Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	command_v	law_n	precept_n	1,277	5	9.1164	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44410	A discourse concerning Lent in two parts : the first an historical account of its observation, the second an essay concern[ing] its original : this subdivided into two repartitions whereof the first is preparatory and shews that most of our Christian ordinances are deriv'd from the Jews, and the second conjectures that Lent is of the same original.	Hooper, George, 1640-1727.	1695 (1695)	Wing H2700; ESTC R29439	185,165	511

Antient Practice though under suppos'd names represent the Psalmody to be perform'd most of it together as it stood until in the Fourth Century it was order'd by the Council of Laodicea (e) Can. 17. to be more intermixt with Lessons that the Attention of the Congregation might be the better refresh'd and secur'd by that variety This was the Primitive Order of the Christian Liturgy according to the General Descriptions we have of it for as to the lesser particulars many no doubt there were and some of them such as we find in the Liturgies going under the names of St. James St. Chrysostom c. § VI. NOW the Jews have their Liturgy too and their Morning Devotions consist of several Offices (a) Maim De Prec Cap. 7. 17. And here first I may mention those occasional Benedictions they are suppos'd to have made daily upon their Waking Hearing the Cock Crow Putting on their Cloths c. such as we intimated above and three and twenty of which they are directed to pronounce constantly every day and which run in this form Blessed art or be thou O Lord our God the King of the World who clothest the naked if they are putting on their Cloths or if they are covering their Heads who crownest Israel with Honour or if they are tying their Girdle who Girdest Israel with Strength But besides these Benediction which are to be said apart and on their proper occasions only (b) Ibid. §. 7. though some Synagogues are us'd to repeat them together as an Office the next stated Duty is that of Reading some part of the Law Written or Oral to which every one is every day oblig'd and this Duty as all others is still to be prefaced and concluded with its proper Prayers or Benedictions of which Prefatory Benedictions the first for Example is this Blessed is the Lord c. who hath sanctified us with his Precepts and hath commanded us to study the Law This office is not only Private but publickly also discharg'd in the Synagogue and read there Next to it is the Duty of Repeating the Psalms which has to it Benedictions with which it begins and ends And this Duty is so acceptable that the Practice of some is recommended who have daily repeated the whole Book however the Synagogue every day say over some Psalms and especially on their Sabbaths and other Great Days to which also they generally add some Verses of the Bible that are chiefly Laudatory as in some places the custom is to conclude with the Song at the Red Sea or with that of the 32d Chapter of Deuteronomy (c) Sect. 12 13. For it is in general to be noted that in several places the usages are various as to the choice of the Sections and Psalms and Hymns After this Duty there follows another of Repeating the Verses of the Law they call Shema from the first word of the first of them which is as it were their Creed and begins thus Hear O Israel the Lord thy God is one God This Repetition they are oblig'd to every Morning and Night whereever they are and it has too its proper Benedictions before and after and makes up also an Office in the Synagogue These foremention'd Offices may be differently perform'd in different Countries according to their particular Customs but that which follows and to which the others are but Introductory is constant and stated and uniformly observ'd by all the People of Israel being a Formulary of short Prayers now 19 in Number 18 of which were dictated by Esra as they say These Collects are regularly to be said by each of them at home or in Publick thrice every day and this Office in the Synagogue is always to be said for the Greater Solemnity by the Precentor or Deputy of the Congregation himself whereas the Foregoing might have been read by a Private Person Of those Prayers or Collects the Three First and Three Last are most remarkable those speaking the Glory of God and these returning Thanks (d) Maim de Prec Cap. 1. §. 4. the other Intermediate ones being Petitionary for Understanding Repentance Pardon Relief from their Distresses Healing their Infirmities Giving of seasonable Plenty Return from their Captivity Restoration of their Government Protection of Good Men Reinhabiting of Jerusalem the Coming of the Messiah c. the Requests gradually rising up according to Origens above-mention'd distinction of Supplications Prayers and Intercessions It is also further to be remark'd that though the three first Collects are noted to be wholly Doxological yet the rest are not to be thought to want that Duty all of them beginning or ending with a Benediction of God and the whole Formulary being accordingly call'd the 18 or 19 Benedictions as it is also prefaced with this Versicle Lord open thou our Lips and our Mouth shall shew forth thy Praise But the Third of those Prayers is more signally Glorificatory when it is said in Private referring to the Hymn of the Cherubins (e) Is 6. Ezek. 3.12 Holy Holy Holy c. and when in Publick expressing it And there is also a solemn Hymn of Glory which they call the Kadish pronounc'd particularly by the Deputy of the Assembly before and after every Service (f) Ord. Precum Subjunct Libr. 2●o Libri Jad Chaz Titulo de Benedictionum Formulis Thus far goes an Ordinary Morning Service But on Mundays and Thursdays there still follows a Litany and such Prayers are particularly order'd to be pronounc'd from a Low Place (g) Buxt Syn. J. c. 10. After the Litany on Those Days (h) Buxt Ibid. c. 14. or after the Offices before described when there is no Litany as on the Sabbath (i) C. 16. the Law is brought from the Ark to the Desk in great Pomp and peculiar Portions of it are read there by several with Praevious and subsequent Benediction of God and then in the same manner it is carried back the People all the while Standing and as the Book comes and goes Chaunting out some Versicles and pressing to Kiss it Lastly on Sabbaths and other Great Days there follows Another Office the Additional Service peculiar to the Festival consisting now chiefly of the Commemoration of the Peculiar Sacrifices on that day heretofore offer'd And this Service of Prayers though having some the same is separate and distinct from that of the Daily Morning Prayers as the Daily and the Additional Sacrifices however some things in both might be of the same nature were never intermixt and dispatch'd together for greater speed and convenience but always separately offer'd and each Office kept intire to it self (k) Maim de Cult Div. Tract 6. Cap. 7. § VII NOW to this last describ'd Jewish Order of Morning Prayers so far did the Antient Christian agree as to begin likewise with Lections and Psalmody and from the Jewish Custom of sitting at the Repeating of those Psalms it is that such Portions of the Psaltery as

find a fuller and a higher correspondence not only in a Weekly but in a Forty Season and that likewise of Penitential Duty For first the Jews prepare themselves for the Day of Propitiation more particularly the Week before it They rise before Light assist at Publick Prayers confess their Sins thrice every day Fast and give Alms (b) ●or this whole Section See Buxt S. J. Cap. 26. And as the People fit themselves in a more especial manner by the Devotions of those seven days for the solemn Act of Humiliation commanded them by Moses so they tell us the High Priest heretofore imploy'd the same Week in a continual Exercise of his Office that he might be the better able to discharge the Difficult Duty of the Great Day (c) Jom● Cap. 1. The Sabbath also of that Week they distinguish by a peculiar Title and call it the Sabbath of Repentance Thus the Jews pass the seven preceeding days and so Leo de Modena (d) C●r des Juif P. 3. C. 6. distinguishes them from the rest For though all the ten of that seventh Month are call'd the Ten Days of Repentance reckoning the Day of Expiation for one yet the two first are in some manner Festival being the first of their Political Year and on them they abstain not from Dinner and Supper for which reason they may not be esteem'd as Penitential as the seven that follow These Ten Days are constantly so observ'd by all Jews the last the Tenth by Scriptural Precept and the others by Universal Custom And further to these are added out of the foregoing Month ordinarily a Week at least says Leo de Modena For even the German Jews begin their Humiliation as early according to a particular Rule they have (e) Morin de Poen 10.34.3 But other Nations generally take more time to that solemn Office and frequently Devout Persons begin from the First Day even of this preceeding Month to Fast to make Prayers and Confessions to repeat the Penitential Psalms and to Give Alms continuing so to do the whole Forty days However all Jews begin their Penitential Devotion the First day of that Month the Fortieth day before the Expiation though they may afterwards discontinue in the intermediate time On that day also they begin to blow the Horn in their Synagogues which they do every day that Month for an Alarm they say that they may Repent and be ready to meet the Judgment of God who according to their Tradition sits in Judgment the Ten days of the Next Month. § II. I have mention'd their Opinion of God's Judging the World in the Beginning of their Seventh Month and it may seem thence that their Custom of giving notice by the sound of the Horn may rather respect the Beginning of the Month Tisri than the Tenth Day of it and be rather the Warning of Thirty than of Forty days But this suspicion if it should arise will receive easy satisfaction from another concurrent Tradition of the Jews universally receiv'd by them that Moses went up upon the Mount the Last time on the First day of their Sixth Month and return'd again to them with the second Copy of the Law on the Fortieth after the Tenth of the Seventh their Expiation day (f) Rab. Salom. in Locum Deuter. proximè ●itand Now when he went up he commanded a Horn as they say to be sounded thorough the Camp to give notice to the People on what Errand he was going that they might not again commit the like Abominations in memory of which they now still sound it and we besides know from better Authority (g) Deut. 9.18 that Moses spent these forty days and forty nights in Fasting and Supplication for the Sins of the Children of Israel So that we are rather to think that they have since in some measure follow'd his pious Example and that on the day of his Ascent they begin to prepare for that of his Descent which in their Opinion is the tenth of Tisri and on which they have been since commanded always to Afflict themselves before the Lord at least one Day and Night The Forty days therefore here are not to be look'd upon as an accidental number and the bare Aggregate of Thirty and Ten but as they make up directly a full Penitential Season And indeed that Number seems to have been very antiently appropriated to Penance and Humiliation For not to reckon up the Forty Days by which God drown'd the World (h) Gen. 7.4 or the Forty Years in which the Children of Israel did Penance in the Wilderness (i) Numb 14.34 or the Forty Stripes (k) Deut. 25.3 by which Malefactors were to be corrected though these Instances may concur to strengthen the Opinion whoever considers that Moses did not once only fast this Number of Days (l) Deut. 9.9 18 25. that Elias Fasted also in that Wilderness by the same space (m) King 1.19.8 that the Ninevites had precisely as many Days allow'd for their Repentance (n) Jon. 3.4 and that lastly our Blessed Saviour when he was pleas'd to Fast observ'd the same Length of time (o) Matth. 4.2 whoever I say considers these Facts cannot but think that this number of Days was us'd by them all as the common solemn number belonging to Extraordinary Humiliation and that those were accustom'd to afflict themselves Forty days who would deprecate any great and heavy judgment though the Scripture does not specify the number as those we know p who had a Nazaritical Vow upon them were us'd to observe thirty days though the Scripture had not neither determin'd that space And this is no more than what St. Jerom a Father much vers'd in the Jewish Knowledge has expresly averr'd in his Comment on Jonas where he says that Forty is the number proper for Penitents and Fasting and Prayer c. and that for this reason Moses fasted forty days and so Elias and likewise our blessed Lord c. as may be seen at large in the Passage already exscrib'd above (q) Part 1. Ch. 8. §. 2. This is there positively and in good earnest said by St. Jerom as the Reason of those Examples though Mr. Daille puts it off r as if the Good Father had Play'd upon them while H● himself rather plays with the Father And according to this the Penance of Forty days is very frequent in the Modern Penitentials of the Jews as we have also seen before (ſ) Rep. 1. Ch. 9. §. 2. being there generally injoin'd upon any of the Greater Transgressions And to go yet a little further in this matter I cannot tell whether the Forty Days which our Blessed Saviour himself fasted in the Wilderness were not so pass'd by him in the nature of a Penitential Fast For the Baptism of John is known to be a Baptism of Repentance (t) Acts 19.4 preparing for the Messias to come and it may not be unreasonable to suppose that by it