The staves of beauty & bands opened in a sermon preached at Yarmouth, August…The staves of beauty & bands opened in a sermon preached at Yarmovth, August…

Secondly, Christ, as the chief Shepherd, by his Spirit and Power, and his Under-Officers, by their Ministry and Service, do feed and rule his Church by his Staff called Bands, procuring and advancing the Unity thereof, and gathering together into one all the members belonging thereunto, that the whole body may be fitly joined together ⟨p. 26⟩and compacted without Schisms and Divisions, which is a singular and eminent Blessing of God thereunto. God made man at the first after his own Image, so that as the Lord is wholly one and undivided in himself, no dissonancy between any of his Attributes, Decrees, or Counsels; so in man as he came out of Gods hands, there was an exact harmony and agreement; his Affections consonant unto his Will, his Will to his Reason, and his Reason to God. And being thus perfectly One with himself, he could not but be one likewise with others, who were perfectly like himself, as finding nothing more in them, from the which to differ, then in himself. But when sin came into the world, it brake the bond of Union between God and man, making us^u enemies unto him by wicked works, and so ^wseparating between him and us, and hiding hie face from us. It brake the bond of Union between a man and himself, the Will rebelling against the ⟨p. 27⟩Mind, the Sensitive part against the rational, one^x lust warring against another, and all against the Soul. It brake the bond of Union between man and man, between one wicked man and another, upon the ground of different Interests, ^yhateful and hating of one another; between wicked men and good men, upon the ground of contrary seeds, the the Lord having^z put enmity between the Seed of the woman, and the Seed of the Serpent; Because God hath chosen his Church out of the world, therefore the ^a