Page:Bacons Essays 1908 West.djvu/32

Rh done, if the League of Christians, penned by our Saviour himselfe, were in the two crosse Clauses thereof soundly and plainly expounded; He that is not with us is against us: And againe, He that is not against us is with us: That is, if the Points Fundamentall and of Substance in Religion were truly discerned and distinguished from Points not meerely of Faith, but of Opinion, Order, or good Intention. This is a Thing may seeme to many a Matter triviall, and done already; But if it were done lesse partially, it would be embraced more generally.

Of this I may give onely this Advice, according to my small Modell. Men ought to take heede 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 onely by Contradiction. For, as it is noted by one of the Fathers, Christ's Coat, indeed, had no seame, But the Church's Vesture way of divers colours; whereupon he saith, In veste varietas sit, scissura non sit ; 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 becommeth a Thing rather Ingenious then Substantial!. A man that is of Iudgement and understanding shall sometimes heare Ignorant Men differ, and know well within himselfe that those which so differ meane one thing, and yet they themselves would never agree. And if it come so to passe, in that distance of Iudgement which is betweene Man and Man, Shall wee not thinke that God above, that knowes the Heart, doth not discerne that fraile 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