A30587:939
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and…
Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughs.Irenicum, to the lovers of truth and peace heart-divisions opened in the causes and evils of them : with cautions that we may not be hurt by them, and endeavours to heal them / by Jeremiah Burroughes.
London: printed for Robert Dawlman, 1653
Title page typeset from the transcription.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
What gracious heart is not cut asunder with grief for those sore and fearful evils that there are in, and come from our divisions, and is not even the second time cut asunder with careful thoughts in it self, what may be done to heal them? Mat. 6. 25. Christ forbids that carking care that cuts our hearts, when it is in matters concerning our selves, yea for our lives, [Greek or Hebrew], take no thought for your life, so it is in your books: but the word signifies, Do not take such thought as should cut your hearts asunder: so v. 28. [Greek or Hebrew]; why do you divide your hearts? and ver. 31. [Greek or Hebrew], and ver. 34. [Greek or Hebrew] again. But though this charge of Christ be doubled and doubled again, against our careful dividing cutting thoughts about our selves, yet for the uniting the hearts of the Saints together for the good of the Church, this heart-cutting care is not only allowed, but required, 1 Cor. 12. 25. That there should be no schism in the body, 1but that the members should have the same care one for another. The words are, That the members may care, the same thing one for another, and that with dividing, cutting care, that there might be no schism in the body. The word that is here for care, is the same that in the former places in the 6. of Mat. is forbidden. The expressions of my thoughtful cares about this work, is the subject at this time: When I set my self about it, my heart doth even ache within me at the apprehension of the difficulty of it. There are some diseases that are called opprobria medicorum, the disgraces of Physicians, because they know not what to say or do to them; or if they do any thing it is to little purpose. If there be any soul-disease that is opprobrium Theologorum, the ⟨p. 253⟩disgrace of Divines, it is this of contention and division. How little has all that they have studied and endeavoured to do, prevailed with the hearts of men? What shall we do? Shall we but join in this one thing, to sit down together, and mourn one over another, one for another, till we have dissolved our hearts into tears, and see if we can thus get them to run one into another? Oh that it might be, what sorrow soever it costs us!