OF UNITY IN RELIGION 7 



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, 

 not 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 

 vesfe 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 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 scientiae. 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 pieces 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 



