Selected quad for the lemma: religion_n
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A43819
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The season for Englands selfe-reflection and advancing temple-vvork discovered in a sermon preached to the two Houses of Parliament at Margarets Westminster, Aug. 13, 1644, being an extraordinary day of humiliation / by Thomas Hill ...
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Hill, Thomas, d. 1653.
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1644
(1644)
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Wing H2027; ESTC R2603
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33,390
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45
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THE SEASON FOR Englands Selfe-Reflection AND Advancing Temple-work DISCOVERED IN A SERMON PREACHED To the two Houses of Parliament At Margarets Westminster Aug. 13. 1644. being an extraordinary day of Humiliation By THOMAS HILL B. D. Pastor at Tychmersh in Northamptonshire A Member of the Assembly of Divines The Harvest is past the Summer is ended and wee are not saved Jer. 8. 20. Now set your heart and your soule to seek the Lord your God arise therefore and build yee the Sanctuary of the Lord God c. 1 Chron. 22. 19. LONDON Printed by Richard Cotes for John Bellamy and Philemon Stephens 1644. TO THE RIGHT HONOVRABLE THE House of LORDS and THE Honourable House of COMMONS Assembled in PARLIAMENT at WESTMINSTER THE Lord Jesus Christ whose name is wonderfull hath reserved for this last age of the World wherein hee intends to do great things for his Church and against his enemies the accomplishment of many precious promises and the discovery of most glorious providences Amongst all other your State observations I hope you treasure up the experiences of his wonder-working hand for you since this happy Parliament began that so you may grow eminent as well in Christian as in state-wisdom Never had any Assembly of Counsellors in England greater reason then you to say with the Psalmist Psal. 139. 17. How precious are thy thoughts unto mee O God how great is the summe of them It were well worthy your wise care to take some course what ever it cost by a discreet and faithfull pen to preserve the story of Gods providence about you since these troubles began that so his honour might live therein when you are dead It s true indeed the Lords dispensations have been very various towards you and the method of his counsels past finding out As the Israelites in the wildernesse were sometimes not far from Canaan and then cast back for a long time so you sometimes begin to think your selves got neere the shore and to discover the Land some hopes of a gracious issue then a new storme arises and drives you into the main Sea again witnesse your present straites your renued perplexities Amongst other reasons hereof this may bee one It may bee God will not finish your state-affaires till you are more vigorous in his Temple-work Who knows how soon poore England yea and all the three Kingdoms might become gloriously happy could you remove such obstructions as interrupt the building of Gods house Your selves are not a little concerned in the expediting this great businesse of setling the Church opinions of most dangerous consequence begin now to spring up amongst us The controversie is not now onely betwixt congregationall and classicall Divines who are called Independents and Presbyterians in point of Church government There seemes to bee some good hopes of a faire accommodation betwixt them But with such others also who vehemently cry down not only the power of Ecclesiasticall Synods but likewise the Authority of the Civill Magistrate in matters of Religion thereby at once opening a doore to all licentiousnes in opinion practice even for Iewes Turkes and any whomsoever The Good Lord stirre up your hearts who have so great a share in the managing and in the successe of the great work in hand to do what becomes you in such times as these are When so many of your own Ranke the Lord humble them for their unfaithfulnesse have deserted their Trust You have obtained this great mercy this high Honour to be employed in Temple-service I hope you often consider who hath made you to differ and what he at this time expects from you You will please to allow mee the boldnesse to put you in mind of Davids carriage who when the three mighty men brake through the Host of the Philistims and drew water out of the well of Bethlehem 2 Sam. 23. 16. He would not drinke thereof but poured it out unto the Lord and hee said Bee it farre from mee O Lord that I shall doe this Is not this the blood of men that went in jeopardy of their lives therefore hee would not drinke it ver. 17. The tranquillity and many sweet refreshings the liberty and opportunity of doing Service to Church and State in the Parliament which you enjoy Is it not the blood of very many men How often have your Noble and couragious Generall with other VVorthies of the first Magnitude jeoparded their lives in the High places of the field to secure you in your Houses in your employments How much trouble and hazzard have our deare Brethren of Scotland undergone to themselves and Kingdom to keepe You from the danger of popery and slavery yea how many thousands some of all rankes it may make us bleed with sorrow to number them have already shed their dearest blood that you may possesse your lives and estates God forbid bee it farre from any of you that what is purchased at so deare a rate should bee prostituted to your own selvishnesse or any ignoble service Let all you have rather be powred out to the Lord and consecrated to his service in building him an House who hath loved you so much and given so many men for your lives It was an high strain of couragious Rhetorique in one of the City Souldiers at Newbury sight as it is related from good hands who when hee lay bleeding under mortall wounds breathed out this admirable expression O that I had another life to loose for Jesus Christ O that I had another life to loose for Jesus Christ Let this speech live in you after his death Bee willing at least to sacrifice the improvement of your Lives which cost the precious blood of Christ and many of his deare members in lifting up his Name and advancing his Temple Nehemiah when hee would incourage them in building the wall of Ierusalem notwithstanding all the scoffes of the adversaries after hee had armed the Labourers Nehem. 4. 13. 14. Hee said unto the Nobles and to the Rulers and to the rest of the people Bee not afraid of them remember the Lord which is great and terrible and fight for your brethren your sonnes and your daughters your wives and your houses The Lord in mercy turn your fighting into building and rebuke your enemies that you may have more liberty to build his House Herein I can rise higher then Nehemiah you build not onely for your Sonnes and Daughters but for the Lord who is the Husband of his Church the Prince of Peace the King of Glory that hath prepared an house eternall in the heavens for all that sincerely build his house here on Earth Arise therefore and bee doing and the Lord bee with you Which is the hearty prayer of him who Though most unworthy desires to serve you faithfully in the advancing Temple-work THOMAS HILL ENGLANDS SEASON FOR Selfe-Reflection AND Advancing Temple-worke HAGGAI 1. 7 8. 7 Thus saith the Lord of Hoasts Consider your wayes 8 Goe up to the
appeare in his glory Is building Gods house the ready way to obtaine Gods blessings Then as you desire to approve your selves friends to Englands tranquillity take heed you bee not found either Retarders or Vnderminers of the building in these times of Reformation The first Item shall be against Retarders of Temple-work who are of two sorts First prophane Atheists who cannot endure to thinke of any such Reformation as will confine and straiten them in making provision for their lusts There are too many of all rankes who combine in this confederacy They are not onely poore Peasants the prafanum vulgus who quarrell against the strictnesse of Reformation I wish none of our great ones were to bee found in this Catalogue I feare many of our Ministers will help to fill it up When Christ was to come into his Temple there needed a John Baptist to prepare the way to make the mountaines lâ—w and the rough places plaine and all little enough Mal. 3. 2. But who may abide the day of his â—omming and who shall stand when bee appeareth For hee is like a Refiners fire and the Fullers sope In such a posture Christ appeares in England in these Reforming times which makes profane ones who are not willing to be refined retard what they can Secondly Carnall Selfe-Seekers are deeply guilty of retarding Temple-worke you shall find in 2 Tim. 3. 2. 4. there is a wicked Regiment a wretched conspiracy of such men as make the last times perilous In the very front comes selfe-love ver. 2. Men shall bee lovers of their own selves and withall ver. 4. Such as are lovers of pleasures more then of God They who value their carnall-selfe at so high a rate that they will preferre their owne ends their ease their pleasures any thing of themselves before God and his Honour will bee ready upon every occasion to hinder Reformation and will rather imploy their wit and influence to keep down Gods House then that the building of Gods House should occasion the pulling down of their beloved carnall-self The second Item is for underminers of Templework of whom there are likewise two sorts swayed by two different undermining principles First Such who would have nothing jure divino nothing stand by divine right in Church affaires but resolve all wholly into State power and civill policy Gods House will never bee built but by the Line of his own word Moses had the pattern of the Tabernacle Solomon of the Temple and the Apostles of the Christian Church as the Lord directed Doubtlesse there may bee an extreame on both hands some would winde up jure divino too high and seek an expresse institution for those things which are dictated by the very light of reason common to all or wrapped up in the generall Rules of Scripture Others are so much afraid of jure divino that they would turne it out of the Church and bring all to jure humano and so farre subordinate the Church to the State that Jesus Christ the Lord of the house shall not bee allowed either to build or rule his own house according to his 〈◊〉 I confesse it is good to bee wise herein not to put the stampe of Jus divinum upon any thing without cleare warrant from the word of God And withall as you are to bee carefull that you doe not 〈◊〉 prudentials into the Throne of Divine institution so you should beware that you seek not to bring down divine Institutions into meere State prudentials lest you bee found underminers of the Lords Temple Bee not shie of Jus divinum where you have verbum divinum for it The Kingdome of Christ is not inconsistent with any Civill policy which tends to the publick good it never hurts any States but such as do oppose it them indeed it will break all to peeces witnesse the foure Monarchies one after another Secondly Such who would have a toleration of all wayes of Religion in this Church These would lamentably undermine the building of Gods house amongst us as being so contrary to the indevouring of a Scripure reformation unto which wee have so solemnly ingaged our selves Doubtlesse the word of God holds forth one true way of Religion in the Christian Church Let there bee a most exact inquiry what Latitude the Scripture doth allow for different opinions and practises in that one true way But to set the doore so wide open as to tolerate all Religions to make London an Amsterdam which yet some contend for and would now bee content to tolerate Popery it selfe so they might enjoy their own way though not many yeeres since their spirits would have risen at the mention of such a thing in England is such an undermining of the Temple that this would soon pull down Gods house here but never build it up God forbid that any of you should bee sound either retarders or underminers of such a worke If the advancing of Temple-work bee the most compendious way to obtain the blessing of the Lord of Hosts Then Right Honourable and Worthy Senators as you desire to contribute towards England welware quicken your selves and one another to diligence in building the Lords Temple The more you desire to see your own decayed houses and estates repaired and setled bee the more zealous and faithfull in re-building Gods house It may bee the wise God will not suffer you to injoy your Palaces till you have finished the work of Reformation that hee may injoy his Temple I desire you may remember all Gods diverting providences working for your good that your active prudence may bee ingaged for his service Had not the Lord of Hosts diverted the Kings Army from comming up towards London when they had gotten Bristoll and the Earle of New-Castles Forces from comming up to the then Associating Counties when hee set down before Hull yea had not the Lords mighty hand kept Prince Ruperts formidable Army from comming Southward when hee had got so great an advantage by raising the Siege at Yorke how much more sad might Englands condition have been before this time And I hope you will upon this day of humiliation so wisely observe his humbling providences in our present straites and troubles that you may bee awakened to a more serious consideration of your own wayes and in an holy revenge of your former negligence set your selves upon the building of the Lord Christs house O that there were amongst our Nobles and Gentry many more of Davids spirit who made great preparations for the building of the Temple 1 Chron. 22. 5. Yea in his trouble hee prepared for the house of the Lord ver. 14. They have had a large share in these devouring troubles Much of the blood of our Nobles and Gentry hath been spilt and many of their houses and estates ruined in this unnaturall Warre as if the Lord had a speciall quarrell against them intending to staine the pride of