Preached Auguft 17. 1662. theFread and drank the Wine which was dedicated to an holy ufe, and to it will be fulfill for you to eat any other food. concludeall with this, that the difference and holinefs of religious places in the times of the Gofpel, is not given but taken away 13./ the Gape!, i Tim. 2. 8. Iwill therefore that men pray every where, lifting up ho ly hands without wrath and doubting. You may pray, and that with as much acceptableneS to God in one place as in another. John 4.. 21. Chrift faith,The timecomes whenyoulhall neither in this Mountain, noryet at Jerufa4ein, worfhip the Father : That is, Gods worfhip and tervice (hall not oe confined and limited to thofe places, as if others were not asgood and holy as they. z Cor. z. 2. To them that are fan,- eli.fied in chriii jefus, called to be Saints, with all that in every place call upon the 'name of jefus Chriff our Lord, both theirsand ours. One. place for the calling upon Chrift is as good as another,and therefore, Where two or three are gathered together, Iwill be in the mid of them. And this is foretold in Zepb.2.11.1Mal.I.Ii.So that that is the fumof all, Gods inftitution makes the Sabbathholy And the Bread and the Wine let apart by Gods own Inftitution, after the dirty, may be ufed in fecular ufes. But laffly, to name no more, no place is fo fanaified byGod,, as that after the ceafingof that prelenceof God, any holinefs fhould belong unto it, as now when the figns,of Gods pretence ceafed and was goner the holinefs of that place was gone, and then it was lawful for Mores to put on hisfhoos. And fb when Gods pretence ceafed in the Ark, the Altar, and Merey-feat, the places becameno other then. fecular and civil. And now for us to go about (as the Papiiis do) a Pilgrimage to lerufalent,, as if that place had any more holinefs then others, is a foolifh and abomina- ble thing: Howmany bloody Battels have_ been fought, to the.dif- grace, as well as of Chriftianityr for the re-gaining: of the Holy Land. Nay let me add, thole places where the pretence of. God hath been formerly, when it 'lath been taken away, and thole places have been ufed to Idolatry, they are the worfe, and the more unholy; for this is turning theHoule ofGod into vanitie. The conclufion of all is this whatever places are in holy dir ties, out of them they loofe and leave all their holinefs, and there- fore I fay it is boldnefs for us to go about to tye Gods pretence to a place where God never tyed it 5 I cannot but wonder, how it is pollible for men ofreaton and learning, to be fo blind, as to hold that the Lords day (which was let apart by GOd for the Sabbath, as you may fee in the fourth Coalman dement, and afterwards by Chrift and his Apoffles, which doth a mount to no lets then an In-, M.
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