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A71253 The description and the practice of the four most admirable beasts explained in four sermons upon Revel. 4.8 : whereof the first three were preached before the Right Honourable James, Duke of Ormond, and lord lieutenant of Ireland, His Grace, and the two Houses of Parliament, and others, very honourable persons / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Gr. Lord Bishop of Ossory. Williams, Gryffith, 1589?-1672. 1663 (1663) Wing W2664; ESTC R33669 79,502 118

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framing of Indictments or the not quashing of them so easily and so frequently as they are reported to be 4. 4 4. Sacriledge The last frequent sin that I shall at this time desire you to cast your eyes behinde you to behold Gods detestation of it and his punishments that he poureth out upon the offenders is sacriledge which is the taking away and with-holding of those Revenues which God hath appointed and godly men have dedicated for the maintenance of Gods service and the religion of Jesus Christ and so the robbing of God himself both of his honour and service a sin so general that the custome of it hath quite taken away the sense of it and men think it to be no sin at all But I know what some may here say that now I plead mine own cause I will briefly answer as Samuel did unto the people 1 Sam. 12.3 and I say that I sued indeed for the Church right but I testifie before the Lord and your Grace and you All that I did it not to inrich my self for I thank God I have enough both for my self and my relation wife children and friends but I did it for the right of the Church and I resolved and vowed that whatsoever I recovered I would by the grace of God wholly bestow it upon the reparation of the Church so that recovering it I should be not one penny the richer and loosing it not one penny the poorer And I desired nothing but what I conceived to be the right of the Church because I know God loves not to be honoured with unjustly gotten goods But now finding that as the Prophet saith I have laboured in vain and I have spent my strength for nought and seeing the partiality and injustice of men I will with patience submit my self to that strength which is beyond my ability to oppose and study to serve my God another way because I see that as Davin saith the sons of Zervia are too strong for me because we that were faithfull to our King were fleec'd and bareshorne and left poor and beggarly and they that served the Beast and adheared to the long Parliament and were arrant rebels against our late good King have got all our Lands and our Monies to make friends withall and to keep us still under hatches and so though nos fuimus Troes yet now they are the men and without envy let then enjoy their prosperity so they forsake their iniquity and repent them of their former impiety And so desiring you to bear with this my just defence I shall proceed in this discourse for none other end but to discharge mine own duty and for the good of your souls to avoid the just wrath of God for a sin so highly displeasing unto God and to that purpose I shal desire you to read the 2 Mac. c. 3. where you shall finde how that when Simon the mutinous traitor both to God and his Country had informed Seleucus King of Asia of the riches and the treasure of the Church of Hierusalem and incited him to seize upon it and he had sent Heliodorus his treasurer to fetch it and Heliodorus came like a Fox pretending it was to visit and to reform the disorders of Phoenice and Caelosyria but Onias the high Priest perceiving that the goods of the Church was his errand his countenance was quite cast down and the people not enduring sacriledge ran some to the Temple some to the City Gates and some gadded up and down the streets as frantick men like Bacchus froes and all lifted up their hands and eyes and voices unto God for the defence of his Church and God heard their cry and did help them For Heliodorus was no sooner entred into the treasury to take away the spoile but there appeared to him a terrible man in compleat armour of gold mounted upon a barbed horse that ran very fiercely at the Kings Treasurer and trampled him under-foot and withall there appeared two other men of most excellent beauty and strength whipping him so that he was carried out of the place speechless and without any hope of life untill God restored him upon the earnest prayer of the Priest and people And to let you see how dangerous a sin is sacriledge to rob the Church Act. 5.5 the end of Ananias and Sapphira can bear witness for though their death was the punishment of their lying yet all must grant they were drawn to that sin by the cord of sacriledge And if a greedy desire of with-holding that from the Church which themselve● had given was sufficient to open such a window unto the Devil that he came presently to cast them as a prey to the Jaws of Hell how many foule fins do they commit and how many greivous plagues may they fear to fall upon their heads which take away from the Church that which they never gave And you may remember that when Egypt in the time of Joseph felt so extreme a famine Gen. 47.22 v. 26. that the fift part of the Land was sold to releive the Land yet the Patriarch in all the care that he had both of the Country and of the King to succour the one and to enrich the other never attempted the sale of the Lands of the Priests nor once to diminish any jot thereof And if the holy man in so great an extremity never ventured to take away the possessions of the Idolatrous Priests though it were to the releif of a whole Kingdome I wonder with what face dares any man in the world curtal the maintenance of Gods Church and take away those Lands and houses that by religious Princes and other pious men have been consecrated to Gods service But Foelix quem faciunt aliena pericula cautum You might be happy if you would cast your eyes behinde you and by the examples of Gods judgments upon other sacrilegious persons learn to escape the punishments of sacriledge because they are all written for our instruction And we read Celce the Constable of Gertrund King of Burgundy having under the authority of the King his Master enriched himself and enlarged his Territories with the Goods and Lands of the Church and being one day in the Church at his Devotion and hearing thee words of the Prophet that proclaimed a woe to them that joyn house to house and land to land he suddainly shricked in the Congregation and cried out This is spoken to me and this curse is upon me and upon my Posterity and so afterwards died most miserably And we read in the Annals of France that although Lewis the Sixt surnamed the Great was once the Protectour of the Church and had caused the Count de Claremont the Lord de Roussi and other great men that had pillaged the Bishopricks to restore their robberies unto the Church again yet in his old age when he began to pull the Church he was sufficiently punished for it by the suddain death of his Eldest