OF CHURCH CONTROVERSIES. 29 



bands, the bands of peace, yet could it be no occa 

 sion for any pretended catholic to judge us, or for 

 any irreligious person to despise us ; or if it be, it 

 shall but happen to us all as it hath used to do ; to 

 them to be hardened, and to us to endure the good 

 pleasure of God. But now that our contentions are 

 such, as we need not so much that general canon and 

 sentence of Christ pronounced against heretics ; &quot;Er- 

 ratis, nescientes Scripturas, et potestatem Dei ;&quot; you 

 do err, not knowing the Scripture, and the power of 

 God : as we need the admonition of St. James. &quot; Let 

 every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to 

 wrath ;&quot; and that the wound is no way dangerous, 

 except we poison it with our remedies : as the for 

 mer sort of men have less reason to make themselves 

 music in our discord, so I have good hope that 

 nothing shall displease ourselves, which shall be sin 

 cerely and modestly propounded for the appeasing 

 of these dissentions. For if any shall be offended 

 at this voice, &quot; Vos estis fratres ;&quot; ye are brethren, 

 why strive ye ? he shall give a great presumption 

 against himself, that he is the party that doth his 

 brethren wrong. 



The controversies themselves I will not enter 

 into, as judging that the disease require th rather 

 rest than any other cure. Thus much we all know 

 and confess, that they be not of the highest nature, 

 for they are not touching the high mysteries of faith, 

 such as detained the churches for many years after 

 their first peace, what time the heretics moved cu 

 rious questions, and made strange anatomies of the 



