Certain Sermons or Homilies (First Book of Homilies)

¶An Homily against contention and brawling.

¶An Homelie agaynst contencion and braulynge.

This day (good christen people) shall be declared unto you, the unprofitableness, and shameful unhonesty of contention, strife and debate: to the entente, that when you shall see (as it were in a table painted before your eyes) the evilfavorednes, and deformity of this most detestable vice, your stomachs may be moved, to rise against it, and to detest & abhor that sin, which is so much to be hated, and so pernicious and hurtful to all men. But among all kinds of contention, none is more hurtful, then is contention in matters of religion. Eschew (sayeth saint Paul) foolish and unlearned questions,¹ knowing, that they breed strife. It become meth not the servant of God, to fight or strive, but to be meek toward all men. This contention & strife was in saint Pauls time, among the Corinthians, and is at this time, among us English men. For to many there be, which upon the Alebenches or other places, delight to propound certain questions, not so much pertaining to edification, as to vainglory and ostentation: and so unsoberly to reason and dispute, that when neither party will give place to other, they fall to chiding and contention, and sometime from hot words, to further inconvenience. Saint Paul could not abide to hear among the Corinthians, these words of discord or dissension: I hold of Paul, I of Cephas, and I of Apollo.² What would he then say, if he heard these ⟨image 83⟩words of contention: (which be now almost in every mans mouth) he is a Pharisei, he is a gospeller, he is of the new sort, he is of the old faith, he is a new broached brother, he is a good catholic father he is a papist, he is an heretic. Oh how the church is divided. Oh how the cities be cut & mangled. Oh how the coot of Christ, that was without seam, is all to rent & torn. Oh body mystical of Christ: where is that holy & happy unity, out of the which, whosoever is, he is not in Christ? If one member be pulled from another, where is the body? If the body be drawn from the head, where is the life of the body? We cannot be jointed to Christ our head, except we be glued with concord & charity, one to another. For he that is not in this unity, is not of the church of Christ, which is a congregation or unity together, & not a division. Saint Paul sayeth: