Selected quad for the lemma: cause_n
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A42766
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A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemne fast Wednesday, March 27, 1644 by George Gillespie.
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Gillespie, George, 1613-1648.
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1644
(1644)
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Wing G757; ESTC R24966
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43,436
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52
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wine till the end of the feast and h he will blesse our latter end more then our beginning That which I have said from grounds of Scripture concerning a more glorious yea more peaceable condition of the Church to be yet looked for is acknowledged by i some of our sound and learned Writers who have had occasion to expresse their judgement about it And it hath no affinity with the opinion of an earthly or temporall kingdome of Christ or of the Jewes their building againe of Jerusalem and the materiall Temple and their obtaining a dominion above all other Nations or the like I shall now bring home the point There are very good grounds of hope to make us think that this new Temple is not farre off And for your part that Christ is to make a new face of a Church in this Kingdome a faire and beautifull Temple for his glory to dwell in And hee is even now about the work For first the set time to build Zion is come when the people of God take pleasure in her stones and favour the dust thereof Psal. 102. 13 14 16. The stones which the builders of Babel refused are now chosen for corner stones and the stones which they choosed doe the builders of Zion now refuse Ier. 51. 26. They shall not take of thee a stone for a corner nor a stone for foundations Those that have any thing of Christ and of the Image of God in them begin to creep out of the dust of contempt and to appeare like starres of the morning Nay to go further then that the old stones the Iewes who have beene for so many ages lying forgotten in the dust those poore k Outcasts of Israel have of â—…ate come more into remembrance and have beene more thought of and more prayed for then they were in former generations Secondly are there not great preparations and instruments fitted for the work Hath not God called together for such a time as this the present Parliament and the Assembly of Divines his Zorobabels and Iehoshua's and Haggaies and Zachariahs Are there not also hewers of stones and bearers of burdens much wholsome preaching much praying and fasting many petitions put up both to God and man the Covenant also going through the Kingdom as the chief preparation of materials for the work Is not the old rubbish of Ceremonies daily more and more shovelled away that there may bee a clean ground and is not the Lord by all this affliction humbling you that there may be a deep and a sure foundation layd Thirdly the work is begun and shall it not be finished God hath layd the foundation and shall he not bring forth the head stone Zechar. 4. 7. 9. Christ hath put Antichrist from his utterworks in Scotland and he is now come to put him from his inner works in England His work is perfect l saith Moses I am alpha and omega m saith Christ the beginning and the ending n Shall I bring to the birth and not cause to bring forth sayth the Lord shall I cause to bring forth and shut the womb sayth thy God I may adde three other signes whereby to discern the time from Revel. 11. 1. the place before cited First Is there not now a measuring of the Temple Ordinances and worshippers by a reed like unto a rod the reed of the Sanctuary in the Assemblies hand and the rod of Power and Law in your hand are well met together Secondly there is a Court which before seemed to belong to the Temple left out and not measured o from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which hee hath The Samaritans of this time who p serve the Lord and serve their own Gods too and do after the manners of Idolaters have professed as they of old to the Jewes Ezra 4. 2. that they would build with you that they will bee for the true Protestant Religion as you are that they will also consent to the reformation of abuses for the ease of tender consciences But God doth so alienate and separate betwixt you and them by his overruling providence discovering their designes against you and their deep engagements to the Popish party as if he would say unto them you have no portion nor right nor memoriall in Ierusalem Neh. 2. 20. Or as it is in the Parable concerning those who had refused to come when they were invited yea had taken the servants of Christ and entreated them spitefully and killed them the great King hath said in his wrath that they shall not taste of his supper and hee sends forth his Armies to destroy those Murtherers and to burn up their City Mat. 22. 6. 7. Luk. 14. 24. Surely a what they have professed concerning Reformation is scarce so much as the Pope did acknowledge when Reformation did begin in Germany However as it is our hearts desire and prayer to God for them that they may be saved so we are not out of hopes that God hath many of his own among them unto whom he will give b repentance to the acknowledging of the truth Lastly the time seemeth to answer fitly The new Temple is built when the 42 Moneths of the Beasts raigne and of the treading down the holy City that is by the best Interpretation 1260 yeares come to an end This computation I conceive should begin rather before the foure hundreth yeare of Christ then after it both because the Romane Emperour whose falling was the Popes rising was brought very low before that time by the warres of the Gothes and other barbarous Nations and otherwise which will appeare from History And further because c Pope Innocentius who succeeded about the yeare 401 was raised so high that he drew all appeals from other Bishops to the Apostolicall Sea according to former Statutes and Customes as hee saith I cannot pitch upon a likelier time then the yeare 383 at which time according to the common calculation 〈◊〉 generall Councell at Constantinople though Baronius and some others reckon that Councell in the yeare 381 d did acknowledge the Primacy of the Bishop of Rome only reserving to the Bishop of Constantinople the second place among the Bishops Did not then the Beast receive much power when this much was acknowledged by a Councell of 150 Bishops though setting in the Fast and moderated by Nectarius Archbishop of Constantinople Immediately after this Councell it is aknowledged by e one of our great Antiquaries that the Bishop of Rome did labour mightily to draw all causes to his own Consistory and that he doth scarce read of any Heretick or Schismatick condemned in the Province where he lived but straight he had his recourse to the Bishop of Rome f Another of our Antiquaries noteth not long before that Councell that Antichrist did then begin to appear at Rome and to exalt himselfe over all other Bishops Now if wee should reckon the beginning