The divine life in three treatises

CHAP. III.

2. AS the Being of God should make this Impression on thee, so the Attributes that speak the perfection of that Being, must each one have their work; as his unity or indivisibility, his Immensity, and Eternity.

And first, the thought of Gods unity should contract and unite thy straggling affections, and call them home from multifarious vanity. It should possess thy mind with deep apprehensions of the excellency of holy Unity in the soul, and in the Church; and of the evil of Division, and misery of distracting multiplicity. The Lord our God is One God, 1 Cor. 8 6. Perfection hath unity and simplicity. We fell into Divisions and miserable distraction when we departed from God unto ⟨p. 18⟩the Creature; For the Creatures are Many and of contrary qualities, dispositions, and affections; And the heart that is set on such an object, must needs be a Divided heart; And the heart that is Divided among so many and contrary or discordant objects, must needs he a distracted heart. The confusions of the world confound the heart that is set upon the world. He that maketh the world his God, hath so many Gods, and so discordant, that he will never please them all, and all of them together will never fully content and please him. And who would have a God that can neither please us, nor be pleased? He that maketh Himself his God, hath a compounded God (and now corrupted) of multifarious, and now of contrary desires, as hard to please as any without us. There is no Rest or Happiness but in Unity. And therefore none in our selves or any other creature; but in God the only centre of the soul. The further from the Centre, the further from Unity. It is only in God that differing minds can be well united. Therefore is the world so divided, because it is departed so far from God. Therefore have we so many minds and ways, and such diversity of opinions, and contrariety of affections, because men forsake the Centre of Unity. There's no Uniting in any worldly, carnal, self-devised principles, or practises. When Holiness brings these distracted, scattered souls to God, in him they will be one. While they bark at Holiness, and cry up Unity, they show themselves distracted men. For Holiness is the only way to Unity, because it is the closure of the soul with God. All countries, and persons cannot meet in any one interest or Creature, but each hath a several interest of his own; But they might all meet in God. If the Pope were God and had his perfections, he would be fit for all the Church to Centre in;