Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…

The fourth joining Consideration.

The fourth joyning Consideration.

What we get by contention will never quit cost.

A Merchant thinks it an ill venture, if when he casts up his accounts he finds the charge of his voyage rises to more then his incomes. If thou hast so much command of thy spirit, if thou canst so far overcome thy passions as to get a time in cool blood to cast up thy accounts truly, what good thou hast done, or what thou hast got by such and such contentions; and on the other side cast up what the hurt thou hast done, what sin hath been committed, what evil hath got into thy spirit, I fear you will have little cause to boast of,¹ or rejoice in your gains. To be freed from that expense that comes in by strife, is not a little gain, says Ambrose. In strife you will find there is a very great expense of time, of gifts, and parts. Many men in regard of the good gifts God hath given them, might have proved shining Lights in the Church, but by reason of their contentious spirits, they prove no other then smoking firebrands. It may be by all the stir you keep you shall never get your mind; if you do, it will not quit cost; the charge you have been at for it, comes to much more then it is worth. God deliver me from having my mind at such a dear rate.

A Merchant thinks it an ill venture, if when he casts up his accounts he finds the charge of his voyage rises to more then his incomes. If thou hast so much command of thy spirit, if thou canst so farre overcome thy passions as to get a time in coole bloud to cast up thy accounts truly, what good thou hast done, or what thou hast got by such and such contentions; and on the other side cast up what the hurt thou hast done, what sin hath been committed, what evill hath got into thy spirit, I fear you will have little cause to boast of,