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hearted to believe and stiff-necked to hear, they must use such words of God's majesty and power, which will make stony hearts to tremble; and where fear reigns, there to comfort and raise them up by the gentle loving mercies of God offered to the world in his Son Jesus Christ our Lord. And yet once again he refers them to their own judgment, and bids them consider in their own hearts their own ways, and be judges themselves. As if he should say: Hitherto have ye followed your own desires, and have had no profit in so doing; but being sundry wise plagued ye have not considered it. Nothing that ye have gone about hath prospered with you your fruit of the earth hath not increased; your meat and drink hath not fed you; your clothes hath not kept you warm; your money wasted in your purse, ye could not tell how. But now build my house, and mark your own doings well, whether every thing shall not be blessed and increased that ye go about. I will be delighted in your building, and I will shew my glory to the whole world among you, in defending you, and that my house and worship there. I will be your God, and ye shall be my people, and no enemies shall overcome you the earth shall be fruitful unto you; your meat, drink, clothes and money shall feed and nourish you. Choose you whether ye will let my house lie unbuilded still, and still be plagued; or ye will repair it diligently, and be blessed.

"Go up to the hill, bring home timber, and build this house:" these three things God requires of them, and he promises them two blessings for them; first, that he will be delighted in that house building, then that he will shew his glory amongst them. For these causes, rather than for worldly profit, they should be more earnestly stirred to do their duty, when they were certain that they pleased God in so doing. The hill that he wills them to go to is Libanus, as appears in Esdras', which is not within the bounds of Jewry, but of Tyrus and Sidon: for there grew the fairest trees of any 1 Kings v. country. From thence had Salomon trees in his time also for the same building. This figure doth teach us, that as

Ezra iii.

[Esdras: Ezra. It is here and elsewhere quoted by the author as the 1st book of Esdras, according to the practice then in use of calling the book of Nehemiah the second book of Esdras or Ezra. See the 6th Article of our Church. ED.]

The heathen

be members of Christ's church.

God's temple was then builded of trees that grew amongst be called to the heathen people; so when the full time was comen, Christ's church should be builded of the Gentiles and heathen people, when the gospel should be preached through all the world. And this is comfortable for us, that although we be not born of Jews, yet we be trees meet to build God's house on; and God wills us to be brought home to him by the preaching of his word, that we may be partakers of that house, wherein he will dwell, and be delighted in us, and among whom he will shew his glory. He bids them climb up the hill, draw home trees, and build the house; which all be words of great The painful labour and pains, and speaks nothing of the easier sort of be borne work, as devising, casting the work, framing the posts, &c., respect. but wills them not to refuse the greatest labour that belongs thereto, and that nothing should be thought painful that God commands. And he bids them not look for any great worldly wealth when they had done, (although God of his goodness would give them that beside ;) but think this a sufficient reward, that God was pleased in their doings, and would shew his glory among them.

This is the greatest reward that we can look for, when God is delighted with us: and happy is that people to whom it falls. What have the angels in heaven more, than that God is delighted to be among them, and shew his glorious majesty to them? Thus in building God's house we may make of earth heaven, and of men angels. For where God shews himself glorious, there is heaven: and we shall be like angels, delighting ourselves in praising our God; and God will be delighted and dwell with us, shewing his glorious majesty to us, be our God and bless us.

labour must

without

When they had fallen these trees and carried them home, lest they should turn them to their own use, and build their own houses with them, he saith, "Build this house," meaning the house of God and temple which God had chosen among all other places, and where only he willed them to offer their sacrifices. In which we are taught, that we should not turn to our own pleasure those things which God will have dedicate to himself and to the building of his house. Necessary If England had not been so greedy to turn to their own use goods are church goods, which should have necessarily been bestowed taken away.

church

not to be

generally is

church, or

every par

ticular person.

1 Cor. vi.

to the building of God's house, we should not have felt God's rod so sharply, but God would have been pleased, and shewed his glory among us.

But when men would not give lands fast enough to abbeys, then the pope, rather than his chaplains should want, would rob many parishes to feed his monks. God grant that the gospel may restore that justly, which the pope took wrongfully away, and gave them yet a right name of impropriations, because improperly they be taken away, and properly belong to the parishes. The workman is worthy his hire: he that serves the gospel, must live of the gospel. Therefore those impropriations, which take away the preacher's living, be against the word of God.

But what, doth this belong to us or our time? doth God require of us to build him abbeys, nunneries, chantries, &c.? God's house No, surely; but this was an outward exercise for that gross, the whole hard-hearted people for a time to be exercised in, that they should not build temples to idols; and teacheth us to build God's spiritual house, wherein we may offer spiritual sacrifices and prayers to him, wherein he is well delighted and will shew his majesty. This house is now for us to be understood generally the whole church and company of Christians, and the body and soul, the heart, mind, or conscience of all Christians particularly, wherein God dwells by his holy Spirit, as St Paul saith to the Corinthians: "Do ye not know that your bodies be the temples of the Holy Ghost," and which he hath sanctified to be kept holy for himself alone by baptism, and for the which Christ hath died that we might live by him, whom he hath redeemed with his blood, and washed clean from all sin, that we should live no more to our own lusts and desires, but to him that hath redeemed us? It is written, that God dwells not in temples made with hands, nor is worshipped with any work of man's hands; but he is a Spirit, an invisible substance, and will be worshipped in spirit and truth; not in outward words only of the lips, but with the deep sighs and groanings of the heart, and the whole power of the mind, and earnest hearty calling on him in prayer by faith. And therefore he doth not so much require of us to build him a house of stone and timber; but hath willed us to pray in all places, and hath taken away that

Acts vii.

John iv.

1 Tim. ii.

shipped in

Jewish and popish holiness, which is thought to be more in God is worone place than another. All the earth is the Lord's, and spirit and he is present in all places, hearing the petitions of them which call on him in faith.

all places.

Therefore those bishops, which think with their conjured water to make one place more holy than the rest, are no better than Jews, deceiving the people, and teaching that only to be holy which they have censed, crossed, oiled, and breathed upon. For as Christ said to the woman, thinking one place to be holier to pray in than another, "Woman, John iv. believe me, the time is come when ye shall worship neither at Jerusalem nor in this hill; but the true worshippers shall worship God in spirit and truth:" so is it now said, the place makes not the man holy, but the man makes the place holy; and ye shall not worship your idols, stocks and stones, neither at Walsingham, Ipswich, Canterbury nor Sheen'; for God chooses not the people for the place sake, 2 Macc. v. but the place for the people's sake. But if ye be in the midst of the field, God is as ready to hear your faithful prayers, as in any abbey or nunnery; yea, a thousand times more for the one place he hates, as defiled with idolatry, and the other he loves as undefiled and clean. If the good man. lie in prison, tied in chains, or at the stake to be burned for God's cause; that place is holy for the holiness of the man, and the presence of the Holy Ghost in him, as Tertullian saith.

places of

are to be

Heb. x.

Yet there should be common places appointed for the Common people to assemble and come together in, to praise our God: prayer for where the apostle rebuked them, which would not resort appointed. with the rest of the Christians to make their common prayers together, to hear his word and receive his sacraments; it proves they had some common place to resort to. And where St Paul requires that all things should be done in a comely 1 Cor. xiv. order, what can be more comely or agreeing to good order, than to have a time appointed, and a place to resort unto together, to worship our only God? Nay, how shall they come together, except place and time be appointed? How shall they know when and whither to resort, unappointed?

[The first edition is followed: the second has do worship. ED.] [An old hamlet of Richmond, where was formerly a Carthusian convent. ED.]

Mark v.

Luke vii.

Heb. xiii.

Burials out

of church or

the yard.

How can the shepherd teach his sheep, if he have not a Acts i. xvi. fold to gather them together in? In the apostles' time, when the rulers were not christened, they resorted into private houses and chambers, and by the waterside, to worship their God; but when princes became christened, they had churches appointed for them: yet all these prayers and preachings that were privily in parlours and by the waterside, were as pleasant to God (yea, better peradventure, for commonly they came of a greater and better love and faith) as ours be now. Those also which then were buried in no hallowed church nor churchyard, nor christian moulds, as they be called (when it is no better than other earth, but rather worse, for the conjuring that bishops use about it) were no worse than they which were buried with all solemnity. It appears in the gospel, by the legion living in graves, the widow's son going to burial, Christ buried without the city, &c., that then they buried not in hallowed churchyards by any bishops, but in a several place appointed for the same purpose without the city; which custom remains to this day in many godly places. As that then was lawful and no hurt to the dead, so is it now; and one place is as holy as another to be buried in, saving that comely order requires the bodies not to be cast away, because they were the temples of the Holy Ghost, and shall be glorified at the last day again, but seemly to be buried, and an honest place to be kept, several from beasts and unreverent using the same, for the same use. It is popish to believe that which the bishops do teach; that place to be more holy than the rest which they have hallowed, as they say, with washing it with their conjured water, crossings, censings, processions, &c., elsewhere. and that God will hear our prayers afore one idol or image rather than another, or in one abbey, as pleases them to appoint him, rather than another. Where it pleases them to grant many days of pardon, there God must hear their prayers sooner, and work more miracles: so God is become their servant, and shall be where they will appoint him. But blessed be that God our Lord, which by the light of his word doth confound all such wicked and fond fantasies, as they can devise to fill their bellies and maintain their authority.

Bishops' blessings make not

places more holy, nor

God to hear us sooner there than

The use of churches.

Churches be God's school house, the preacher is a schoolmaster sent from God to teach us his word, we be his scholars,

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