have now chosen a Text which holds forth a remedy for this malady a cure for this case That is that if we will c humble our uncircumcised hearts and accept of the punishment of our iniquity If we be d ashamed and confounded before the Lord this day for our evill wayes if we judge our selves as guilty and put our mouth in the dust and cloath our selves with shame as with a garment If wee repent and abhorre our selves in dust and ashes then the Lord will not abhorre us but take pleasure in 〈◊〉 to dwell among us to reveale himself unto us to set before us the right patterne of his owne House that e the Tabernacle of God may be with men and pure Ordinances where before they were defiled and mixed f He will cut off the names of the Idolls out of the land and cause the false Prophet and the unclean spirit to passe out of the land and g the glory of the Lord shall dwell in the land But withall we must take heed h that we turn not againe to folly that our hearts start not aside i like a deceitfull bowe that we k Keep the wayes of the Lord and doe not wickedly depart from our God Thus you have briefly the occasion and the sum of what I am to deliver from this Text The particulars whereof I shall not touch till I have in the first place resolved a difficult yet profitable question You may aske what House or what Temple doth the Prophet here speak of and how can it be made to appeare that this Scripture is applicable to this time I answere l some have taken great paines to demonstrate that this Temple which the Prophet saw in this vision was no other then the Temple of Solomon and that the accomplishment of this vision of the Temple City and division of the Land was the building of the Temple and City againe after the captivity and the restoring of the Leviticall worship and Jewish Republike which came to passe in the dayes of Nehemiah and Zorobabel This sense is also most obvious to every one that readeth this Prophecie But there are very strong reasons against it which make other Learned Expositers not to embrace it For 1. The Temple of Solomon was 120. cubits high The Temple built by Zorobabel was but 60. cubits high Ezra 6. 3. 2. The Temple of Zorobabel m was built in the same place where the Temple of Solomon was that is in Jerusalem upon mount Moriah But this Temple of Ezekiel was without the City and n a great way distant from it Chap. 48. verse 10. compared with verse 15. The whole portion of the Levites and a part of the portion of the Priests was betwixt the Temple and the City 3. Moses his greatest Altar the Altar of Burnt-offerings was not half so big as Ezekiells Altar o compare Ezek 43. 16. with Exod. 27. 1. So is Moses Altar of Incense much lesse then Ezekiells Altar of Incense Exod. 30. 2. compared with Ezek. 41. 22. 4. There are many new ceremoniall Lawes different from the Mosaicall delivered in the following part of this vision Chap. 45. and 46. as p Interpreters have particularly observed upon these places 5. The Temple and City were not of that greatnesse which is described in this Vision for the measuring Reed containing sixe cubits of the Sanctuary not common cubits Chap. 40. 5. which amount to more then 10. foot the utter wall of the Temple being 2000. Reeds in compasse Chap. 42. 20. was by estimation foure miles and the Citie chap. 48. 16. 35. six and thirty miles in compasse 6. The vision of the holy waters chap. 47. issuing from the Temple and after the space of 4000. reeds growing to a river which could not be passed over and healing the waters and the fishes cannot be literally understood of the Temple at Jerusalem 7. The Land is divided among the twelve Tribes chap. 48. and that in a way and order different from the division made by Joshua which cannot be understood of the restitution after the captivitie because the twelve Tribes did not return 8. This New Temple hath with it a New Covenant and that an everlasting one Ezek. 37. 26 27. But at the return of the people from Babylon there was no new Covenant saith q Irenaeus onely the same that was before continued till Christs comming Wherefore we must needs hold with r Hierome s Gregory and other latter Interpreters that this vision of Ezekiel is to bee expounded of the spirituall Temple and Church of Christ made up of Jewes and Gentiles and that not by way of allegories only which is the sense of those whose opinion I have now confuted but according to the proper and direct intendment of the vision which in many materiall points cannot agree to Zorobabels Temple I am herein very much strengthned while I observe t many parallel passages betwixt the vision of Ezekiel and the Revelation of Iohn and while I remember withall that the Prophets doe in many places fore-tell the institution of the Ordinances Government and Worship of the New Testament under the termes of Temple Priests Sacrifices c. and do set forth the deliverance and stability of the Church of Christ under the notions of Canaan of bringing back the captivity c. God speaking to his people at that time so as they might best understand him Now if you aske how the severall particulars in the vision may be particularly expounded and applyed to the Church of Christ I answer the Word of God the River that makes glad the Citie of God though it have many easie and knowne Foords where any of Christs Lambs may passe thorow yet in this Vision and other places of this kind it is a great deep where the greatest Elephant as he said may swim I shall not say with the Jewes that one should not read the last nine Chapters of Ezekiel before he be thirty yeers old Surely a man may be twice thirty yeers old and a good Divine too and yet not able to understand this Vision Some tell us that no man can understand it without skill in Geometry which cannot be denyed but there is greater need of Ecclesiometry if I may so speak to measure the Church in her length or continuance through many generations in her breadth or spreading through many Nations her depth of humiliation sorrowes and sufferings her height of faith hope joy and comfort and to measure each part according to this pattern here set before us Wherein for my part I must professe as Socrates in another case Scio quod nescio I know that there is a great mystery here which I cannot reach Only I shall let forth unto you that little light which the father of â—…ights hath given me I conceive that the Holy Ghost in this Vision hath pointed at foure severall times and conditions of the Church
sake who through the presumption and unhumblednesse of their spirits will acknowledge no fault in any thing they have formerly done in Church matters I cannot leave this application to the Kingdome till I inlarge it a little further There are foure considerations which may make England ashamed and confounded before the Lord 1. Because of the great Blessings which it hath so long wanted Your flourishing estate in the world could not have countervailed the want of the purity and liberty of the Ordinances of Christ That was a heavie x word of the Prophet Now for a long season Israel hath been without the true God and without a teaching Priest and without Law It hath not been altogether so with this Land where the Lord hath had not onely a true Church but many burning and shining lights many gracious Preachers and Professors many notable defenders of the Protestant cause against Papists many who have preached and written worthily of practicall Divinity and of those things which most concern a mans salvation Nay I am perswaded that all this time past there have been in this Kingdome many thousands of his secret and sealed ones who have been groaning under that burthen and bondage which they could not help and have been y waiting for the consolation of Israel Neverthelesse the Reformation of the Church of England hath been exceedingly deficient in Government Discipline and Worship yea and many places of the Kingdom have been without a teaching Priest and other places poisoned with false Teachers It is z said that all the house of Israel lamented after the Lord when they wanted the Ark twenty yeeres O let England lament after the Lord untill the Arke be brought into the own place of it 2. There is another cause of this great humiliation and that is the point in the Text to be ashamed of all that you have done Sinne Sinne is that which blacketh our faces and covereth us with confusion as with a Mantle and then most of all when we may read our sinne in some judgement of God which lyeth upon us Therefore the Septuagints here in stead of being ashamed of all that they have done a read accept their punishment for all that they have done Which agreeth to b that word in the Law If then their uncircumcised hearts be humbled The Greek readeth there ashamed and they then accept of the punishment of their iniquity This is now Englands case whose sinne is written in the present Judgement and graven in your calamity as c with a pen of iron and with a point of a Diamond to make you say d The Lord our God is righteous in all his workes which he doeth for we obeyed not his voice Did not the land make Idoll Gods of the Court and of the Prelaticall Clergy and feared them and followed them more then God and obeyed them rather then God so that their threshold was set by Gods threshold and their posts by Gods posts as it is said v. 7. I speak not now of lawfull obedience to Authoritie Is it not a righteous thing with the Lord to make these your idols his rods to correct you Hath not England harboured and entertained Papists Priests and Jesuites in its bosome Is it not just that now you feel the sting and poison of these vipers Hath there not bin a great compliance with the Prelates for peace sake even to the preiudice of Truth Doth not the Lord now iustly punish that Episcopall peace with an Episcopall warre Was not that Prelaticall government first devised and since continued to preserve peace and to prevent Schismes in the Church and was it not Gods iust iudgement that such a remedy of mans invention should rather increase then cure the evill so that Sects have most multiplyed under that Government which now you know by sad experience Hath not this Nation for a long time taken the Name of the Lord in vaine by a formall worship and empty profession Is it not a iust requitall upon Gods part that your enemies have all this while taken Gods Name in vain and taken the Almighty to witnesse of the integrity of their intentions for Religion Law and Liberty thus perswading the world to beleeve a lye What shall I say of the Book of Sports and other prophanations of the Lords day This licentiousnesse was most acceptable to the greatest part and they e loved to have it so Doth not the great famine of the Word almost every where in the Kingdom except in this City make the Land mourn on the Sabbath and say f I do remember my faults this day Yea doth not the Land now enioy her Sabbaths while men are constrained not only to cease from sports on that day but from labouring the ground and from other works of their calling upon other dayes What should I speak of the lusts and uncleannesse gluttony and drunkennesse chambering and wantonnesse prodigality and lavishnesse excesse of riot masking and balling and sporting when Germany and the Palatinate and other places were wallowing in blood yea when there was so much sinne and wrath upon this same Kingdome Will not you say now that for this the Lord God hath caused g your sun to go down at noon and hath turned your feasts into mourning and all your songs into lamentation Or what should I say of the oppressions injustice cousinage in trading and in Merchandise which your selves know better then I can do how much they have abounded in the Kingdome Doth not God now punish the secret injustice of his people by the open iniustice of their enemies Doe ye not remember that mischiefe was framed by a Law and now when your enemies execute mischief against Law will you not say Righteous art thou O Lord and iust are thy iudgements One thing I may not forget and that is that the Lord is punishing blood with blood the blood of the oppressed the blood of the persecuted the blood of those who have dyed in Prisons or in strange Countries suffering for righteousnesse sake h He that departed from evill did even make himselfe a prey There was not so much as one drop of blood spilt upon the Pillory for the testimony of the Truth but it cryeth to Heaven for precious is the blood of the Saints Doth not all the blood shed in Queen Maries dayes cry And doth not the blood of the Palatinate and of Rochel cry And doth not the blood of soules cry which is the loudest cry of all God said to Cain k The voyce of thy Brothers blood cryeth unto me from the ground the Hebrew hath it thy brothers blouds which is well expounded both by the Chaldee Paraphrase and the Jerusalem Targum the voyce of the blood of all the generations and the righteous people which thy Brother should have begotten cryeth unto me I may apply it to the thing in hand The silencing deposing persecuting imprisoning and banishing of so
A SERMON Preached before The Honourable House OF COMMONS At their late solemne Fast Wednesday March 27. 1644. BY GEORGE GILLESPIE Minister at Edinburgh Published by Order of the House PSAL. 102. 6. When the Lord shall build up Zion he shall appeare in his glory LONDON Printed for Robert Bostock dwelling at the Kings head in Pauls Church-yard Anno 1644. TO THE READER DIvine providence hath made it my â—…ot and a Calling hath induced me who am lesse then the least of all the servants of Christ to appeare among others in this Cloud of publike Witnesses The scope of the Sermon is to endevour the removall of the obstructions both of Humiliation and Reformation two things which ought to lye very much in our thoughts at this time Concerning both I shall preface but little Reformation hath many unfriends some upon the right hand and some upon the left While others cry up that detestable indifferencie or neutrality abjured in our solemne Covenant in so much that a Gamaliel and b Gallio men who regarded alike the Iewish and the Christian Religion c are highly commended as examples for all Christians and as men walking by the rules not onely of Policy but of Reason and Religion Now let all those that are either against us or not with us doe what they can the right hand of the most High shall perfect the glorious begun Reformation Can all the world keep downe the Sunne of Righteousnesse from rising or being risen can they spread a vaile over it And though they digge deep to hide their counsels is not this a time of Gods over-reaching and befoolling all plotting wits they have conceived iniquity and they shall bâ—…ing forth vanity d they have sowne the wind and they shall reap the whirlewind Wherefore wee e will wait upon the Lord that hides his face from the house of Iacob and will look for him And f though he slay us yet will we trust in him g The Lord hath commanded to proclaime and to say to the daughter of Zion Behold thy salvation commeth h Rejoyce with Ierusalem all yee that mourn for her For i behold now is the accepted time behold now is the day of salvation But I have more to say Mourn O mourne withâ—…erusalem all yee that rejoyce for her k This day is a day of trouble and of rebuke and of blasphemy for the children are come to the birth and there is not strength to bring forth It is an interwoven time warped with mercies and woofted with judgements Say not thou in thine heart the dayes of my mourning are at an end Oh wee are to this day an unhumbled and an unprepared people and there are among us both many cursed Achans and many sleeping Jonahs but few wrestling Jacobs l even the wise Virgins are slumbring with the foolish Surely unlesse wee bee timely awaked and more deeply humbled m God will punish us yet seven times more for our sinnes and if he have chastised us with whips he will chastise us with Scorpions and he will yet give a further charge to the Sword n to avenge the quarrell of his Covenant In such a case I cannot say according to the now Oxford Divinity That Preces Lachrymae Prayers and Teares must be our only one shelter and fortresse and that wee must cast away defensive armes as unlawfull in any case whatsoever against the supreame Magistrate that is by interpretation they would have us doe no more then Pray to the end themselves may do no lesse then Prey Wherein they are contradicted not only by Pareus and by others that are eager for a Presbytery as a o Prelate of chiefe note hath lately taken I should say mistaken his marke but even by p those that are eager Royalists Pardon me that I give them not their right name I am sure when all is well reckoned we are better friends to royall authority then themselves Yet herein I doe agree with them that Prayers and Tears will prove our strongest weapons and the onely tela divina the weapons that fight for us from above q O then fear the Lord ye his Saints O r stirre up your selves to lay hold on him s Keep no silence and give him no rest till he establish and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth O that we could all t make Wells in our dry and desertlike hearts that we may u draw out water even buckets full to quench the wrath of a sin-revenging God the fire which still burneth against the Lords inheritance God grant that this Sermon be not as water spilt on the ground but may x drop as the raine and distill as the dew of heaven upon thy soule A SERMON PREACHED Before the Honourable House of COMMONS At the late solemne Fast March 27. 1644. EZEK. 43. 11. And if they be ashamed of all that they have done shew them the forme of the House and the fashion thereof and the goings out thereof and the commings in thereof and all the formes thereof and all the Ordinances thereof and all the formes thereof and all the lawes thereof and write it in their sight that they may keep the whole forme thereof and all the Ordinances thereof and doe them IT is not long since I did upon another day of humiliation lay open Englands disease from that Text 2 Chron. 20. 33. Howbeit the High Places were not taken away for as yet the people had not prepared their hearts unto the God of their Fathers Though a the Sunne of Righteousnesse be risen with healing in his wings yet the land is not healed no not of its worst disease which is corruption in Religion and the iniquity of your holy things I did then shew the symptomes and the cause of this evill disease The symptomes are your high Places not yet taken away many of your old superstitious ceremonies to this day remaining which though not so evill as the High-places of Idolatry in which Idollâ—… were worshipped yet are parallel to the High-places of Will worship of which we reade that the people thinking it too hard to be tied to goe up to Jerusalem with every sacrifice did b sacrifice still in the High places yet unto the Lord their God only pleading for their so doing antiquity custome and other defences of that kinde which have been alledged for your Ceremonies But albeit these be foule sports in the Churches face which offend the eyes of her glorious Bridegroome Jesus Christ yet that which doth lesse appeare is more dangerous and that is the cause of all this evill in the very bowells and heart of the Church the people of the land great and small have not as yet prepared their hearts unto the Lord their God mercy is prepared for the land but the land is not prepared for mercy I shall say no more of the disease at this instant But I
here arise I shall first explaine the particulars mentioned in this part of the Text so as they may agree to the spirituall Temple or Church of Christ which in the beginning I proved to be here intended First wee finde here the forme and fashion of a house in which the parts are very much diversified one from another there are in a formed and fashioned house doores windowes posts lintels c. There is also a multitude of common stones in the walls of the house Such a house is the visible ministeriall Church of Christ the parts whereof are partes dissimilares some Ministers and Rulers some eminent Lights others of the ordinary rank of Christians that make up the walls If God hath made one but a small pinning in the wall he hath reason to be content and must not say why am not I a post or a corner stone or a beame Neither yet may any corner stone despise the stones in the wall and say I have no need of you Secondly the Prophet was here to shew them the goings out of the house and the commings in thereof These are not the same but different gates it is plaine chap. 46. 9. When the people of the land shall come before the Lord in the solemne feasts hee that entreth in by the way of the north-gate to worship shall goe out by the way of the south-gate c. he shall not returne by the way of the gate whereby hee came in And that not only to teach us order and the avoiding of confusion occasioned by the contrary tides of a multitude but to tell us further that s no man having put his hand to the plough and looking back is fit for the kingdome of God Wee must not goe out of the Church the way that we came in that were a doore of defection but hold our faces forward till we go out by the doore of death Thirdly the Text hath twice all the formes thereof which I understand of the outward formes and of the inward formes which two I finde very much distinguished by those who have written of the forme and structure of the Temple The Church is exceedingly beautified even outwardly with the Ordinances of Christ but the inward formes are the most glorious t For behold the kingdome of God is within you and it commeth not with observation u The Kings daughter is all glorious within yet even her clothing is of wrought gold x When the Angel had made an end of measuring the inner house then hee brought forth Ezekiel by the east-gate which was the chiefe gate by which the people commonly entred and measured the utter wall in the last place Gods method is first to try the heart and reines then to give to a man according to his works Ier. 17. 10. So should we measure by the â—…eed of the Sanctuary first the inner house of our hearts and minds and then to measure our utter walls and to judge of our profession and externall performances Lastly the Prophet is commanded to write in their sight all the ordinances thereof and all the lawes thereof for the Church is a house not only in an Architectonick but in an Oeconomick sense It is Christs Family governed by his own Lawes and a y Temple which hath in it them that worship it hath the owne proper lawes of it by which it is ordered Aliae sunt leges Caesarum aliae Christi z saith Hierom Caesars lawes and Christs lawes are not the same but diverse one from another a Schoolmen say that a law properly so called is both illuminative and impulsive illuminative to informe and direct the judgement impulsive to move and apply the will to action And accordingly there are two names in this Text given to Christs lawes and institutions b one which importeth the instruction and information of our minds c another which signifieth a deep imprinting or engraving and that is made upon our hearts and affections such as a pen of iron and other instruments could make upon a stone It is not well when either of the two is wanting for the light of truth without the engraving of truth may bee extinguished and the engraving of truth without the light of truth may be obliterate All these I shall passe and only pitch upon two Doctrines which I shall draw from this second part of the Text One concerning the will of Gods commandement what God requireth of Israel to doe Another concerning the will of Gods decree what he hath purposed himselfe to doe The first is this God will have Israel to build and order his Temple not as shall seeme good in their eyes but according to his owne patterne only which he sets before them Which doth so evidently appeare from this very Text that it needeth no other proofe for what else meaneth the shewing of such a patterne to be kept and followed by his people Other passages of this kinde there are which doe more abundantly confirme it The Lord d did prescribe to Noah both the matter and fashion and measures of the Ark To Moses he gave a patterne of the Tabernacle of the Ark of the Mercy-seat of the Vaile of the Curtaines of the two Altars of the Table and all the furniture thereof of the Candlestick and all the instruments thereof c. And though Moses was the greatest Prophet that ever arose in Israel yet God would not leave any part of the work to Moses his arbitrement but straitly commandeth him e look that thou make them after their patterne which was shewed thee in the Mount When it came to the building of the first Temple Solomon was not in that left to his owne wisedome as great as it was but f David the man of God gave him a perfect patterne of all that he had by the Spirit The second Temple was also built g according to the commandement of the God of Israel by Haggai and Zachariah And for the New Testament Christ our great Prophet and only King and Law-giver of the Church hath revealed his will to the Apostles and they to us concerning all his holy things and we must hold us at these unleavened and unmixed ordinances which the Apostles from the Lord delivered to the Churches h I will put upon you saith he himselfe none other burthen but that which ye have already hold fast till I come I know the Church must observe rules of order and conveniency in the common circumstances of Times Places and Persons but these circumstances are none of our holy things they are only prudentiall accommodations which are alike common to all humane Societies both Civill and Ecclesiasticall wherein both are directed by the same light of nature the common rule to both in all things of that kinde providing alwayes that the generall rules of the Word bee observed i Doe all to the glory of God k