Princes Excommunicated and Deposed by the Pope may be not only deserted but destroyed by their Subjects as being not only absolved from their Allegiance but obliged to put the Popes Sentence in execution which if they cannot do themselves they are to joyn with any foreign Prince to whom the Pope shall please to give away the Kingdom as he did this of England to Lewis of France in King Johns time And against this Doctrine it was that the Oath of Allegiance was specially intended and for this Doctrine sake it was that the Pope forbad all of his party to take the Oath Again to the end that Subjects might with the less scruple of Conscience conspire and rebel against their Soveraigns when they shall be Excommunicated or declared Hereticks by the Pope there is another Doctrine of the Church of Rome which teacheth them That all power which Sovereign Princes have over their People is derived from the People and may be resumed by the People to be transferred and collated upon any whom the Supreme Pastor shall think fit to invest with it This Doctrine was proposed and defended in the Council of Trent by Jacobus Laynez the Popes Divine there emphatically so called and one of the first Jesuits who is herein followed by Bellarmine and by all of the same Order And this Doctrine saith King James in his Admonition to Christian Princes is fundamentum seditionis the ground or foundation of Sedition Fourthly That the Pope may always have a Party of his own and immediately depending upon himself in all States and Kingdoms it is another of their Doctrines that all the Clergy in all places are exempted from all secular Jurisdiction in all Causes criminal whether Civil or Ecclesiastick so that there is no Prince whether he be of the Roman Communion or no but he hath thousands that are born and bred and live under the Protection of his Laws and that are not subject to him but to a foreign Power neither are they answerable to him for any Crime they do or may commit whether Murder Felony or Treason unless the Pope will give him leave to proceed against them which Exemption where it is allowed of gives that Clergy courage to attempt any thing for the Pope against Princes especially being unmarried and consequently not having that obligation of Wife and Children upon them which other men have to indear them unto their Country and their Country unto them they are always the readier and the willinger to serve him upon whom wholly and only they depend And in order to that end no doubt it was that both Marriage was forbidden and Exemption from Secular Jurisdiction was granted unto the Clergy though Suarez saith the latter of these is of Divine Right and therefore is so general that it admits of no exception and so certain that it cannot be denied without contradicting an Article of Faith I suppose he means the Article of the Pope's Supremacy whereunto the Exemption of the Clergy from Secular Jurisdiction is subservient in a very high degree and no less dangerous to the safety of Kings and Princes as King James observes in the aforesaid Admonition Now if Kings or States to prevent the danger they are in by the aforesaid Doctrines shall require an Oath of Allegiance from their Subjects upon such Penalties as that they dare not but take it they have another Doctrine of Equivocation or Mental Reservation whereby they are qualified to say or unsay to swear or forswear any thing that shall be or can be proposed unto them and thereby to avoid both the Penalty of refusing and the Conscience of performing this or any other Oath whatsoever But if the Oath be so warily and so strictly worded as that as it obligeth them to take God to witness that they swear what they do swear without any Equivocation or Mental Reservation as they must if they take the Oath of Allegiance then the Gordian Knot which cannot be untied must be cut asunder by the omnipotent power of Papal Dispensation For Catholici omnes intelligunt saith Tortus or Bellarminus larvatus All Catholicks understand that it belongs to the Popes Power to Absolve not only from Sins but from Penances from Censures from Laws and from Vows and from Oaths too But what if it be part of the Oath to abjure the Popes Power of Dispensing with that Oath as it is in the Oath of Allegiance why yet they have another Doctrine to help them at a dead lift which is that Faith is not to be kept with Hereticks and it is not to be supposed that Catholick Princes or States will tender such an Oath as takes away one of the best flowers of the Popes Triple Crown especially if his Power of Dispensing be taken in the largest extent or according to the practise of it for so it reacheth to the ratifying or making void of any thing not as it is right or wrong lawful or unlawful but as it is or is not for the Interest of him and of his See though it be to the undoing of Families the dis-inheriting of right Heirs or the embroyling of Kingdoms in long and bloody Wars as hath been often done by his Dispensing with Incestuous Marriages by his Legitimating unlawful Issues and by his permitting causeless Divorces which must needs produce endless Disputes and irreconcileable Quarrels in the World To these I will add but one Doctrine of theirs more and that is the Indispensable Obligation of their Priests to conceal I suppose they mean from all but the Pope whatsoever they hear in Confession though it be the intended murder of Kings or destruction of States saith Cardinal Tolet nay the ruin of the World saith Henriques which is so horrid a Doctrine as King James saith in his before-cited Admonition that no Prince or State can be safe where there be such Confessors no nor Romish Catholick Princes themselves as appears by Henry the III. and Henry the IV. of France who would neither of them have been so barbarously murdred as they were had not Fryar Clement and Ravilliac's Confessors been of this opinion So that of what Religion soever they be neither Princes nor States can be secured from the danger of this Doctrine much less from the danger of this and all the former of all which I may boldly say that if the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or touchstone of my Text be true every one of them is false and consequently none of them from the God of truth who is the Author of Peace but all and every one of them from him who is the Author of Lies who is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the stirrer up of Strife and the Author of Confusion whence it follows that the Church that teacheth such Doctrines is so far from being the Catholick that she is not so much as an Orthodox Church so far from being the only true Church that she is not so
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
Peace of Kingdoms Churches and States are in express terms ascribed unto God I answer that the disturbing and confounding of Kingdoms States and Churches may be considered either as they are mala Culpae or mala Poenae that is either as they are Sins or Punishments for Sin Now as they are mala Culpae or sins in themselves so they are not from God nor cannot be ascribed to God but to the inordinate or immoderate Passions of those Men who are either the Agents in them or the Contrivers Abetters and Fomenters of them according to that of the Apostle From whence come Wars from whence come fightings among you come they not from hence even from your Lusts Jam. 4. 1. And yet the same Disorders and Disturbances which as they are mala Culpae or Evils of sin must be ascribed unto Men may nay they must as they are mala Poenae or Punishments for sin be ascribed unto God as the vindicative effects of Divine Justice But by Confusion in my Text is meant only malum Culpae the Evil of sin in those that are the disturbers of Churches and States and therefore God cannot be said to be the Author of it The truth is that neither God nor Man can properly be said to be the Author of any thing which is not done either immediately by himself or mediately by his Command or at least either by his Advice and Direction or by his Consent and Approbation but this cannot be said of Confusion in Churches or States in reference unto God for neither is God the worker of it himself neither doth he command or advise or direct or allow of it Whereas he is not only the Author but the God of Peace and his Son is the Prince of Peace and his Spirit is the Spirit of Peace and his Gospel is the Gospel of Peace and his Way is the Way of Peace neither doth he command or teach any thing that is inconsistent with Peace in any Kind or any Degree whatsoever And thus having shewed you the Occasion and given you the Sence of these Words I am now in the third place to speak of the Apostles Scope or Intention in them which was as I conceive to leave upon Record for all Posterity a certain a constant and an infallible 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Touchstone whereby upon tryal any man of an ordinary capacity might discover and discern many of those Doctrines to be false which the Apostle himself saw had been and foresaw would be preached in the Church of Christ and as a part of the Gospel of Christ in the name of Christ to the great Prejudice of Humane Society to the great Offence and Danger of Princes and Governours and to the great Scandal of Christianity it self namely such Doctrines as must be if they be believed and practised destructive of the publick Peace and Safety of Churches States and Princes For although as I said before in my first particular the Occasion of these Words was the Disorder Faction and Confusion which St. Paul saw with his own Eyes to be the Effects of such seditious Doctrines as were brought into the Church and City of Corinth by the seducers of those times yet his Scope and Intention in these Words was not only to rectifie the Disorder ond Confusion which he saw in that one Church and State for the present but likewise to prevent the same or the like or perhaps worse Disorders which he foresaw might be and would be in any Church or State nay in all Churches and States for the future if the like Doctrines I mean any Doctrines inconsistent with the publick Peace or tending to publick Confusion were any where else taught and believed to be from God And therefore the same Use which St. Paul then made of this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 this Theological Principle in my Text may and ought to be made of it by us now if there be the same Occasion for it Because God is as much the Author of Peace and no more the Author of Confusion now than he was then And if he be not the Author of Confusion he cannot be the Author of any Doctrine or Doctrines tending to Confusion neither which is St. Paul's own Inference and not mine For indeed the very reason why St. Paul tells the Corinthians that God was not the Author of Confusion but of Peace was to convince them that many of those Doctrines which were brought in among them and pretended to be from God were not from God indeed because they were inconsistent with Peace or because they tended to Confusion which could not have been a convincing Argument to them then as to that particular if it were not always true in the general that no Doctrine tending to Confusion or to the making of disturbance either in Church or State can truly be said to be from God or that God is the Author of it But was not will you say the preaching of the Gospel the preaching of Christianity it self the Cause of great Commotions and Disturbances in the World and was it not in this respect that Christ himself saith that he came to send a Sword and not Peace and consequently it seems that either Christian Religion it self must be false or that some Doctrines that cause Disturbance and Confusion in the World may be true To this which is the only considerable Objection I can think of I answer that Christian Religion was indeed the Occasion but not the Cause of those Commotions and Disturbances which it did not make but meet with in the World when it was first published For those Commotions whatsoever they were did not proceed from mens believing and obeying but from their not believing or their not obeying the Doctrines of the Gospel And as for the Sword that Christ saith he came to send into the World it was a Sword of passive Persecution and not a Sword of active Invasion Resistance or Rebellion it was a Sword wherewith Christians were to be slain themselves and not a Sword with which they were to destroy others the Weapons of their Warfare being Spiritual to work upon the Soul and not Carnal to make any impression upon the Body the Gospel being not to be planted or propagated by force as the Turkish Alcoran was but by perswading of it and suffering for it nor otherwise to be defended by Subjects against their Soveraigns but by Prayers and Tears and laying down their lives in defence of it The truth is Christian Religion truly so called is so far from being a Cause of Commotion or Disturbance in Kingdoms and States that were there any Kingdom or State in the World where Christian Religion were truly taught and truly practised it would be impossible there should be any Dissention or Discord any open Rebellion or privy Conspiracy or any thing but Concord Unity and Peace in such a State or Kingdom because all the Articles of the Christian faith and all the Precepts
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
much as a true Church I mean in a moral sence or so far at least as she teacheth such Doctrines If it be replyed that it is not the Church of Rome it self but only some particular Doctors of that Church that teach all or any of the aforesaid seditious Doctrines I answer that these and the like Doctrines being publickly asserted and maintained by the chief Pillars and Professors of that Church and notoriously countenanced and abetted by the Head of that Church and never condemned censur'd or disclaimed by the Representative Body of that Church no nor so much as taken notice of as dangerous or erroneous by their Index expurgatorius which censures all such Authors and Opinions as that Church doth not approve of we must needs conclude them to be the Doctrines of the Church it self and not of some of her particular Doctors and Professors only though some of her particular Doctors may Dissent from some of them which signifie little or nothing as long as the Head of the Church approves them and as long as they all hold the Pope to be Head of the Church whereunto the whole Body of the Church must submit and whereby it must be guided and consequently they all hold he hath an Universal Jurisdiction over all Christians which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first of those false seditious Doctrines I before named and whereunto all the rest are but instrumental and subservient as being at first invented and ever since maintain'd in order either to the bringing in or keeping up of that grand Imposture as one of our Bishops calls it I mean the pretended Soveraignty of the Papacy over all Christendom which whosoever will acknowledg and submit unto he may hold either pro or con in almost all of the Controverted points besides and yet be a good Catholick as they call him as appears by the offer made by Paul the IV. to Queen Elizabeth which was this That if she would acknowledg his Supremacy and take it as a Favour from him or as an Indulgence granted by him and by his Authority Gratiam facturum Pontificem ut sacra hìc omnia hoc ipso quo nunc sunt apud nos modo procurari fas esset his Holiness would graciously dispence with our way of serving of God in all things pertaining to his Worship in the very same manner as now we do They are the words of Bishop Andrews one of the Worthiest most Pious and most Learned of my Predecessors in his Tortura Torti from whence as he infers it plainly appears that the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that which is so much contended for by the Pope and those of his Party is not that Faith or any part of that Faith which was once delivered to the Saints as Saint Jude tells us and which he exhorts us earnestly to contend for but the exorbitant power of the Papacy in and over the Church of Christ for the gaining or keeping or recovering of which exorbitant power that Ball of contention hath been kept up for so many hundreds of years in the Christian World For what was that which made that great Schism in the Church whereby the Eastern were and still are divided from the Western Christians or what is that which now divides that of the Roman from all other Christian Churches but the Popes affecting and assuming the title of Universal Bishop or of being Head of the whole Church as if all other Patriarks Metropolitans and Bishops were all of them but his Vicars and he Christs Again what made all those quarrels first betwixt the Popes and the Senate and People of Rome and afterwards betwixt the Popes and the Roman Emperors as likewise betwixt the Popes and the Kings of France and betwixt the Popes and the Kings of England whereby all Europe was sometime in one place and sometimes in another distracted and divided and torn in pieces as it were by Feuds and Factions and by causeless and cruel Wars sometimes the Father against the Son and sometimes the Son against the Father and always Christians against Christians What was the cause of all this I say but the extending of the Popes aforesaid Primacy over the whole Christian Church in spiritual things to a Supremacy over the whole Christian World or over all Christian Princes and States in the World Lastly what was the cause of so many Conspiracies against Queen Elizabeth especially after her Excommunication by the Pope which was seconded first by a Rebellion in the North of England and afterwards by the Spanish Invasion in Eighty Eight or what was the cause of the Gunpowder-Treason it self was it not a zeal for the recovering and re-establishing of the aforesaid pretended power of the Pope here in England I am sure those that were the Contrivers of it and Actors in it as many of them I mean as were brought to Tryal for it did all and every one of them confess that to be the only cause for what they did and for what they suffered namely their zeal for the Catholick Religion as they call it of which as I told you before their great Cardinal tells us the Popes Supremacy est unum ex praecipuis fundamentis one of the chief foundations And as it was the restoring of the Popes pretended Authority that was the cause of that horrid Conspiracy so the Bull of Clement the VIII whereby a little before the Queen died he had forbidden all of his Party here to suffer any but a Roman Catholick to succeed her was the ground or warrant whereupon they undertook it as appears by what Catesby the chief of the Lay Conspirators said when some of his Complices seemed loth to proceed in it without the Popes express command for it or approbation of it To what end said he should we trouble his Holiness any farther was not the forbidding us to receive him warrant enough for the removing of him assoon and by what means soever it might be effected He might have added that Heretical Princes might be Deposed or taken away by their Subjects even before the sentence of Excommunication or Deposition be pronounced by the Pope against them as some of their Doctors hold and therefore there was no reason they should stand upon such formalities in a matter of such Importance and which required a speedy Execution And thus no doubt they were resolv'd in point of Conscience by Garnett the Provincial of the Jesuits at that time here in England and the chief manager of this inhumane Conspiracy together with Oldcorn and three more of the same Order of all whom it was confessed by their Lay Complices that they were not only privy to it but Authors of it I mean of the aforesaid Conspiracy and that they were the aforesaid Jesuits that had encouraged them to undertake it and had often by the Sacrament of Penance and the Eucharist confirmed them in the Resolution of it as of a most Catholick and meritorious Undertaking and now
all Scruples being removed and all danger of Discovery being as they though prevented by every mans having taken an Oath of secrecy and received the Sacrament upon it the Eve of that day was come which next to that of Sadom and Gomorra should have been the blackest and dismallest that ever the Sun beheld The Eve of that Day which was to have been the Doomsday of this Kingdom The Eve of that Day was come I say upon which assoon as the King and Prince together with the Queen and her Ladies and all the Lords and Peers were come into the House of Lords and the whole House of Commons were come up into the same Room to attend his Majesty it was intended that fatal Blow should have been given of which what would have been the dismal and direful Effects I had rather leave it to every mans fancy to Imagin than vainly indeavour to Express what would have been indeed beyond all expression But thanks be to our great and good God that it never arrived to any other existence but what it had in their Intention and what it hath now in our Imagination For that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that severe all-seeing eye of the Divine Justice and Providence which had lookt upon this Embrio of darkness from the first Conception until all its Limbs were formed and framed and fashioned did then even then when it was come unto the Birth and was ready to be brought forth suddenly and strangely and almost as much to ours as their amazement discover it or rather made it discover it self so that it was stopt it was smother'd it was stifled it was buried in its own Vault in that infernal Womb wherein it was conceived And thus the snare was broken and we were delivered even before we knew the Danger we were in which was so much the greater because we had no Apprehension at all of it and consequently no humane Possibility to prevent it to avoid it or to deliver our selves from it And therefore what we could not possibly do for our selves God himself was pleased at that time to do for us without any concurrence of our own towards it But we must not think because it was so once it will be so always or that we shall always be saved by Miracle neither must we think because we have escaped one that therefore we are secure from all dangers or that we may not possibly be in as great danger now or at another time as we were then because we do not see it not fear it nor suspect it for we did not see it nor fear it nor suspect it then neither But rather to consider Whether this Barbarous Design considering who were the Contrivers of it and Actors in it were not the product of all or some of those Doctrines before specified and proved to be the Doctrines of those that govern in the Church of Rome Secondly Whether the same Causes are not likely at some time or other to produce the same or the like Effects Thirdly Whether we may not in Conscience and ought not in Prudence to prevent the sowing and growing of such Tares amongst our Wheat of such Doctrines in our Church I presume no man here doubts but we may and ought to do so especially considering that none of these Doctrines which are and will be always the seeds of Sedition Conspiracies and Rebellion are yet disclaimed by any declaratory Sentence either of Council or of Pope but are still avowed and maintained by the prevailing party in that Church nay considering likewise that this horrible Conspiracy it self the Gunpowder-Treason hath not been as yet ever branded with any note of Infamy or Detestation set upon it by any publick Authority of the Church but rather magnified and glorified by suffering Garnett and Oldcorne to be put into the Martyrology or Catalogue of Martyrs by the Jesuits which they durst not have done without the Popes knowledg and consent to it which must argue his approbation of it though he did not make a Panegyrick Oration in praise of these Traytors as Sixtus Quintus did in praise of Fryar Clement for killing Henry the III. King of France because that was prosperum acfoelix scelus and this was but an Attempt only considering these things I say no man can blame us for looking as well as we can to our selves and providing as well as we can for our own security from the danger of such Practises which we have experimentally found to be the fruit of such Doctrines And therefore from the Use of this Touchstone by way of Discovery I come to the Use we are to make of it by way of Caution And I will give it you in the words of our Saviour himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Beware of false Prophets yea though they come to you in sheeps cloathing as if they and none but they were of Christs fold whereas inwardly and indeed saith he they are not only Wolves but ravening Wolves that is such as intend to make a Prey of you and by their fruits saith he you shall know them that is by their teaching such Doctrines as are inconsistent with Peace and tending to the stirring up of strifes and to the embroyling of Kingdoms and States in discord and dissention which is an Evidence that they are not of a Lamb-like but of a Woolvish nature and disposition Try them therefore by this Touchstone in my Text which will never fail you The name of Catholick may be falsly assumed Universal Tradition may be falsly alledged the Churches Infallibility may be falsly pretended Miracles may be fraudulently forged nay the Word of God it self may be falsly interpreted or fallaciously applied But Gods nature can never be changed he is the God of Peace and therefore he is not nor ever was nor ever can be the Author of Confusion nor of any Doctrine or Practise tending to Confusion Mark therefore saith Paul those that cause Divisions among you and avoid them Mark them I say and set some mark upon them that others may know them and avoid them also For of this sort as this same Apostle tells us 2 Tim. 3. 6. are they who creep into Houses and lead captive silly Women laden with sins and led away with divers lusts following herein the Devils method beginning as he did with the weaker Vessels and hoping to have the same success as he had in seducing our Adams by our Eves And thus going up and down and converting as they say but subverting as St. Paul saith Tit. 1. 11. whole Houses they do by little and little undermine such Churches and States as are not built upon their own foundation And yet I will not say as St. Paul saith Gal. 5. 12. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I would they were even cut off that trouble you or that cause troubles amongst you No God is my witness before whom I stand it is not their Persecution but our own Preservation that I contend for For as