CERTAIN SERMONS OR HOMILIES Appointed to be Read in CHURCHES In the Time of Queen Elizabeth OF FAMOUS MEMORY And now Reprinted for the Use of Private Families In Two Parts LONDON Printed for George Wells at the Sun Abel Swall at the Unicorn in St. Paul's Church-yard and George Pawlett at the Bible in Chancery-Lane 1687. THE PREFACE As it was Published In the Year 1562. COnsidering how necessary it is that the Word of God which is the only food of the Soul and that most excellent Light that we must walk by in this our most dangerous Pilgrimage should at all convenient times be Preached unto the People that thereby they may both learn their Duty towards God their Prince and their Neighbours according to the Mind of the Holy Ghost expressed in the Scriptures And also to avoid the manifold Enormities which heretofore by false Doctrine have crept into the Church of God And how that all they which are appointed Ministers have not the Gift of Preaching sufficiently to instruct the People which is committed unto them whereof great inconveniences might rise and ignorance still be maintained if some honest Remedy be not speedily found and provided The Queens most Excellent Majesty tendering the Souls Health of Her Loving Subjects and the Quieting of their Consciences in the Chief and Principal Points of Christian Religion and willing also by the true setting forth and pure declaring of God's Word which is the principal Guide and Leader unto all Godliness and Virtue to expel and drive away as well corrupt vicious and ungodly Living as also Erroneous and poisoned Doctrines tending to Superstition and Idolatry Hath by the Advice of Her most Honourable Counsellors for her discharge in this behalf caused a Book of Homilies which heretofore was set forth by Her most Loving Brother a Prince of most worthy Memory Edward the Sixth to be Printed anew wherein are contained certain Wholsome and Godly Exhortations to move the People to Honour and Worship Almighty God and diligently to Serve Him every one according to their Degree State and Vocation All which Homilies Her Majesty Commandeth and straitly Chargeth all Parsons Vicars Curates and all others having Spiritual Cure every Sunday and Holiday in the Year at the ministring of the Holy Communion or if there be no Communion ministred that day yet after the Gospel and Creed in such order and place as is appointed in the Book of Common Prayers to Read and Declare to their Parishioners plainly and distinctly one of the said Homilies in such order as they stand in the Book except there be a Sermon according as is enjoyned in the Book of Her Highness Injunctions and then for that Cause only and for none other the Reading of the said Homily to be deferred unto the next Sunday or Holiday following And when the foresaid Book of Homilies is read over Her Majesties pleasure is that the same be repeated and read again in such like sort as was before prescribed Furthermore Her Highness Commandeth that notwithstanding this Order the said Ecclesiastical Persons shall read Her Majesties Injunctions at such times and in such order as in the Book thereof appointed And that the Lords Prayer The Articles of the Faith and the Ten Commandments be openly read unto the People as in the said Injunctions is specified that all Her People of what Degree or Condition soever they be may learn how to invocate and call upon the Name of God and know what Duty they owe both to God and Man So that they may Pray Believe and Work according to Knowledge while they shall live here and after this life be with him that with his Blood hath bought us all To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory for ever Amen AN ADMONITION TO ALL MINISTERS Ecclesiastical FOR that the Lord doth require of his Servant whom he hath set over his Houshold to shew both Faithfulness and Prudence in his Office it shall be necessary that Ye above all other do behave your Selves most faithfully and diligently in your so high a Function That is aptly plainly and distinctly to read the Sacred Scriptures diligently to instruct the Youth in their Catechism gravely and reverently to Minister his most Holy Sacraments prudently also to choose out such Homilies as be most meet for the time and for the more agreeable instruction of the People committed to your charge with such discretion that where the Homily may appear too long for one Reading to divide the fame to be read part in the Forenoon and part in the Afternoon And where it may so chance some one or other Chapter of the Old Testament to fall in order to be read upon the Sundays or Holidays which were better to be changed with some other of the New Testament of more edification it shall be well done to spend your time to consider well of such Chapters before-hand whereby your prudence and diligence in your Office may appear so that your People may have cause to Glorifie God for you and be the readier to embrace your Labours to your better commendation to the discharge of your Consciences and their own A TABLE OF THE SERMONS Contained in this present Volume I. A Fruitful Exhortation to the Reading of Holy Scripture Pag. 1. II. Of the Misery of all Mankind Pag. 10 III. Of the Salvation of all Mankind Pag. 19 IV. Of the true and lively Faith Pag. 32 V. Of Good Works Pag. 46 VI. Of Christian Love and Charity Pag. 61 VII Against Swearing and Perjury Pag. 69 VIII Of the Declining from God Pag. 78 IX An Exhortation against the Fear of Death Pag. 89 X. An Exhortation to Obedience Pag. 105 XI Against Whoredom and Adultery Pag. 119 XII Against Strife and Contention Pag. 137 XIII Of the right Use of the Church Pag. 159. XIV Against peril of Idolatry Pag. 175 XV. For repairing and keeping clean the Church Pag. 282 XVI Of Good Works And First of Fasting Pag. 289 XVII Against Gluttony and Drunkenness Pag. 309 XVIII Against excess of Apparel Pag. 322 XIX An Homily of Prayer Pag. 334 XX. Of the Place and Time of Prayer Pag. 356 XXI Of Common-Prayer and Sacraments Pag. 370 XXII An Information of them which take offence at certain places of Holy Scripture Pag. 385 XXIII Of Alms-Deeds Pag. 402 XXIV Of the Nativity Pag. 421 XXV Of the Passion for Good-Friday Pag. 434 and 435 XXVI Of the Resurrection for Easter-day Pag. 455 XXVII Of the worthy receiving of the Sacrament Pag. 467 XXVIII An Homily concerning the coming down of the Holy Ghost for Whitsunday Pag. 480 XXIX An Homily for Rogation-week Pag. 497 XXX Of the state of Matrimony Pag. 530 XXXI Against Idleness Pag. 540 XXXII Of Repentance and true Reconciliation unto God Pag. 556 XXXIII An Homily against Disobedience and wilful Rebellion Pag. 583 A Fruitful EXHORTATION TO THE Reading and Knowledge OF HOLY SCRIPTURE UNto a Christian Man there can be nothing either more necessary
and thereby most plainly to express the Weakness of Man and the Goodness of God the great infirmity of ourselves and the Might and Power of God the imperfection of our own Works and the most abundant Grace of our Saviour Christ and therefore wholly to ascribe the merit and deserving of our Justification unto Christ only and his most precious Blood shedding This Faith the Holy Scripture teacheth us The profit of the Doctrine of Faith only justifieth is the strong Rock and Foundation of Christian Religion this Doctrine all old and antient Authors of Christ's Church do approve this Doctrine advanceth and setteth forth the true Glory of Christ and beateth down the Vain-glory of Man this whosoever denieth is not to be accounted for a Christian Man nor for a setter forth of Christ's Glory but for an adversary to Christ and his Gospel and for a setter forth of Mens Vain-glory. What they be that impugn the Doctrine of Faith only justifieth And although this Doctrine be never so true as it is most true indeed that we be justified freely without all merit of our own good Works as St. Paul doth express it and freely by this lively and perfect Faith in Christ only as the ancient Authors use to speak it yet this true Doctrine must be also truly understood and most plainly declared lest carnal Men should take unjustly occasion thereby to live carnally after the Appetite and Will of the World the Flesh and the Devil A declaration of this Doctrine of Faith without Works justifieth And because no Man should err by mistaking of this Doctrine I shall plainly and shortly so declare the right understanding of the same that no Man shall justly think that he may thereby take any occasion of carnal liberty to follow the desires of the flesh or that thereby any kind of sin shall be committed or any ungodly living the more used First you shall understand that in our Justification by Christ it is not all one thing the Office of God unto Man and the Office of Man unto God Justification is not the Office of Man but of God for Man cannot make himself Righteous by his own Works neither in part nor in the whole for that were the greatest arrogancy and presumption of Man that Antichrist could set up against God to affirm that a Man might by his own Works take away and purge his own sins and so justifie himself But Justification is the Office of God only Justification is the Office of God only and is not a thing which we render unto him but which we receive of him Not which we give to him but which we take of him by his free Mercy and by the only Merits of his most dearly beloved Son our only Redeemer Saviour and Justifier Jesus Christ So that the true understanding of this Doctrine We be justified freely by Faith without Works or that we be justified by Faith in Christ only is not that this our own act to Believe in Christ or this our Faith in Christ which is within us doth justifie us and deserve our Justification unto us for that were to count our selves to be justified by some Act or Virtue that is within ourselves but the true understanding and meaning thereof is that although we hear God's Word and believe it although we have Faith Hope Charity Repentance Dread and Fear of God within us and do never so many Works thereunto Yet we must renounce the merit of all our said Virtues of Faith Hope Charity and all other Virtues and good Deeds which we either have done shall do or can do as things that be far too weak and insufficient and imperfect to deserve remission of our Sins and our Justification and therefore we must trust only in God's Mercy and that Sacrifice which our High Priest and Saviour Christ Jesus the Son of God once offered for us upon the Cross to obtain thereby God's Grace and Remission as well of our original Sin in Baptism as of all actual Sin committed by us after our Baptism if we truly repent and turn unfeignedly to him again So that as St. John Baptist although he were never so Virtuous and Godly a Man yet in this matter of forgiving of Sin he did put the People from him and appointed them unto Christ saying thus unto them Behold yonder is the Lamb of God John 1. which taketh away the sins of the World Even so as Great and as Godly a Virtue as the lively Faith is yet it putteth us from itself and remitteth or appointeth us unto Christ for to have only by him remission of our Sins or Justification So that our Faith in Christ as it were saith unto us thus It is not I that taketh away your Sins but it is Christ only and to him only I send you for that purpose forsaking therein all your good Virtues Words Thoughts and Works and only putting your Trust in Christ The Third Part of the Sermon of Salvation IT hath been manifestly declared unto you that no Man can fulfil the Law of God and therefore by the Law all Men are condemned Whereupon it followeth necessarily that some other thing should be required for our Salvation than the Law And that is a true and a lively Faith in Christ bringing forth good Works and a Life according to God's Commandments And also you heard the ancient Authors Minds of this Saying Faith in Christ only justifieth Man so plainly declared that you see that the very true meaning of this Proposition or Saying We be justified by Faith in Christ only according to the meaning of the old ancient Authors is this VVe put our Faith in Christ that we be Justified by him only that we be Justified by God's free Mercy and the Merits of our Saviour Christ only and by no Virtue or good Works of our own that is in us or that we can be able to have or to do for to deserve the same Christ himself only being the cause meritorious thereof Here you perceive many words to be used to avoid contention in Words with them that delight to brawl about Words and also to shew the true meaning to avoid evil taking and misunderstanding and yet peradventure all will not serve with them that be contentious But Contenders will ever forge matters of Contention even when they have none occasion thereto Notwithstanding such be the less to be passed upon so that the rest may profit which will be more desirous to know the Truth than when it is plain enough to contend about it and with contentious and captious Cavillation to obscure and darken it Truth it is that our Works do not justifie us to speak properly of our Justification that is to say our Works do not merit or deserve remission of our Sins and make us of Unjust Just before God But God of his own Mercy through the only Merits and Deservings of his Son Jesus Christ doth justifie us Nevertheless because
Christ to be the Son of God and through Faith obtain eternal life To conclude with the words of St Paul Rom. 10. which are these Christ is the end of the Law unto salvation for every one that doth believe By this then you may well perceive that the only mean and instrument of Salvation required of our parts is Faith that is to say a sure trust and confidence in the mercies of God whereby we perswade our selves that God both hath and will forgive our sins that he hath accepted us again into his favour that he hath released us from the bonds of damnation and received us again into the number of his elect People not for our merits or deserts but only and solely for the merits of Christs Death and Passion who became man for our sakes and humbled himself to sustain the reproach of the Cross that we thereby might be saved and made inheritors of the Kingdom of Heaven This Faith is required at our hands And this if we keep stedfastly at our hearts there is no doubt but we shall obtain Salvation at Gods hands as did Abraham Isaac and Jacob of whom the Scripture saith Gen. 15. Rom. 7. that they believed and it was imputed unto them for righteousness Was it imputed unto them only and shall it not be imputed unto us also Yes if we have the same Faith as they had it shall be as truly imputed unto us for righteousness as it was unto them For it is one Faith that must save both us and them even a sure and stedfast Faith in Christ Jesus who as ye have heard came into the World for this end that whosoever believe in him should not perish John 3. but have life everlasting But here we must take heed that we do not halt with God through an unconstant and wavering Faith but that it be strong and stedfast to our lives end He that wavereth saith St. James is like a wave of the Sea James 1. neither let that man think that he shall obtain any thing at Gods hands Peter coming to Christ upon the Water Mat. 14. because he fainted in Faith was in danger of drowning So we if we begin to waver or doubt it is to be feared lest we shall sink as Peter did not into the Water but into the bottomless Pit of Hell-fire Therefore I say unto you that we must apprehend the Merits of Christs death and Passion by Faith and that with a strong and stedfast Faith nothing doubting but that Christ by his own Oblation and once offering of himself upon the Cross hath taken away our sins and hath restored us again into Gods favour so fully and perfectly that no other sacrifice for sin shall hereafter be requisite or needful in all the World Thus have you heard in few words the mean whereby we must apply the fruits and merits of Christs death unto us so that it may work the Salvation of our Souls namely a sure stedfast perfect and grounded Faith Numb 21. John 3. For as all they which beheld stedfastly the Brasen Serpent were healed and delivered at the very sight thereof from their corporal diseases and bodily stings even so all they which behold Christ crucified with a true and lively Faith shall undoubtedly be delivered from the grievous wounds of the Soul be they never so deadly or many in number Therefore dearly beloved if we chance at any time through frailty of the flesh to fall into sin as it cannot be chosen but we must needs fall often and if we feel the heavy burden thereof to press our souls tormenting us with the fear of Death Hell and Damnation let us then use that mean which God hath appointed in his Word to wit the mean of Faith which is the only instrument of Salvation now left unto us Let us stedfastly behold Christ crucified with the eyes of our heart Let us only trust to be saved by his Death and Passion and to have our sins clean washed away through his most precious Blood that in the end of the World when he shall come again to judge both the quick and the dead he may receive us into his Heavenly Kingdom and place us in the number of his Elect and chosen People there to be partakers of that immortal and everlasting life which he hath purchased unto us by vertue of his bloody Wounds To him therefore with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory World without end Amen AN HOMILY OF THE Resurrection of our Saviour Jesus Christ For Easter-Day IF ever at any time the greatness or excellency of any matter Spiritual or Temporal hath stirred up your minds to give diligent ear good Christian People and well-beloved in our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ I doubt not but that I shall have you now at this present season most diligent and ready Hearers of the matter which I have at this time to open unto you For I come to declare that great and most comfortable Article of our Christian Religion and Faith the Resurrection of our Lord Jesus So great surely is the matter of this Article and of so great weight and importance that it was thought worthy to keep our said Saviour still on Earth forty days after he was risen from death to life to the confirmation and establishment thereof in the hearts of his Disciples So that as Luke clearly testifieth in the first Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles he was conversant with his Disciples by the space of forty days continually together to the intent he would in his person being now glorified teach and instruct them which should be the teachers of other fully and in most absolute and perfect-wise the truth of this most Christian Article which is the ground and foundation of our whole Religion before he would ascend up to his Father into the Heavens there to receive the glory of his most triumphant Conquest and Victory Assuredly so highly comfortable is this Article to our Consciences that it is even the very Lock and Key of all our Christian Religion and Faith 1 Cor. 15. If it were not true saith the Holy Apostle Paul that Christ rose again then our Preaching were in vain your Faith which you have received were but void ye were yet in the danger of your sins If Christ be not risen again saith the Apostle then are they in very ill case and utterly perished that be entred their sleep in Christ then are we the most miserable of all men which have our hope fixed in Christ if he be yet under the power of death and as yet not restored to his bliss again But now he is risen again from death saith the Apostle Paul to be the first-fruits of them that be asleep to the intent to raise them to everlasting life again Yea if it were not true that Christ is risen again then were it neither true that he is ascended up to Heaven nor that he
understood And concerning the hardness of Scripture he that is so weak that he is not able to brook strong Meat yet he may suck the sweet and tender Milk and defer the rest until he wax stronger and come to more knowledge For God receiveth the Learned and Unlearned and casteth away none but is indifferent unto all And the Scripture is full as well of low Valleys plain Ways and easie for every Man to use and to walk in As also of high Hills and Mountains which few Men can climb unto God leaveth no Man untaught that hath good Will to know his Word And whosoever giveth his Mind to Holy Scriptures with diligent Study and burning Desire it cannot be saith St. Chrysostome that he should be left without help For either God Almighty will send him some Godly Doctor to teach him as he did to instruct the Eunuch a Nobleman of Ethiope and Treasurer unto Queen Candace who having affecton to read the Scripture although he understood it not yet for the desire that he had unto God's Word God sent his Apostle Philip to declare unto him the true Sense of the Scripture that he read or else if we lack a learned Man to instruct and teach us yet God himself from above will give light unto our Minds and teach us those things which are necessary for us and wherein we be ignorant How the knowledge of the Scripture may be attained unto Matt. 7. A good rule for the understanding of Scripture And in another place St. Chrysostome saith that Man 's Human and Worldly Wisdom or Science is not needful to the understanding of Scripture but the revelation of the Holy Ghost who inspireth the true meaning unto them that with Humility and Diligence do search therefore He that asketh shall have and he that seeketh shall find and he that knocketh shall have the Door opened If we read once twice or thrice and understand not let us not cease so but still continue Reading Praying Asking of others and so by still knocking at the last the Door shall be opened as St. Augustin saith although many things in the Scripture be spoken in obscure mysteries yet there is nothing spoken under dark Mysteries in one place but the self-same thing in other places is spoken more familiarly and plainly to the capacity both of learned and unlearned No Man is excepted from the knowledge of God's Word And those things in the Scripture that be plain to understand and necessary for Salvation every Man's Duty is to Learn them to print them in Memory and effectually to Exercise them And as for the dark Mysteries to be contented to be ignorant in them until such time as it shall please God to open those things unto him In the mean season if he lack either aptness or opportunity God will not impute it to his folly But yet it behoveth not that such as be apt should set aside reading because some other be unapt to read Nevertheless for the hardness of such places the reading of the whole ought not to be set apart And briefly to conclude What persons would have Ignorance to continue as St. Augustine saith by the Scripture all Men be amended weak Men be strenthened and strong Men be comforted So that surely none be enemies to the reading of God's Word but such as either be so ignorant that they know not how wholsome a thing it is or else be so sick that they hate the most comfortable Medicine that should heal them Or so ungodly that they would wish the People still to continue in blindness and ignorance of God Thus we have briefly touched some part of the Commodities of God's Holy Word The Holy Scripture is one of God's chief Benefits which is one of God's chief and principal Benefits given and declared to Mankind here on Earth Let us thank God heartily for this his great and special Gift beneficial Favour and Fatherly Providence The right reading use and fruitful studying in Holy Scripture Psal 50. Let us be glad to receive this precious Gift of our Heavenly Father Let us Hear Read and Know these Holy Rules Injunctions and Statutes of our Christian Religion and upon that we have made profession to God at our Baptisme Let us with fear and reverence lay up in the chest of our Hearts these necessary and fruitful Lessons Let us night and day muse and have Meditation and Contemplation in them Let us ruminate and as it were chew the Cud that we have the sweet Juice spiritual Effect Marrow Honey Kernel Taste Comfort and Consolation of them Let us stay quiet and certify our Consciences with the most infallible Certainty Truth and perpetual assurance of them Let us pray to God the only Author of these Heavenly Studies that we may Speak Think Believe Live and Depart hence according to the wholesom Doctrine and Verities of them And by that means in this world we shall have God's Defence Favour and Grace with the unspeakable solace of peace and quietness of Conscience and after this miserable life we shall enjoy the endless Bliss and Glory of Heaven which he Grant us all that died for us all Jesus Christ to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory both now and everlastingly A SERMON OF THE Misery of Mankind and of his condemnation to Death everlasting by his own Sin THe Holy Ghost in Writing the Holy Scripture is in nothing more diligent than to pull down Man's Vain-glory and Pride which of all Vices is most universally grafted in all Mankind even from the first infection of our first Father Adam And therefore we read in many places of Scripture many notable Lessons against this old rooted Vice to teach us the most commendable virtue of Humility how to know ourselves and to remember what we be of ourselves In the Book of Genesis â—â—n 3. Almighty God giveth us all a Title and Name in our great Grandfather Adam which ought to warn us all to consider what we be whereof we be from whence we came and whither we shall saying thus In the sweat of thy Face shalt thou eat thy Bread till thou be turned again into the ground for out of it wast thou taken inasmuch as thou art Dust into Dust shalt thou be turned again Here as it were in a Glass we may learn to know ourselves to be but Ground Earth and Ashes and that to Earth and Ashes we shall return Also the Holy Patriarch Abraham did well remember this Name and Title Dust Earth and Ashes appointed and assigned by God to all Mankind and therefore he calleth himself by that Name when he maketh his earnest Prayer for Sodom and Gomorrah And we read that Judith Esther Job Jud. 4. 9. Job 13. Jer. 6. and 25. Jeremy with other Holy Men and Women in the Old Testament did use Sackcloth and to cast Dust and Ashes upon their Heads when they bewailed their sinful
unlawful and forbidden by the Commandment of God For such Swearing is nothing else but taking of God's Holy Name in vain And here is to be noted that lawful Swearing is not forbidden but commanded by Almighty God For we have examples of Christ and Godly Men in Holy Scripture that did Swear themselves and required Oaths of others likewise Deut. 6. and God's Commandment is Thou shalt dread thy Lord God and shalt swear by his Name And Almighty God by his Prophet David saith Psal 63. All Men shall be praised that swear by him Thus did our Saviour Christ Swear divers times saying Verily John 3. Verily And St. Paul Sweareth thus I call God to witness 2 Cor. 1. And Abraham waxing old required an Oath of his Servant Gen. 24. that he should procure a Wife for his Son Isaac which should come of his own kindred And the Servant did Swear that he would perform his Masters Will. Abraham also being required Gen. 21. did Swear unto Abimelech the King of Geraris that he should not hurt him nor his posterity and likewise did Abimelech Swear unto Abraham And David did Swear to be and continue a faithful Friend to Jonathan and Jonathan did Swear to become a faithful Friend unto David Also God once commanded that if a thing were laid to pledge to any Man or left with him to keep if the same thing were stoln or lost that the keeper thereof should be Sworn before Judges that he did not conveigh it away nor used any deceit in causing the same to be conveighed away by his consent or knowledge Heb. 6. And St. Paul saith That in all matters of controversie between two Persons whereas one saith Yea and the other Nay so as no due proof can be had of the Truth the end of every such Controversie must be an Oath ministred by a Judge And moreover God by the Prophet Jeremy saith Thou shalt swear the Lord liveth in truth Jer. 4. in judgment in righteousness So that whosoever Sweareth when he is required of a Judge let him be sure in his Conscience that his Oath have three Conditions and he shall never need to be afraid of Perjury First he that Sweareth may Swear truly that is What conditions an Oath ought to have he must setting apart all Favour and Affection to the Parties have the Truth only before his Eyes and for love thereof say and speak that which he knoweth to be Truth and no further The Second The Second is he that taketh an Oath must do it with judgment not rashly and unadvisedly but soberly considering what an Oath is The Third is The Third He that Sweareth must Swear in Righteousness That is for the very Zeal and Love which he beareth to the defence of Innocency to the maintenance of the Truth and of the Righteousness of the Matter or Cause all Profit Disprofit all Love and Favour unto the Person for Friendship or Kindred laid apart Thus an Oath if it have with it these three Conditions is a part of God's Glory Why we be willed in Scripture to Swear by the Name of God which we are bound by his Commandments to give unto him For he willeth that we shall Swear only by his Name not that he hath pleasure in Oaths but like as he commanded the Jews to offer Sacrifice unto him not for any delight that he had in them but to keep the Jews from committing Idolatry So he Commanding us to Swear by his Holy Name Isai 42. doth not teach its that he delighteth in Swearing but he thereby forbiddeth all Men to give his Glory to any Creature in Heaven Earth or Water Hitherto you see that Oaths lawful are Commanded of God used of Patriarchs and Prophets of Christ himself and of his Apostle Pauâ— Therefore Christian People must think lawful Oaths both Godly and necessary Commodities had by lawful Oaths made and observed For by lawful Promise and Covenants confirmed by Oaths Princes and their Countries are confirmed in common Tranquillity and Peace By Holy Promises with calling the name of God to witness we be made lively Members of Christ when we profess his Religion receiving the Sacrament of Baptism By like Holy Promise the Sacrament of Matrimony knitteth Man and Wife in perpetual Love that they desire not to be separated for any displeasure or adversity that shall after happen By lawful Oaths which Kings Princes Judges and Magistrates do Swear Common Laws are kept inviolate Justice is indifferently ministred harmless Persons Fatherless Children Widows and poor Men are defended from Murderers Oppressors and Thieves that they suffer no wrong nor take any harm By lawful Oaths mutual Society Amity and good Order is kept continually in all Communalties as Boroughs Cities Towns and Villages And by lawful Oaths Malefactors are searched out Wrong doers are punished and they which sustain wrong are restored to their right Therefore lawful Swearing cannot be evil which bringeth unto us so many Godly Vain Swearing is forbidden Good and necessary Commodities Wherefore when Christ so earnestly forbade Swearing it may not be understood as though he did forbid all manner of Oaths But he forbiddeth all vain-Swearing and forswearing both by God and by his Creatures as the common use of Swearing in Buying Selling and in our daily Communication to the intent every Christian Man's Word should be as well regarded in such matters as if he should confirm his Communication with an Oath For every Christian Man's Word saith St. Hierom should be so true that it should be regarded as an Oath And Chrysostome witnessing the same saith It is not convenient to Swear For what need we to Swear when it is not lawful for one of us to make a lye unto another Peradventure some will say An Object I am compelled to Swear or else Men that do commune with me or do buy and ell with me will not believe me An Answer To this answereth St. Chrysostome that he that thus saith sheweth himself to be an unjust and a deceitful Person For if he were a trusty Man and his Deeds taken to agree with his Words he should not need to Swear at all For he that useth Truth and Plainness in his bargaining and communication he shall have no need by such vain Swearing to bring himself in Credence with his Neighbours nor will his Neighbours mistrust his Sayings And if his Credence be so much lost indeed that he thinketh no Man will believe him without he swear then he may well think his Credence is clean gone For Truth it is as Theophylactus writeth that no Man is less trusted than he that useth much to Swear Eccles 33. And Almighty God by the Wise Man saith that Man which Sweareth much shall be full of Sin and the scourge of God shall not depart from his House But here some Men will say Another Objection An Answer for excusing of their many Oaths in their
Godliness of Life nor by the Testimony of the whole World And shortly after in the same Treatise saith Saint Jerome Bishop Epiphanius was ever of so great Veneration and Estimation that Valens the Emperor who was a great Persecutor did not once touch him For Hereticks being Princes thought it their shame if they should persecute such a notable Man And in the Tripartite Ecclesiastical History the Ninth Book and Forty Eighth Chapter is testified That Epiphanius being yet alive did work Miracles and that after his Death Devils Lib. 9. c. 48. being expelled at his Grave or Tomb did roar Thus you see what Authority Saint Jerome and that most ancient History give unto the Holy and Learned Bishop Epiphanius whose judgment of Images in Churches and Temples then beginning by stealth to creep in is worthy to be noted First he judged it contrary to Christian Religion and the Authority of the Scriptures to have any Images in Christs Church Secondly he rejected not only Carved Graven and Molten Images but also painted Images out of Christs Church Thirdly that he regarded not whether it were the Image of Christ or of any other Saint but being an Image would not suffer it in the Church Fourthly that he did not only remove it out of the Church but with a vehement zeal tare it in sunder and exhorted that a Corse should be wrapped and buried in it judging it meet for nothing but to rot in the Earth following herein the Example of the good King Ezechias who brake the brasen Serpent to pieces and burned it to Ashes for that Idolatry was committed to it Last of all that Epiphanius thinketh it the duty of Vigilant Bishops to be careful that no Images be permitted in the Church for that they be occasion of scruple and offence to the people committed to their charge Now whereas neither S. Jerome who did translate the same Epistle nor the Authors of that most ancient History Ecclesiastical Tripartite who do most highly commend Epiphanius as is aforesaid nor any other godly or learned Bishop at that time or shortly after have written any thing against Epiphanius his Judgment concerning Images It is an evident proof that in those days which were about four hundred years after our Saviour Christ there were no Images publickly used and received in the Church of Christ which was then much less corrupt and more pure than now it is And whereas Images began at that time secretly and by stealth to creep out of private Mens Houses into the Churches and that first in painted Cloths and Walls such Bishops as were godly and vigilant when they spyed them removed them away as unlawful and contrary to Christian Religion as did here Epiphanius to whose Judgment you have not only Saint Jerome the Translator of his Epistle and the Writer of the History Tripartite but also all the learned and godly Clerks yea and the whole Church of that Age and so upward to our Saviour Christs time by the space of about four hundred years consenting and agreeing This is written the more largely of Epiphanius for that our Image-maintainers now adays seeing themselves so pressed with this most plain and earnest act and writing of Epiphanius a Bishop and Doctor of such Antiquity and Authority labour by all means but in vain against the Truth either to prove that this Epistle was neither of Epiphanius's Writing nor Saint Jerome's Translation Either if it be say they it is of no great force For this Epiphanius say they was a Jew and being converted to the Christian Faith and made a Bishop retained the hatred which Jews have to Images still in his mind and so did and wrote against them as a Jew rather than as a Christian O Jewish Impudency and Malice of such Devisers it should be proved and not said only that Epiphanius was a Jew Furthermore concerning the reason they make I would admit it gladly For if Epiphanius his Judgment against Images is not to be admitted for that he was born of a Jew an Enemy to Images which be Gods Enemies converted to Christs Religion then likewise followeth it that no Sentence in the Old Doctors and Fathers sounding for Images ought to be of any Authority for that in the Primitive Church the most part of Learned Writers as Tertullian Cyprian Ambrose Austin and infinite others more were of Gentiles which be Favourers and Worshippers of Images converted to the Christian Faith and so let somwhat slip out of their Pens sounding for Images rather as Gentiles than Christians as Eusebius in his History Ecclesiastical and Saint Jerome saith plainly That Images came first from the Gentiles to us Christians And much more doth it follow that the opinion of all the Rablement of the Popish Church maintaining Images ought to be esteemed of small or no Authority for that it is no marvel that they which have from their Childhood been brought up amongst Images and Idols and have drunk in Idolatry almost with their Mothers Milk hold with Images and Idols and speak and write for them But indeed it would not be so much marked whether he were of a Jew or a Gentile converted unto Christ's Religion that writeth as how agreeable or contrary to Gods word he doth write and so to credit or discredit him Now what Gods word saith of Idols and Images and the Worshipping of them you heard at large in the First part of this Homily Saint Ambrose in his Treatise of the Death of Theodosius the Emperor saith Helene found the Cross and the Title on it She Worshipped the King and not the Wood surely for that is an Heathenish Errour and the Vanity of the wicked but she Worshipped him that hanged on the Cross and whose Name was Written in the Title and so forth See both the godly Empress her fact and Saint Ambrose's Judgment at once They thought it had been an Heathenish Errour and Vanity of the Wicked to have Worshipped the Cross itself which was embrued with our Saviour Christs own precious Blood And we fall down before every Cross piece of Timber which is but an Image of that Cross Saint Augustine the best Learned of all ancient Doctors in his Forty fourth Epistle to Maximus saith Know thou that none of the Dead nor any thing that is made of God is Worshipped as God of the Catholick Christians of whom there is a Church also in your Town Note that by Saint Augustine such as Worshipped the Dead or Creatures be not Catholick Christians The same Saint Augustine teacheth in the Twelfth Book of the City of God the Tenth Chapter That neither Temples or Churches ought to be builded or made for Martyrs or Saints but to God alone And that there ought no Priests to be appointed for Martyr or Saint but to God only The same Saint Augustine in his Book of The Manners of the Catholick Church hath these words I know that many be Worshippers of Tombs and Pictures I know that there be
of the West would not acknowledg for their Emperor for they had already created them another And so there became two Emperors And the Empire which was before one was divided into two Parts upon occasion of Idols and Images and the worshipping of them Even as the Kingdom of the Israelites was in old time for the like cause of Idolatry divided in King Rehoboham's time And so the Bishop of Rome having the Favour of Charles the Great by this means assured to him was wondrously enhanced in Power and Authority and did in all the West Church especially in Italy what he list where Images were set up garnished and worshipped of all sorts of Men But Images were not so fast set up and so much honoured in Italy and the West but Nicephorus Emperor of Constantinople and his Successors Scauratius the two Michaels Leo Or Staurtius Theophorus and other Emperors their Successors in the Empire of Greece continually pulled them down brake them burned them and destroyed them as fast And when Theodorus the Emperor would at the Council of Lyons have agreed with the Bishop of Rome and have set up Images He was by the Nobles of the Empire of Greece deprived and another chosen in his place and so rose a jealousie suspicion grudge hatred and enmity between the Christians and Empires of the East Countries and West which could never be quenched nor pacified So that when the Sarazens first and afterward the Turks invaded the Christians the one part of Christendom would not help the other By reason whereof at the last the Noble Empire of Greece and the City Imperial Constantinople was lost and is come into the hands of the Infidels who now have overrun almost all Christendom and possessing past the middle of Hungary which is part of the West Empire do hang over all our heads to the utter danger of all Christendom Thus we see what a sea of mischiefs the maintenance of Images hath brought with it what an horrible Schism between the East and the West Church what an hatred between one Christian and another Councils agaist Councils Church against Church Christians against Christians Princes against Princes Rebellions Treasons unnatural and most cruel Murders the Daughter digging up and burning her Father the Emperor's Body the Mother for love of Idols most abominably murthering of her own Son being an Emperor at the last the tearing in sunder of Christendom and the Empire into two pieces till the Infidels Sarazens and Turks common Enemies to both parts have most cruelly vanquished destroyed and subdued the one part the whole Empire of Greece Asia the less Thracia Macedonia Epirus and many other great and goodly Countries and Provinces and have won a great piece of the other Empire and put the whole in dreadful fear and most horrible danger For it is not without a just and great cause to be dreaded lest as the Empire of Rome was even for the like cause of Images and the worshipping of them torn in pieces and divided as was for Idolatry the Kingdom of Israel in old time divided so like punishment as for the like offence fell upon the Jews will also light upon us that is lest the cruel Tyrant and Enemy of our Commonwealth and Religion the Turk by God's just vengeance should likewise partly Murder and partly lead away into Captivity us Christians as did the Assyrian and Babylonian Kings Murder and lead away the Israelites and lest the Empire of Rome and Christian Religion be so utteâ—ly brought under foot as was then the Kingdom of Israel and true Religion of God whereunto the matter already as I have declared shrewdly inclineth on our part the greater part of Christendom within less than three hundred years space being brought into Captivity and most miserable thraldom under the Turk and the Noble Empire of Greece clean everted Whereas if the Christians divided by these Image matters had holden together no Infidels and Miscreants could thus have prevailed against Christendom And all this mischief and misery which we have hitherto fallen into do we owe to our mighty gods of Gold and Silver Stock and Stone in whose help and defence where they cannot help themselves we have trusted so long until our enemies the Infidels have overcome and overrun us almost altogether A just reward for those that have left the mighty living God the Lord of Hosts and have stooped and given the Honour due to him to dead blocks and stocks who have Eies and see not Feet and cannot go and so forth and are cursed of God and all they that make them and that put their trust in them Thus you understand well-beloved in our Saviour Christ by the judgment of the old Learned and Godly Doctors of the Church and by ancient Histories Ecclesiastical agreeing to the verity of God's Word alledged out of the Old Testament and the New that Images and Image-worshipping were in the Primitive Church which was most pure and uncorrupt abhorred and detested as abominable and contrary to true Christian Religion And that when Images began to creep into the Church they were not only spoken and written against by Godly and Learned Bishops Doctors and Clerks but also condemned by whole Councils of Bishops and learned Men assembled together yea the said Images by many Christian Emperors and Bishops were defaced broken and destroyed and that above seven hundred and eight hundred years ago and that therefore it is not of late days as some would bear you in hand that Images and Image-worshipping have been spoken and written against Finally you have heard what mischief and misery hath by the occasion of the said Images fallen upon whole Christendom besides the loss of infinite Souls which is most horrible of all Wherefore let us beseech God that we being warned by his Holy Word forbidding all Idolatry and by the Writing of old Godly Doctors and Ecclesiastical Histories written and preserved by God's Ordinance for our admonition and warning may flee from all Idolatry and so escape the horrible punishment and plagues as well worldly as everlasting threatned for the same which God our Heavenly Father Grant us for our only Saviour and Mediator Jesus Christ's sake Amen The Third Part of the Homily against Images and the worshipping of them containing the confutation of the principal Arguments which are used to be made for the maintenance of Images Which part may serve to instruct the Curates themselves or Men of good understanding NOw ye have heard how plainly how vehemently and that in many places the Word of God speaketh against not only Idolatry and worshipping of Images but also against Idols and Images themselves I mean always thus herein in that we be stirred and provoked by them to worship them and not as though they were simply forbidden by the New Testament without such occasion and danger And ye have heard likewise out of Histories Ecclesiastical the beginning proceeding and success of Idolatry by Images and the
People have of late years been plucked down and over-run and left waste with grievous and intolerable Tyranny and Cruelty of the Enemy of our Lord Christ the Great Turk who hath so universally scourged the Christians that never the like was heard or read of Above thirty years past the Great Turk had over-run conquered and brought into his Dominion and Subjection twenty Christian Kingdoms turning away the People from the Faith of Christ poisoning them with the devilish Religion of wicked Mahomet and either destroying their Churches utterly or filthily abusing them with their wicked and detestable Errors And now this Great Turk this bitter and sharp Scourge of Gods Vengeance is even at hand in this part of Christendom in Europe at the Borders of Italy at the Borders of Germany greedily gaping to devour us to over-run our Country to destroy our Churches also unless we repent our sinful life and resort more diligently to the Church to honour God to learn his blessed Will and to fulfil the same The Jews in their time provoked justly the vengeance of God for that partly they abused his Holy Temple with the detestable Idolatry of the Heathen and superstitious Vanities of their own Inventions contrary to Gods Commandment partly they resorted unto it as Hypocrites spotted imbrued and foulely defiled with all kind of wickedness and sinful life partly many of them passed little upon the Holy Temple and cared not whether they came thither or no. And have not the Christians of late days and even in our days also in like manner provoked the displeasure and indignation of Almighty God partly because they have profaned and defiled their Churches with Heathenish and Jewish abuses with Images and Idols with numbers of Altars too too superstitiously and intolerably abused with gross abusing and filthy corrupting of the Lords Holy Supper the blessed Sacrament of his Body and Blood with an infinite number of toys and trifles of their own devices to make a goodly outward shew and to deface the plain simple and sincere Religion of Christ Jesus partly they resort to the Church like Hypocrites full of all iniquity and sinful life having a vain and dangerous fansie and perswasion that if they come to the Church besprinkle them with Holy Water hear a Mass and be blessed with the Chalice though they understand not one word of the whole Service nor feel one motion of Repentance in their Hearts all is well all is sure Fie upon such mocking and blaspheming of Gods Holy Ordinance Churches were made for another purpose that is to resort thither and to serve God truly there to learn his blessed Will there to call upon his mighty Name there to use the Holy Sacraments there to travel how to be in Charity with thy Neighbour there to have thy poor and needy Neighbour in remembrance from thence to depart better and more godly than thou camest thither Finally Gods vengeance hath been and is daily provoked because much wicked People pass nothing to resort to the Church either for that they are so sore blinded that they understand nothing of God and godliness and care not with devilish example to offend their Neighbours or else for that they see the Church altogether scoured of such gay gazing sights as their gross phantasie was greatly delighted with because they see the false Religion abandoned and the true restored which seemeth an unsavoury thing to their unsavoury taste as may appear by this that a Woman said to her Neighbour Alas Gossip what shall we do at Church since all the Saints are taken away since all the goodly Sights we were wont to have are gone since we cannot hear the like piping singing chaunting and playing upon the Organs that we could before But Dearly Beloved we ought greatly to rejoyce and give God thanks that our Churches are delivered out of all those things which displeased God so sore and filthily defiled his Holy House and his Place of Prayer for the which he hath justly destroyed many Nations according to the saying of St. Paul 1 Cor. 3. If any man defile the Temple of God God will him destroy And this ought we greatly to praise God for that such Superstitious and Idolatrous manners as were utterly naught and defaced Gods glory are utterly abolished as they most justly deserved and yet those things that either God was honoured with or his People edified are decently retained and in our Churches comely practised But now forasmuch 〈◊〉 ye perceive it is Gods determinate pleasure ye should resort unto your Churches upon the day of Holy Rest seeing ye hear what displeasure God conceiveth what Plagues he poureth upon his disobedient People seeing ye understand what Blessings of God are given what Heavenly Commodities come to such People as desirously and zealously use to resort unto their Churches seeing also ye are now friendly bidden and joyntly called beware that ye slack not your Duty take heed that you suffer nothing to let you hereafter to come to the Church at such times as you are ordinarily appointed and commanded Our Saviour Christ telleth in a Parable that a great Supper was prepared Guests were bidden many excused themselves and would not come I tell you saith Christ none of them that were called shall taste of my Supper This great Supper is the true Religion of Almighty God wherewith he will be worshipped in the due receiving of his Sacraments and sincere preaching and hearing of his Holy Word and practising the same by godly conversation This Feast is now prepared in Gods Banqueting-House the Church you are thereunto called and joyntly bidden if you refuse to come and make your excuses the same will be answered to you that was unto them Now come therefore Dearly Beloved without delay and chearfully enter into Gods Feasting-house and become partakers of the Benefits provided and prepared for you But see that ye come thither with your Holy-day Garment not like Hypocrites not of a custom and for manners sake not with lothsomness as though ye had rather not come than come if ye were at your liberty For God hateth and punisheth such counterfeit Hypocrites as appeareth by Christs former Parable My Friend saith God how camest thou in without a Wedding-garment And therefore commanded his servants to bind him hand and foot and to cast him into utter darkness where shall be weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth To the intent that ye may avoid the like danger at Gods hand come to the Church on the Holy-day and come in your Holy-day Garment that is to say come with a chearful and a godly Mind come to seek Gods glory and to be thankful unto him come to be at one with thy Neighbour and to enter in Friendship and Charity with him Consider that all thy doings stink before the face of God if thou be not in Charity with thy Neighbour Come with an Heart sifted and cleansed from worldly and carnal affections and desires shake off all vain
his heart before he prayed and said And now O Lord do I bow the knees of my heart asking of thee part of thy merciful kindness When the Heart is thus prepared the voice uttered from the Heart is harmonious in the ears of God otherwise he regardeth it not to accept it But forasmuch as the Person that so bableth his words without sense in the presence of God sheweth himself not to regard the Majesty of him that he speaketh to He taketh him as a contemner of his Almighty Majesty and giveth â—im â—is Reward among Hypocrites which make an outward shew of Holiness but their hearts are full of abominable thoughts even in the time of their Prayers For it is the Heart that the Lord looketh upon 1 Reg. 16. as it is written in the History of Kings If we therefore will that our Prayers be not abominable before God let us so prepare our hearts before we pray and so understand the things that we ask when we pray that both our hearts and voices may together sound in the ears of Gods Majesty and then we shall not fail to receive at his hand the things that we ask as good men which have been before us did and so have from time to time received that which for their Souls health they did at any time desire De Catechiâ—â—ndis rudibus St. Augustine seemeth to bear in this matter For he saith thus of them which being brought up in Grammar and Rhetorick are converted to Christ and so must be instructed in Christian Religion Let them know also saith he that it is not the voice but the affection of the mind that cometh to the ears of God And so shall it come to pass that if haply they shall mark that some Bishops or Ministers in the Church do call upon God either with barbarous words or with words disordered or that they understand not or do disorderly divide the words that they pronounce they shall not laugh them to scorn Hitherto he seemeth to bear with Praying in an unknown Tongue But in the next sentence he openeth his mind thus Not for that these things ought not to be amended that the People may say Amen to that which they do plainly understand But yet these godly things must be born withal of these Catechists or Instructors of the Faith that they may learn that as in the Common Place where matters are pleaded the goodness of an Oration consisteth in sound so in the Church it consisteth in Devotion So that he alloweth not the praying in a Tongue not understood of him that prayeth But he instructeth the skilful Orator to bear with the rude Tongue of the devout simple Minister To conclude If the lack of understanding the words that are spoken in the Congregation do make them unfruitful to the Hearers how should not the same make the words read unfruitful to the Reader The merciful goodness of God grant us his grace to call upon him as we ought to do to his glory and our endless felicity which we shall do if we humble our selves in his sight and in all our Prayers both common and private have our minds fully fixed upon him Ecclus. 35. For the prayer of them that humble themselves shall pierce through the Clouds and till it draw nigh unto God it will not be answered and till the Most High do regard it it will not depart And the Lord will not be slack but he will deliver the Just and execute Judgment To him therefore be all Honour and Glory for ever and ever Amen AN INFORMATION For them which take Offence at certain places of the Holy Scripture The First Part. THE great utility and profit that Christian Men and Women may take if they will by hearing and reading the Holy Scriptures Dearly beloved no heart can sufficiently conceive much less is my tongue able with words to express Wherefore Satan our Enemy seeing the Scriptures to be the very mean and right way to bring the People to the true knowledge of God and that Christian Religion is greatly furthered by diligent hearing and reading of them he also perceiving what an hindrance and let they be to him and his Kingdom doth what he can to drive the reading of them out of Gods Church And for that end he hath always stirred up in one place or other cruel Tyrants sharp Persecutors and extream Enemies unto God and his Infallible Truth to pull with violence the Holy Bibles out of the Peoples hands and have most spitefully destroyed and consumed the same to Ashes in the Fire pretending most untruly that the much hearing and reading of Gods Word is an occasion of Heresie and carnal Liberty and the overthrow of all good Order in all well ordered Common-weals If to know God aright be an occasion of evil then we must needs grant that the hearing and reading of the Holy Scriptures is the cause of Heresie carnal Liberty and the subversion of all good Orders But the knowledge of God and of our selves is so far from being an occasion of evil that it is the readiest yea the only means to bridle carnal Liberty and to kill all our fleshly Affections And the ordinary way to attain this knowledge is with diligence to hear and read the Holy Scriptures For the whole Scriptures saith St. Paul were given by the inspiration of God 2 Tim. 3. And shall we Christian men think to learn the knowledge of God and of our selves in any earthly mans work or Writing sooner or better than in the Holy Scriptures written by the inspiration of the Holy Ghost The Scriptures were not brought unto us by the will of man but holy men of God as witnesseth St. Peter spake as they were moved by the holy spirit of God â— Pet. 1. The Holy Ghost is the School-master of Truth which leadeth his Scholars as our Saviour saith of him into all Truth John 16. And whoso is not led and taught by this School-master cannot but fall into deep Error how godly soever his pretence is what Knowledge and Learning soever he hath of all other Works and Writings or how fair soever a shew or face of truth he hath in the estimation and judgment of the World If some man will say I would have a true pattern and a perfect description of an upright life approved in the sight of God can we find think ye any better or any such again as Christ Jesus is and his Doctrine is whose vertuous conversation and godly life the Scripture so lively painteth and setteth forth before our Eyes that we beholding that Pattern might shape and frame our lives as nigh as may be agreeable to the perfection of the same 1 Cor. 11. 1 John 2. Follow you me saith St. Paul as I follow Christ And St. John in his Epistle saith Whoso abideth in Christ must walk even so as he hath walked before him And where shall we learn the order of Christs life but
c. 10. Num. 16. Ps 77. Some of the Children of Israel being Murmurers against their Magistrates appointed over them by God were stricken with foul Leprosie many were burnt up with Fire suddenly sent from the Lord sometime a great sort of thousands were consumed with the Pestilence sometime they were stinged to death with a strange kind of fiery Serpents and which is most horrible some of the Captains with their Band of Murmurers not dying by any usual or natural death of Men but the Earth opening they with their Wives Children and Families were swallowed quick down into Hell Num. 16. Which horrible destructions of such Israelites as were Murmurers against Moses appointed by God to be their Head and chief Magistrate Num. 16. are recorded in the Book of Numbers and other places of the Scriptures for perpetual memory and warning to all subjects how highly God is displeased with the murmuring and evil speaking of Subjects against their Princes so that as the Scripture recordeth Exod. 16. b. 7 c. Their murmur was not against their Prince only being a mortal Creature but against God himself also Now if such strange and horrible Plagues did fall upon such Subjects as did only murmur and speak evil against their Heads what shall become of those most wicked imps of the Devil that do conspire arm themselves assemble great numbers of Armed Rebels and lead them with them against their Prince and Country spoiling and robbing killing and murdering all good Subjects that do withstand them as many as they may prevail against But those Examples are written to stay us not only from such mischiefs but also from murmuring and speaking once an evil word against our Prince which though any should do never so secretly yet do the Holy Scriptures shew that the very Birds of the Air will bewray them and these so many Examples before noted out of the Holy Scriptures do declare That they shall not escape horrible punishment therefore Now concerning Actual Rebellion Eccl. 10. d. 2 King 15. c. 12. 17. a. 1 c. 11. 18. b. 7.18 Amongst many Examples thereof set forth in the Holy Scriptures the Example of Absalom is notable who entring into Conspiracy against King David his Father both used the advice of very witty Men and assembled a very great and huge company of Rebels the which Absalom though he were most goodly of Person of great Nobility being the Kings Son in great favor of the People and so dearly beloved of the King himself so much that he gave commandment that notwithstanding his Rebellion his life should be saved when for these considerations most Men were afraid to lay hands upon him 2 King 18. a. 5. a great Tree stretched out his Arm as it were for that purpose caught him by the great and long Bush of his goodly Hair lapping about it as he fled hastily bare-headed under the said Tree and so hanged him up by the Hair of his Head in the Air to give an eternal document that neither comliness of Personage 2 King 18. b. 9. neither Nobility nor favor of the People no nor the favor of the King himself can save a Rebel from due punishment God the King of all Kings being so offended with him that rather than he should lack due Execution for his Treason every Tree by the Way will be a Gallows or Gibbet unto him and the Hair of his own Head will be unto him instead of a Halter to hang him up with rather than he should lack one A fearful example of Gods punishment good People to consider Now Achitophel Achitophel though otherwise an exceeding wise Man yet the mischievous Counsellor of Absalom in this wicked Rebellion for lack of an Hangman a convenient Servitor for such a Traytor went and hanged up himself 2 King 15. c. 12. 16. d. 2. 23. 17. f. 23. 2 King 18. c. 7. 8 9. A worthy end of all false Rebels who rather than they should lack due execution will by Gods just Judgment become Hangmen unto themselves Thus hapned it to the Captains of that Rebellion beside forty thousand of rascal Rebels slain in the Field and in the Chase Likewise is it to be seen in the Holy Scriptures how that great Rebellion which the Traitor Seba moved in Israel 2 King 20. was suddenly appeased the head of the Captain Traitor by the means of a silly Woman being cut off And as the Holy Scripture doth shew so doth daily experience prove that the Counsels Conspiracies and attempts of Rebels never took effect neither came to good but to most horrible end For though God doth oftentimes prosper just and lawful Enemies Ps 20.12 which be no Subjects against their Foreign Enemies yet did he never long prosper Rebellious Subjects against their Prince were they never so great in Authority Gen. 14. or so many in number Five Princes or Kings for so the Scripture termeth them with all their multitudes could not prevail against Chedorlaomer unto whom they had promised Loyalty and Obedience and had continued in the same certain years but they were all overthrown and taken Prisoners by him but Abraham with his Family and Kinsfolks an handful of Men in respect owing no subjection unto Chedorlaomer overthrew him and all his Host in Battel and recovered the Prisoners and delivered them So that though War be so dreadful and cruel a thing as it is yet doth God often prosper a few in lawful Wars with Foreign Enemies against many thousands but never yet prospered he Subjects being Rebels against their natural Sovereign were they never so great or noble so many so stout so witty and politic but always they came by the overthrow and to a shameful end so much doth God abhor Rebellion more than other Wars though otherwise being so dreadful and so great a destruction to Mankind Though not only great multitudes of the rude and rascal Commons but sometime also Men of great Wit Nobility and Authority have moved Rebellions against their lawful Princes whereas true Nobility should most abhor such Villanous and true wisdom should most detest such frantic Rebellion though they should pretend sundry causes as the Redress of the Common-wealth which Rebellion of all other mischiefs doth most destroy or Reformation of Religion whereas Rebellion is most against all true Religion though they have made a great shew of holy meaning by beginning their Rebellions with a counterfeit Service of God 2 Reg. 15. c. 12. as did wicked Absalom begin his Rebellion with Sacrificing unto God though they display and bear about Ensigns and Banners which are acceptable unto the rude ignorant common people great multitudes of whom by such false pretences and shews they do deceive and draw unto them yet were the multitudes of the Rebels never so huge and great the Captains never so noble politic and witty the Pretences feigned to be never so good and holy yet the speedy
that the People that will not see with their Eyes nor hear with their Ears to learn and to understand with their Hearts cannot be converted and saved And the wicked themselves being damned in Hell shall confess ignorance in Gods Word to have brought them thereunto saying We have erred from the way of the truth and the light of Righteousness hath not shined unto us and the Sun of understanding hath not risen unto us Mat. 7. John 3. we have wearied our selves in the way of wickedness and perdition and have walked cumberous and crooked ways but the way of the Lord have we not known Mat. 11. b. 15. 13. a. 9. f. 3. Luke 8. a. 8. Joh. 5. f. 39. Ps 1. Mat. 7. b. 7. Luk. 11.9 Luke 16. g. 30.31 Gal. 1. b. 8. Deut. 5.32 Deut. 17. c. 14.15 c. Rom. 13. 1 Pet. 2. Psal 118. Psal 18. 118. Eph. 5.14 1 Thes 5. a. 4.5 John 12.35.36 Jam 1. c. 17. 1 Tim. 6. d. 16. John 3. And as well our Saviour himself as his Apostle St. Paul doth teach that the ignorance of Gods Word cometh of the Devil is the cause of all error and misjudging as falleth out with ignorant Subjects who can rather espy a little mote in the eye of the Prince or a Counsellor than a great Beam in their own and universally it is the cause of all evil and finally of eternal damnation Gods Judgment being severe towards those who when the light of Christs Gospel is come into the World do delight more in darkness of ignorance than in the light of knowledge in Gods Word For all are commanded to read or hear to search and study the holy Scriptures and are promised understanding to be given them from God if they so do all are charged not to believe either any dead Man nor if an Angel should speak from Heaven much less if the Pope do speak from Rome against or contrary to the Word of God from the which we may not decline neither to the right hand nor to the left In Gods Word Princes must learn how to obey God and to govern Men in Gods Word Subjects must learn Obedience both to God and their Princes Old Men and young rich and poor all Men and Women all Estates Sexes and Ages are taught their several Duties in the Word of God For the Word of God is bright giving light unto all Mens Eyes the shining Lamp directing all Mens Paths and Steps Let us therefore awake from the sleep and darkness of Ignorance and open our Eyes that we may see the light let us rise from the works of darkness that we may escape eternal darkness the due reward thereof and let us walk in the light of Gods Word whiles we have light as becometh the Children of light so directing the steps of our Lives in that way which leadeth to light and life everlasting that we may finally obtain and enjoy the same which God the Father of Lights who dwelleth in light incomprehensible and inaccessible grant unto us through the light of the World our Saviour Jesus Christ Unto whom with the Holy Ghost one most glorious God be all Honor Praise and Thanksgiving for ever and ever Amen Thus have you heard the Sixth Part of this Homily Now good People Let us pray The PRAYER as in that time it was Published O Most mighty God the Lord of Hosts the Governor of all Creatures the only giver of all Victories who alone art able to strengthen the Weak against the Mighty and to vanquish infinite multitudes of thine Enemies with the Countenance of a few of thy Servants calling upon thy Name and trusting in thee Defend O Lord thy Servant and our Governor under thee our Sovereign Lord the KING and all thy People committed to his charge O Lord withstand the cruelty of all those which be common Enemies as well to the truth of thy eternal Word as to their own natural Prince and Country and manifestly to this Crown and Realm of ENGLAND which thou hast of thy Divine Providence assigned in these our days to the Government of thy Servant our Sovereign and gracious KING O most merciful Father if it be thy holy Will make soft and tender the stony hearts of all those that exalt themselves against thy Truth and seek either to trouble the quiet of this Realm of ENGLAND or to oppress the Crown of the same and convert them to the knowledge of thy Son the only Saviour of the World Jesus Christ that we and they may joyntly glorifie thy Mercies Lighten we beseech thee their ignorant hearts to embrace the truth of thy Word or else so abate their cruelty O most mighty Lord that this our Christian Realm with others that confess thy holy GOSPEL may obtain by thine aid and strength surety from all Enemies without shedding of Christian Blood whereby all they which be oppressed with their Tyranny may be relieved and they which be in fear of their cruelty may be comforted And finally that all Christian Realms and especially this Realm of ENGLAND may by thy Defence and Protection continue in the truth of the Gospel and enjoy perfect Peace Quietness and Security and that we for these thy Mercies joyntly all together with one consonant heart and voice may thankfully render to thee all laud and praise that we knit in one godly concord and unity amongst our selves may continually magnifie thy glorious Name who with thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost art one Eternal Almighty and most merciful GOD. To whom be all laud and praise World without end Amen A THANKSGIVING for the Suppression of the last Rebellion O Heavenly and most merciful Father the defender of those that put their trust in thee the sure fortress of all them that flee to thee for succor who of thy most just Judgments for our Disobedience and Rebellion against thy holy Word and for our sinful and wicked living nothing answering to our holy profession whereby we have given an occasion that thy holy Name hath been blasphemed amongst the ignorant hast of late both sore abashed the whole Realm and People of England with the terror and danger of Rebellion thereby to awake us out of our dead sleep of careless security and hast yet by the miseries following the same Rebellion more sharply punished part of our Country-men and Christian-brethren who have more nearly felt the same and most dreadfully hast scourged some of the seditious Persons with terrible Executions justly inflicted for their disobedience unto thee and to thy Servant their Sovereign to the example of us all and to the warning correction and amendment of thy Servants of thine accustomed goodness turning always the wickedness of evil Men to the proof of them that fear thee who in thy Judgments remembring thy Mercy hast by thy assistance given the Victory to thy Servant our Queen her true Nobility and faithful Subjects with so little or rather no effusion of Christian Blood as also might have justly ensued to the exceeding comfort of all sorrowful Christian hearts and that of thy fatherly pity and merciful goodness only and even for thine own names sake without any our desert at all Wherefore we render unto thee most humble and hearty thanks for these thy great mercies shewed unto us who had deserved sharper punishment most humbly beseeching thee to grant unto all us that confess thy holy Name and profess the true and perfect Religion of thy holy Gospel thy heavenly Grace to shew our selves in our living according to our profession that we truly knowing thee in thy blessed Word may obediently walk in thy holy Commadments and that we being warned by this thy Fatherly correction do provoke thy just wrath against us no more but may enjoy the continuance of thy great mercies towards us thy right hand as in this so in all other Invasions Rebellions and dangers continually saving and defending our Church our Realm our Queen and People of England that all our Posterities ensuing confessing thy holy Name professing thy holy Gospel and leading an holy Life may perpetually praise and magnifie thee with thy only Son Jesus Christ our Saviour and the Holy Ghost To whom be all laud praise glory and Empire for ever and ever Amen FINIS
Neither had the Jews in their most blindness so many Pilgrimages unto Images nor used so much kneeling kissing and censing of them as hath been used in our time Sects and Religions amongst Christian Men. Sects and feigned Religions were neither the fortieth part so many among the Jews nor more superstitiously and ungodlily abused than of late days they have been among us Which Sects and Religions had so many hypocritical and feigned Works in their state of Religion as they arrogantly named it that their Lamps as they said ran always over able to satisfie not only for their own Sins but also for all other their Benefactors Brothers and Sisters of Religion as most ungodlily and craftily they had persuaded the multitude of ignorant People Keeping in divers places as it were Marts or Markets of Merits being full of their Holy Reliques Images Shrines and Works of overflowing abundance ready to be sold and all things which they had were called Holy Holy Cowls Holy Girdles Holy Pardons Beads Holy Shooes Holy Rules and all full of Holiness And what thing can be more foolish more superstitious or ungodly than that Men Women and Children should wear a Friers Coat to deliver them from Agues or Pestilence Or when they Dye or when they be Buried cause it to be cast upon them in hope thereby to be saved Which Superstition although Thanks be to God it hath been little used in this Realm yet in divers other Realms it hath been and yet is used among many both learned and unlearned But to pass over the innumerable Superstitiousness that hath been in strange Apparel in Silence in Dormitory in Cloister in Chapter in choice of meats and drinks and in such like things let us consider what enormities and abuses have been in the three chief principal points which they called the three Essentials or three chief Foundations of Religion that is to say Obedience Chastity and wilful Poverty First The three chief vows of Religion under pretence or colour of Obedience to their Father in Religion which Obedience they made themselves they were made free by their Rule and Canons from the Obedience of their natural Father and Mother and from the Obedience of Emperor and King and all temporal Power whom of very Duty by God's Laws they were bound to obey And so the profession of their Obedience not due was a forsaking of their due Obedience And how their profession of Chastity was kept it is more honesty to pass over in silence and let the World judge of that which is well known than with unchaste Words by expressing of their unchaste Life to offend Chaste and Godly Ears And as for their wilful Poverty it was such that when in Possessions Jewels Plate and Riches they were equal or above Merchants Gentlemen Barons Earls and Dukes Yet by this subtil sophistical term Proprium in commune that is to say Proper in common they mocked the World persuading that notwithstanding all their Possessions and Riches yet they kept their Vow and were in wilful Poverty But for all their Riches they might neither help Father or Mother nor other that were indeed very needy and poor without the Licence of their Father Abbot Prior or Warden and yet they might take of every Man but they might not give ought to any Man no not to them whom the Laws of God bound them to help And so through their Traditions and Rules the Laws of God could bear no rule with them And therefore of them might be most truly said that which Christ spake unto the Pharises Matth. 15. You break the Commandments of God by your Traditions You honour God with your lips but your hearts be far from him And the longer Prayers they used by day and by night under pretence or colour of such Holiness to get the favour of Widows and other simple folks that they might sing Trentals and Service for their Husbands and Friends and admit or receive them into their Prayers The more truly is verified of them the Saying of Christ Matth. 23. Wo be unto you Scribes and Pharises Hypocrites for you devour Widows houses under colour of long Prayers therefore your damnation shall be the greater Woe be to you Scribes and Pharises Hypocrites for you go about by Sea and by Land to make more Novices and new Brethren and when they be let in or received of your Sect you make them the children of Hell worse than yourselves be Honour be to God who did put light in the Heart of his faithful and true Minister of most famous Memory King Henry the 8th and gave him the knowledge of his Word and an earnest affection to seek his Glory and to put away all such Superstitions and Pharisaical Sects by Antichrist invented and set up against the true Word of God and Glory of his most Blessed Name as he gave the like Spirit unto the most Noble and Famous Princes Josaphat Josias and Ezechias God grant all us the King's Highness faithful and true Subjects to feed of the sweet and savory Bread of God's own Word and as Christ commanded to eschew all our Pharisaical and Papistical Leaven of Man's feigned Religion Which although it were before God most abominable and contrary to God's Commandments and Christ's pure Religion yet it was praised to be a most Godly life and highest state of perfection As though a Man might be more Godly and more perfect by keeping the Rules Other Devices and Superstitious Traditions and Professions of Men than by keeping the Holy Commandments of God And briefly to pass over the ungodly and counterfeit Religion let us rehearse some other kinds of Papistical Superstitions and Abuses as of Beads of Lady Psalters and Rosaries of fifteen Oes of St. Bernard's Verses of St. Agathe's Letters of Purgatory of Masses satisfactory of Stations and Jubilees of feigned Reliques of hallowed Beads Bells Bread Water Psalms Candles Fire and such other Of Superstitious Fastings of Fraternities or Brotherhoods of Pardons with such like Merchandise which were so esteemed and abused to the great prejudice of God's Glory and Commandments that they were made most High and most Holy things whereby to attain to the everlasting Life or remission of Sin Yea also vain Inventions unfruitful Ceremonies and ungodly Laws Decrees Decrees and Decretals and Councils of Rome were in such wise advanced that nothing was thought comparable in Authority Wisdom Learning and Godliness unto them So that the Laws of Rome as they said were to be received of all Men as the four Evangelists to the which all Laws of Princes must give place And the Laws of God also partly were left off and less esteemed that the said Laws Decrees and Councils with their Traditions and Ceremonies might be more duly kept and had in greater reverence Thus was the People through ignorance so blinded with the Godly shew and appearance of those things that they thought the keeping of them to be a more Holiness
meant in any condition of the pretenced or coloured Power of the Bishop of Rome For truly the Scripture of God alloweth no such Usurped Power full of Enormities Abusions and Blasphemies But the true meaning of these and such places be to extol and set forth God's true Ordinance and the Authority of God's Anointed Kings and of their Officers appointed under them And concerning the Usurped Power of the Bishop of Rome which he most wrongfully challengeth as the successor of Christ and Peter We may easily perceive how false feigned and forged it is not only in that it hath no sufficient ground in Holy Scripture but also by the Fruits and Doctrine thereof For our Saviour Christ and St. Peter teach most earnestly and agreeably Obedience to Kings as to the chief and Supreme Rulers in this world next under God But the Bishop of Rome teacheth that they that are under him are free from all burdens and charges of the Commonwealth and Obedience toward their Prince most clearly against Christ's Doctrine and St. Peters He ought therefore rather to be called Antichrist and the Successor of the Scribes and Pharises than Christ's Vicar and St. Peter's Successor Seeing that not only in this point but also in other weighty matters of Christian Religion in matters of Remission and Forgiveness of Sins and of Salvation he teacheth so directly against both St. Peter and against our Saviour Christ who not only taught Obedience to Kings but also practised Obedience in their Conversation and Living For we read that they both paid Tribute to the King And also we read that the Holy Virgin Mary Matth. 17. Mother to our Saviour Christ and Joseph who was taken for his Father at the Emperor's Commandment went to the City of David Luke 2. named Bethlehem to be taxed among other and to declare their Obedience to the Magistrates for God's Ordinances sake And here let us not forget the blessed Virgin Maries Obedience For although she was highly in God's Favour and and Christs natural Mother and was also great with Child at the same time and so nigh her Travail that she was delivered in her journey yet she gladly without any excuse or grudging for Conscience sake did take that cold and foul Winter journey being in the mean season so poor that she lay in a Stable and there she was Delivered of Christ And according to the same Lo how St. Peter agreeth writing by express words in his first Epistle 1 Pet. 2. Submit your selves and be Subject saith he unto Kings as unto the chief heads and unto rulers as unto them that are sent of him for the punishment of evil-doors and for the praise of them that do well for so is the will of God I need not to expound these words they be so plain of themselves St. Peter doth not say Submit your selves unto me as Supreme Head of the Church Neither saith he Submit your selves from time to time to my Successors in Rome But he saith Submit your selves unto your King your Supreme Head and unto those that he appointeth in Authority under him for that you shall so shew your Obedience it is the Will of God God will that you be in subjection to your Head and King This is God's Ordinance God's Commandment and God's Will that the whole Body of every Realm and all the Members and Parts of the same shall be subject to their Head their King and that as St. Peter writeth for the Lords sake 1 Pet. 2. Rom. 13. Matth. 22. And as St. Paul writeth for conscience sake and not for fear only Thus we learn by the word of God to yield to our King that is due to our King That is Honour Obedience payments of due Taxes Customs Tributes Subsidies Love and Fear Rom. 13. Thus we know partly our bounden Duties to common Authority now let us learn to accomplish the same And let us most instantly and heartily pray to God the only Author of all Authority for all them that be in Authority according as St. Paul willeth writing thus to Timothy in his first Epistle 1 Tim. 2. I exhort therefore that above all things Prayers Supplications Intercessions and giving of Thanks be done for all Men for Kings and for all that be in Authority that we may live a quiet and a peaceable life with all godliness and Honesty For that is good and accepted or allowable in the sight of God our Saviour Here St. Paul maketh an earnest and an especial Exhortation concerning Giving of Thanks and Prayer for Kings and Rulers saying Above all things as he might say in any wise principally and chiefly let prayer be made for Kings Let us heartily thank God for his great and excellent Benefit and Providence concerning the state of Kings Let us pray for them that they may have God's Favour and God's Protection Let us pray that they may ever in all things have God before their Eyes Let us pray that they may have Wisdom Strength Justice Clemency and Zeal to God's Glory to God's Verity to Christian Souls and to the Commonwealth Let us pray that they may rightly use their Sword and Authority for the maintenance and defence of the Catholick Faith contained in Holy Scripture and of their good and honest Subjects for the fear and punishment of the evil and vicious People Let us pray that they may most faithfully follow the Kings and Captains in the Bible David Ezekias Josias and Moses with such other And let us pray for ourselves that we may live Godlily in Holy and Christian Conversation So shall we have God on our side and then let us not fear what Man can do against us So we shall live in true Obedience both to our most merciful King in Heaven and to our most Christian King on Earth So shall we please God and have the exceeding Benefit peace of Conscience rest and quietness here in this World and after this life we shall enjoy a better Life Rest Peace and the everlasting Bliss of Heaven which he grant us all that was obedient for us all even to the death of the Cross Jesus Christ To whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honour and Glory both now and ever Amen A SERMON Against Whoredom and Vncleanness ALthough there want not good Christian People great swarms of Vices worthy to be rebuked unto such decay is true Godliness and Virtuous living now come Yet above other Vices the outragious Seas of Adultery or breaking of Wedlock Whoredom Fornication and Uncleanness have not only burst in but also overflowed almost the whole World unto the great dishonour of God the exceeding Infamy of the Name of Christ the notable decay of true Religion and the utter destruction of the publick Wealth and that so abundantly that through the customable use thereof this Vice is grown unto such an height that in a manner among many it is counted no sin at all but rather a pastime a
than one dumb Idol or Image standing by itself But from learning by painted Stories it came by little and little to Idolatry Which when godly Men as well Emperors and learned Bishops as others perceived they commanded that such Pictures Images or Idols should be used no more And I will for a Declaration thereof begin with the Decree of the ancient Christian Emperors Valens and Theodosius the second who reigned about four hundred years after our Saviour Christ's Ascension who forbad that any Images should be made or painted privately For certain it is that there were none in Temples publickly in their time These Emperors did write unto the Captain of the Army attending on the Emperors after this sort Valens and Theodosius Emperors unto the Captain of the Army Whereas we have a diligent care to maintain the Religion of God above in all things we will grant to no Man to set forth grave carve or paint the Image of our Saviour Christ in Colours Stone or any other matter but in what place soever it shall be found we command that it be taken away and that all such as shall attempt any thing contrary to our Decrees or Commandments herein shall be most sharply punished This Decree is written in the Books named Libri Augustales the Imperial Books gathered by Tribonianus Basilides Theophilus Dioscorus and Satira Men of great Authority and Learning at the Commandment of the Emperor Justinian and is alledged by Petrus Crinitus a notable learned Man in the Ninth Book and Ninth Chapter of his Work intituled De honesta Disciplina that is to say Of honest Learning Here you see what Christian Princes of most ancient times decreed against Images which then began to creep in amongst the Christians For it is certain that by the space of three hundred years and more after the death of our Saviour Christ and before these godly Emperors reigned there were no Images publickly in Churches or Temples How would the Idolaters glory if they had so much Antiquity and Authority for them as is here against them Now shortly after these days the Goths Vandals Huns and other barbarous and wicked Nations burst into Italy and all parts of the West Countries of Europe with huge and mighty Armies spoiled all places destroyed Cities and burned Libraries so that Learning and true Religion went to wrack and decayed incredibly And so the Bishops of those later days being of less Learning and in the midst of the Wars taking less heed also than did the Bishops afore by ignorance of Gods Word and negligence of Bishops and especially barbarous Princes not rightly instructed in true Religion bearing the Rule Images came into the Church of Christ in the said West parts where these barbarous People ruled not now in painted Cloth only but embossed in Stone Timber Metal and other like matter and were not only set up but began to be worshipped also And therefore Serenus Bishop of Massile the head Town of Gallia Narbonensis now called the Province a godly and learned Man who was about six hundred years after our Saviour Christ seeing the People by occasion of Images fall to most abominable Idolatry brake to pieces all the Images of Christ and Saints which were in that City and was therefore complained upon to Gregory the first of that Name Bishop of Rome who was the first learned Bishop that did allow the open having of Images in Churches that can be known by any Writing or History of Antiquity And upon this Gregory do all Image-worshippers at this day ground their Defence But as all things that be amiss have from a tolerable beginning grown worse and worse till they at the last became intolerable So did this matter of Images First Men used privately Stories painted in Tables Cloths and Walls Afterwards gross and embossed Images privately in their own Houses Then afterwards Pictures first and after them embossed Images began to creep into Churches learned and godly Men ever speaking against them Then by use it was openly maintained That they might be in Churches but yet forbidden that they should be worshipped Of which Opinion was Gregory as by the said Gregory's Epistle to the forenamed Serenus Bishop of Massile plainly appeareth Which Epistle is to be found in the Book of Epistles of Gregory or Register in the tenth part of the fourth Epistle where he hath these words That thou didst forbid Images to be worshipped we praise altogether but that thou didst break them we blame For it is one thing to worship the Picture and another thing by the Picture of the Story to learn what is to be worshipped For that which Scripture is to them that read the same doth Picture perform unto Idiots or the unlearned beholding and so forth And after a few words Therefore it should not have been broken which was set up not to be worshipped in Churches but only to instruct the Minds of the ignorant And a little after Thus thou shouldst have said If you will have Images in the Church for that instruction wherefore they were made in old time I do permit that they may be made and that you may have them and shew them that not the sight of the Story which is opened by the Picture but that worshipping which was inconveniently given to the Pictures did mislike you And if any would make Images not to forbid them but avoid by all means to worship any Image By these Sentences taken here and there out of Gregory's Epistle to Serenus for it were too long to rehearse the whole ye may understand whereunto the matter was now come six hundred years after Christ That the having of Images or Pictures in the Churches were then maintained in the West part of the World for they were not so forward yet in the East Church but the worshipping of them was utterly forbidden And you may withal note That seeing there is no ground for worshipping of Images in Gregory's Writing but a plain condemnation thereof that such as do worship Images do unjustly alledge Gregory for them And further if Images in the Church do not teach Men according to Gregory's Mind but rather blind them It followeth that Images should not be in the Church by his sentence who only would they should be placed there to the end that they might teach the ignorant Wherefore if it be declared that Images have been and be worshipped and also that they teach nothing but Errours and Lyes which shall by God's Grace hereafter be done I trust that then by Gregory's own Determination all Images and Image-worshippers shall be overthrown But in the mean season Gregory's Authority was so great in all the West-Church that by his Incouragement Men set up Images in all places But their Judgment was not so good to consider why he would have them set up but they fell all on heaps to manifest Idolatry by worshipping of them which Bishop Serenus not without just cause feared would come to pass Now if
Serenus his Judgment thinking it meet that Images whereunto Idolatry was committed should be destroyed had taken place Idolatry had been overthrown For to that which is not no Man committeth Idolatry But of Gregory's Opinion thinking that Images might be suffered in Churches so it were taught that they should not be worshipped What ruine of Religion and what mischief ensued afterward to all Christendom Experience hath to our great hurt and sorrow proved First By the Schism rising between the East and the West Church about the said Images Next By the Division of the Empire into two parts by the same occasion of Images to the great weakening of all Christendom whereby last of all hath followed the utter overthrow of the Christian Religion and Noble Empire in Greece and all the East parts of the World and the increase of Mahomet's false Religion and the cruel Dominion and Tyranny of the Saracens and Turks who do now hang over our Necks also that dwell in the West parts of the World ready at all occasions to over-run us And all this do we owe unto our Idols and Images and our Idolatry in worshipping of them Eutrop. lib. de rebus Ro. 23. But now give you ear a little to the process of the History wherein I do much follow the Histories of Paulus Diaconus and others joyned with Eutropius an old Writer For though some of the Authors were Favourers of Images yet do they most plainly and at large prosecute the Histories of those times Platina in vitis Constantini Greg. 2. whom Baptist Platina also in his History of Popes as in the Lives of Constantine and Gregory the second Bishops of Rome and other places where he treateth of this matter doth chiefly follow After Gregory's time Constantine Bishop of Rome assembled a Council of Bishops in the West Church and did condemn Philippicus then Emperor and John Bishop of Constantinople of the Heresie of the Monothelites not without a cause indeed but very justly When he had so done by the consent of the learned about him the said Constantine Bishop of Rome caused the Images of the ancient Fathers which had been at those six Councils which were allowed and received of all Men to be painted in the entry of Saint Peter's Church at Rome When the Greeks had knowledge hereof they began to dispute and reason the matter of Images with the Latins and held this Opinion That Images could have no place in Christs Church and the Latins held the contrary and took part with the Images So the East and West Churches which agreed well before upon this contention about Images fell to utter enmity which was never well reconciled yet But in the mean season Philippicus and Arthemius or Anastasius Emperors commanded Images and Pictures to be pulled down and rased out in every place of their Dominion After them came Theodosius the Third he commanded the defaced Images to be painted again in their places But this Theodosius reigned but one year Leo the third of that Name succeeded him who was a Syrian born a very wise godly merciful and valiant Prince This Leo by Proclamation commanded That all Images set up in Churches to be worshipped should be plucked down and defaced And required specially the Bishop of Rome that he should do the same and himself in the mean season caused all Images that were in the Imperial City Constantinople to be gathered on an heap in the midst of the City and there publickly burned them to ashes and whited over and rased out all Pictures painted upon the Walls of the Temples and punished sharply divers maintainers of Images And when some did therefore report him to be a Tyrant he answered That such of all other were most justly punished who neither Worshipped God aright nor regarded the Imperial Majesty and Authority but maliciously rebelled against wholsom and profitable Laws When Gregorius the Third of that Name Bishop of Rome heard of the Emperors doings in Greece concerning the Images he assembled a Council of Italian Bishops against him and there made Decrees for Images and that more Reverence and Honour should yet be given to them than was before and stirred up the Italians against the Emperor first at Ravenna and moved them to Rebellion Treason and Rebellion for the defence of Images And as Vspurgensis and Anthonius Bishops of Florence testifie in their Chronicles he caused Rome and all Italy at the least to refuse Obedience and the payment of any more Tribute to the Emperor And so by Treason and Rebellion maintained their Idolatry Which Example other Bishops of Rome have continually followed and gone through withal most stoutly After this Leo who Reigned Thirty four years succeeded his Son Constantine the Fifth who after his Fathers example kept Images out of the Temples and being moved with the Council which Gregory had assembled in Italy for Images against his Father He also assembled a Council of all the Learned Men and Bishops of Asia and Greece although some Writers place this Council in Leo Isauricus A Council against Images his Fathers later days In this great Assembly they sate in Council from the Fourth of the Idus of February to the sixth of the Idus of August and made concerning the use of Images this Decree It is not lawful for them that believe in God through Jesus Christ to have any Images neither of the Creator nor of any Creatures set up in Temples to be Worshipped but rather that all things by the Law of God and for the avoiding of Offence ought to be taken out of the Churches And this Decree was executed in all places where any Images were found in Asia or Greece And the Emperor sent the Determination of this Council holden at Constantinople to Paul then Bishop of Rome and commanded him to cast all Images out of the Churches Which he trusting in the Friendship of Pipine a Mighty Prince refused to do And both he and his Successor Stephanus the Third who assembled another Council in Italy for Images condemned the Emperor and the Council of Constantinople of Heresie and made a Decree That the Holy Images for so they called them of Christ the Blessed Virgin and other Saints were indeed worthy Honour and Worshipping When Constantine was dead Leo the Fourth his Son Reigned after him who Married a Woman of the City of Athens named Theodora who also was called Irene Or Eirene by whom he had a Son named Constantine the Sixth and dying whilst his Son was yet young left the Regiment of the Empire and Governance of his young Son to his Wife Irene These things were done in the Church about the year of our Lord 760. Note here I pray you in this process of the Story that in the Churches of Asia and Greece there were no Images publickly by the space of almost Seven Hundred years And there is no doubt but the Primitive Church next the Apostles time was most pure Note also
one into the Heresie of the Anthropomorphites thinking God to have Hands and Feet and to sit as a Man doth which they that do saith St. Augustine in his Book De fide symbolo cap. 7. fall into that Sacriledge which the Apostle detesteth in those who have changed the Glory of the incorruptible God into the similitude of a corruptible Man For it is wickedness for a Christian to erect such an Image to God in a Temple and much more wickedness to erect such an one in his Heart by believing of it But to this they reply that this reason notwithstanding Images of Christ may be made for that he took upon him flesh and became Man It were well that they would first grant that they have hitherto done most wickedly in making and maintaining of Images of God and of the Trinity in every place whereof they are by force of God's Word and good Reason convicted and then to descend to the Tryal for other Images Now concerning their Objection that an Image of Christ may be made the Answer is easie For in God's Word and Religion it is not only required whether a thing may be done or no But also whether it be lawful and agreeable to God's Word to be done or no. For all wickedness may be and is daily done which yet ought not to be done And the words of the reasons above alledged out of the Scriptures are that Images neither ought nor can be made unto God Wherfore to reply that Images of Christ may be made except withal it be proved that it is lawful for them to be made is rather than to hold ones peace to say somewhat but nothing to the purpose And yet it appeareth that no Image can be made of Christ but a lying Image as the Scripture peculiarly calleth Images lies for Christ is God and Man Seeing therefore Rom. 1. that for the Godhead which is the most excellent part no Images can be made it is falsly called the Image of Christ Wherefore Images of Christ be not only defects but also lies Which reason serveth also for the Images of Saints whose Souls the most excellent parts of them can by no Images be presented and expressed Wherefore they be no Images of Saints whose Souls reign in joy with God but of the Bodies of Saints which as yet lie putrefied in the Graves Furthermore no true Image can be made of Christ's Body for it is unknown now of what Form and Countenance he was And there be in Greece and at Rome and in other places divers Images of Christ and none of them like to other and yet every of them affirmeth that theirs is the true and lively Image of Christ which cannot possibly be Wherefore as soon as an Image of Christ is made by and by is a Lye made of him which by God's Word is forbidden Which also is true of the Images of any Saints of Antiquity for that it is unknown of what Form and Countenance they were Wherefore seeing that Religion ought to be grounded upon Truth Images which cannot be without Lies ought not to be made or put to any use of Religion or to be placed in Churches and Temples places peculiarly appointed to true Religion and Service of God And thus much that no true Image of God our Saviour Christ or his Saints can be made Wherewithal is also confuted that their allegation that Images be the Lay-mens Books For it is evident by that which is afore-rehearsed that they teach no things of God of our Saviour Christ and of his Saints but Lies and Errors Wherefore either they be no Books or if they be they be false and lying Books the teachers of all Error And now if it should be admitted and granted that an Image of Christ could truly be made yet it is unlawful that it should be made yea or that tho Image of any Saint should be made specially to be set up in Temples to the great and unavoidable danger of Idolatry as hereafter shall be proved And first concerning the Image of Christ that though it might be had truly yet it were unlawful to have it in Churches publickly it is a notable place in Irenaeus Lib. 1. c. 24. who reproved the Hereticks called Gnostici for that they carried about the Image of Christ made truly after his own proportion in Pilate's time as they said and therefore more to be esteemed than those lying Images of him which we now have The which Gnostici also used to set Garlands upon the Head of the said Image to shew their affection to it But to go to Gods word Be not I pray you the words of the Scriptures plain Beware lest thou being deceived Levit. 26. Deut. 5. Sculptile Fusile Similitudo Deut. 27. make to thy self to say to any use of Religion any graven Image or any Similitude of any thing c. And Cursed be the Man that maketh a Graven or Molten Image abomination before the Lord c. Be not our Images such Be not our Images of Christ and his Saints either Carved or Molten or Cast or Similitudes of Men and Women It is happy that we have not followed the Gentiles in making of Images of Beasts Fishes and Vermines also Notwithstanding the Image of an Horse as also the Image of the Ass that Christ rode on have in divers places been brought into the Church and Temple of God And is not that which is written in the beginning of the Lords most Holy Law and daily read unto you most evident also Thou shalt not make any likeness of any thing in Heaven above in Earth beneath or in the Water under the Earth c. Could any more be forbidden and said than this Either of the kinds of Images which be either Carved Molten or otherwise Similitudes Or of things whereof Images are forbidden to be made Are not all things either in Heaven Earth or Water under the Earth Exod. 20. And be not our Images of Christ and his Saints likenesses of things in Heaven Earth or in the Water If they continue in their former answer that thâ—â—â— prohibitions concern the Idols of the Gentiles and not ouâ— Images First that answer is already confuted concerning the Images of God and the Trinity at large and concerning the Images of Christ also by Irenaeus And that the Law of God is likewise to be understood against all our Images as well of Christ as his Saints in Temples and Churches appeareth further by the Judgment of the old Doctors and Primitive Church Epiphanius's renting a painted Cloth wherein was the Picture of Christ or of some Saint affirming it to be against our Religion that any such Image should be had in the Temple or Church as is before at large declared judged that not only Idols of the Gentiles but that all Images of Christ and his Saints also were forbidden by Gods Word and our Religion Lactantius affirming it to be certain that no true Religion can
possible as both reason and experience teacheth Wherefore Preaching cannot stay Idolaâ—ry Images being publickly suffered For an â—maâ—e which will last for many hundred years may for a little be bought but a good Preacher cannot without much be continually maintained 〈◊〉 if the Prince will suffer it there will be by and by many yea infinite Images but sincere Preachâ—rs were and ever shall be but a few in respect of the multitude to be taught For our Saviour Christ saith The harvest is plentiful but the workmen be but few which hath been hitherto continually true and will be to the Worlds end And in our time and here in our Countrey so true that every Shire should scarcely have one good Preacher if they were divided Now Images will continually to the beholders preach their Doctrine that is the worshipping of Images and Idolatry to the which Preaching mankind is exceeding prone and inclined to give ear and credit as experience of all Nations and Ages doth too much prove But a true Preacher to stay this mischief is in very many places scarcely heard once in a whole year and somewhere not once in seven years as is evident to be proved And that evil Opinion which hath been long rooted in mens hearts cannot suddenly by one Sermon be rooted out clean And as few are inclined to credit sound Doctrine as many and almost all be prone to Superstition and Idolatry So that herein appeareth not only a difficulty but also an impossibility of the Remedy Further it appeareth not by any story of credit that true and sincere Preaching hath endured in any one place above one hundred years But it is evident that Images Superstition and worshipping of Images and Idolatry have continued many hundred years For all Writings and Experience do testifie that good things do by little and little ever decay until they be clean banished and contrariwise evil things do more and more increase till they come to a full perfection of wickedness Neither need we to seek examples far off for a proof hereof our present matter is an example For preaching of Gods Word most sincere in the beginning by process of time waxed less and less pure and after corrupt and last of all altogether laid down and left off and other inventions of men crept in place of it And on the other part Images among Christian men were first painted and that in whole stories together which had some signification in them Afterwards they were embossed and made of Timber Stone Plaister and Metal And first they were only kept privately in private mens houses And then after they crept into Churches and Temples but first by painting and after by embossing and yet were they no where at the first worshipped But shortly after they began to be worshipped of the ignorant sort of men as appeareth by the Epistle that Gregory the first of that name Bishop of Rome did write to Serenus Bishop of Marselles Of the which two Bishops Serenus for Idolatry committed to Images brake them and burned them Gregory although be thought it tolerable to let them stand yet he judged it abominable that they should be worshipped and thought as is now alledged that the worshipping of them might be stayed by teaching of Gods Word according as he exhorteth Serenus to teach the People as in the same Epistle appeareth But whether Gregory's Opinion or Serenus's judgment were better herein consider ye I pray you for Experience by and by confuteth Gregory's Opinion For notwithstanding Gregory's writing and the preaching of others Images being once publickly set up in Temples and Churches simple Men and Women shortly after fell on heaps to worshipping of them And at the last the learned also were carried away with the publick Error as with a violent stream or flood And at the second Council Nicene the Bishops and Clergy decreed that Images should be worshipped and so by occasion of these stumbling-blocks not only the unlearned and simple but the learned and wise not the People only but the Bishops not the Sheep but also the Shepherds themselves who should have been guides in the right way and lights to shine in darkness being blinded by the bewitching of Images as blind guides of the blind fell both into the Pit of damnable Idolatry In the which all the World as it were drowned continued until our Age by the space of above eight hundred years unspoken against in a manner And this success had Gregory's Order which mischief had never come to pass had Bishop Serenus his way been taken and all Idols and Images been utterly destroyed and abolished for no man worshippeth that that is not And thus you see how from having of Images privately it came to publick setting of them up in Churches and Temples although without harm at the first as was then of some wise and learned men judged and from simple having them there it came at the last to worshipping of them First by the rude People who specially as the Scripture teacheth Sâ—p 13 14 are in danger of Superstition and Idolatry and afterwards by the Bishops the learned and by the whole Clergy So that Laity and Clergy Learned and Unlearned all Ages Sects and Degrees of Men Women and Children of whole Christendom an horrible and most dreadful thing to think have been at once drowned in abominable Idolatry of all other vices most detested of God and most damnable to man and that by the space of eight hundred years and more And to this end is come that beginning of setting up of Images in Churches then judged harmless in experience proved not only harmful but exitious and pestilent and to the destruction and subversion of all good Religion universally So that I conclude as it may be possible in some one City or little Countrey to have Images set up in Temples and Churches and yet Idolatry by earnest and continual preaching of Gods true Word and the sincere Gospel of our Saviour Christ may be kept away for a short time So it is impossible that Images once set up and suffered in Temples and Churches any great Countries much less the whole World can any long time be kept from Idolatry And the godly will respect not only their own City Countrey and Time and the Health of Men of their Age but be careful for all places and times and the Salvation of men of all Ages At the least they will not lay such stumbling-blocks and snares for the feet of other Country-men and Ages which experience hath already proved to have been the ruine of the World Wherefore I make a general conclusion of all that I have hitherto said If the stumbling-blocks and poisons of mens Souls by setting up of Images will be many yea infinite if they be suffered and the warnings of the same stumbling-blocks and remedies for the said poisons by preaching but few as is already declared if the stumbling-blocks be easie to be laid the poisons soon provided
the service of the Lord. And here by the way it is to be noted that at that time there was no Churches or Temples erected unto any Saint Euseb l b. 8. Cap. 19. and lib. 9. cap. 9 De ciâ—itate lib. 8. cap. 1. but to God only as St. Augustine also recordeth saying We build no Temples unto our Martyrs And Eusebius himself calleth Churches Houses of Prayer and sheweth that in Constantine the Emperors time all men rejoyced seeing instead of low Conventicles which Tyrants had destroyed high Temples to be builded Lo unto the time of Constantine by the space of above three hundred years after our Saviour Christ when Christian Religion was most pure and indeed golden Christians had but low and poor Conventicles and simple Oratories yea Cryptae Caves under the ground called Cryptae where they for fear of Persecution assembled secretly together A figure whereof remaineth in the Vaults which yet are builded under great Churches to put us in remembrance of the Old state of the Primitive Church before Constantine Whereas in Constantine's time and after him were builded great and goodly Temples for Christians Basilicae called Basilicae either for that the Greeks used to call all great and goodly places Basilicas or for that the high and everlasting King God and our Saviour Christ was served in them But although Constantine and other Princes of good zeal to our Religion did sumptuously deck and adorn Christians Temples yet did they dedicate at that time all Churches and Temples to God or our Saviour Christ and to no Saint Novel constit 3. 47. for that abuse began long after in Justinian's time And that gorgeousness then used as it was born with as rising of a good zeal so was it signified of the godly learned even at that time that such cost might otherwise have been better bestowed Let St. Jerome although otherwise too great a liker and allower of external and outward things be a proof hereof who hath these words in his Epistle to Demetriades Let others saith St. Jerome build Churches cover Walls with Tables of Marble carry together huge Pillars and gild their tops or heads which do not feel or understand their precious decking and adorning let them deck the doors with Ivory and Silver and set the golden Altars with precious stones I blame it not let every man abound in his own sense and better is it so to do than carefully to keep their Riches laid up in store But thou hast another way appointed thee to clothe Christ in the Poor to visit him in the sick seed him in the hungry lodge him in those who do lack harbour and especially such as be of the houshold of Faith And the same St. Jerome toucheth the same matter somewhat more freely in his Treatise of the Life of Clerks to Nepotian saying thus Many build Walls and erect Pillars of Churches the smooth Marbles do glister the Roof shineth with Gold the Altar is set with precious Stones But of the Ministers of Christ there is no election or choice Neither let any man object and alledge against me the rich Temple that was in Jewry the Table Candlesticks Incense Ships Platters Cups Mortars and other things all of Gold Then were these things allowed of the Lord when the Priests offered Sacrifices and the blood of Beasts was accounted the redemption of sins Howbeit all these things went before in figure and they were written for us upon whom the end of the World is come And now when that our Lord being poor hath dedicated the poverty of his House let us remember his Cross and we shall esteem Riches as Mire and Dung What do we marvel at that which Christ calleth wicked Mammon Whereto we do so highly esteem and love that which St. Peter doth for a glory testifie that he had not Hitherto St. Jerome Thus you see how St. Jerome teacheth the sumptuousness amongst the Jews to be a figure to signifie and not an example to follow and that those outward things were suffered for a time until Christ our Lord came who turned all those outward things into Spirit Faith and Truth And the same St. Jerome upon the seventh Chapter of Jeremy saith God commandeth both the Jews at that time and now us who are placed in the Church that we have no trust in the goodliness of Building and gilt Roofs and in Walls covered with Tables of Marble and say The Temple of the Lord the Temple of the Lord. For that is the Temple of the Lord wherein dwelleth true Faith godly Conversation and the company of all Vertues And upon the Prophet Agge he describeth the true and right decking or ornaments of the Temple after this sort I saith St. Jerome do think the Silver wherewith the House of God is decked to be the Doctrine of the Scriptures of the which it is spoken The Doctrine of the Lord is a pure Doctrine Silver tried in the fire purged from dross purified seven times And I do take Gold to be that which remaineth in the hid sense of the Saints and the secret of the heart and shineth with the true light of God Which is evident that the Apostle also meant of the Saints that build upon the Foundation of Christ some Silver some Gold some precious Stones that by the Gold the hid sense by Silver godly utterance by precious Stones works which please God might be signified With these Metals the Church of our Saviour is made more goodly and gorgeous than was the Synagogue in old time With these lively stones is the Church and House of Christ builded and Peace is given to it for ever All these be St. Jerome's sayings No more did the old godly Bishops and Doctors of the Church allow the over-sumptuous Furniture of Temples and Churches with Plate Vessels of Gold Silver and precious Vestments St. Chrysostom saith in the ministery of the Holy Sacraments there is no need of golden Vessels 2 Offi. capuâ— 28. but of golden Minds And St. Ambrose saith Christ sent his Apostles without Gold and gathered his Church without Gold The Church hath Gold not to keep it but to bestow it on the necessities of the Poor The Sacraments look for no Gold neither do they please God for the commendation of Gold which are not bought for Gold The adorning and decking of the Sacraments is the Redemption of Captives Thus much saith St. Ambrose St. Jerome commendeth Exuperius Bishop of Tolose that he carried the Sacrament of the Lords Body in a wicker Basket and the Sacrament of his Blood in a Glass and so cast Covetousness out of the Church And Bonifacius Tit. de consecra can Triburien Bishop and Martyr as is recorded in the Decrees testifieth that in Old time the Ministers used wooden and not golden Vessels And Zephyrinus the sixteenth Bishop of Rome made a Decree that they should use Vessels of Glass Likewise were the Vestures used in the Church in Old
I pray you when they have the same Books at home with them run on Pilgrimage to seek like Books at Rome Compostella or Jerusalem to be taught by them when they have the like to learn at home Do men reverence some Books and despise and set light by other of the same sort Do men kneel before their Books light Candles at Noon-time burn Incense offer up Gold and Silver and other Gifts to their Books Do men either feign or believe Miracles to be wrought by their Books I am sure that the New Testament of our Saviour Jesus Christ containing the Word of Life is a more lively express and true Image of our Saviour than all carved graven molten and painted Images in the World be and yet none of all these things be done to that Book or Scripture of the Gospel of our Saviour which be done to Images or Pictures the Books and Scriptures of Lay-men and Idiots as they call them Wherefore call them what they list it is most evident by their deeds that they make of them no other Books nor Scripture than such as teach most filthy and horrible Idolatry as the users of such Books daily prove by continual practising the same O Books and Scriptures in the which the devilish School-master Satan hath penned the lewd Lessons of wicked Idolatry for his dastardly Disciples and Scholars to behold read and learn to Gods most high dishonour and their most horrible Damnation Have not we been much bound think you to those which should have taught us the truth out of Gods Book and his Holy Scripture that they have shut up that Book and Scripture from us and none of us so bold as once to open it or read in it and instead thereof to spread us abroad these goodly carved and gilded Books and painted Scriptures to teach us such good and godly Lessons Have not they done well after they ceased to stand in Pulpits themselves and to teach the People committed to their instruction keeping silence of Gods Word and become dumb Dogs as the Prophet calleth them to set up in their stead on every pillar and corner of the Church such goodly Doctors as dumb but more wicked than themselves be We need not to complain of the lack of one dumb Parson having so many dumb devilish Vicars I mean these Idols and painted Puppets to teach in their stead Now in the mean season whilst the dumb and dead Idols stand thus decked and cloathed contrary to Gods Law and Commandment the poor Christian People the lively Images of God commended to us so tenderly by our Saviour Christ as most dear to him stand naked shivering for cold and their Teeth chattering in their heads and no man covereth them are pined with Hunger and Thirst and no man giveth them a penny to refresh them whereas pounds be ready at all times contrary to Gods will to deck and trim dead stocks and stones which neither feel Cold Hunger nor Thirst Clemens hath a notable sentence concerning this matter saying thus That Serpent the Devil doth by the mouth of certain men utter these words We for the honour of the invisible God do worship visible Images which doubtless is most false For if you will truly honour the Image of God you shall by doing well to man honour the true Image of God in him For the Image of God is in every man But the likeness of God is not in every one but in those only which have a godly Heart and pure Mind If you will therefore truly honour the Image of God we do declare to you the truth that ye do well to man who is made after the Image of God that you give honour and reverence to him and refresh the hungry with meat the thirsty with drink the naked with clothes the sick with attendance the stranger harbourless with lodging the Prisoners with necessaries and this shall be accounted as truly bestowed upon God And these things are so directly appertaining to Gods Honour that whosoever doth not this shall seem to have reproached and done villany to the Image of God For what honour of God is this to run to Images of stock and stone and to honour vain and dead figures of God and to despise man in whom is the true Image of God And by and by after he saith Vnderstand ye therefore that this is the suggestion of the Serpent Satan lurking within you which perswadeth you that you are godly when you honour insensible and dead Images and that you be not ungodly when you hurt or leave unsuccoured the lively and reasonable Creatures All these be the words of Clemens Note I pray you how this most ancient and learned Doctor within one hundred years of our Saviour Christs time most plainly teacheth that no service of God or Religion acceptable to him can be in honouring of dead Images but in succouring of the Poor the lively Images of God according to St. James who saith This is the pure and true Religion before God the Father to succour fatherless and motherless Children and Widows in their affliction and to keep himself undefiled from this World True Religion then and pleasing of God standeth not in making setting up painting gilding clothing and decking of dumb and dead Images which be but great Puppets and Babies for Old Fools in dotage and wicked Idolatry to dally and play with nor in kissing of them capping kneeling offering to them incensing of them setting up of Candles hanging up of Legs Arms or whole Bodies of Wax before them or praying and asking of them or of Saints things belonging only to God to give But all these things be vain and abominable and most damnable before God Wherefore all such do not only bestow their mony and labour in vain but with their pains and cost purchase to themselves Gods wrath and utter indignation and everlasting damnation both of Body and Soul For ye have heard it evidently proved in these Homilies against Idolatry by Gods Word the Doctors of the Church Ecclesiastical Histories Reason and Experience that Images have been and be Worshipped and so Idolatry committed to them by infinite multitudes to the great offence of Gods Majesty and the danger of infinite Souls and that Idolatry cannot possibly be separated from Images set up in Churches and Temples gilded and decked gloriously and that therefore our Images be indeed very Idols and so all the Prohibitions Laws Curses Threatnings of horrible Plagues as well temporal as eternal contained in the Holy Scripture concerning Idols and the Makers and Maintainers and Worshippers of them appertain also to our Images set up in Churches and Temples and to the Makers Maintainers and Worshippers of them And all those names of abomination which Gods Word in the Holy Scriptures giveth to the Idols of the Gentiles appertain to our Images being Idols like to them and having like Idolatry committed unto them And Gods own mouth in the Holy Scriptures calleth them Vanities
Congregation of his faithful People by his grace by his favour and godly assistance according to his most assured and comfortable promises Why then ought not Christian People to build them Temples and Churches having as great promises of the presence of God as ever had Solomon for the material Temple which he did build As touching the other point that Solomon's Temple was a figure of Christ we know that now in the time of the clear light Christ Jesus the Son of God all shadows figures and significations are utterly gone all vain and unprofitable Ceremonies both Jewish and Heathenish fully abolished And therefore our Churches are not set up for figures and significations of Messias and Christ to come but for other godly and necessary purposes that is to say That like as every man hath his own House to abide in to refresh himself in to rest in with such like commodities So Almighty God will have his House and Place whither the whole Parish and Congregation shall resort which is called the Church and Temple of God for that the Church which is the company of Gods People doth there assemble and come together to serve him Not meaning hereby that the Lord whom the Heaven of heavens is not able to hold or comprise doth dwell in the Church of Lime and Stone made with mans hands as wholly and only contained there within and no where else for so he never dwelt in Solomon's Temple Moreover the Church or Temple is counted and called Holy yet not of it self but because Gods People resorting thereunto are Holy and exercise themselves in Holy and Heavenly things And to the intent ye may understand further why Churches were built among Christian People this was the greatest consideration that God might have his place and that God might have his time duly to be honoured and served of the whole multitude in the Parish First there to hear and learn the blessed Word and Will of the everlasting God Secondly that there the blessed Sacraments which our Lord and Saviour Christ Jesus hath ordained and appointed should be duly reverently and decently ministred Thirdly that there the whole multitude of Gods People in the Parish should with one voice and heart call upon the Name of God magnifie and praise the Name of God render earnest and hearty thanks to our Heavenly Father for his heap of benefits daily and plentifully poured upon us not forgetting to bestow our Alms upon Gods Poor to the intent God may bless us the more richly Thus ye may well perceive and understand wherefore Churches were built and set up amongst Christian People and dedicated and appointed to these godly uses and wholly exempted from all filthy profane and worldly uses Wherefore all they that have little mind or devotion to repair and build Gods Temple are to be counted People of much ungodliness spurning against good Order in Christs Church despising the true honour of God with evil examples offending and hindring their Neighbours otherwise well and godlily disposed The World thinketh it but a trifle to see their Church in ruine and decay But whoso doth not lay to their helping hands they sin against God and his Holy Congregation For if it had not been sin to neglect and slightly regard the re-edifying and building up again of his Temple God would not have been so much grieved and so soon have plagued his People because they builded and decked their own Houses so gorgeously and despised the House of God their Lord. It is sin and shame to see so many Churches so ruinous and so foully decayed almost in every corner If a mans private House wherein he dwelleth be decayed he will never cease till it be restored up again Yea if his Barn where he keepeth his Corn be out of reparations what diligence useth he to make it in perfect state again If his Stable for his Horse yea the Stie for his Swine be not able to hold out Water and Wind how careful is he to do cost thereon And shall we be so mindful of our common base Houses deputed to so vile employment and be forgetful towards the House of God wherein be treated the words of our eternal Salvation wherein be ministred the Sacraments and Mysteries of our Redemption The Fountain of our Regeneration is there presented unto us the partaking of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ is there offered unto us And shall we not esteem the place where so Heavenly things are handled Wherefore if ye have any reverence to the service of God if ye have any common honesty if ye have any conscience in keeping of necessary and godly ordinances keep your Churches in good repair whereby ye shall not only please God and deserve his manifold Blessings but also deserve the good report of all godly People The second point which appertaineth to the maintenance of Gods House is to have it well adorned and comely and clean kept Which things may be the more easily reformed when the Church is well repaired For like as men are well refreshed and comforted when they find their Houses having all things in good Order and all corners clean and sweet so when Gods House the Church is well adorned with places convenient to sit in with the Pulpit for the Preacher with the Lords Table for the Ministration of his Holy Supper with the Font to Christen in and also is kept clean comely and sweetly the People are more desirous and the more comforted to resort thither and to tarry there the whole time appointed them With what earnestness with what vehement zeal did our Saviour Christ drive the buyers and sellers out of the Temple of God Mat. 21. and hurled down the Tables of the changers of Mony and the Seats of the Dove-sellers and could not abide any man to carry a Vessel through the Temple He told them that they had made his Fathers House a Den of Thieves partly through their Superstition Hypocrisie false Worship false Doctrine and insatiable Covetousness and partly through Contempt abusing that place with walking and talking with worldly matters without all fear of God and due reverence to that place What dens of Thieves the Churches of England have been made by the blasphemous buying and selling the most precious Body and Blood of Christ in the Mass as the World was made to believe as Diriges at Months minds at Trentals in Abbeys and Chantries besides other horrible abuses Gods Holy Name be blessed for ever which we now see and understand All these abominations they that supply the room of Christ have cleansed and purged the Churches of England of taking away all such fulsomness and filthiness as through blind Devotion and Ignorance hath crept into the Church these many hundred years Wherefore O ye good Christian People ye dearly beloved in Christ Jesus ye that glory not in worldly and vain Religion in phantastical adorning and decking but rejoyce in heart to see the glory of God truly
Christians and none other for that were to bind Gods People unto the yoke and burthen of Moses his Policy yea it were the very way to bring us which are set at liberty by the freedom of Christs Gospel into the bondage of the Law again which God forbid that any man should attempt or purpose But to this end it serveth to shew how far the order of Fasting now used in the Church at this day differeth from that which was then used Gods Church ought not neither may it be so tyed to that or any other Order now made or hereafter to be made and devised by the Authority of Man but that it may lawfully for just causes alter change or mitigate those Ecclesiastical Decrees and Orders yea recede wholly from them and break them when they tend either to Superstition or to Impiety when they draw the People from God rather than work any edification in them This Authority Christ himself used and left it to his Church He used it I say for the Order or Decree made by the Elders for washing oft times which was diligently observed of the Jews yet tending to Superstition our Saviour Christ altered and changed the same in his Church into a profitable Sacrament the Sacrament of our Regeneration or New Birth This Authority to mitigate Laws and Decrees Ecclesiastical the Apostles practised when they writing from Jerusalem unto the Congregation that was at Antioch Acts 15. signified unto them that they would not lay any further burthen upon them but these necessaries that is that they should abstain from things offered unto Idols from blood from that which is strangled and from fornication notwithstanding that Moses Law required many other observances This Authority to change the Orders Decrees and Constitutions of the Church was after the Apostles time used of the Fathers about the manner of Fasting as it appeareth in the Tripartite History Tripart hist l. 9. c. 38. where it is thus written Touching Fasting we find that it was diversly used in divers places by divers men For they at Rome fast three weeks together before Easter saving upon the Saturdays and Sundays which Fast they call Lent And after a few lines in the same place it followeth They have not all one uniform Order in Fasting For some do fast and abstain both from fish and flesh Some when they fast eat nothing but fish Others there are which when they Fast eat of all water-fowls as well as of fish grounding themselves upon Moses that such Fowls have their substance of the Water as the Fishes have Some others when they Fast will neither eat Herbs nor Eggs. Some fasters there are that eat nothing but dry bread Others when they Fast eat nothing at all no not so much as dry bread Some fast from all manner of food till Night and then eat without making any choice or difference of meats And a thousand such like divers kinds of Fasting may be found in divers places of the World of divers men diversly used Euseb lib. 5. cap. 24. And for all this great diversity in Fasting yet Charity the very true bond of Christian Peace was not broken neither did the diversity of Fasting break at any time their agreement and concord in Faith To abstain sometimes from certain meats not because the meats are evil but because they are not necessary this abstinence saith St. Augustine is not evil Dogma Ecclesiast c. 66. And to restrain the use of meats when necessity and time shall require this saith he doth properly pertain to Christian men Thus ye have heard good People first that Christian Subjects are bound even in Conscience to obey Princes Laws which are not repugnant to the Laws of God Ye have also heard that Christs Church is not so bound to observe any Order Law or Decree made by Man to prescribe a form in Religion but that the Church hath full Power and Authority from God to change and alter the same when need shall require which hath been shewed you by the example of our Saviour Christ by the practice of the Apostles and of the Fathers since that time Now shall be shewed briefly what time is meet for Fasting for all times serve not for all things but as the Wise man saith Eccles 3. All things have their times There is a time to weep and a time again to laugh a time to mourn and a time to rejoyce c. Our Saviour Christ excused his Disciples and reproved the Pharisees because they neither regarded the use of Fasting nor considered what time was meet for the same Which both he teacheth in his answer Mat. 9. saying The children of the marriage cannot mourn while the bridegroom is with them Their question was of Fasting his answer is of Mourning signifying unto them plainly that the outward Fast of the Body is no Fast before God except it be accompanied with the inward Fast which is a mourning and a lamentation of the Heart as is before declared Concerning the time of Fasting he saith The days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them in those days they shall fast By this it is manifest that it is no time of Fasting while the Marriage lasteth and the Bridegroom is there present But when the Marriage is ended Luke 5. Mat. 6. and the Bridegroom gone then is it a meet time to Fast Now to make plain unto you what is the sense and meaning of these words We are at the marriage and again The bridegroom is taken from us Ye shall note that so long as God revealeth his mercy unto us and giveth us of his benefits either Spiritual or Corporal we are said to be with the Bridegroom at the Marriage So was that good Old Father Jacob at the Marriage when he understood that his Son Joseph was alive and Ruled all Egypt under King Pharaoh So was David in the Marriage with the Bridegroom when he had gotten the Victory of great Goliath and had smitten off his Head Judith and all the People of Bethulia were the Children of the Wedding and had the Bridegroom with them when God had by the Hand of a Woman slain Holofernes the grand Captain of the Assyrians Host and discomfited all their Enemies Thus were the Apostles the Children of the Marriage while Christ was corporally present with them and defended them from all dangers both spiritual and corporal But the Marriage is said then to be ended and the Bridegroom to be gone when Almighty God smiteth us with Affliction and seemeth to leave us in the midst of a number of Adversities So God sometimes striketh private men privately with sundry adversities as trouble of Mind loss of Friends loss of Goods long and dangerous Sicknesses c. then is it a fit time for that man to humble himself to Almighty God by Fasting and to mourn and bewail his sins with a sorrowful heart and to Pray unfeignedly saying with the Prophet David Turn
overthrow of all Rebels of what number State or Condition soever they were or what colour or cause soever they pretended is and ever hath been such that God thereby doth shew that he alloweth neither the dignity of any Person nor the multitude of any People nor the weight of any Cause as sufficient for the which the Subjects may move Rebellion against their Princes Turn over and read the Histories of all Nations look over the Chronicles of our own Country call to mind so many Rebellions of old time and some yet fresh in memory ye shall not find that God ever prospered any Rebellion against their natural and lawful Prince but contrariwise that the Rebels were overthrown and slain and such as were taken Prisoners dreadfully executed Consider the great and noble Families of Dukes Marquesses Earls and other Lords whose Names ye shall read in our Chronicles now clean extinguished and gone and seek out the causes of the decay you shall find that not lack of Issue and Heirs Male hath so much wrought that decay and wast of Noble Bloods and Houses as hath Rebellion And for so much as the Redress of the Common-wealth hath of old been the usual feined pretence of Rebels and Religion now of late beginneth to be a colour of Rebellion let all godly and discreet Subjects consider well of both and first concerning Religion If peaceable King Solomon was judged of God to be more meet to build his Temple whereby the ordering of Religion is meant than his Father King David though otherwise a most godly King for that David was a great Warrior and had shed much Blood though it were in his Wars against the Enemies of God Of this may all godly and reasonable Subjects consider that a peaceable Prince specially our most peaceable and merciful King who hath hitherto shed no Blood at all no not of his most deadly Enemies is more like and far meeter either to set up or to maintain true Religion than are bloody Rebels who have not shed the Blood of Gods Enemies as King David had done but do seek to shed the Blood of Gods Friends of their own Country-men and of their own most dear Friends and Kinsfolk yea the destruction of their most gracious Prince and natural Country for defence of whom they ought to be ready to shed their Blood if need should so require What a Religion it is that such Men by such means would restore may easily be judged even as good a Religion surely as Rebels be good Men and obedient Subjects and as Rebellion is a good Mean of Redress and Reformation being it self the greatest deformation of all that may possibly be But as the truth of the Gospel of our Saviour Christ being quietly and soberly taught though it do cost them their lives that do teach it is able to maintain the true Religion so hath a frantic Religion need of such furious maintainances as is Rebellion and of such Patrons as are Rebels being ready not to die for the true Religion but to kill all that shall or dare speak against their false Superstition and wicked Idolatry Now concerning pretences of any Redress of the Common-wealth made by Rebels every Man that hath but half an Eye may see how vain they be Rebellion being as I have before declared the greatest ruin and destruction of all Common-wealths that may be possible And who so looketh on the one part upon the Persons and Government of the Kings most Honorable Counsellors by the experiment of so many years proved honorable to his Majesty and most profitable and beneficial unto our Country and Country-men and on the other part considereth the Persons State and Conditions of the Rebels themselves the Reformers as they take upon them of the present Government he shall find that the most rash and hair-brain'd Men the greatest unthrifts that have most lewdly wasted their own Goods and Lands those that are over the ears in debt and such as for their Thefts Robberies and Murders dare not in any well governed Common-wealth where good Laws are in force shew their Faces such as are of most lewd and wicked Behavior and Life and all such as will not or cannot live in peace are always most ready to move Rebellion or take part with Rebels And are not these meet Men trow you to restore the Common-wealth decayed who have so spoiled and consumed all their own Wealth and Thrift and very like to amend other Mens manners who have so vile Vices and abominable Conditions themselves Surely that which they falsely call Reformation is indeed not only a defacing or deformation but also an utter destruction of all Common-wealth as would well appear might the Rebels have their wills and doth right well and too well appear by their doing in such places of the Country where Rebels do rout where though they tarry but a very little while they make such Reformation that they destroy all places and undo all Men where they come that the Child yet unborn may rue it and shall many Years hereafter curse them Let no good and discreet Subjects therefore follow the Flag or Banner displayed to Rebellion and born by Rebels though it have the image of the Plough painted therein with God speed the Plough written under in great Letters knowing that none hinder the Plough more than Rebels who will neither go to the Plough themselves nor suffer other that would go unto it And though some Rebels bear the Picture of the five wounds painted against those who put their only hope of Salvation in the wounds of Christ not those wounds which are painted in a Clout by some lewd Painter but in those wounds which Christ himself bare in his precious Body though they little knowing what the Cross of Christ meaneth which neither Carver nor Painter can make do bear the Image of the Cross painted in a Rag against those that have the Cross of Christ painted in their Hearts yea though they paint withal in their Flags Hoc signo vinces By this Sign thou shalt get the Victory by a most fond imitation of the Posie of Constantinus Magnus that noble Christian Emperor and great Conqueror of Gods Enemies a most unmeet Ensign for Rebels the Enemies of God their Prince and Country or what other Banner soever they shall bear yet let no good and godly Subject upon any hope of Victory or good Success follow such Standard-bearers of Rebellion For as examples of such Practices are to be found as well in the Histories of old as also of latter Rebellions in our Fathers and our fresh Memory so notwithstanding these Pretences made and Banners born are recorded withal to perpetual Memory the great and horrible murders of infinite multitudes and thousands of the Common People slain in Rebellion dreadful executions of the Authors and Captains the pitiful undoing of their Wives and Children and disinheriting of the Heirs of the Rebels for ever the spoiling wasting and destruction of the
them to beware of the subtil suggestions of such restless ambitious Persons and so to flee them that Rebellions though attempted by a few Ambitious through the lack of maintainance by any multitudes may speedily and easily without any great labor danger or damage be re-ressed and clearly extinguished It is well known as well by all Histories as by daily Experience that none have either more ambitiously aspired above Emperors Kings and Princes nor have more perniciously moved the ignorant People to Rebellion against their Princes than certain Persons which falsly challenge to themselves to be only counted and called Spiritual I must therefore here yet once again briefly put you good People in remembrance out of Gods holy Word how our Saviour Jesus Christ and his holy Apostles the Heads and chief of all true Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Men behaved themselves towards the Princes and Rulers of their time though not the best Governors that ever were that you be not ignorant whether they be the true Disciples and followers of Christ and his Apostles and so true spiritual Men that either by Ambition do so highly aspire or do most maliciously teach or most perniciously do execute Rebellion against their lawful Princes being the worst of all carnal Works and mischievous Deeds Mat. 17. d. 25. Mark 12. b. 14. Luke 20. d. 25. Mat. 27. Luke 23. Rom. 13. a. 1 c. 1 Tim. 2. a. 1. 1 Pet. 2. c. 13. John 6. b. 15. and 18. f. 36. Mat. 20. d. 25. Mark 10. f. 42. Luke 22. c. 25. Mat. 23. a. 8. Luke 9. f. 46. 2 Cor. 1. d. 24. 1 Pet. 5. a 3. Mat. 18. a. 4. 20. d. 28. Luke 9. f. 48. 22. c. 27. Sex decre lib. 3. tit 16. cap. unic lib. 5. tit 9. cap. 5. iâ— glossa The holy Scriptures do teach most expresly that our Saviour Christ himself and his Apostles St. Paul St. Peter with others were unto the Magistrates and higher Powers which ruled at their being upon the Earth both obedient themselves and did also diligently and earnestly exhort all other Christians to the like obedience unto their Princes and Governors whereby it is evident that Men of the Clergy and Ecclesiastical Ministers as their Successors ought both themselves specially and before other to be obedient unto their Princes and also to exhort all others unto the same Our Saviour Christ likewise teaching by his Doctrin that his Kingdom was not of this World did by his Example in fleeing from those that would have made him King confirm the same expresly also forbidding his Apostles and by them the whole Clergy all Princely Dominion over People and Nations and he and his holy Apostles likewise namely Peter and Paul did forbid unto all Ecclesiastical Ministers dominion over the Church of Christ And indeed whiles the Ecclesiastical Ministers continued in Christs Church in that order that is in Christs Word prescribed unto them and in Christian Kingdoms kept themselves obedient to their own Princes as the Holy Scripture doth teach them both was Christs Church more clear from ambitious Emulations and Contentions and the State of Christian Kingdoms less subject unto Tumults and Rebellions But after that Ambition and desire of Dominion entred once into Ecclesiastical Ministers whose greatness after the Doctrin and Example of our Saviour should chiefly stand in humbling themselves and that the Bishop of Rome being by the order of Gods Word none other than the Bishop of that one See and Diocess and never yet well able to govern the same did by intolerable Ambition challenge not only to he the Head of all the Church dispersed throughout the World but also to be Lord of all Kingdoms of the World as is expresly set forth in the Book of his own Canon Laws most contrary to the Doctrin and Example of our Saviour Christ whose Vicar and of his Apostles namely Peter whose Successor he pretendeth to be After this Ambition entred and his Challenge once made by the Bishop of Rome he became at once the spoiler and destroyer both of the Church which is the Kingdom of our Saviour Christ and of the Christian Empire and all Christian Kingdoms as an Universal Tyrant over all And whereas before that Challenge made there was great amity and love amongst the Christians of all Countries hereupon began Emulation and much Hatred between the Bishop of Rome and his Clergy and Friends on the one part and the Grecian Clergy and Christians of the East on the other part for that they refused to acknowledge any such Supream Authority of the Bishop of Rome over them The Bishop of Rome for this cause amongst other not only naming them and taking them for Schismatics but also never ceasing to persecute them and the Emperors who had their See and continuance in Greece by stirring of the Subjects to Rebellion against their Sovereign Lords and by raising deadly hatred and most cruel Wars between them and other Christian Princes And when the Bishops of Rome had translated the Title of the Emperor and as much as in them did lie the Empire it self from their Lord the Emperor of of Greece and of Rome also by right unto the Christian Princes of the West they became in short space no better unto the West Emperors than they were before unto the Emperors of Greece for the usual discharging of Subjects from their Oath of Fidelity made unto the Emperors of the West their Sovereign Lords by the Bishops of Rome the unnatural stirring up of the Subjects unto Rebellion against their Princes yea of the Son against the Father by the Bishop of Rome the most cruel and bloody Wars raised amongst Christian Princes of all Kingdoms the horrible murder of infinite thousands of Christian Men being slain by Christians and which ensued thereupon the pitiful losses of so many goodly Cities Countries Dominions and Kingdoms sometime possessed by Christians in Asia Africa Europe the miserable fall of the Empire and Church of Greece sometime the most flourishing part of Christendom into the hands of the Turks the lamentable diminishing decay and ruin of Christian Religion the dreadful increase of Paganism and Power of the Infidels and Miscreants and all by the practice and procurement of the Bishop of Rome chiefly is in the Histories and Chronicles written by the Bishop of Romes own Favorers and Friends to be seen and as well known unto all such as are acquainted with the said Histories The ambitious intents and most subtil drifts of the Bishops of Rome in these their Practices appeared evidently by their bold attempt in spoiling and robbing the Emperors of their Towns Cities Dominions and Kingdoms in Italy Lombardy and Sicily of ancient right belonging to the Empire and by joyning of them unto their Bishoprick of Rome or else giving them unto strangers to hold them of the Church and Bishop of Rome as in capite and as of the chief Lords thereof in which tenure they hold the most part thereof
Superstition and Hypocrisie Their Hearts within being full of Malice Pride Covetousness and all Wickedness Against which Sects and their pretended Holiness Christ cried out more vehemently than he did against any other Persons saying and often rehearsing these words Mat h. â—â— Woe be to you Scribes and Pharises ye Hypocrites for you make clean the vessel without but within ye be full of ravine and filthiness Thou blind Pharisee and Hypocrite first make the inward part clean For notwithstanding all the goodly Traditions and outward shews of good Works devised of their own imagination whereby they appeared to the World most Religious and Holy of all Men yet Christ who saw their Hearts knew that they were inwardly in the sight of God most Unholy most Abominable and farthest from God of all Men. Therefore said he unto them Hypocrites the Prophet Isaiah spake full truly of you when he said This People honour me with their lips Matth. 15. Isaiah 19. but their Heart is far from me They worship me in vain that teach Doctrines and Commandments of men for you leave the Commandments of God to keep your own traditions And though Christ said they worship God in vain Man's Laws may be observed and kept but not as God's Laws that teach doctrines and commandments of Men yet he meant not thereby to overthrow all Mens Commandments for he himself was ever obedient to the Princes and their Laws made for good Order and Governance of the People But he reproved the Laws and Traditions made by the Scribes and Pharises which were not made only for good order of the People as the Civil Laws were but they were set up so high that they were made to be right and pure worshipping of God as they had been equal with God's Laws or above them For many of God's Laws could not be kept but were fain to give place unto them This arrogancy God detested that Man should so advance his Laws to make them equal with God's Laws wherein the true honouring and right worshipping of God standeth and to make his Laws for them to be left off God hath appointed his Laws whereby his pleasure is to be honoured His pleasure is also That all Mens Laws not being contrary unto his Laws shall be obeyed and kept as good and necessary for every Commonweal but not as things wherein principally his Honour resteth And all Civil and Man's Laws either be or should be made to bring Men the better to keep God's Laws that consequently or followingly God should be the better honoured by them Howbeit the Scribes and Pharises were not content that their Laws should be no higher esteemed than other positive and Civil Laws nor would they have them called by the name of other temporal Laws but called them Holy and Godly Traditions Holy Traditions were esteemed as God's Laws and would have them esteemed not only for a right and true worshipping of God as God's Laws be indeed but also for the most high honouring of God to the which the Commandments of God should give place And for this cause did Christ so vehemently speak against them saying Your Traditions which Men esteem so high Holiness of Man's device is commonly occasion that God is offended Matth. 12. be abomination before God For commonly of such Traditions followeth the transgression or breaking of God's Commandments and a more Devotion in keeping of such things and a greater Conscience in breaking of them than of the Commandments of God As the Scribes and Pharises so superstitiously and scrupulously kept the Sabbath that they were offended with Christ because he healed sick Men and with his Apostles because they being sore a hungry gathered the ears of Corn to eat upon that day and because his Disciples washed not their Hands so often as their Traditions required The Scribes and Pharisees quarrelled with Christ Matth. 15. saying Why do thy Disciples break the traditions of the Seigniours But Christ laid to their charge that they for to keep their own Traditions did teach Men to break the very Commandments of God For they taught the People such a Devotion that they offered their Goods into the Treasure-house of the Temple under the pretence of God's Honour leaving their Fathers and Mothers to whom they were chiefly bound unholpen and so they brake the Commandments of God to keep their own Traditions They esteemed more an Oath made by the Gold or Oblation in the Temple than an Oath made in the Name of God himself or of the Temple They were more studious to pay their Tithes of small things than to do the greater things commanded of God as Works of Mercy or to do Justice or to deal sincerely uprightly and faithfully with God and Man These saith Christ ought to be done Matth. 23. and the other not left undone And to be short they were of so blind Judgment that they stumbled at a straw and leaped over a block They would as it were nicely take a Fly out of their Cup and drink down a whole Camel And therefore Christ called them Blind guides warning his Disciples from time to time to eschew their Doctrine For although they seemed to the World to be most perfect Men both in Living and Teaching yet was their Life but Hypocrisie and their Doctrine but sower Leaven mingled with Superstition Idolatry and overthwart Judgment setting up the Traditions and Ordinances of Man instead of God's Commandments The Third Part of the Sermon of Good Works THat all Men might rightly judge of Good Works it hath been declared in the Second Part of this Sermon what kind of Good Works they be that God would have his People to walk in namely such as he hath commanded in his Holy Scripture and not such Works as Men have studied out of their own Brain of a blind Zeal and Devotion without the Word of God And by mistaking the nature of good Works Man hath most highly displeased God and hath gone from his Will and Commandments So that thus you have heard how much the World from the beginning until Christ's time was ever ready to fall from the Commandments of God and to seek other means to Honour and Serve him after a Devotion found out of their own Heads And how they did set up their own Traditions as high or above God's Commandments which hath hapned also in our times the more it is to be lamented no less than it did among the Jews and that by the corruption or at least by the negligence of them that chiefly ought to have preserved the Pure and Heavenly Doctrine left by Christ What Man having any Judgment or Learning joyned with a true Zeal unto God doth not see and lament to have entred into Christ's Religion such false Doctrine Superstition Idolatry Hypocrisie and other enormities and abuses so as by little and little through the sower Leaven thereof the sweet Bread of God's Holy Word hath been much hindred and laid apart