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

The sixth joining Practice: So far as Reason and Conscience will give way, yield to those whom you contend withal.

The sixt joyning Practice: So farre as Reason and Conscience will give way, yeeld to those whom you contend withall.

That standing at a distance with those that dissent from us, even to the utmost, is the way of many; but certainly it is a false way, God is not in it. It may be some, yea many will judge this yielding to be a fair, handsome turning about to the other side; take heed of such bold censures: Is every difference from that rigid, stout spirit of thine, a warping from the truth, a sinful temporizing for private ends? The Lord judge between you and his servants. Some men who have been of yielding spirits in things that God would have them, have stood out undauntedly when God hath called them to witness to his truth, when those who have been stout and harsh in their own ways have basely betrayed it, when they have been tried with greater sufferings. Ambrose was a man of a sweet and moderate spirit, witness amongst other things that notable saying of his,¹ If that end of virtues be the greatest that looks at public good, Moderation is of all the most beautiful. Ay, but I warrant you, Ambrose was a man who saw which way the times went, he was loth to hazard himself in standing out against men who had power in their hands, this temper of his made him thus plead for moderation. No, Ambrose was a man of an invincible spirit in the ways of God; In all Ecclesiastical Story we read not of a braver spirit then his contesting with men of power in the cause of Christ. For when Theodosius the Emperor had been the cause of a great slaughter in Thessalonica, though provoked to it by a sedition there, the Emperor a while after coming to Milan, where Ambroses charge was, after the ⟨p. 291⟩usual manner he came to the Church, Ambrose meets him, and forbids him entrance,²