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…

To the Right Worshipful the Magistrates, and to the Reverend Ministers, and other Members of the Corporation of Yarmouth in Norfolk.

To the Right Worshipfull the Magistrates, and to the Reverend Ministers, and other Members of the Corporation of Yarmouth in Norffolk.

Dearly Beloved,

THIS Sermon was Preached before you in order to the Peace and Unity of the Church of God amongst you: and I presume in order to the same good end I was by You pressed to the publishing of it. Which motion I have the more readily entertained, that the Arguments unto so necessary a duty, ⟨image 3⟩which I found prevalent with you then, might he always at your hand, to revive in you the same affections. And truly those many men in all parts of this Nation, who, upon whatsoever plausible and specious pretences, have given entertainment unto novel opinions, (never before these loose times heard of in the Church of God) and thereupon do forsake the Assemblies, and disturb the peace of an Orthodox and Reformed Church, little consider the advantage they give the Common Adversary: who no doubt rejoiceth to see us break one another with our own hands, whom they with theirs hither to have not been able to harm; As Vespasian is observed by Josephus to have done in the siege of Jerusalem, ⟨image 3⟩not choosing to storm the Jews by any hostile assault, while they were destroying one another by their Intestine confusions. Certainly what ever prejudices weak and credulous men may have their eyes dazzled withal, Divisions and Contentions in the Church have always fleshly lusts at the bottom of them, as the Apostle assureth us,