of the Christian practise tend unto Peace Peace betwixt man and man in general by forbidding all men to Injure any man or to Revenge themselves if they be injured by commanding every man to do good unto all men and each of us to love one another as our own selves Peace in private Families by commanding Husbands to love their Wives and Wives to obey their Husbands Parents to provide for their Children and Children to be dutiful unto their Parents Masters to be just and kind unto their Servants and Servants to be faithful and diligent and obedient unto their Masters Lastly Peace in publick Societies whether Civil or Ecclesiastical nay even in Camps and in Armies also by teaching all Superiors to Govern justly and prudently and moderately and carefully and by teaching all Inferiors to Obey readily willingly and chearfully when their Superiors command things lawful and never to resist or rebel but to suffer meekly and patiently when they cannot obey that is when their Superiors commands are absolutely and evidently unlawful Whence it is as I told you before that the Gospel of Christ is called the Gospel of Peace not only because it makes men to be at Peace with God and at peace with themselves but at peace with one another nay with all the World as much and as far at least as the World will suffer them to be so And consequently whatsoever Doctrine there is the belief and practise whereof doth cause disorder distraction and confusion that Doctrine though it be Preached in the Name of Christ is no part of the Gospel of Christ or of Christian Religion truly so called Which truth being so evidently grounded upon this Theological Principle or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in my Text and sufficiently cleared from the only Objection that I can imagine may be made against it let us proceed to make that Use which the Apostle intended we should make of it which is the fourth and last particular I proposed unto you and which I am now to speak of by way of Application of all that hath been said in General to the occasion of this present meeting of ours in Particular which is with all humble and hearty Thankfulness unto God to commemorate that Great and Wonderful and almost Miraculous Deliverance of the then King Queen and Prince and likewise of all the Lords both Spiritual and Temporal together with all the Representatives both of the Clergy and of the Laity from being all of them destroyed at once by the most horrid Conspiracy and most Diabolical design that ever was hatched in Hell or attempted here on Earth and yet was no more than what those who were the Contrivers of it and were to be the Actors in it were prompted unto by some of the Doctrines of that Religion that was professed by them I mean the Religion of the Church of Rome Which that it may the better appear unto you the first Use I will make of St. Paul's 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Touchstone in my Text shall be by way of Discovery or Conviction For if according to the Apostolical Aphorisme or Canon in my Text God be not the Author of Confusion but of Peace then whatsoever Church it is that makes God the Author of Confusion by teaching such Doctrines in his Name as must if they be believed and practised of necessity produce Confusion it is not an Orthodox or true believing Church how confident soever it may pretend to be so but a Company of Hereticks and Schismaticks so far forth at least as they teach and practice any such Doctrines And such indeed are all the several Sorts and Sects of Dissenters from our Church at this time here in England by what denomination soever they are called and distinguished from us and from one another who though they differ in many things among themselves yet in these two Particulars they all agree namely First In maligning and opposing of the Church of England and Secondly In teaching such Doctrines as must necessarily if they be believed and practised produce Faction and Sedition and Confusion amongst us and consequently must needs if the teachers of them be not suppressed or restrained be finally at one time or another destructive to the Peace and Safety of the present Government in the State as well as in the Church Which though it might be verified more or less of all the several Sects that dissent from us yet because the Doctrines tending to Sedition and Rebellion which are held by all the rest seem to be derived and borrowed from those of the Church of Rome and because the Deliverance we this day Celebrate was from a Popish and not from a Presbyterian Conspiracy though some of the Popish Party did give it out it was I shall at this time make use of the Touchstone in the Text in relation only to such Doctrines and Maxims as are held and taught in the Church of Rome and which must needs be false if S. Paul's Touchstone be true because by evident and necessary consequence they make God to be the Author of Confusion or at least to be believed to be so Such are First The Doctrine of the Popes Supremacy and that not of Order or Precedency only but of Authority and Jurisdiction also Absolute Authority and Universal Jurisdiction supra universam Ecclesiam saith Bellarmine over the Universal Church that is over all Christians and consequently over all Christian States as well as Churches and over Kings as well as Subjects and that not in Spiritualibus only but in Temporalibus also For omne jus Regum à me pendet All the Right which Kings have is from me said Pope Clement the V. in the Council of Vienna He should have said Per me Reges regnant by me Kings reign and then he had spoken like a Rex Regum and Dominus Dominantium a King of Kings and Lord of Lords indeed as some of his Flatterers are not ashamed to call him In the mean time whether this Plenitudo Potestatis this fulness of Power in Temporals as well as in Spirituals be in the Pope directly as Baronius Carerius and all the Casuists hold or indirectly only or in order to the enabling him for the better exercising of his spiritual jurisdiction as Bellarmine and with him the whole Tribe of Jesuits say it matters not For which way soever it be held this Doctrine is destructive to the Soveraignty of Princes over their own Subjects and consequently to the Obedience of Subjects to their own Soveraigns than which what can be more destructive to the Peace and Safety of a State And yet this is that Article of Faith which Bellarmine in his chiding Letter to Blackwell the Arch-Priest here in England calls the foundation of the Catholick he should have said of the Roman Catholick Religion for so indeed it is And that you may see what they mean to build upon this Foundation it is a second Doctrine of theirs That
A SERMON Preached before the KING AT WHITE-HALL November 5. 1667. By the Right Reverend Father in GOD GEORGE Lord Bishop of Winton WHILEST He was Dean of the CHAPPEL-ROYAL LONDON Printed for Joanna Brome 1683. A SERMON ON 1 COR. Cap. XIV Ver. XXXIII For God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace THAT there is a God and that this God was the Maker and is the Preserver and Disposer of all things is a Truth generally consented to by all Mankind Again that this God who made us and preserves us and provides for us is to be Worshipped and Adored and Obeyed by us no Man that acknowledgeth there is such a God can be so unreasonable as to deny Lastly that there can be no Way of Worshipping or of Serving God so Fit so Safe or so Acceptable unto him as that which himself prescribes I presume there is no considering Person but he must needs grant And therefore all Wise Men that ever took upon them to teach Religion or the Way to serve God howsoever they have differed in the Matter of their Doctrine they have always agreed in the Manner of proposing or Tradition of it whilest either they pretended falsly or professed truly some Divine Revelation or other to authorize and countenance whatsoever Religion it was which they taught the People Thus Numa Pompilius though he himself devised all that ridiculous rabble of Superstitious Ceremonies with which he taught the Pagan Romans to Worship their false Gods yet he pretended a Divine Revelation from the Goddess Egeria for them all And thus Mahomet that impious and impure Impostor pretended an Inspiration from the Holy Ghost by the whispering of a Dove into his Ear for all that Farrago or Hotch-potch of lies and blasphemies in his cursed Alcoran whereby so great a part of the World hath been so grosly abused and so strangely seduced for above a thousand years together To conclude there never was any Religion in the World whosoever was the Deviser or Teacher of it but it was always fathered upon God whereby it plainly appears that even those men that taught others to Worship God falsly did themselves believe that none could be taught to Worship God truly but by God himself or by such as were taught of him what they were to teach others And therefore what the Devisers and Teachers of all false Religions pretended falsly the very same did the Teachers of true Religion profess truly namely that they were sent from God and that the Doctrine which they taught others was neither more nor less than that what God himself had taught them Thus Moses the Lawgiver of the Old Testament was but Gods mouth whereby he spake unto the Jews as Aaron was his mouth when he spake unto Pharaoh nay thus even our Saviour Christ himself the Law-giver of the New Testament tells us that he spake not of himself but as he had heard of his Father For my Doctrine saith he is not mine but his that sent me Joh. 7. 16. Now as the Doctrine which Moses and the Prophets at first taught the Jews so the Doctrine which Christ and his Apostles at first taught the Christians was evidenced to come from God or to be the Truth of God by their doing of such things for the Confirmation of it as none could do but God or could not be done but by the power of God But then as in the Jewish Church after Moses and the Prophets were dead and gone there were some that sate in Moses Chair who did in the name of Moses and the Prophets teach the People to believe and do such things as never were taught either by Moses or any of the Prophets so in the Christian Church likewise after Christ and his Apostles were gone there were some that succeeded them in the Governing and Teaching of the Church especially some of those that pretended to sit in St. Peter's Chair who in the name of Christ and his Apostles have introduced such Doctrines and Practises into the Christian World as never were taught by Christ or any of his Apostles nay such as are quite contrary to the Belief and Practise of the first Christians Again as some of those who sate in Moses's Chair perceiving there was nothing in the Writings of Moses or the Prophets rightly understood to countenance them in their own Ambitious and Covetous Designs and yet not daring in terminis or point-blank to contradict the Doctrine of Moses or the Prophets for fear of the Jews they did either wrest what Moses and the Prophets had written to their ownsense by false Glosses and Interpretations as the Scribes did witness Christs Sermon upon the Mount to convince them of it or they did pretend to unwritten Traditions successively derived to them from Moses and the Prophets and consequently of equal Authority to the Prophetical Writings themselves as the Pharisees taught the People and thereby did not only teach them to Worship God in vain by teaching for Doctrines the Traditions of men Matt. 15. 9. but to make the Word of God it self of none effect Mark 7. 13. The former when by some of their Traditions they made more than God had commanded by Moses or the Prophets to be necessary the latter when by other of their Traditions they made that which God had commanded by Moses and the Prophets not to be necessary even so or just in the like manner and to the same ends there be some that pretend to be the true nay the only true Successors of Christ and his Apostles who not finding in the Gospel of Christ as it is recorded by the Evangelists and the Apostles enough to serve their turns in order to their own Ambitious and Worldly Designs and yet not daring openly to avow any other Gospel for fear of St. Paul's Anathema and of discovering themselves to be Antichrist or at least the fore-runners of Antichrist they make men believe that to be the Doctrine of Christ which indeed is not partly by interpreting the Apostolical Writings in their own sence and partly by pretending Apostolical Tradions for that which cannot by any Interpretation be wrested from the Apostolical Writings And by this means in process of time they have made Christ's Kingdom which he himself tells us is not of this World to be of this World and themselves to be the Governours of it and whosoever will not be Perswaded must be Compell'd to believe it And thus the Evangelical Dove is made a prey to the Roman Eagle whilst Maxims of Humane Policy are taught for Articles of Divine Faith and men are made to believe that God is the Author of such Doctrines and Practices as are contrary not only to the Truth of his Word but to the Holiness of his Nature I mean such Doctrines and Practices as tend to the Distraction and Destruction of Kingdoms and States as if Christ came not to save the World as he saith he did but to destroy it which he saith he did
not or as if God were not the Author of Peace as St. Paul saith he is but the Author of Confusion which St. Paul says he is not But let God be true and every Man a lyar And God as St. Paul tells us in my Text is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace In which Words we are to consider 1. The Occasion 2. The Sense or Meaning 3. The Intention or Scope 4. The Use or Uses which by Way of Application we are to make of them First then as to the Occasion of these Words it is implied in the first of them in the Word For which being a Note of connexion must needs argue that the Words following have a relation to something spoken of before as the Occasion of them Now that which S. Paul had spoken of before and whereunto this Saying of his doth relate was the dangerous condition which those of that Church of Corinth were then in by reason of certain erroneous and seditious Doctrines which under the notion of Apostolical truths were cunningly infused into them and credulously entertain'd by them as appears by many Passages in this and the precedent Chapters especially the first where the Apostle tells them he had heard there were Divisions amongst them some saying they were of Paul others of Cephas and others of Christ and each of every sort exclusively to all the rest thereby excommunicating one another by appropriating Christ and his Apostles and the Apostolical Doctrine unto themselves as if all that did not believe in Christ just as they did were no Christians Besides some of them to gain Proselytes unto themselves and to increase and strengthen their own Party were content to dispence in point of Practise with those that were or would be of their Faction by permitting or at least by conniving at Incestuous Marriages Cap. 5. 2. as likewise with the departing of Wives from their Husbands and à fortiori with departing of Husbands from their Wives Cap. 7. 10. and of Servants from their Masters Vers. 20 and 21. of the same Cap. and by the same reason of Children from their Parents and of Subjects from their Soveraigns also Now certainly the Teaching of such Doctrines and the Allowing of such Practises as these must needs tend to the disturbance of the publick Peace and to the introducing of Disorder and Confusion not into Churches only but into States also Now this being then the State of Corinth whereunto it was brought by such as pretended to be Apostles or to be as infallible at least as the Apostles themselves were nay and were believed to be so by those whom they had seduced and who being seduced could not chuse but adhere to their seducers and to the Doctrines they were taught by them until they were convinced of the falshood of those Doctrines and consequently of the fallibility of their Teachers by some such argument as neither they nor their teachers themselves could disprove or deny therefore St. Paul to prove those Doctrines to be false he proves them to be inconsistent with Peace as evidently and undeniably appeared by the Divisions and Factions that were at that time in Corinth and which St. Paul ascribes to the aforesaid Doctrines as the natural necessary and unavoidable Effects of them And this being experimentally and apparently true it follows of necessity that either those Doctrines which caused those Factions and Divisions and Confusions were false and consequently that the Teachers of them were Seducers and false Apostles which was that whereof St. Paul was to convince the Corinthians or else that such Doctrines as are naturally and necessarily the cause of Contention and Confusion are true Doctrines which if either the Seducers were so Impudent as to affirm or the Seduced so Foolish as to believe they must needs affirm and believe likewise that such Doctrines notwithstanding their being the cause of Faction and Confusion must be from God or that God must be the Author of them because God is the Author of all Truth and consequently such Doctrines supposing them to be true must needs be supposed to come from God as the Author and if as the Author then as the Approver of them also But this Supposition is impossible to be True nay it is blasphemously False as being indeed a contradiction not only to the Word or revealed Will of God but even to Gods very Nature and Essence it self as St. Paul demonstratively proves by this Theological Principle or Aphorism in my Text when he tells us that God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace which being a Theological Principle as I said before needs no Proof it being self-evident to any one that believes there is a God and considers what God is and what is meant either by Confusion or by Peace and what it is to be the Author of the one or of the other And therefore having shewed you what was the Occasion of these Words I am now in the second place to give you the plain Sense and Meaning of them And here I do not intend to ingage my self in a Discourse either of Confusion or of Peace in the general Latitude or Extent of the Words and much less by way of Common-place to give you a Catalogue of all the blessed Effects of the one or of all the mischievous Consequences of the other but only to tell you First What is meant by the word Confusion and what is meant by the word Peace in the Text. Secondly To shew you how and in what sence God may be said to be the Author of the one and not the Author of the other First then by the word Confusion here in this place is meant the unsetling disordering and disturbing of any Society Civil or Ecclesiastical whether it be by force or fraud by Words or Actions and consequently by the word Peace as it is here opposed to the word Confusion is meant neither the Internal peace of Grace nor the Eternal peace of Glory though God be the Author and the Author 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of peace in both these notions also but only an External peace here in this World as it is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the well-ordering or happy Constitution of a Church or State And this is that which St. Paul in my Text means by Confusion and Peace when he saith that God is not the Author of the one and is the Author of the other But then Secondly If by Peace be meant Order and Settlement and by Confusion be meant Disorder and Disturbance in Churches and States how can God be said to be the Author of the one and not of the other seeing there be so many places of Scripture wherein the putting down as well as the setting up the overturning and overthrowing as well as the supporting and establishing the dissolution and desolation as well as the safety and preservation and consequently the Confusion as well as the