The prophecy of Haggai, interpreted and applied in sundry sermonsThe prophesie of Haggai, interpreted and applyed in sundry sermons

Thus hath the Lord of Host▪ charged me to say▪ This people say that the time is not yet come, the time wherein the House of the Lord &c. ¹When Adam after he had broken the commandment of the Lord, heard his voice in the garden, he hid himself, and feared: The cause whereof he says was, for that he was naked; so he said indeed, but fa••ly; for the cause was not his nakedness, but his wickedness, in that he had eaten of the forbidden fruit. Since which time, it hath been a custom amongst the sons of Adam, to cover iniquity with hypocrisy, and cloak their offences with excuses. As in this place, the cause why the people did not build the house of the Lord, was, that every man was wholly set to the building of his own house; to the regard of his own private profit and ease; yet laid they the cause on the time; The time is not yet come, the time to build the house of the Lord. Wherefore as it pleased God to deal mercifully with Adam, and to the end he might bring him to the acknowledgement of his transgression, demanded of him, Hast thou eaten of the fruit? So likewise here he dealeth with this people, when he saith, Is it time▪ for you Sirs to sit down in your ceiled houses, while this house lieth waste? Where he showeth the true causes indeed to be not the time, as they pretended, but Worldliness and Idleness, in that they took so great care to build and furnish their own houses, and that not only for commodity, but for pleasure also; for they built their houses and ceiled them also. Idleness, in that they sate them down to take their rest and ease, for that doth the hebrew word in this place properly signify. This fault therefore was showed them, to the end they might acknowledge it, and amend it; that indeed their pretence for want of time was but hypocritical, the true cause being their Worldliness and Idleness, that they might confess their offence, repent, and in time amend it. Which fruit also, that you may take hereby, it hath been heretofore showed you in the general argument of this prophecy, in what points our estate may be compared with theirs; that as it fared with them, so doth it with us▪ As they were delivered from the bodily captivity by Cyrus; So we have been delivered from the spiritual captivity by King Henry the 8. another Cyrus: