might be one, as the Father and he were one, that the world might
believe the Father sent him: as if he should say, you may preach me
as long as you will, and to little purpose, if you are not at peace
and unity among yourselves. Such was the unity of Christians in
former days, that the intelligent heathen would say of them, that
though they had many bodies, yet they had but one soul. And we read
the same of them, Acts iv. 32, that "the multitude of them that
believed were of one heart and one soul."

And as the learned Stillingfleet observes in his Irenicum: "The
unity and peace that was then among Christians made religion amiable
in the judgment of impartial heathens: Christians were then known
by the benignity and sweetness of their dispositions, by the candour
and ingenuity of their spirits, by their mutual love, forbearance,
and condescension to one another. But either this is not the
practice of Christianity (viz., a duty that Christians are now bound
to observe), or else it is not calculated for our meridian, where
the spirits of men are of too high an elevation for it; for if pride
and uncharitableness, if divisions and strifes, if wrath and envy,
if animosities and contentions, were but the marks of true
Christians, Diogenes need never light his lamp at noon to find out
such among us; but if a spirit of meekness, gentleness, and
condescension, if a stooping to the weaknesses and infirmities of
one another, if pursuit after peace, when it flies from us, be the
indispensable duties, and characteristical notes of Christians, it
may possibly prove a difficult inquest to find out such among the
crowds of those that shelter themselves under that glorious name."

It is the unity and peace of churches that brings others to them,
and makes Christianity amiable. What is prophesied of the church of