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A02771
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The temple A sermon preached at Pauls Crosse the fifth of August. 1624. By Tho. Adams.
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Adams, Thomas, fl. 1612-1653.
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1624
(1624)
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STC 129; ESTC S100422
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35,512
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74
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not rather go home to his house Peter and Iohn went vp into the Temple at the houre of Prayer Actes 3.1 they thought it not sufficient to pray in their priuate chambers but ioyne themselues with the Congregation as a Nauy Royall to transport their holy Merchandise to heauen Psalm 134.2 Lift vp your hands in the Sanctuary and blesse the Lord. Pure hands are accepted in euery place but especially in the Sanctuary What followes The Lord that made heauen and earth blesse thee out of Sion Hee sayes not the Lord that made heauen blesse thee vpon earth nor the Lord that made earth blesse thee out of heauen but the Lord that made heauen and earth blesse thee out of Sion Blessings come originally from heauen mediately through Sion In the Temple let vs seeke in the Temple wee shall finde those precious treasures and comforts of Iesus Christ This Temple is not without some enemies Besides those prophane Polititians that thinke with one Eustathius that there is no vse of Temples or those Massilians who as Damascen reports did adde to other Heresies Templorum contemptum or those Pseudo-Apostoli that laughed at a Temple full of Suppliants as a house full of fooles Or those that bee of Ieroboams mind who to settle himselfe in the kingdome of Israel diuerts the people from Gods house at Ierusalem In stead of that snowy glittering Temple they shall haue two golden representations Sion is too farre off these shall bee neere home that is a tedious way of deuotion these both compendious and plausible Antiqu. lib. 8. cap. 3. As Iosephus brings him in perswading them My good people and friends you cannot but know that no place is without God and that no place doth containe God wheresoeuer we pray he can heare vs wheresoeuer we worship hee can see vs therefore the Temple is superfluous the iourney needlesse God is better able to come to you then you are to goe to him Beside these the Temple of God hath two kinds of foes 1. The Anabaptists tell vs that the old superstition hath made those houses fitter for Stables then for Churches that they ought no more to be called Templa Dei but Templa Idolorum as they pretend the Passeouer was called in those corrupt times Iohn 2.13 not Pascha Dei but Pascha Iudaeorum By the same reason they would haue remoued all Princes because some haue abused their gouernments But we say though euill men abuse good things yet if a kingdome were not a lawfull State Dauid and Iosias would neuer haue been Kings for good men doe not vse euill things The Temple in Christs time was become a denne of theeues yet euen then and there did hee send vp deuout and holy Prayers It is a grosse ignorance that cannot distinguish betwixt a fault that proceeds ex natura facti Th. 1. qu. 41. art 6. and that which proceeds ex abusu boni the former is malum simpliciter the other is but malum per accidens No man pulles downe his house because vncleannesse hath been committed in one of the chambers Let offenders be remoued from the Temple not the Temple demolished because of offences The Kingdome of God shall be taken from you Math. 21.43 saith Christ not quite taken away but onely taken from the Iewes When GOD threatned the like to Saul 1 Sam. 15.28 he did not meane to haue no more Kings or to reduce it to the former state of Iudges no onely the kingdome shall lose Saul but Israel shall not lose the kingdome It is a Maxime in nature Things dedicated to God are not to bee transferred to the vses of men a principle in Philosophy Plato Quae rectè data sunt eripi non licet and a prouerbe among our children To giue a thing and take a thing is fit for the Deuils darling 2. The Sacrilegious to whom God is beholding if they let his Temple stand but for the maintenance of it they will bee so bold with him as either to share halfe or leaue him none There bee many that pray in the Temple who yet also prey on the Temple as if a thiefe should doe homage to that house in the day which hee meanes to robbe in the night But alas why should I touch that sore which is all dead flesh or speake against Sacriledge In orbe sacrilego among them that delight in it Where Lawyers are feeed hired bribed to maintaine Sacriledge God and his poore Ministers may euen hold their peace Something would be spoken for Sions sake but I take this place and time for neither the right Vbi nor Quando We know Abigail would not tell Nabal of his drunkennesse till hee was awoke from his wine Whensoeuer it shall please God to awake you from this intoxication we may then find a season to speak to you But God keepe you from Nabals destiny 1 Sam. 25.37 that when this sinne shall bee obiected to your Consciences on your death-beds your hearts doe not then die in you like a stone One thing let me beg of you in the Name of him whom you thus wrong Howsoeuer you persist to robbe the Temple of the due Salary yet doe not stand to iustifie it By imploring mercy perhaps you may bee saued but by iustifying the Iniury you cannot but be lost As the French King Francis the first said to a woman kneeling and crying to him for Iustice Stand vp woman for Iustice Iowe thee if thou beg'st any thing beg mercy So if you request any thing of God let it bee mercy for he owes you Iustice and in this poynt God be mercifull to you all It was Dauids earnest prayer One thing haue I desired of the Lord Psalm 27.7 and that will I seeke after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the dayes of my life to behold the beautie of the Lord and to enquire in his Temple There are many that pray Dauids words but not with Dauids heart Vnum petij one thing I haue desired De praeterito for the time past hoc requiram this I will still seeke after de futuro for the time to come I haue required it long and this suite I will vrge till I haue obtained it What to dwell in some of the houses of God all the dayes of my life and to leaue them to my children after me not to serue him there with deuotion but to make the place mine owne possession These loue the House of God too well they loue it to Haue and to Hold but because the Conueyance is made by the Lawyer and not by the Minister their Title will bee found naught in the end and if there bee not a Nifi prius to preuent them yet at the great day of vniuersall Audite the Iudge of all the world shal condemne them By this way the neerer to the Church the further from God The Lords Temple is ordained to gaine vs to him not for vs
which was deuised against the will of heauen Doth not God threaten them with the addition of plagues that shall adde to his precepts If such deuices be good and necessary why did not God command them Did he want wisdome If they bee not necessary why doe wee vse them Is it not our presumptuous folly The Lords Ielousie is stirred vp by the rivalitie not onely of a false God but of a false worship Nothing is more dangerous then to mint his seruices in our owne braines In vaine doe they worship mee teaching for doctrines Math. 16.9 the commandements of men Is it not grieuous for men to lose all their labour and that in the maine busines of their life That so many hundred oblations so many thousand prayers so much cost of their purses so much affliction to their bodies so much anguish of their soules should be all forceles fruitles Like a dog that hunts counter and takes great paines to no purpose Euill deeds may haue sometimes good meanings but those good meanings are answered with euill recompences Many bestow their labors their goods their bloods and yet receiue torments in stead of thanks When the Apostle bids vs mortifie our earthly members Coloss 3.5 hee does not intend violence to our selues but to our sinnes There is one mortification to cast our selues out of the world there is another mortification to cast the world out of vs. A body macerated with scourges disabled with fastings wearied with pilgrimages was none of S. Pauls mortification Who hath required this at your hands Where is no commaund imposed no reward proposed no promise made if you doe no punishment threatned if you doe not what fruit can be expected but shame Must wee needs either doe nothing or that which is worse then nothing Shall we offer so much suffer so much and all in vaine Quis haec à vobis Let him pay you your wages that did set you on worke Neuer plead your owne reason where God hath set a plaine interdiction He that suffers his faith to be ouerruled by his reason may haue a fat reason but a leane faith That man is not worthy to bee a follower of Christ who hath not denied himselfe therefore denied his Reason for his reason is no small piece of himselfe If Reason get the head in this diuine businesse it presently preuailes with will and will commands the affections so this new Triumvirate shall gouerne the Christian Saboll par 1. not Faith But as when three Ambassadors were sent from Rome to appease the discord betweene Nicomedes and Prusias whereof one was troubled with a Megrim in his head another had the Gowt in his toes and the third was a foole Cato said merrily that Ambassage had neither Head nor Foot nor Heart So that man shall neither haue a head to conceiue the truth nor a foot to walke in the wayes of obedience nor a heart to receiue the comforts of saluation that suffers his reason will and affections to vsurpe vpon his faith Hence it comes to passe that the most horrid sinnes are turned into Idols by setting our owne reasons against the manifest will of God Thus lies shall bee father'd vpon the Father of truth and truth vpon the Father of lies Thus breach of faith and periurie shall be held Orthodoxe opinions Yea that execrable monster whereof this day remembers vs Treason it selfe shall be held good Doctrine Rude cacodaemon that stigmaticke Idol that grosse deuill shall be worshiped Si fas cadendo coelestia scandere If this be the way to the kingdome of heauen if thus men may merit to be starres in the Firmament by embruing their hands in the bloud-Royall of Princes what Iesuite will not be a Star When such bee their principles such must needes bee their practices What though God condemne Treason to hell when the Pope will aduance it to heauen What though the Diuine Scripture doth ranke traitors among dogs deuils when the Pope will number them among Saints It was wont to be said Ex quolibet ligno non fit Mercurius euery block is not fit to make an Image Yet now the most monstrous sinne that euer the deuill shaped in his Infernall forge is not onely by the practice but euen by the Doctrine of Rome turned into an Idol What is that we shal call fin when murther Treason is held religion Alas for our age to beare the date of these impieties That our posterity should euer reade in our Chronicles In such a yeare in such a day Traitors conspired against their lawfull Gracious Soueraigne and that in those dayes there was a sect of men liuing that did labour in voluminous writings to iustifie those horrible facts But oh may those pestiferous monuments be as fast deuoured by obliuion as the authors and abettors themselues are swallowed vp by confusion And the same God deliuer vs his people from their conspiracies that hath deliuered this his Church from their Idolatries Thus wee haue looked abroad but now haue we no Idols at home O how happy was it if they were as farre from the Temple as they are from agreement with the Temple I will not abound in this discouery there be three maine Idols among vs Vaine Preasure vaine Honor and Riches it is to be feared that these three vanities haue more clients then the Trinity that made vs. The first is an Idol of the water the next an Idol of the ayre the last an Idol of the earth 1. Vaine Pleasure and oh what a world of foolish worshippers flocke to this merry Goddesse Shee hath a Temple in euery corner Ebrietie sits in Tauernes burning smoky Incense and sacrificing drink-offrings to her So that if a man should prophesie of wine and strong drinke Mich. 2.11 he were a Prophet fit for this age but to preach sobrietie is held but a dry doctrine We commend wine for the excellency of it but if it could speak as it can take away speech it would complaine that by our abuse both the excellencies are lost for the excellent man doth so spoile the excellent wine vntill the excellent wine hath spoiled the excellent man O that a man should take pleasure in that which makes him no man that he should let a thiefe in at his mouth to steale away his wit that for a little throat-indulgence hee should kill in himselfe both the first Adam his reason but euen the second Adam his regeneration so commit two murders at once In euery Brothell this Idol hath her temple where the bed of vncleannes is the Altar the Priest a strumpet and the sacrifice a burning flesh offred to Moloch It is no rare thing for a man to make an Idol of his Mistres and to spend more time in her courtings then he doth at his prayers more cost on her body thē vpon his own soule Images were but dead Idols but painted Popinjayes be liuing Idols Pleasure hath a larger extent then I can