Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: and expectations. Death hath this also, that it openeth the gate to good fame, and extinguisheth envy: Extinctus amabitur idem. l III.?OF UNITY IN RELIGION. 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 to- wards those that are without the church, the other itowards 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 had revealed, that he should not see death before he had seen the Lord's Christ. When he beheld the infant Jesns in the temple, he took the child in his arms and burst forth into a song of thanksgiving, commencing, Lord, now lettest tliou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation. ? S/.. Luke ii. 29. 1 When dead, the same person shall be beloved. ? Ear. Ep. ii. 1, 14. 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...