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A32977 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. 1687 (1687) Wing C4091I; ESTC R1759 454,358 660

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to them that they study not either to Write fair to keep a Book of Account to study the Tongues and so to get wisdom and knowledge in such Books and Works as be now plentifully set out in Print of all manner of Languages Let young Men consider the precious value of their time and waste it not in Idleness in Jollity in Gaming in Bant queting in Ruffians company Youth is but Vanity and must be accounted for before God How merry and glad soever thou be in thy Youth O young Man saith the Preacher how glad soever thy Heart be in thy young days Eccles 11. how fast and freely soever thou follow the ways of thine own Heart and the lust of thine own Eye yet be thou sure that God shall bring thee into Judgment for all these things God of his mercy put it into the Hearts and Minds of all them that have the Sword of Punishment in their Hands or have Families under their Governance to Labor to redress this great enormity of all such as live Idly and unprofitably in the Common-weal to the great dishonor of God and the grievous Plague of his silly People To leave sin unpunished and to neglect the good bringing up of Youth is nothing else but to kindle the Lords wrath against us and to heap Plagues upon our own Heads As long as the Adulterous people were suffered to live Licentiously without Reformation so long did the Plague continue and increase in Israel Numb 25. as you may see in the Book of Numbers But when due correction was done upon them the Lords anger was strait way pacified and the Plauge ceased Let all Officers therefore look straitly to their charge Let all Masters of Housholds reform this abuse in their Families let them use the Authority that God hath given them let them not maintain Vagabonds and Idle persons but deliver the Realm and their Housholds from such noysom Loyterers that Idleness the Mother of all Mischief being clean taken away Almighty God may turn his dreaful Anger away from us and confirm the Covenant of Peace upon us for ever through the Merits of Jesus Christ our only Lord and Saviour to whom with the Father and the Holy Ghost be all Honor and Glory World without end Amen AN HOMILY OF Repentance and of true Reconciliation unto God THere is noting that the Holy Ghost doth so much Labor in all the Scriptures to beat into Mens Heads as Repentance amendment of Life and speedy returning unto the Lord God of Hosts And no marvel why for we do Daily and Hourly by our wickedness and stubborn Disobedience horribly fall away from God thereby purchasing unto our selves if he should deal with us according to his Justice Eternal Damnation The Doctrin of Repentance is most necessary So that no Doctrin is so necessary in the Church of God as is the Doctrin of Repentance and amendment of Life And verily the true Preachers of the Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven and of the glad and joyful tidings of Salvation have always in their Godly Sermons and Preachings unto the People joyned these two together I mean Repentance and Forgiveness of Sins even as our Saviour Jesus Christ did appoint himself saying So it behoved Christ to Suffer and to Rise again the Third Day and that Repentance and Forgiveness of sins should be preached in his Name among all Nations And therefore the holy Apostle doth in the Acts speak after this manner I have witnessed both to the Jews and to the Gentiles the Repentance towards God and Faith towards our Lord Jesus Christ Did not John Baptist Zacharias Son begin his Ministry with the Doctrin of Repentance saying Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand The like Doctrin did our Saviour Jesus Christ preach himself and commanded his Apostles to preach the same I might here alledge very many places out of the Prophets in the which this most wholsom Doctrin of Repentance is very earnestly urged as most needful for all degrees and orders of Men but one shall be sufficient at this present time These are the words of Joel the Prophet therefore also now the Lord saith Joel 2. Return unto me with all your heart with Fasting Weeping and Mourning rent your hearts and not your cloaths and return unto the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful slow to anger and of great compassion and ready to pardon wickedness Whereby it is given us to understand A perpetual Rule which all must follow that we have here a perpetual Rule appointed unto us which ought to be observed and kept at all times and that there is none other way whereby the wrath of God may be pacified and his anger asswaged that the fierceness of his fury and the plagues of destruction which by his righteous Judgment he had determined to bring upon us may depart be removed and taken away Where he saith But now therefore saith the Lord return unto me It is not without great importance that the Prophet speaketh so for he had before set forth at large unto them the horrible Vengeance of God which no Man was able to abide and therefore he doth move them to Repentance to obtain Mercy as if he should say I will not have these things to be so taken as though there were no hope of grace left For although ye do by your sins deserve to be utterly destroyed and God by his righteous Judgments hath determined to bring no small destruction upon you yet know that ye are in a manner on the very edge of the Sword if ye will speedily return unto him he will most gently and most mercifully receive you into favor again Whereby we are admonished that Repentance is never too late so that it be true and earnest For sith that God in the Scriptures will be called our Father doubtless he doth follow the nature and property of gentle and merciful Fathers which seek nothing so much as the returning again and amendment of their Children as Christ doth abundantly teach in the Parable of the Prodigal Son Luke 15. Ezek. 18. Esay 1. 1 John 2. Doth not the Lord himself say by the Prophet I will not the death of the wicked but that he turn from his wicked ways and live And in another place If we confess our sins God is faithful righteous to forgive us our sins and to make us clean from all wickedness Which most comfortable Promises are confirmed by many Examples of the Scriptures when the Jews did willingly receive and imbrace the wholesom counsel of the Prophet Esay Esay 33. God by and by did reach his helping hand unto them and by his Angel did in one night slay the most worthy and valiant Soldiers of Sennacheribs Camp 2 Par. 53. Whereunto may King Manasses be added who after all manner of damnable wickedness returned unto the Lord and therefore was heard of him and restored again into his Kingdom
foolishly and wickedly to bestow Goods purchased by Wisdom and Truth Of such lewdness Lactantius writeth thus Men do in vain deck Images of the gods with Gold Ivory and precious Stone as though they could take any pleasure in those things For what use have they of precious Gifts which understand nor feel nothing Even the same that dead men have For with like reason do they bury dead bodies farced with Spices and Odours and clothed with precious Vestures and deck Images which neither felt nor knew when they were made nor understand when they be honoured for they get no sense and understanding by their consecration Thus far Lactantius and much more too long here to rehearse declaring that as little Girls play with little Puppets so be these decked Images great Puppets for Old Fools to play with And that we may know what not only men of our Religion but Ethnicks also judge of such decking of dead Images it is not unprofitable to hear what Seneca a wise and excellent learned Senator of Rome and Philosopher saith concerning the foolishness of ancient and grave men used in his time in worshipping and decking of Images We saith Seneca be not twice Children as the common saying is but always Children but this is the difference that we being elder play the Children and in these Plays they bring in before great and well decked Puppets for so he calleth Images Ointments Incense and Odours To these Puppets they offer up Sacrifice which have a Mouth but not the use of Teeth Vpon these they put attiring and precious Apparel which have no use of Clothes To these they give Gold and Silver which they who receive it meaning the Images lack as well as they that have given it from them And Seneca much commendeth Dionysius King of Sicily for his merry robbing of such decked and jewelled Puppets But you will ask what doth this appertain to our Images which is written against the Idols of the Gentiles Altogether surely For what use or pleasure have our Images of their decking and precious Ornaments Did our Images understand when they were made or know when they be so trimmed and decked Be not these things bestowed upon them as much in vain as upon dead men which have no sense Wherefore it followeth that there is like foolishness and lewdness in decking of our Images as great Puppets for old Fools like Children to play the wicked play of Idolatry as was before among the Ethnicks and Gentiles Our Churches stand full of such great Puppets wondrously decked and adorned Garlands and Coronets be set on their heads precious Pearls hanging about their necks their fingers shine with Rings set with precious Stones their dead and stiff bodies are clothed with Garments stiff with Gold You would believe that the Images of our Men-saints were some Princes of Persia Land with their proud Apparel and the Idols of our Women-saints were nice and well-trimmed Harlots tempting their Paramours to wantonness whereby the Saints of God are not honoured but most dishonoured and their godliness soberness chastity contempt of riches and of the vanity of the World defaced and brought in doubt by such monstrous decking most differing from their sober and godly lives And because the whole Pageant must through●● be play'd it is not enough thus to deck Idols but at last come in the Priests themselves likewise decked with Gold and Pearl that they may be meet Servants for such Lords and Ladies and fit worshippers of such gods and goddesses And with a solemn pace they pass forth before these golden Puppets and fall down to the ground on their Marrow-bones before these honourable Idols and then rising up again offer up Odours and Incense unto them to give the People an example of double Idolatry by worshipping not only the Idol but the Gold also and Riches wherewith it is garnished Which things the most part of our Old Martyrs rather than they would do or once kneel or offer up one crumb of Incense before an Image suffered most cruel and terrible deaths as the Histories of them at large do declare And here again their allegation out of Gregory the First and Damascen Greg. Epist ad S●enum Massil Damas de fide ortho l. 4. c. 17. that Images be the Lay-mens Books and that Pictures are the Scripture of Ideots and simple Persons is worthy to be considered For as it hath been touched in divers places before how they be Books teaching nothing but lies as by St. Paul in the first Chapter to the Romans evidently appeareth of the Images of God So what manner of Books and Scripture these painted and gilt Images of Saints be unto the common People note well I pray you For after that our Preachers shall have instructed and exhorted the People to the following of the vertues of the Saints as contempt of this World Poverty Soberness Chastity and such like vertues which undoubtedly were in the Saints Think you as soon as they turn their faces from the Preacher and look upon the graven Books and painted Scripture of the glorious gilt Images and Idols all shining and glittering with Metal and Stone and covered with precious Vestures or else with Choerea in Terence behold a painted Table wherein is set forth by the Art of the Painter an Image with a nice and wanton Apparel and Countenance more like to Venus or Flora than Mary Magdalen or if like to Mary Magdalen it is when she played the Harlot rather than when she wept for her sins When I say they turn about from the Preacher to these Books and School-masters and painted Scriptures shall they not find them lying Books teaching other manner of Lessons of esteeming of Riches of Pride and vanity in Apparel of niceness and wantonness and peradventure of Whoredom as Choerea of like Pictures was taught And in Lucian one learned of Venus Gnidia a Lesson too abominable here to be remembred Be not these think you pretty Books and Scriptures for simple People and especially for Wives and young Maidens to look in read on and learn such lessons of What will they think either of the Preacher who taught them contrary Lessons of the Saints and therefore by these carved Doctors are charged with a lie or of the Saints themselves if they believe these graven Books and painted Scriptures of them who make the Saints now reigning in Heaven with God to their great dishonour School-masters of such Vanity which they in their life-time most abhorred For what Lessons of contempt of Riches and vanity of this World can such Books so besmeared with Gold set with precious Stones covered with Silks teach What Lessons of Soberness and Chastity can our Women learn of these pictured Scriptures with their nice Apparel and wanton Looks But away for shame with these coloured cloaks of Idolatry of the Books and Scriptures of Images and Pictures to teach Idiots nay to make Idiots and stark Fools and Beasts of Christians Do men