Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	apostle_n	sin_n	world_n	6,776	5	5.1990	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44239	The Holy fast of Lent defended against all its prophaners, or, A Discourse shewing that Lent-fast was first taught the world by the apostles, as Dr. Gunning, now Bishop of Ely learnedly proved in a sermon printed by him in the year 1662 by His Majesties special command together with a practical direction how to fast.	Gunning, Peter, 1614-1684.	1677 (1677)	Wing H2525; ESTC R40999	45,046	54

days within twenty should have been utterly destroyed I remember to have read how that the Primitive Christians to excite in their souls a more lively sense and apprehension of our B. Saviours humble Birth and painful Death were wont often to go to Bethlehem and Mount Calvary there to make their Prayers and Meditations reflecting and no doubt with a singular profit to their Souls that there their dear Redeemer was humbly born and here the same Redeemer pitiously died for them But the Devil envying these good Christians their so profitable Devotions by a cunning device thus thought to deterr them from them He suggested to the Pagans to set up the Statue of Adonis in the Stall of Bethlehem and the Statue of Venus on the Mount of Calvary so that the Devout Christians could not now go either to the one place or the other to help their Religious Piety without seeming superstitiously to worship Venus and Adonis A lively representation me-thinks this of the notorious abuse the same Devil has put upon us Christians in our yearly Observations of Christmas in memory of our Saviours Birth and weekly Observation of Friday in memory of his Death The Primitive Christians weekly observed the day of our Lords bitter Death and Passion afflicting their Souls for their sins with penitential sorrow and their bodies with rigorous Fasting both the quantity and quality of their Diet rather expelling Death than cherrishing Life The same first Christians yearly observed the time of their Lords Nativity but so Religiously as it was manifest their study was to fatten their souls with devout Meditations not to pamper their bodies with delicious fair The Devil envying the Church of Christ so great profit from the pious observation of these Holy Times he suggests to sensual Libertines so to prophane the Holy Time of Christmas with excessive Rioting that none could profess to keep it without playing the Debauche and so to abuse the Religious Fast of Friday and other times of Christian Abstinence by an intolerable excess in all sorts of Fish and Wine and dainty Comfitures that none could pretend to observe them without playing the Hypocrites professing to afflict their bodies with Austere Fasting when they pampered them by delicate Feasting But what Remedy Abandon the profane Abuse and recall the first Pious use Demolish the Statues of Venus and Adonis but help your Devotions still by Visiting the Sanctified places of our Lords Birth and Passion Though you must give me leave to tell you that I fear were the matter well examin'd it would be found that not others uncouth exotick manner of Fasting but our own Inordinate desire of eating when we will what we will and as much as we will that is of not Fasting at all is the true cause of our Cavilling at the Holy Fast of Lent and other times of Abstinence Let it be Some who pretend to Fast do nothing less abstaining indeed from Flesh but giving scope to their Sensuality in other things But they say Carpere vel noli vel meliora face Either do not carp at our Fasting or else Fast more strictly your selves And those who are so forward in Reproaching to their Neighbours their Mock-fasts I fear if they were obliged to Fast would find but difficulty enough even to fast so largely as they do whose Fastings they carpe at And though indeed you may find too too many Libertines who study by all means possible to avoyd the difficulty of Church-Fasts by excessive Drinking and intemperance in Meats not prohibited yet those of a better Conscience though they come far short of the rigor of the Primitive Christians in their Abstinence yet do so Fast as their fasting days are days of real Mortification unto them As for Libertins it s rather to be wondered they will deny themselves even to abstain from Flesh than that they take the liberty they do upon Fasting-days Do not so wholly fix your Eyes upon the Cockle as you take no notice at all of the good Corn. But to the Point undertaken to be proved How may one who with his soul desires nothing more than to observe most Religiously all Apostolical Ordinations be satisfied that the Holy Apostles of our Lord Jesus ordained the Quadragesimal Fast of Lent as a time of Abstinence and Humiliation for all Christians Let him throughly satisfie himself that Fasting is a Christian duty and has a singular force to cast out the Devil to obtain the Holy Ghost to appease the Allmighties just Anger and which shall have a singular reward in Heaven And moreover let him reflect if any Credit be to be given to the Old and New Scripture and to Eccesiastical History the more eminent any one has been for Piety and Sanctity the more exemplar have they been for Fasting and Abstinence Moyses Elias Daniel Iudith Anne great Fasters under the old Law St. Iohn Baptist our Blessed Saviour St. Mary Magdalen and all the Apostles under the Gospel St. Paul testifies of himself that he Fasted often Our B. Saviour assures us concerning all his Disciples that when he was taken from them they should Fast. To say nothing of our Basils Hieroms and Augustines c. whose Fasts were very frequent and very rigorous and yet we cannot without injury to the Apostolical Colledge surmise that those later Fathers of Christs Church should surpass either in Piety or Abstinence the first Planters of Christianity By which it is evident to every Christian Man that Fasting in general is very well becoming every good Christian and that he hardly deserves the name of a Christian who wanting neither health nor strength yet Fasts not at all And indeed if we examin the matter well we shall find that one great end of our Lord Jesus His coming into the World was to save us from our sins by Teaching by his Doctrin and by enabling us by his Example and other gracious Assistances fervourously to practise the propitiatory Humiliation of Fasting Our All-wise Mediator understanding very well that could he but bring us heartily to Repent us of our sins and to express the sincerity of our interior Contrition by exterior Humiliation or Fasting such was the genius of his Eternal Father that he could not but pardon us how great or how many soever our sins might be But on the contrary we refusing to Repent and that even in Sack-cloath and Ashes that is with such a Repentance as shows it self by some exterior acts or other no Prayers no Tears no Blood no Death of his could possibly obtain our pardon except we would Repent Perish we must and that Eternally But what conduces this to perswade Lent-Fast was appointed by the Apostles Very much For we having hence that Fasting is a necessary Christian duty and strangely conducing to save the World from sin it evidently follows it was well worthy the Apostles the better to secure so useful a practice to determin certain days every ye●r in which all Christians should be obliged to

interposing also your selves the half-fasts of the Stations and your selves other whiles also as each pleases living on meer Bread and Water The same Tertullian before he was a Montanist testifies in his Book of Prayer c. ult Sic die Paschae c. So also on the day of Christs suffering whereon is observed the common and as it were publick Religion of Fasting In the same Age S. Telesphorus Bishop of Rome did not first institute Lent-Fast as Zanchy observes l 1. m 4m Praeceptum Cited by B. Gunning in his Appendix but only added certain days to be observed over and above by the Clergy His words are Certe Telesphorus c. Assuredly Telesphorus who was the seventh Bishop of the Roman Church and a Martyr about the year of Christ 139. makes mention of this the Quadragesimal time above mentioned as observed before him in the Church For he added certain days which he would have observed by Clerks and Priests over and above what were observed by the Laity We ordain says he that all Clergy-men i. e. such as are called into the Lot of our Lord fast from flesh seven whole weeks before Easter because as the life of Clergy-men ought to be distinguish'd from the Conversation of the Laity so ought there to be a difference in their Fasting also Now the Church of Rome professing in her self a power to Institute Holy-days or Fasting-days had any of her Bishops first ordained Lent-Fast she would have made no more difficulty of Registring who it was then She does of telling us when and by whom was first Constituted the Feast of Corpus-Christi and divers other Ritual Observances Moreover in the same Age there was a difference betwixt S. Polycarp Disciple of S. Iohn and by him ordained Bishop of Smyrna together with Thraseas Bishop of Eumenia and S. Anicetus Bishop of Rome with other Western Bishops on the other side about which difference Polycarp came to Rome Anicetus professing to follow the Rule received from S. Peter and S. Paul by the Instruction of his Predecessors Xystus Telesphorus Hyginus Pius and Polycarp professing to follow what S. Iohn and other of the Apostles had practised The words of Irenaeus concerning Polycarp whom he had seen and heard are these That Anicetus could not perswade Polycarp to vary from what he had observed ever with John the Disciple of our Lord and the rest of the Apostles with whom he had Conversed or spent his time Iren. ap Euseb. l 5 c. 24. The same difference revived again about the 97th year after S. Iohn betwixt Polycrates Bishop of Ephesus with other Asian Bishops and Victor Bishop of Rome with others of the West Polycrates pleading the Authority of S. Iohn and S. Philip and Victor pleading the Authority of the Tradition of S. Peter and S. Paul Sozom. 1. 7. c. 19. Polycrates and they of Asia contending That from antient Tradition they deemed that they ought to observe the Feast of the Salutary Pasch on the 14th day of the month as being of duty altogether on that day upon what soever day of the week it fell to put an end to or dissolve their fastings On the other side which was Victors it was alledged No such Custom to observe on that mauner in the rest of the Churches throughout the whole World they observing from Apostolical Tradition which come down to that time that only on that day which should be also the weekly day of the Resurreci on of our Lord they ought to dissolve or end their Fastings You see both parties had a Tradition that the Feast of Easter was to conclude certain Fasting days and all this is witnessed in Eusebius l. 5. c. 23 24. About Easter-day it self they had indeed different Traditions S. Iohn and S. Philip finding it useful in those parts of Asia where many Iews Inhabited by condescention to observe the Christ an Easter on the same day with the Jewish Easter But S. Peter and S. Paul where no such cause was prescribed as meet not to disjoyn their Anniversary from their weekly memorial day of Christs Resurrection as B. Gunning reflects We have then S. Iohn taught S. Polycarp to Fast before Easter as testifies Irenaeus who saw and heard S. Polycarp Moreover in this Age the same Irenaeus tells Victor in an Epistle to him that there was Controversie not only concerning the day it self of Easter but also touching ' the manner it self of the Fast but none disputed whether there was to be a Fast or no before Easter His words are Neither is the Controversie only about the day of Easier but also concerning the ' form it self of the Fast for some think they ought to fast one day some two others also more and some by forty hours of Day-time and of Night commensurate their day And such variety of those that keep this Fast hath not been made or begun now in our Age but very long before with our Ancestors who as it is meet to believe not accurately retaining the manner of the Fast above-mentioned have changed the Custom which was simple and plain into that which was afterwards Now what uniform Custom could there precede in the Christian Church and not be from the Apostles Irenaeus writing thus about the 97th year after S. Iohn's death Though he seems not to speak of the whole Lent-Fast but only of the Fasts of the Paschal week In the very Age of the Apostles we have the Testimony of S. Ignatius their Contemporary in an Epistle to the Philippians His words are Do not Contemn Lent for it contains an imitation of the Conversation of God Neither do you despise Passion-week Fast upon Wednesday and Friday giving what you leave to the Poor Philo the Jew in his Book of the Religious says Eusebius l. 2. c. 16 17. describes the Religious Life of certain Apostolical persons of the Hebrew Nation at Alexandria having not only seen them but accurately taken knowledge of them describing there such their Conversation as is to be found in the Christian Religion only and he adds according to the Gospel and such Religious fastings says he which have descended down accurately the same even unto our times which more eminently were exercised in Fastings and whole Nights Watchings and attentions unto the Word of God at the Solemnity of the Passion of our Saviour It is manifest to every one that Philo comprised in that Writing Customs delivered in the beginning from the Apostles Hitherto Eusebius Now let us hear Philo's own words These Assemble themselves especially by the space of seven weeks Wine in those days is not brought in unto their Tables And their Table hath not any thing of that which had Blood but Bread for their Food and Salt for that which they eat with their Bread Some for the space of three days receive no Food and scarce by the space of six days did they refresh themselves with their natural Food A week they observed by a pure and holy Virgiral