A00888:436
The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2.…The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2.…
The devils banquet described in four sermons [brace], 1. The banquet propounded, begun, 2. The second service, 3. The breaking up of the feast, 4. The shot or reckoning, [and] The sinners passing-bell, together with Physic from heaven / published by Thomas Adams ...The deuills banket described in foure sermons [brace], 1. The banket propounded, begunne, 2. The second seruice, 3. The breaking vp of the feast, 4. The shot or reckoning, [and] The sinners passing-bell, together with Phisicke from heauen / published by Thomas Adams ...
London: printed by Thomas Snodham for Ralph Mab, 1614
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
God hath Armies of Stars in the sky, Meteors in the air, beasts on the earth, yea of Angels in Heaven; greater Hosts and less: and whither he sends a great Army of his little ones, or a little of his great ones, he can easily and quickly dispatch us: Lo, he stays till he hath spoken with us; and that rather by postulation, then expostulation. He is not contumelious ⟨p. 230⟩against us, that have been contumacious against him. If his words can work us to his will, he will spare his blows. He hath as little delight in smiting, as we in suffering: nay, he suffers with us, condoling our estate, as if it were (which cannot be) his own. For we have not an high Priest, 1which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He feels the griefs of his Church: the head aches, when the members suffer. Persecutors strike Christ through Christians sides. Saul strikes at Damascus, Christ Jesus suffers in Heaven. Mediately he is smitten, whiles the blows immediately light on us. He could not in the days of his flesh, forbear bitter tears at Jerusalems present sin and future judgement. How grievous is our iniquity, how gracious his longanimity? He that weeps for our aversion passionately, desires our conversion unfeignedly. How pathetically he persuadeth his Churches reformation?2 Return, return, oh Shulamite, return, return: How lamentingly deplores he Jerusalems devastation?3 If thou hadst known, at least in this thy day, the things that belong to thy peace. Let us not think him like either of those Mimics, the Player, or the Hypocrite, (who truly act the part one of another, but hardly either of an honest man) that can command tears in sport. When Christ laments the state either of our sins or our selves, he shows that one is at the height of rising, the other near casting down. Christs double sigh over Jerusalem, is (as I may say) fetched and derived from those double woes of her:4 the unmeasurable sin, that killest the Prophets: the unavoidable Judgement, thy house is left unto thee desolate. Ingentia benesicia, ingentia peccata, ingentes poenae. Great benefits abused occasion great sins, and great sins are the fore-runners of great plagues. So that Sin is an ill conjunction copulative, that unites two