A77366:99
A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at their public fast, Novemb.…A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at their publique fast, Novemb.…
A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at their public fast, Novemb. 29. 1643. By William Bridge, sometimes fellow of Emanuel College in Cambridge, now preacher of Gods Word at Yarmouth.A sermon preached before the Honourable House of Commons, at their publique fast, Novemb. 29. 1643. By VVilliam Bridge, sometimes fellow of Emanuel Colledge in Cambridge, now preacher of Gods Word at Yarmouth.
London: printed for R. Dawlman, 1643
Title page typeset from the transcription.
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.
2. When you have gotten this line into your hand, view your ground well, and stones well that you are to draw this line over. Three sorts there are that are especially to be lined by it: The Magistrates, the Ministers, the Congregations. These three the Pope and Prelates, notwithstanding their flattering with Princes, have especially laboured to degrade and to deprive of that power which was given unto them by Jesus Christ. 1. The Magistrates, and therefore the §1man of sin is so described by the Apostle, that he shall exalt1 himself above all that is called God. 2. The Ministers and §2Elders of the Church, and therefore you shall observe that from the 7. Chapter of the Revelation to the 14. there is no more mention made of Elders (unless it be in relation unto that same time:) In the 4. Chapter the condition of the Church is stated, and then the Elders are mentioned; so again in the 5. and 7. but in the after Chapters to the 14. you have the story of Antichrist, his rise, his reign and ruin; and till the fall of Antichrist (which is begun in the 14. and §3perfected in the 18.) we read no more of the Elders; but in the beginning of the 19. after Babylon is fallen, then come forth the Elders again, praising God, and with great joy. So in our Service-book, the Collect runs thus, Send down upon our Bishops and Curates, &c. as if Ministers and Elders were only Bishops Curates, and had no power but under them. 3. The Congregations also have been much oppressed by them, therefore *Azorius the Jesuit professeth ingenuously ⟨p. 28⟩that until Gregory the first, and Charles the Great, the Congregations had the power of choosing their own Ministers; since Antichrists power the Congregations have lost their power.
2. When you have gotten this line into your hand, view your ground well, and stones well that you are to draw this line over. Three sorts there are that are especially to be lined by it: The Magistrates, the Ministers, the Congregations. These three the Pope and Prelats, notwithstanding their slattering with Princes, have especially laboured to degrade and to deprive of that power which was given unto them by Jesus Christ. 1. The Magistrates, and therefore the