Master Bezaes sermons upon the three chapters of the canticle of canticlesMaster Bezaes sermons vpon the three chapters of the canticle of canticles

7 But all this which we have said touching these mountains & hills is not the principal, as being a thing easy to be understood, that there is neither force nor subtlety which can hinder or withhold the almighty so much as a moment of time. But know you what these great & terrible mountains are which stand so high between god & us? They are our sins, they are our iniquities, they are our wickednesses which indeed separate and divide us from God: Isaiah. 59.2. And herein we must take heed how we flatter or sooth our selves. For truly these sins of ours, these transgressions of ours, these wicked impieties of ours, are grown and heaped up from time to time into huge and great mountains before the face of the everliving. And what hath the Lord always done? Hath he not traversed these mountains to take pity upon his chosen and elect? What huge mountain was the sin of Adam? what mighty rock raised between God and the world, was that confusion which brought the deluge upon the world? If we pass farther in considering of the time under and after the law, what else shall we find, then that which Daniel in that most excellent prayer of his acknowledgeth and confesseth? Dan. 9.4. In the mean time what hath the Bridegroom done? Adam and Eve, in whom this spouse which was and shall be until the number of the elect be accomplished, was then wholly as it were comprised, had no sooner cast away & undone themselves, but this bridegroom hasted over the mountain to remedy the matter. The very night that the four hundred years were expired & ended he brought his people out of Egypt, shaking the heavens and the earth at their departure, Exod. 3.8. and 12.41. The like did he precisely at the end of seventy years, and stayed not a moment beyond to deliver his people out of the captivity of Babylon. For the Lord is true in his promises, not in part, but in all and through all. Are we assaulted of any enemy? He is straight way by us with arms in hand to defend us, Psal. 35. Have we provoked him to displeasure, & hath he taken ⟨p. 249⟩the rod in hand to chastise and correct us? He knoweth whereof we be made, and is for the most part contented to have pulled us only by the ear: