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

3 Examples hereof are sown throughout the sacred histories, ⟨p. 261⟩and appear yet most clearly in our time: but I will content my self with the allegation of a few notable examples, unto the which Solomon himself might seem to have had an especial regard. I say then, that if ever the Church enjoyed a goodly and fair time of weather, it was under Joshua and the governors of that time, the people being planted together with the service of God, most triumphantly in the land of promise, as appeareth by that which is written in Josu. 24.35. Afterward, for all the time of the Judges until Samuel, if it had one fair day, it had an whole year of stormy weather and tempests. And what a winter was that time, in the which the Ark of the covenant was taken captive, Silo ruined, briefly all brought into an utter confusion? God drave away afterward this storm of foul weather, by his Samuel, who also reformed the schools of the Prophets. But this sun-shine was scarcely appeared, when horrible darkness was brought in by Saul, the Priests themselves being massacred, sorcerers and soothsayers set up and restored, and the people exposed to ignominy among their enemies, being as a body without an head, until that David, not without grievous rough storms, being made king by the Lord, the goodly clear fair weather indeed began to arise, which continued as it were unto his full noon, under Solomon, who furnished the house of the Lord both within and without, with a most triumphant magnificence, at which time God granted so long a peace unto his Church with abundance and plenty of all temporal blessings: and it may be that the Bridegroom setteth before the eyes of his spouse, that happy change of the time, inviting & bidding her to awake to have the fruition thereof. As much may we and ought we to say, to have come to pass in the time begun, about these threescore years since, the lord having of his infinite bounty and mercy driven away out of a great part of Christendom, the horrible and deadly darkness of that Idolatry brought in by the false whore with such an efficacy of the spirit of error, that the greatest part of them who attribute unto themselves the name of great Catholics and ⟨p. 262⟩Christians, are yet therewith unto this day enchanted and bewitched.

3 Examples hereof are sowen throughout the sacred histories, ⟨p. 261⟩