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

1. The good they hinder. 2. The sin they cause. 3. The misery they bring.

1. The good they hinder. 2. The sinne they cause. 3. The misery they bring.

First, the quiet, comfort, sweetness of our spirits is hindered by divisions: They put the spirit out of tune; men who heretofore have had sweet spirit full of ingenuity, since they have interested themselves in these Divisions, have lost their sweetness, their ingenuity is gone. When the Bee stings, she leaves her sting behind her, and never gathers Honey more; men by stinging one another, do not lose their stings, but they lose their honey, they are never like to have that sweetness in their hearts, that heretofore they had, ⟨p. 190⟩Shall I lose my sweetness, says the Fig-tree, and go to be promoted over the trees? Why doest thou not reason thus with thy spirit? Shall I lose my sweetness in contending, to get my will to be above others? God forbid. There was a time that both my my self and others found much sweetness in the temper of spirit; there was nothing but peaceableness, quiet, calmness, contentedness in it, and how comfortable was such a temper of spirit! me thought when my spirit was in that sweet frame, all things were sweet to me; but since I have been interested in quarrels and contentions, it hath been far otherwise with me. Prov. 15. 4. Perverseness in the tongue causes a breach in the spirit. Contentions cause much perverseness in mens tongues, and this causes a breach in their spirits. Your contending costs you dear: though it were in nothing else, yet the loss of this sweetness of spirit makes it very costly to you. All the wrong that you should have put up if you had not contended, had not been so great an evil to you, as this one thing is. There is nothing more contrary to ingenuity then quarrelsomeness. It is reported of Melanchthon, that when he was to dye he had this speech, and Strigelius at his death had the same:¹