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A45865 A guide to repentance. Or, The character and behaviour of the devout Christian in retirement Psal. 119. 54, 60. I called my own ways to remembrance, ... commandments. By John Inett, M.A. chanter and residentiary of the cathedral church of Lincoln. Inett, John, 1647-1717. 1692 (1692) Wing I157A; ESTC R215993 30,439 131

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A GUIDE TO Repentance OR The Character and Behaviour of the Devout Christian in Retirement Psal 119. 54 60. I called my own ways to remembrance and turned my Feet unto thy Testimonies I made haste and delayed not to keep thy Commandments By John Inett M. A. Chanter and Residentiary of the Cathedral Church of Lincoln LONDON Printed for M. Wotton at the Three Daggers in Fleetstreet and T. Walker in Lincoln 1692. London Printed for M. Wotton at the 3 Daggers in Fleet Street To the Honourable Sir Richard Newdigate Bar. SIR THough I know you have acquainted your self not only with all the Gentile and Politer Parts of Learning that serve either for Use of Accomplishments to those you your Quality but are a very good Judge of Books of this kind yet I am so well assured that you can be candid as well as just and value Books by the Spirit and Intention and Possibilities of their being useful rather than the artful Measures and Address with which they are written That without Ceremony or Apology I presume to present you with and prefix your Name to one that has nothing but the Charity of its Intention to justifie its being made Publick The frequent Returns of the late publick Fasts seeming to have made some Impressions on the Minds of People and the seriousness that on those Occasions appeared in their Faces giving some Grounds to hope that an Address of this Nature might be useful This Consideration prevailed over all the Obstructions that commonly lie in the way of such Attempts and the Charity of the Design so over-ballanc'd the visible Imperfections with which it was managed that without giving my Thoughts time to cool these Papers were put out of my hands with the haste and carelessness with which they were written But having suffered my Hopes and Wishes to surprize rather than regularly gain a Consent to their becoming Publick my Judgment that remonstrated against the Book with so full a Consent followed my Inclinations in the Epistle and the Uneasiness that accompanied the one with so strong and irresistable a Biass led me to the other that I could not deny my self so sensible a Pleasure as the publick acknowledgment of the many Obligations you have laid upon me for that generous Passion with which I can by experience say you serve your Friends as it redoubles the Obligations you lay upon them so it derives such a Value and Merit upon your Friendship and Favours that it shall be ever my Ambition to Publish my self and be Esteemed Your most Obliged Friend and most Humble Servant JOHN INETT TO THE Christian Reader BEsides the great Day of Expiation and Atonement of God's own appointment and the many other Seasons by the Authority he entrusted with his Church consecrated to a general Repentance and Devotion the Prophets and Evangelists have given us manifest evidence of a voluntary Practice amongst all the Devout People under the Law in setting apart certain portions of their Times for the great Purposes of Religion which being accompanied with Abstinence are from thence called by the Name of Private Fasts and so far did this Custom prevail in the Jewish Church that the practice of the Pharisees in fasting twice a Week seems to have been a Copy from the retirement for Devotion and Repentance practis'd by their better Ancestors The Business of the Pharisee was Ostentation and Vanity yet our Saviour who observed and set a Mark upon their Hypocrisie not only allowed and justified their practice but excused the Omission of his Disciples as unsuitable to their present Circumstances but at the same time declared that when the Bridegroom was taken away they should fast in those days In which Discourse our Saviour has set the Thing in its true light asserting Fasting a Means and Help to not an Act of Piety and taking away the Merit and Necessity has allowed the Usefulness and asserted the Benefit and in his excellent Sermon on the Mount he not only gave Rules for the conduct of it but by his own exemplary Abstinence and frequent Retirements for Devotion possessed his Followers with so high an opinion of the great Usefulness of Retirement for Repentance and Devotion that it became a general Practice among all the devouter Christians of the first Ages A Practice so far approved by all their penitential Canons that it was always one Ingredient in the recovery and restoring of Offenders to the Favour of God and the Communion of his Church and had so great a share in the primitive Discipline that Ecclesiastical Story scarce affords an Instance of a Penitent restored without it But when Persecution and the Inhumanity of their Enemies had forced some great Men into Desarts they endeavoured by great Austerities and Devotions to consecrate their Fate and excuse the withdrawing their Light from Men by rendering it more bright and illustrious before God and by a more eminent strictness in their converse with him in some measure atone for the omission of the Charities and good Offices they owed to Mankind These Examples meeting with the unhappy Circumstances the Christian-Church strugled under in the first Ages drew such numbers of Christians into retirement as peopled the Rocks and Desarts and made it necessary to reduce them to Society and rules of living where Industry and Devotion made up their Character and a Succession of Labour and Prayers and Holy Hymns and Meditations took up their time Thus far solitude and retirement were innocent and gained so much reputation in the Christian World as made it easie to some designing Men in the succeeding Ages to serve themselves on the esteem retirement had obtained This Design falling in with the Interests of the Church of Rome was conducted with so much art that in time the Wilderness got ground of the World and a shew of renouncing it drew after it such a train of Wealth and Greatness that the pretence of Poverty and Humilty served all the ends of Convetousness and Ambition and the Vows of Chastity and Obedience ministred to all the purposes of Folly and the Flesh and the World were served under the colour of mortifying and renouncing them The holy purposes and disposition of those Holy Men who had done Honour to retirement were resolved into an uncouth habit their industry to case and sloth their austerities to wearing a Discipline a Scapulary or a Cord and their devout and ardent Prayers to a telling over a number of dry Ave Maria's by the help of the Rosary which is so dull and insipid a kind of Devotion that if either the Sense or Piety could be justified yet it has so little of the Primitive Spirit that the Inent ion of St. Dominick would doubtless have met with other entertainment than his admirers have bestow'd upon it had he hapned to live some Ages sooner But whilst the ancient Piety and Devotion thus degenerated the Pretensions thereunto grew afresh out of their ashes and Merit and Perfection were