HEREAFTER shall follow Sermons of Fasting, Prayer, Alms-deeds, of the Nativity, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of our Saviour Christ: of the due receiving of his blessed body and blood, under the form of bread and wine: against Idleness, against Gluttony and Drunkenness, against Covetousness, against Envy, Ire, and Malice; with many other matters, as well fruitful as necessary to the edifying of Christian people, and the increase of godly living. GOD SAVE THE QUEEN. THE SECOND TO ME OF HOMILIES, OF SUCH MATTERS AS WERE PROMISED AND ENTITLED IN THE FORMER PART OF HOMILIES. SET OUT BY THE AUTHORITY OF THE LATE QUEEN'S MAJESTY [VIZ. Q. ELIZABETH]. AND TO BE READ IN EVERY PARISH CHURCH AGREEABLY. AN ADMONITION TO ALL MINISTERS ECCLESIASTICAL. For that the Lord doth require of his servant, whom he hath set over his household, to shew both faithfulness and prudence in his office; it shall be necessary that ye above all other do behave yourselves most faithfully and diligently in your so high a function: that is, aptly, plainly, and distinctly to read the sacred Scriptures; diligently to instruct the youth in their Catechism; gravely and reverently to minister his most holy Sacraments; prudently also to choose out such homilies as be most meet for the time, and for the more agreeable instruction of the people committed to your charge, with such discretion, that where the homily may appear too long for one reading, to divide the same, to be read part in the forenoon, and part in the afternoon. And where it may so chance some one or other chapter of the Old Testament to fall in order to be read upon the Sundays or holy-days, which were better to be changed with some other of the New Testament of more edification, it shall be well done to spend your time to consider well of such chapters before-hand, whereby your prudence and diligence in your office may appear; so that your people may have cause to glorify God for you, and be the readier to embrace your labours, to your better commendation, to the discharge of your consciences and their own. [THE Second Book of Homilies..... doth contain a godly and wholesome doctrine, and necessary for these times, as doth the former Book of Homilies, which were set forth in the time of Edward the Sixth; and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly, that they may be understanded of the people.-Art. xxxv.] AN HOMILY OF THE RIGHT USE OF THE UNTO THE SAME. THE FIRST PART. WHERE there appeareth at these days great slackness and negligence of a great sort of people, in resorting to the church, there to serve God their heavenly Father, according to their most bounden duty, as also much uncomely and unreverent behaviour of many persons in the same, when they be there assembled, and thereby may just fear arise of the wrath of God, and his dreadful plagues hanging over our heads for our grievous offences in this behalf, amongst other many and great sins which we daily and hourly commit before the Lord: therefore for the discharge of all our consciences, and for the avoiding of the common peril and plague hanging over us, let us consider what may be said out of God's holy book concerning this matter, whereunto I pray you give good audience, for that it is of great weight, and concerneth you all. Although the eternal and incomprehensible Majesty of God, the Lord of heaven and earth, whose seat is heaven, and the earth his footstool, cannot be inclosed in temples or houses made with man's hand, as in dwellingplaces able to receive or contain his Majesty, according as is evidently declared by the prophet Isaiah, and by the doctrine of St. Stephen and St. Paul in the Acts of the Apostles (Isa. lxvi. 1; Acts vii. 48, 49; xvii. 24). And where king Solomon (who builded unto the Lord the most glorious temple that ever was made) saith, Who shall able to build a meet or worthy house for him? If heaven, and the heaven above all heavens, cannot contain him, how much less can that which I have builded? And further confesseth, What am I, that I should be able to build thee an house, O Lord? But yet for this purpose only it is made, that thou mayest regard the prayer of thy servant, and his humble supplication (1 Kings viii. 27; 2 Chron. ii. 6; vi. 18, 19). Much less then be our H churches meet dwelling places to receive the incomprehensible majesty of God. And indeed the chief and special temples of God, wherein he hath greatest pleasure, and most delighteth to dwell and continue in, are the bodies and minds of true Christians, and the chosen people of God, according to the doctrine of the Holy Scripture, declared in the first epistle to the Corinthians, Know ye not, saith St. Paul, that ye be the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy. For the temple of God is holy, which ye are (1 Cor. iii. 16, 17). And again in the same epistle, Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost dwelling in you, whom ye have given you of God, and that ye be not your own? For ye are dearly bought. Glorify ye now therefore God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's (1 Cor. vi. 19, 20). And therefore, as our Saviour Christ teacheth in the Gospel of St. John, They that worship God the Father in spirit and truth, in what place soever they do it, worship him aright: for such worshippers doth God the Father look for. For God is a Spirit; and those that worship him must worship him in spirit and truth, saith our Saviour Christ (John iv. 23, 24). Yet all this notwithstanding, the material church or temple is a place appointed, as well by the usage and continual examples expressed in the Old Testament, as in the New, for the people of God to resort together unto, there to hear God's holy word, to call upon his holy name, to give him thanks for his innumerable and unspeakable benefits bestowed upon us, and duly and truly to celebrate his holy sacraments, (in the unfeigned doing and accomplishing of the which standeth that true and right worshipping of God afore-mentioned;) and the same church or temple is by the Holy Scriptures, both of the Old Testament and New, called the house and temple of the Lord, for the peculiar service there done to his majesty by his people, and for the effectuous presence of his heavenly grace, wherewith he, by his said holy word, endureth his people so there assembled. And to the said house or temple of God, at all times, by common order appointed, are all people that be godly indeed bound with all diligence to resort, unless by sickness, or other most urgent causes, they be letted therefrom. And all the same so |