Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	body_n	life_n	lord_n	9,542	5	3.7489	3	true

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

less my self that I may have the more to give to those that are in Necessity my Fast is an act of Charity If I Fast the better to dispose my self for Prayer 't is an act of Religious Devotion If I Fast judging my self not worthy of any Delicacies nor of my fill of even the coursest Fare 't is an act of Humility and disposes my soul moreover as little to affect fine Cloaths or stately Dwellings as I do good Victuals and consequently moderates my desires of Money and Riches which are not desirable by corrupt Nature but for these or such like uses If I Fast that I may be better able to pay my Debts or provide my Children Portitions 't is an act of Justice and Christian paternal Piety If to moderate my inordinate Appetite of Meat and Drink 't is an act of Temperance In fine 't is hard to name a Virtue which Fasting does not strangely help to procure maintain and encrease And after all this can either Pagan or Christian deny the holy Fast of Lent to have a Divine Character stamp'd upon it and must it be still stigmatized with the ignominious brand of Superstition and Will-worship But how do I know assuredly the Apostles of our B. Saviour taught the Primitive Christians to Fast in Lent Am I able to produce a grand Jury of so many Venerable old Men who have been miraculously kept alive ever since and are ready to avouch as much upon solemn Oath No not I. How do I then know it Has an Angel appeared to me and told me as much No. How then Why how did the Israelites who lived above two thousand years after the Institution of the Sabbath know that God Almighty commanded their first Father Adam to keep it holy They had no book of it the Book of Genesis being written above two thousand years after by Moses I conceive they knew it thus Adam instantly upon God-Almighties Command set himself Religiously to observe that day and taught his Children to do so also his Children practised and taught their Children downwards till Moses his days Nor had any reason to doubt of the Divine Institution of that first holy day because it was not transmitted and recommended to them by a Book Nor would it have been a sufficient excuse for any one then to have pretended how could they be certain that some of their Ancestors betwixt them and Adam had not of their own head superstitiously devised a Religious observation of that day before all others unless they could have produced some positive evidence of such an Innovation In like manner I say concerning the holy Fast of Lent The Holy Apostles first taught the observation of it in the several Countrys where they Preached the Gospel their Converts fell to the practice of it and taught their Children in like manner and so one Generation another till our present days and this all over the Christian World Now unless Non-Conformists can shew when this burdensome precept of Fasting-Lent was imposed upon Christendom since the first planting of Christianity I cannot see how they can more excuse themselves from this Obligation than could the Israelites excuse themselves from the keeping of Saturday Sabbath which was ordained two thousand years before they were born and there was also as yet no written Word of God at all for any such observation But what proof can be brought that all intermediate Generations since the Apostles in several Christian Countrys have kept Lent A much stronger then Iacob could bring to prove to his Children that Saturday-Sabbath had been kept ever since Adam He could only produce the Testimony of the present Generation that so they had been taught by their Fathers and Grand-fathers time out of mind nor had they any Tradition amongst them of a later beginning of such an Observation Written Records Divine or Human he had none I besides the Testimony of those of the present Age in several Christian Countrys who affirm that they have Immemorially from the first planting of Christianity amongst them Religiously observed Lent will produce by and by Records of above a thousand years standing for its Apostolical Institution But positively to prove that the Apostles appointed Lent I argue thus Two hundred years agoe England France Spain Germany Italy and all the Eastern Church universally Fasted Lent as 't is evident by the Records and Annals of our own and those other Christian Countrys Therefore the Apostles taught Lent to their first Converts both in the Eastern and Western World where they Preached For it cannot be imagined that so many several Countrys Kings and Subjects Priests and People could by chance fall upon the yearly practice of Abstaining from flesh forty days before Easter Therefore they must either all at first be taught so by their first Masters of Christianity which is the Conclusion intended to be proved or some Universal Supream Authority Ecclesiastical or Civil must so have commanded them to do or some Preachers first in one Country and then in another must so have perswaded them to do in some Age since But no Annals of our own or other Christian Countrys make any mention of any such Preachers or any such Ordination made by any general Council Pope Prince or Emperor Nor yet have we or other Cbristian Countrys wanted Ecclesiastical Historiographers who in their Memorials have taken notice of far lesser matters than such an Innovation as this must needs have been had the Apostles taught the World no such Observance And the truth is 't is pure Ignorance in Ecclesiastical History and the works of the Primitive Fathers that makes so many waver in the Belief of the Apostolical Institution of Lent in which if they were well Conversant they could not possibly doubt of it Further Not only two hundred years ago but twelve hundred years agoe Lent was Universally observed in the whole Christian World both in the Eastern and Western Church as is manifest out of the pious works of the prime Pillars and Pastors of Christs Church in the fourth and fifth Century of Christianity Nor do the Opposers of Lent deny so much and therefore appeal to the first 300. years after our Saviour for which time and for which only they pretend the Christian worship was untainted and not infected with the Superstitious observation of Lent And no doubt they have a great deal of reason to think so Charitably of the Primitive Christians who for the first 300. years after our Saviour were all over the World sought after to death for their Religion that they would have a care to keep that Religion unspotted and teach the same faithfully to their Posterity which they were all ready every day to dye for and many of them actually did dye for Besides what a reproach would it be to our B. Saviour that his Church should be Universally over-run with Superstition within 300. years after his Death and yet Moses should be able so to establish a Religion as it

should be transmitted to Posterity untainted for many Generations Especially when our Lord had promised that he would so firmly settle and found his Church that all the power of Hell should never be able to prevail against it But me-thinks our Adversaries might extend their Charity to the Christians of the fourth fifth and sixth Century and not think they would have so little regard to the Religion taught them and Seal'd to them by their Ancestors with their dearest blood as immediately to change and corrupt it and by it so altered and corrupted infect themselves and their Posterity as much as in them lay to all Generations with a dangerous Superstition and Will-worship Let us suppose then that for the first 300. years of Christianity the Church of Christ in England Italy Greece and other Countrys observed no such thing as Lent-Fast and consider by what means possible the fourth Age could not only bring it in all over the Christian World but bring it in so secretly and covertly that the prime Doctors of the fifth Age should not be able to discern that this new burden was superadded to Chri●tianity by their immediate Progenitors but should be verily perswaded that such an observation had immemorially from Generation to Generation descended to them from the first Planters of Christianity the Apostles And yet its evident that the fifth Age did not only keep Lent but also kept it as an Apostolical Institution and the prime Christian Doctors of that Age have left it upon Record in their diservedly admired works that they kept this Holy-fast as an Observance taught them by Tradition from the Apostles Hear their own words St. Hierom in his Epistle to Marcella We Fast one Lent Quadragesimam within the compass of the whole year according to the Traditions of the Apostles in a season fit for us The Montanists keep three Lents in the year as if three Saviours had suffered Now if for the first 300. years there had been no such observance by Christians at Rome but if in the fourth Century some Bishop of Rome or some Provincial or general Council or Christian Emperor had first introduced it could a Priest of Rome and one well versed in all Ecclesiastical matters as S. Hierom was err so grosly as to mistake so new an Institution for an Apostolical Tradition that is for an Observance taught the City of Rome from Father to Son from the Apostles For the Greek Church hear the Testmimony of Theophilus Patriarch of Alexandria to the Patriarches of which See it was entrusted by the first General Council that they should yearly signifie beforehand to the rest of the Churche as well as their own the true time of Easter In his first Paschal Epistle he writes thus Let us cure the divers wounds of Vices c. And so may we enter the Fasts at hand beginning Lent the 30th day of the Month Mechir as it were our February the Egyptians reckoning 30. days in every month The week of the salutary Pasch on the 5th day of the Month Pharmuth or April and ending the Fasts according to the Evangelical Traditions on the Evening of the Saturday being the tenth of Pharmuth and on the next Lords day the 11th of the same moneth let us Celebrate the Feasts The like he says in his second Paschal Epistle and again he says according to the Evangelical Traditions I add the Testimony of S. Cyril Patriarch of the same Alexandria in the next Age in his 20th Homily de festis Paschalibus So to let us keep a pure Fast beginning the Holy Lent from such a day ending also the Fasts on the 7th day of Pharmuth late in the Evening according to the Traditions Apostolical The same S. Cyril in 19. other of his Homily cited by B. Gunning de festis Paschalibus Preached in so many several years refers the same Fasts of Lent to Tradition Appointment or Instruction Evangelical The Law of Abstaining in Lent was always in the Church says the above-cited Theophilus Alexandrinus Now can it be imagined that these two Learned Patriarches to whom by the whole Christian Church was committed the care of signifying the due time of Lent and Easter had the Holy Fast of Lent been so lately brought in by some Universal Ecclesiastical or civil Authority could be ignorant of it and think and tell all the World also that they had been so taught to end Lent from Generation to Generation from the Apostles Let it be The Pastors of Christs Church in the fourth Century met together in a General Council though for the first 300. years there had been no such Custom amongst Christians to Fast Lent might make a Law of Abstinence from certain Meats for 40. days before Easter and command the whole Christian World to obey it but they could not possibly have the Impudence to annex to such an Ordination and thus we have been taught to Fast by Tradition from the Apostles when they all must needs know themselves to be the first Ordainers of such an Observance Nor could they possibly impose upon their Posterity such a belief but their Posterity must needs know that such a custom was no Antienter than their immediate Progenitors Which being so how comes it to pass that S. Hierom and other Learned Doctors in the fourth and fifth Century tell us that they kept Lent by Tradition from the Apostles if the Holy Apostles were not the first Teachers of it but some particular Preachers or a General Council or some civil Ecclesiastical power since The first opposers of Lent though they had the Impiety to call it Superstition and Will-worship yet they had not the Impudence to say they had been so taught to call it from Father to Son ever since the Apostles but pretended their Ancestors for many hundred years had been in blindness and ignorance but they by reading the Holy Scriptures and Writers of the first 300. years found there was no such observance in the Primitive Church In like manner had the keeping of Lent been an Innovation the first Introducers of it must have pleaded for it in the fourth or other Century as the Opposers of it in this latter Age pleaded against it They must not have said Abstain from certain Meats in the Holy Time of Lent for so we have been taught to do from Father to Son from the Apostles for every one would have known this to be a notorious Lye but they must have pretended to have more light than their immediate Progenitors and have said the Apostles and Primitive Christians used such Abstinence but fervor of Piety decaying the world for some Centuries had laid aside that holy but troublesome Mortification and they were stirred up by Almighty God to retrieve that Religious Primitive custom But no Ecclesiastical History in so much as any one Christian Country in the world makes mention of any such manner of introducing the Holy Fast of Lent but on the contrary wheresoever Lent is observed the Observers