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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	day_n	life_n	write_v	2,996	5	5.3115	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
B12526	A preparation vnto fasting and repentance. By Peter Moulin, and translated by I.B.; Preparation à jeune et repentance. English	Du Moulin, Pierre, 1568-1658.; J. B. (John Bulteel), d. 1669.	1620 (1620)	STC 7336.5; ESTC S113623	21,955	107

A PREPARATION vnto FASTING and REPENTANCE By PETER MOVLIN and translated by I. B. LONDON Printed by T. S. for Nathaniel Newbery and are to be sould at the signe of the Starre vnder S. Peters Church in Cornehill and in Popes head ally 1620. To the Religious and Vertuous Lady the Lady IANE BOYS Widdow to the right worshipfull Sir IOHN BOYS sometime Recorder of the City of Canterbury grace peace from our LORD IESVS CHRIST MAdame I present vnto your Ladiships view and reading this Homelie preached in the French tongue by that learned and iudicious diuine Mr. Peter du Moulin Minister of the word of God and by me translated touching that excellent conference betweene God and his seruant Abraham wherein we may behold on the one side the nature of sinne and the vengeance of God when sinners are come to their full measure on the other side the patience and familiar accesse which he affords to those that loue him how milde and patient he is towards them that feare him and how hee behaues himselfe towards his enemies and all to this end to moue vs all to faith repentance and humility And sithence my small paines in englishing it yeelds me a right to make choyce of one to whom I may dedicate this little volume I am bold to present the same vnto your Ladiship hoping your fauourable acceptance therof and the rather because it befits you Madame in many respects for these vertues that are here required are in you Madame I speake it without flattery faith repentance humility zeale to Gods house loue to his word loue and faith which you haue to the Lord Iesus and towards all his Saints for you are an Anna alwayes seruing God in the Temple with fasting and prayers a Lydia in hearing Gods word a Mary in pondering and meditating the same a Dorcas to Widdowes and Orphans a Shunamite to the Prophets and Ministers of God not onely countenancing our persons and ministery with your person and presence in our Church of Canterbury when you are here but also cherishing vs with good and comfortable words and exercising your liberall charitie towards our poore not leesing your first loue like the Ephesians but continuing it towards vs frō time to time and therefore the iust God will not forget your piety towards him nor your charity towards his Saints but as your name and charitable workes are inregistred in our booke of remembrance so is your name written in the Booke of Life your deeds of charity in feeding couering visiting the poore written in that Booke that shall be opened in the day of iudgement to your consolation then shall you reape plentifully what you sowe here and as Damascen speakes here you giue a little there you shall receiue much now you giue a transitory thing then shall you gaine an eternall here you giue a penny there you shall receiue a Kingdome for if Iulius Cesar gaue Lands to one that gaue him but a draught of water what a reward will Christ giue to those that giue but a cup of water to drinke in his name to those that belong to him If Darius gaue a Kingdome to Silosontes that gaue him a garment onely what a Kingdome will Christ giue to those that giue him cloathing foode and drinke in the name and person of the least and poorest of his brethren The same Iesus Christ whom you feede cloath and visite here on earth in his members as he feedes you and cloathes you here on earth not onely corporally but also spiritually with the spirituall Manna the bread and water of life euen he himselfe who is your spirituall foode and garment also will giue you that euerlasting Kingdome prepared for you from the foundation of the world where and when you shall be crowned with the crowne of righteousnesse cloathed with the roabes of glory sit downe with Abraham Isaack and Iacob to be nourished with the fruit of the tree of life and water of life and liue eternally with him in the kingdome of heauen Amen Canterbury the 30. of Iune 1620. Your Ladiships in all dutifull seruice to command IOHN BVLTEEL ¶ A Preparation vnto FASTING and REPENTANCE GEN. Chap. 18. vers 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. c. 20 And the Lord saide Because the cry of Sodome and Gomorrah is great and because their Sinne is very grieuous 21 I will goe downe now and see whether they haue done altogether according to the cry of it which is come vnto mee and if not I will know c. IT is not needfull my brethren to represent shew forth vnto you the extraordinary occasions for the which we are inuited to afflict our soules and sanctifie a Fast by Repentance seeing that we want not ordinary causes The enmity of Satan and of the world the feeblenesse of the Church the Name of God blasphemed our vices that doe increase our zeale which waxeth cold the hand of God lifted vp to strike vs and his rods prepared doe binde vs to tremble vnder his hand and preuent his iudgements by Fasting and Repentance least GOD send vs another kinde of Fasting making vs to Fast from his Word which is the spirituall bread sending vs that famine prophecied by the Prophet Amos not a famine of bread but a famine of the hearing of the Word of God for a punishment because we taste this spiritual bread with distaste and receiue not his Word with reuerence Let vs doe in such sort that our humiliation may be acceptable vnto God and that whiles our bodies are voide of meate we haue not our hearts replenished with hatred and rancour that whiles wee abstaine from drinking we be not drunken with pride for God doth as much detest the fast of the hypocrite as the dissolutenes of the prophane that our mouthes doe not only abstaine from meates but also from bad discourses and euill words that we fast with our eares to keepe them shut against vaine and idle discourses and with our hands keeping vs from rapine vsury In a word that al that which is in vs euen to our secret thoughts celebrat vnto God an holy Fast and pleasing vnto God through Iesus Christ That we may know that fasting is not instituted to satisfie the Iustice of God but to reuenve vs of our selues That we giue vnto the poore that which wee spare take from our selues that our voluntary fasting may helpe and aide that fast which the poore indureth of force necessitie And while that your bodies fast let your soules feede on the foode of life which is a meate which you must eate as of olde the Paschall Lambe with bitter hearbes soaking it in teares of repentance Instead of sackcloth after the fashion of the Elders be ye cloathed and couered all euer with holinesse and integritie in lieu of sprinckling of ashes as of olde acknowledge your selues with Abraham to be dust and ashes and giue glory to GOD in humbling your selues Who knoweth if God will not

excellent creature that is how much lesse betweene God and between a man a sinner as Abraham was who acknowledgeth himselfe to be nought but dust and ashes whose light is nought but darkenesse whose righteouinesse is as filthy ragges whose strength is as smoake that vanisheth away If God findes no stedfastnesse in his Angels how much lesse in them that dwell in houses of clay whose foundation is in the dust which are crushed before the Moth Such as was the splendor of Herods robes when hee was eaten of wormes and gaue vp the ghost in comparison of the brightnesse of the Sun such is the glory of man in the presence of God and that small lustre which he hath in this world is accompanied with thousands of briers and incommodities like a gloe-worme in the midst of a bush What thinke ye is the highest heauen before God It is as a point in his presence and what is the earth in regard of heauen but as a point in comparison And what is a man in comparison of the whole earth but as a Pismire wandring in a large countrey as the Prophet Isaiah Chapter 40. speaketh Behold the nations are as a drop of a Bueket and are counted as the small dust of the ballance and are as nothing before him And therefore Abraham saith Behold I haue taken vpon me to speake vnto the Lord which am but dust and ashes It is also the end for the which God hath created man of the dust to the end that if he should happen to glory of the light of his vnderstanding hee should be presently abased and abated by the remembrance of the birth and beginning of his body and by the feeling of his infirmity and to the end hee should vse and imploy this reason to pray vnto God who lifteth the poore from the dust and powreth his treasures into earthen vessels that he would not contest against dust nor enter into an accompt with ashes that he would let it dissolue by nature without dissoluing it before his time by the violence of his wrath This is the consideration which Dauid brings in the 103. Psalme to moue God to clemency and compassion Like as a father pittieth his children so the Lord pittieth them that feare him for he knoweth our frame he remembreth that we are dust before whom wee cannot present our selues but our haires must stare our blood must freeze within vs and all the pride wee haue in vs must needes be abated by feare All these considerations might make this priuate familiaritie of Abraham with God seeme to be excessiue as intending to controule the actions of God and his cunning with small respect to insinuate himselfe little by little and obtaine by peeces that which hee durst not demand all at once Notwithstanding in that God heareth him willingly and accepts his demaund hinders vs to presume of any euill in such an holy and excellent seruant of God To resolue you of this point ye must know that in a great similitude of words there is often a great dissimilitude of sence and intention Two persons sometimes will vse the same words and make the same signes but to diuers ends and with different intentions As in the 17. Chapter of Genesis Abraham laughes at the promise which God made him touching a Sonne this laughter in him is not reproued because it proceeded of ioy not of distrust but in the 18. Chapter Sarah laughes at the selfe same thing and is checked for it because God did perceiue therein her distrust as if the thing was impossible Zacharie the father of Iohn Baptist and the Virgin Mary doe answere the Angel in words alike saying How shall this be In Zacharie it was a How of doubt in the holy virgin Mary it was a How of inquiry to demand instruction Who could approue in any other then in Moses these bolde words Yet now if thou wilt forgiue their sinne if not blot mee I pray thee out of thy booke which thou hast written You know that Iob and Ieremie prest with anguish haue cursed the day of their birth I thinke that those that are tormented in hell say the very same thing for as Christ saith of Iudas it had beene good for those men that they had neuer beene borne But other was the motion that droue these holy men to this other the murmuring of the damned for these are moued and set on with hatred against God but Iob and Ieremie haue suffered themselues to slippe by infirmitie to these words of excesse wherein I doubt not but they haue greatly offended God and haue asked him pardon thereof The bubling of their anguish haue casted forth for once this scumme of their impatience So in a man weaker in faith then Abraham and lesse accustomed to conferre with God familiarly this priuate familiarity might seeme excessiue but the humility whereby he acknowledgeth himselfe dust and ashes and the fauourable answeres of God to his demands doe exempt him from the crime of temerity Let vs not impute to subtilty this kinde of insinuating himselfe so by degrees nor looke for any craft therin let vs rather attribute it to the nature of faith which imboldeneth her selfe by degrees and maketh her selfe familiar little by little by how much shee acknowledgeth the effects of Gods fauour for the first fauourable answers doe giue liberty to make others the first graces of God doe containe couert promises of increasing of graces for God giueth because he hath giuen his first liberalities doe inuite the following ones hee crownes not our merits but his gifts his gifts and his calling are without repentance This priuate familiarity of Abraham therefore was without contempt his boldnesse was modest his confidence humble which hee testifies in acknowledging himselfe dust and ashes for without this humility his prayer had beene vnpleasing to God who reiects the prayer of the proud and inclines his care vnto those that haue a contrite and broken spirit as it is said in Isaiah Chapter 66. I will looke to him that is poore and of a contrite spirit and trembleth at my word God sendeth raine in greater abundance on low places yea when it doth fall on high places it stayes not there And if any great tempest or furious storme happeneth the Oake and Ashe trees are ouerthrowne and cast downe to the earth but the Time and Marioram remaine whole Gods graces falling vpon the proud doe not stop nor settle there God resisteth the proud but giueth grace vnto the humble To aske of God graces with a haughty spirit and opinion of his owne righteousnesse is to be like him that should begge with a suit of cloath of gold and all perfumed he that askes after such an vndecent manner must looke to be refused Notwithstanding in this gradation of Abrahams de●…ands considering that he being come to the number of ten he stayes there and saith not but Lord if there be fiue found within the Citie wilt thou not spare the place for