Casuistical morning-exercises the fourth volume /

So 2. They do Ex parte Dei, deserve Destruction; and therefore they do plainly prepare for it. 1. They do provoke the Wrath of God. God is Love, he is the God of Peace, and then these must evidently offend and cross his Blessed Nature. The more patient, quiet and mild men are, the liker are they to God, and the more uncharitable and implacable, the liker to the Devil, the Accuser of the Brethren. When our dear Saviour, who came on purpose to reconcile God and Man, and men to men; The Anthem which was sung by Angels, was, Glory to God in the highest, on Earth peace, and good-will unto men. These Contentions do ring these Bells backward, and chase away that peace and good-will back to Heaven again. When Joseph was so kind to his guilty Brethren, as to be reconciled to them, he sent them back again with this charge, Genes. 45.24. See that ye fall not out by the way; q. d. See, I am reconciled to you all, quarrel not among your selves; a most kind and equal advice! In like manner our Blessed Saviour, when he had obtained Remission for us, commanded all his Disciples to have salt in themselves, and to have peace one with another; he renews no Commandment, but that of loving one another: And the Holy Ghost in the Apostles doth still inculcate this Lesson above all others, to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace, to be like minded, to have the same Love, to do nothing through strife or vain-glory, to avoid the provoking one another. Now how inexcusable doth this leave all fiery and contentious spirits? And how justly may they be handled without any Mercy, that handle their brethren without any Charity? And certainly, as the Lord commands a blessing upon Brethren that dwell together in unity, Psal. 133. so it is a manifest token of his wrath, when a spirit of dissension is sent upon People; when Manasseh is set against Ephraim, and Ephraim against Manasseh, and they together against Judah, then it follows, for all this, his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still: Isa. 9.21. And look as the Husbandman deals with his way-ward Cattle, when they cannot agree in the Field, he pounds them up, and makes them quiet in the Fold; so may our Just and Holy God make all those that cannot unite in the Church, to agree at the Stake.

So 2. They do Ex parte Dei, deserve Destruction; and therefore they do plainly prepare for it. 1. They do provoke the Wrath of God. God is Love, he is the God of Peace, and then these must evidently offend and cross his Blessed Nature. The more patient, quiet and mild men are, the liker are they to God, and the more uncharitable and implacable, the liker to the Devil, the Accuser of the Brethren. When our dear Saviour, who came on purpose to reconcile God and Man, and men to men; The Anthem which was sung by Angels, was, Glory to God in the highest, on Earth peace, and good-will unto men. These Contentions do ring these Bells backward, and chase away that peace and good-will back to Heaven again. When Joseph was so kind to his guilty Brethren, as to be reconciled to them, he sent them back again with this charge,