zeal did our Saviour Christ drive the buyers and sellers out of the temple of God; and hurled down the tables of the changers of money, and the seats of the dove-sellers, and could not abide any man to carry a vessel through the temple! He told them, that they had made his Father's house a den of thieves, partly through their superstition, hypocrisy, false worship, false doctrine, and insatiable covetousness, and partly through contempt, abusing that place with walking and talking, with worldly matters without all fear of God, and due reverence to that place. What dens of thieves the churches of England have been made by the blasphemous buying and selling the most precious body and blood of Christ in the mass, as the world was made to believe, at diriges, at months minds, at trentalls, in abbeys and chantries, beside other horrible abuses (God's holy name be blessed for ever), which we now see and understand. All these abominations they that supply the room of Christ have cleansed and purged the churches of England of, taking away all such fulsomeness and filthiness, as through blind devotion and ignorance hath crept into the church these many hundred years. Wherefore, O ye good Christian people, ye dearly beloved in Christ Jesus, ye that glory not in worldly and vain religion, in fantastical adorning and decking, but rejoice in heart to see the glory of God truly set forth, and the churches restored so their ancient and godly use, render your hearty thanks to the goodness of Almighty God, who hath in our days stirred up the hearts, not only of his godly preachers and ministers, but also of his faithful and most Christian magistrates and governors, to bring such godly things to pass.

And forasmuch as your churches are scoured and swept from the sinful and superstitious filthiness, wherewith they were defiled and disfigured, do ye your parts, good people, to keep your churches comely and clean; suffer them not to be defiled with rain and weather, with dung of doves and owls, stares and choughs, and other filthiness, as it is foul and lamentable to behold in many places of this country. It is the house of prayer, not the house of talking, of walking, of brawling, of minstrelsy, of hawks, and dogs. Provoke not the displeasure and plagues of God, for despising and abusing his holy house, as the wicked Jews did. But have God in your heart, be obedient to his blessed will, bind yourselves every man and woman to your power toward the reparations and clean keeping of the church, to the intent that ye may be par

takers of God's manifold blessings, and that ye may be the better encouraged to resort to your parish-church, there to learn your duty towards God and your neighbour, there to be present and partakers of Christ's holy sacraments, there to render thanks to your heavenly Father for the manifold benefits which he daily poureth upon you, there to pray together, and to call upon God's holy name, which be blessed world without end. Amen.

AN

HOMILY

Eph. ii.

THE

OF

Good Works. And first, of Fasting.

HE life which we live in this world, good Christian people, is of the free benefit of God lent us, yet not to use it at our pleasure, after our own fleshly will, but to trade over the same in those works which are beseeming them that are become new creatures in Christ. These works the Apostle calleth good works, saying, We are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to good works, which God hath ordained, that we should walk in them. And yet his meaning is not by these words to induce us to have any affiance, or to put any confidence in our works, as by the merit and deserving of them to purchase to ourselves and others remission of sin, and so consequently everlasting life; for that were mere blasphemy against God's mercy, and great derogation to the bloodshedding of our Saviour Jesus Christ. For it is of the free grace and mercy of God, by the mediation of the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ, without merit or deserving on our part, that our sins are forgiven us, that we are reconciled and brought again into his favour, and are made heirs of his heavenly kingdom: Grace, saith St. Augustine, belonging to God, who doth call us; and then hath he good works, whosoever receiveth grace. Good works then bring not forth grace, but are brought forth by grace. The wheel, saith he, turneth round, not to the end that it may be made round; but because it is first made round, therefore it turneth round. So, no man doth good works, to receive grace by his good works; but because he hath first received grace, therefore consequently he doth good works. And in another place he Operibus, saith, Good works go not before in him which shall afterward be justified; but good works do follow after, when a man is first justified. St. Paul therefore teacheth, that we must do good works for divers respects: first, to show ourselves obedient children unto our heavenly Father, who hath ordained them, that we should walk in them.

Aug. de Di

ver Qurst. ad Simpl. lib. i. quaest. 18.

et

Aug.de Fide

cap. 4.

Secondly, for that they are good declarations and testimonies of our justification. Thirdly, that others, seeing our good works, may the rather by them be stirred up and excited to glorify our Father which is in heaven. Let us not therefore be slack to do good works, seeing it is the will of God that we should walk in them, assuring ourselves, that at the last day every man shall receive of God for his labour done in true faith, a greater reward than his works have deserved. And because somewhat shall now be spoken of one particular good work, whose commendation is both in the Law and in the Gospel, thus much is said in the beginning generally of all good works: First, to remove out of the way of the simple and unlearned this dangerous stumbling-block, that any man should go about to purchase or buy heaven with his works. Secondly, to take away, so much as may be, from envious minds and slanderous tongues, all just occa sion of slanderous speaking, as though good works were rejected. This good work which now shall be treated of, is fasting, which is found in the Scriptures to be of two sorts; the one outward, pertaining to the body; the other inward, in the heart and mind. This outward fast is an abstinence from meat, drink, and all natural food, yea from all delicious pleasures and delectations worldly. When this outward fast pertaineth to one particular man, or to a few, and not the whole number of the people, for causes which hereafter shall be declared, then it is called a private fast: but when the whole multitude of men, women, and children, in a township or city, yea through a whole country, do fast, it is called a public fast. Such was that fast which the whole multitude of the children of Israel were commanded to keep the tenth day of the seventh month, because Almighty God appointed that day to be a cleansing day, a day of atonement, a time of reconciliation, a day wherein the people were cleansed from their sins. The order and manner how it was done is written in the sixteenth and twenty-third chapters of vi, Leviticus. That day the people did lament, mourn, weep, and bewail their former sins. And whosoever upon that day did not humble his soul, bewailing his sins, as is said, abstaining from all bodily food until the evening, that soul (saith the Almighty God) should be destroyed from among his people. We do not read that Moses ordained, by order of law, any days of public fast throughout the whole year, more than that one day. The Jews notwithstanding had more times of common fasting, which

and xxiii.

Zach. viii.

Judges xx.

the Prophet Zachary reciteth to be the fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth month. But for that it appeareth not in the Law when they were instituted, it is to be judged, that those other times of fasting, more than the fast of the seventh month, were ordained among the Jews, by the appointment of their governors, rather of devotion, than by an express commandment given from God. Upon the ordinance of this general fast, good men took occasion to appoint to themselves private fasts, at such times as they did either earnestly lament and bewail their sinful lives, or did addict themselves to more fervent prayer, that it might please God to turn his wrath from them, when either they were admonished and brought to the consideration thereof by the preaching of the Prophets, or otherwise when they saw present danger to hang over their heads. This sorrowfulness of heart, joined with fasting, they uttered sometimes by their outward behaviour and gesture of body, putting on sackcloth, sprinkling themselves with ashes and dust, and sitting or lying upon the earth. For when good men feel in themselves the heavy burthen of sin, see damnation to be the reward of it, and behold with the eye of their mind the horror of hell, they tremble, they quake, and are inwardly touched with sorrowfulness of heart for their offences, and cannot but aceuse themselves, and open this their grief unto Almighty God, and call unto him for mercy. This being done seriously, their mind is so occupied. partly with sorrow and heaviness, partly with an earnest desire to be delivered from this danger of hell and damnation, that all de sire of meat and drink is laid apart, and loathsomeness of all worldly things and pleasure cometh in place; so that nothing then liketh them more, than to weep, to lament, to mourn, and, both with words and behaviour of body, to show themselves weary of this life. Thus did David fast, when he made intercession to Almighty God for the child's life, begotten in adultery of Bathsheba, Uriah's wife. King Ahab fasted after this sort, when it repented him of murdering of Naboth, bewailing his own sinful doings. Such was the Ninevites fast, brought to repentance by Jonas preaching. When forty thousand of the Israelites were slain in battle against the Benjamites, the Scripture saith, All the children of Israel, and the whole multitude of the people. went to Bethel, and sat there weeping before the Lord, and fasted all that day till night. So did Daniel, Esther, Nehemiah, and many others in the Old