men, or error at least, which they do not understand. Alas, we have reall heresies and blasphemies enow, among Arrians, Socinians, Ranters, Quakers, Seekers, Libertines, Familists, and many others; let us reject these that are to be rejected, and spare not; but to be rejected, and spare not; but we need not feigne heresies and blasphemies where they are not, as if we wanted matter for our indignation.
4. A Peaceable spirit, must be in some measure meek and patient, with a humble consciousnes of its own frailties and offences: But alas, what passionate, rash and turbulent spirits do abound in the poor divided Church? such as are made of Gunpowder, and speak fire and sword; that will do no right, nor bear no wrong; that will speak well of few but their own party, and yet cannot endure to be ill spoken of themselves? that are possessed with the wisdom which is from beneath, which is earthly, sensuall and divelish, Jam. 3. 15. and are strangers to the heavenly wisdom, which is first pure and then peaceable; gentle and easie to be intreated. v. 17. Even preachers of peace, are some of them become the fervent agents of the Divider, and go up and down with destroying rage, and make their tongues the bellows of hell, resisting the Peaceable endeavours of their brethren.
5. A Peaceable spirit must have a high esteem of Peace, and be zealous for it, and industrious to obtain it. Only against ungodliness, and unpeaceableness must he be unpeaceable. Many have a good wish and a good word for peace, as hypocrites have for godliness; but this will not serve the turn. He that is not for us is against us, and he that gathereth not with us, and he that gathereth not with us, seat…ereth abroad. The wicked and unpeaceable are zealous and industrious against Peace; and those that are for Peace, are cold and indifferent for the greater part; and the zealous and industrious are so few, that their voices cannot be heard in the contentious crowd. The unpeaceable are commonly the lowdest, and are actuated by a fervent zeal, which nature agreeth with, and Satan cherisheth and excites: such will even as the Quakers, go up and down from one Assembly to another, and in the Market-places, and other places of concourse, revile and rail, and reproach the Ministry, and speak as earnestly as if they were the agents of Christ. And others are busie in secret, that will not incur the disgrace of such visible impiety. And when the enemies of Unity and Peace, are many, and hot and lowd, and the friends of Unity and Peace, are either few, or cold, and dull and silent, what's …ike to be the issue, but even the mischiefs which we feel? Forsooth, some dare not be fervent for Peace, lest they be censured for their fervour to be unpeaceable: These shew how much they love the praise of men, and stick yet in the power of selfe. There's need of Zeal for Peace, as well as for other parts of Holiness. All the resistance that the enemies of Hell and earth can make, will be made against it: And will it be carried on against all by sleepy wishes, and sitting still? I am sure this agrees not with the precepts of the spirit. Follow Peace with all men, Heb. 12. 14. If it be possible, as much as in you lyeth, live peaceably with all men, Rom. 12. 18. Its a sory Surgion, or Physician, that will think it enough to wish well to their Patient: the House of God will be neither built, nor repaired without zeal, and industry and patience in the work. If mens hearts were set upon the Churches peace, and they did but feel the disjoyting of her members, the breaking of her bones, and the smart of her wounds, as sensibly as they feel the like in their own bodies; and if Ministers and other Christians, were as sensible of the evill of divisions as they are of drunkenness, and whordom, and such other sins, and if we were all awakened to quench the flames of the Church, as earnestly as we would do the fire in our Houses, and would preach for peace, and pray for peace, and plead and labour, and suffer for peace, then some good might be done on't, against the rage and multitude of dividers.
3. One of the greatest hinderances of Concord and Peace, is The setting up of a false Center, and building Peace on grounds that will never bear it. Christian Unity is no where centered but in Christ the head, and no way maintained but by the meanes which he hath ordained to that end. But the miserable world will not discern or take up with this. The Papists are of two Churches (for they have two Heads or Soveraigns, which specifie the society.) One of the Popish Churches, make the Pope the Head and Center, and all the Church must unite in him, or it can be no Church! The other Popish Church do make a general Council the Head, and the Pope onelyonly the subordinate Soveraign in the vacancy. And these think to have the whole Church to unite upon these termes. But it will never be. As Divine faith will have no formall Object but Divine veracity, so neither can Christian unity have any universall proper Center but Christ. As at the building of Babel, when men would unite for their future security in their own devices, it brought them to utter confusion, which the world groaneth under to this day: so when men will build a Babel of their own invention, for the preventing of the inundation of heresies, they are upon the most dreadful work of confusion. The Church is taught by the Scripture, and the Holy Ghost within them, to take up no where short of God, to call no man on earth, the Father or Master of our faith, not to trust in man, and make flesh our arm. Man is too dark and too weak a Creature, to be the Head or Center of the Church: deluded Papists! you think you befriend the Churches unity, when you hang it by a hair, and build it on the sand, and found it on meer weakness: could you prove that ever God had promised abilities and gifts to the Pope of Rome, proportionable to such a work, we should most gladly look out to him for the exercise of those abilities. God setteth none on work, but he furnisheth them with a suitableness for it. Have all Popes or Councils Prophetical and Apostolical inspirations and directions? what! those that have been censured, and some of them deposed for blasphemy, heresie, sodomie, Adultery, Murder, Simony, and such works of darkness! The spirit useth not to dwell in such persons, nor light to have communion with such darkness. Nay if all Popes were holy, yea as holy as Peter, they were too weak to bear up the unity of the Church. It is Christ and not Peter, that is called the Rock, on which the Church is built, against which the gates of Hell shall not prevail. This Rock is Christ, 1 Cor. 10. 4. The Church is the spouse of Christ, and must not be made a harlot, by being wedded to the Pope or any other. Nothing hath more hindered the fuller union of the Church, then this Idol self-exalting Head, and false Center of union.
And if any would unite the Church in Kings, in Councels, in any humane devices, they will but divide it.