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

Perhaps they were blind, perhaps they cast not their eyes that way, perhaps though they did, yet were there such mists that by reason of them they could not see it, which indeed our Saviour, ¹in the similitude adjoined, expressly teacheth, you are saith he the light of the world, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick, and it gives light unto all to all that are in the house: the candle gives light indeed, yet not to all, but to all in the house, but not to them that are without the house, the walls of the house keep it from others, Again they imagine that because it is a City set on a hill, that therefore it must always continue in the same case, and not sometimes decay, and sometimes have nothing remaining of it but only the foundation. Old Salisbury was a City built upon a hill howbeit now there is not much to be seen of it. Rome it self was built on seven hills, yet on the chiefest of them Aventinus, Collatinus, Capotolinus, on which it was first founded there is no building now to be found as they write that know it, unless it be three or four harlotrey houses or happily some Monastery or a few gardens. A City therefore on a hill may sometime be decayed and this our Saviour signifieth in another similitude, you are the salt of the earth, but if the salt have lost his saltness, Salt may lose his saltness then, and so a Church seated upon a hill may have that happen unto it, which is correspondent to that in salt to lose his savour. Finally they imagine that all houses built upon a hill must be of one sort, nor of one sort only, but of like condition and state, whereas it may be that some are fallen some ⟨p. 58⟩standing, some hidden, some of divers kinds. And this our Saviour also putteth us in mind of: for did they to whom our Saviour speaketh, make all one Church or City severed from the Jews that were then of Jerusalem? No; for the Papists say that after Christs ascension, they first began to make a several Church from the Jews; therefore then they should have considered that there were some of the Church who were members of it, disagreeing from them to whom Christ spake: as were in Jerusalem they which frequented the public and ordinary service of God, resorted to the temple and heard the law, who yet in opinion and judgement dissented from Christ and those that believed in him.

Perhaps they were blinde, perhaps they cast not their eyes that way, perhaps though they did, yet were there such mists that by reason of them they could not see it, which indeed our Saviour,