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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
cause_n	bishop_n	rome_n	see_v	1,857	5	3.9327	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42766	A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons at their late solemne fast Wednesday, March 27, 1644 by George Gillespie.	Gillespie, George, 1613-1648.	1644 (1644)	Wing G757; ESTC R24966	43,436	52

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 ●…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

many of the Lords VVitnesses of the most painfull and powerfull Preachers and the preferring of so many either dumbe dogges or false Teachers maketh the voice of bloods to cry to heaven even the blood of many thousands yea thousands of thousand soules which have been lost by the one or might have been saved by the other God will require the blood of the children which those righteous Abels might have begotten unto him There is beside all this more Blood-guiltinesse which is secret but shall sometime be brought to light O Blood blood O let the Land tremble while the Righteous Judge l makes inquisition for blood O let England cry m Deliver me from blood-guiltinesse O God But you will say peradventure Many of these things whereof I have spoken ought not to be charged upon the Kingdome they were onely the acts of a prevalent Faction for the time I Answer First God will impute them to the Kingdome unlesse the Kingdome mourne for them n God gives not a charge to the destroying Angel to spare those who have not been Actors in the publike sinnes and abominations but to spare those onely who cry and sigh for those abominations Secondly VVhen the Ministers of State or others having authority in Church or Common-wealth take the boldnesse to doe such acts the Kingdome is not blamelesse for they durst not have done as they did had the Land but disclaimed discountenanced and cryed out against them It is marked both o of John Baptist and p of Christ and q of the Apostles that so long as the people did magnifie them and esteeme them highly their enemies durst not doe unto them what else they would have done A third consideration concerning the Kingdome is this Notwithstanding of all the happinesse and Gospell blessings which it hath wanted in so great a measure and notwithstanding of all the sinnes which have so much abounded in it r yet the servants of God have charged it with great presumption that the Church of England hath said s with the Church of Laodicea I am rich and increased with goods and have need of nothing It hath bin proud of its Clergy learning great revenues peace plenty wealth and abundance of all things And as the Apostle t chargeth the Corinthians yee are puffed up and have not rather mourned that the wicked ones might be taken away from among you And would God this presumption had taken an end when God did begin to afflict the Land It did even make an Idoll of this Parliament and trusted to its owne strength and Armies which hath provoked God so much that he hath sometimes almost blasted your hopes that way and hath made you to feele your weaknesse even where you thought your selves strongest God would not have England say u Mine owne hand hath saved me Neither will he have Scotland to say My hand hath done it But he wil have both to say His hand hath done it when we were lost in our own eyes God grant that your leaning so much upon the arme of flesh bee not the cause of more blowes God must be seen in the worke and he will have us to give him all the glorie and to say x Thou hast wrought all our works for us O that all our presumption may be repented of and that the land may be yet more deeply humbled Assuredly God will arise and subdue our enemies and command deliverances for Jacob but it is as certaine God will not doe this till we be more humbled and as the Text saith ashamed of all that we have done Fourthly there is another Motive more Evangelicall let England be humbled even for the mercy the most admirable mercy which God hath shewed upon so undeserving and evill deserving a Kingdome See it in this same Prophecy y I will establish my Covenant with thee and thou shalt know that I am the Lord That thou maist remember and bee confounded and never open thy mouth any more because of thy shame when I am pacified toward thee for all that thou hast done saith the Lord God And z again Not for your sakes doe I this saith the Lord God be it knoun unto you be ashamed and confounded for your owne wayes O house of Israel O my God a saith Ezra I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to thee And what was it that did so confound him you may find it in that which followeth God had shewed them mercy and had left them a remnant to escape and had given them a naile in his holy place and had lightned their eyes And now b saith he O our God what shall we say after this for we have forsaken thy Commandements Let us this day compare as he did Gods goodnesse and our own guiltinesse England deserved nothing but to get a bill of divorce and that God should have said in his wrath Away from me I have no pleasure in you but now hee hath received you into the bond of his Covenant he rejoyceth over you to doe you good and to dwell among you his Banner over you is love O let our hard hearts be overcome and be confounded with so much mercy and let us be ashamed of our selves that after so much mercy we should be yet in our sinnes and trespasses There is a third application which I intend for the Ministerie who ought to goe before the people of God in the example of Repe●…tance and humiliation You know the old observation Rarò vidi Clericum poenitentem I have seldome seen a Clergie man penitent As Christ c saith of rich men I may say of learned men it is easier for a Camell to goe through the eye of a needle then for a man that trusts in his Learning to enter into the Kingdome of heaven He will needs maintaine the lawfulnesse of all which he hath done and will not bee as this Text would have him ashamed of all that hee hath done Yet it is not impossible with God to make such a one deny himselfe and that d whatsoever in him exalts it selfe against Christ should bee brought in captivity to the obedience of Christ Among all that were converted by the Ministerie of the Apostles I wonder most at the conversion of a great company of Priests Acts 6. 7. I doe not suspect as e two learned men have done that the Text is corrupted in that place and that it should be otherwise read I am the rather satisfied because there is nothing there mentioned of the Conversion of the high Priest or of the chiefe Priests the heads of the four and twenty Orders which were upon the Councell and had condemned Christ the place cannot be understood but of a multitude of common or inferiour Priests Even as by proportion in Hezekiah's Reformation f the Levites were more upright in heart than the Priests And now many of the Inferiour Clergie