Be not ye partakers with them." We must remove ourselves from them that walk aside: in any event we must avoid them, lest while joining those who walk wrongly, and treading in the paths of error and guilt, any man go aside from the way of truth, and become entangled in their guilt. There is one God, there is one Christ, one Church which is His, one faith, one people, conjoined by the bond of concord in the solid unity of one body. The unity cannot be sundered, the individual body cannot be separated by the dissolution of its joints, or be torn in pieces by the rending of its scattered elements. Whatsoever cometh forth from the womb cannot live and breathe in separate portions: it loses the source of existence. The Holy Spirit warns us and says, "What man is there who wishes to live, and would fain see good days? Refrain thy tongue from evil, and thy lips that they speak no guile. Eschew evil and do good; seek peace and ensue it." The son of peace ought to seek and to pursue peace; and to refrain his tongue from the calamity of dissension; if he has felt and loves the bond of charity. Among His divine mandates and salutary lessons, our Lord when nigh to His passion, added this one: "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you." This inheritance Christ to us hath given. All the gifts He outholds and the rewards he promises are involved in the preservation of peace. If we are heirs of Christ, let us continue in Christ's peace. If we are the sons of God, we ought to be peaceable. "Blessed," saith He, "are the peaceable, for they shall be called the sons of God." Need is that the sons of God should be peaceable, mild in heart, simple in language, united in affection, faithfully attached each to the other by the bonds of unanimity. This unanimity once existed under the Apostles: so that the new assemblage of believers kept the Lord's commandment and maintained its charity. Holy Scripture saith in proof, "the multitude of them that believed acted with one heart and soul." And again, "and they all continued with one heart in communion with the women, and with Mary the mother of Christ, and with His brethren." And therefore they prayed effectually, and were with confidence enabled to obtain whatsoever they required of their Lord's mercy.
