Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
lord_n	christian_a	day_n	sabbath_n	12,184	5	9.9778	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41549	The reformed bishop, or, XIX articles tendered by Philarchaiesa, well-wisher of the present government of the Church of Scotland, as it is settled by law, in order to the further establishment thereof.	Gordon, James, Pastor of Banchory-Devenick.	1679 (1679)	Wing G1279; ESTC R10195	112,676	318

joyful Remembrance of the Nativity of our Blessed Lord on the Anniversary thereof which in the time of Dioclesian proved a dismal Solemnity to some in Bithynia and of his Resurrection every Lord's Day especially on Easter which is Caput institutionis they on the Contrary as if they had not been unvaluable Mercies but rather great Plagues to the World must needs Fast on these Dayes and alwayes on that Sunday which did immediately preceed the Lord's Day on which the Holy Communion was to be celebrated though the Anniversary of our Saviour's Passion was judged by the Ancients the much fitter season for solemn Humiliation and Preparation in order to the due Reception of that Commemorative Sacrifice of Christ's Body and Blood on Easter Day for when Persecution ceased by the Haloyonian-dayes of the Great Constantine too much of the Christian Fervour abated therewith So that in the later Centuries of the Primitive Church The Holy Eucharist was not received every day no not every Lord's day but appointed to be celebrated thrice a year viz. On the Anniversary of the Nativity and Resurrection of our Blessed Lord and of the Descent of the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost which Canons did at last terminate in Easter Day But these Antipodes are at the Expence of a Kalendar only to shun those dayes as a S●ylla and Charybdis or the greater and lesser Syrtes And that they might give a Demonstration to the World that they are not sworn Enemies to their own Flesh and Blood and that it was not the Mortification of their own sensual Natures they designed by such Abstinence but rather that they fasted for Strife and Debate and to smite with the Fist of Wickedness under such a Religions Palliation It was usually observed that their most solemn Fasts did usher in the greatest Villanies they intended to act so that all honest-hearted men looked upon these Intimations as prodigious Meteors portending some bad Omen either to Church or State and too frequently to both But that they might make a sufficient amends to the animal Life for these few Politick Substractions they gratified the same with Feasting when they could come at it all the dayes of the Week though Epiphanius hath told us that in his time Fasting was practised throughout all the World every Wednesday and Friday unless the Anniversary of our Saviour's Nativity did happen upon one of these dayes As for Saturday's Fast though Pope Innocent pretended the Apostles Fasted that Day because Christ lay in the Grave all that time It did not so early nor universally obtain For it was not practised at Millan in the Time of S. Ambrose Yea more than so they were most willing to Feast all the time of Lent the Passionwee kwhich was deservedly termed by the Ancients Hebdomada magna Sancta Not that it hath sayes Chrysostom either more dayes or hours than other Weeks but because this is the Week in which truly great and ineffable good things were purchased for us not being excepted and were more ready to gormandize than on the Anniversary of our Saviours Passion all the Sympathy they discovered with his imparallel'd Sufferings on that Day being meerly Symbolical and that in a Physical sense too For as the Flesh of our Blessed Lord was inhumanely torne on that Day so they were ready with too greedy Appetites to tear the Flesh of Brutes hateing so much to be reputed Pythagoreans or Manicheans on that Day that they would have chosen rather to be accounted Canibals and ever since that time the Flesh-Market on that day is the greatest of all the year and though the Change of it to some other Day hath been frequently desired by some sober Persons in this Church for the avoiding of Scandal Yet such is the Prevalency of Fanaticisme in some Royal Burghs that the Bishop with his Clergy could not obtain that most reasonable Request This being one of the Cimelia è Scrinio Polonico eruta which they fail not to bring home with them per Hellespontum Danicum Whereas the Emperours Theodosius the first Valentinian the second and Gratian as we find in the Theodosian Code commanded all Suits and Processes at Law to cease and all Prisoners to be set free in this Holy week Whence it may appear these Carnivorous Animals have never seriously pondered that Typical Expostulation of our dying Redeemer which we find in the Lamentations of Ieremie Chap. 1. ver 12. interpreted by all the Ancients of Christ himself and which concerns them as much as any But that they might shew themselves Prefect in that Art of Opposition to the Primitive Church they still presumed to approach to that Holy Table absque Virgine Saliva though it was also condemned by the Ancient Canons and I wish some of them had rested satisfied with their Ordinary Repast in that great Morning of the Feast But there is good reason to fear That the Generality of Plebeian Christians shall rise in Judgment and condemn those Epicurean Fanaticks For these will not upon any account usher in that Spiritual and Incorruptible Food with any Temporal and perishing Harbinger Now if any shall say That they are afraid of Fainting I must confess Necessity hath no Law But I wish some have not contracted that Necessity by Intemperance For Nature is content with little and Grace with less I have also heard some object That Christ himself Condemned Fasting in the Pharisees But take St. Chrysostom's Answer to this ignorant Scruple who tells us That Christ did not simply Condemn the Pharisees their Fasting twice a Week or their exact payment of Tithes but their Hypocrisie and Ostentation But if we shall judge by the Practice of too many of those we have good reason to Conclude That they have perswaded themselves that Christ Condemned both these Matters in Thesi and that there is no necessity of any Hypothesis to expound the Text. But in the Last place Some of the more knowing of them are ready to adduce the Authority of Thorndyke and Ieremy Taylor both which were very far from Phanaticism that they have sufficiently evinced the Lent-Fast not to be an Apostolick Tradition as it is now Calculated by a Quadragesima dierum But that the proper Lent of the Infant Christian Church was only a Quadragesima horarum For Answer I cannot but reverence the Judgment of those great Clerks and do indeed look upon the Quadragesima horarum as the only Apostolick Tradition though the strict Observation of the whole Passion-week did begin very early in the Church But I think it a very strange Parologism to infer from thence That Feasting on Good Friday is Lawful seeing it must needs be inclusively the 〈◊〉 of that most absolute Fast of Fourty Hours But in these dayes of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Animosities and Epicurisme have made the Usage of Fasts by Papists a Command to us not to use them And to conclude the Abating any thing of our Gluttony

the Flock So it should fare with those defenceless Creatures if an Hostile Army should invade a peaceable People living securely without any Fear or Apprehension of such a sudden Deluge Friends and Foes Heterodox and Orthodox Conformist and Non-Conformist would be all overflowed alike the insolent Souldier having no other Eyes to discern but what Nature hath given to all living Creatures betwixt the Faith of an Heretick and the Orthodox save only by their Paleness and Garb. So that they who are accustomed to Rapine almost from their Infancies if they found rich Moveables and easily transportable to their own Countries whether the Owners were rich in the Faith or not they would not concern themselves with that nice Distinction But as it was said of the dayes of Caligula That it was then Crime enough to be rich so all should be Fish that should come in their Net so impartial would these rude Souldiers be And the Emperour would be so far from attaining his End that it would rather harden these deluded People to persist in their Non-Conformity they looking upon themselves as Martyrs at least Confessors for their imaginary Faith the most ignorant among them being at least so intelligent as to understand that this is not the peaceable Method of the Gospel to proselyte any to the Christian Faith but point blank contrary thereunto By which truly zealous Intercession this Devout man at last diverted the Tyrant from that most cruel Design But in fine I shall remit them to the serious Consideration of the State and Practice of the Primitive Church when the Civil Magistrate was no Christian but a Persecuter of that way whose Concurrence they could not expect to their Discipline but rather a violent Opposition thereunto And if any of them seemed to put to their helping hand it was not any Love to the Discipline of the Church but Ragione del ' Stato as the Italians phrase it Thus the Emperour Aurelianus did drive away Paulus Samosatenus that Arch-heretick and Bishop from Antioch but it was out of no Principle of Respect to the Church that he did so for he was accounted one of the Persecuting Emperours but from Reason of State because that proud Heretick was a great Incendiary in that City Let therefore the present Church imitate that excellent Pattern of the Primitive before the Halcyonian day of the great Constantine But if in ordine ad Spiritualia they will needs make their Address to the Secular Magistrate for the Coercion of Delinquents I wish it were rather in the matter of gross Scandal contumaciously persever'd in notwithstanding of the highest Censures of the Church inflicted upon them than of the Sentiments of the Judgment which proceed not the length of unwarrantable Practices For they who are incorrigibly profane are more overawed by the Terror of man than by the Fear of God and much more by the Temporal Sword of the Criminal Judge than by the Spiritual Sword of the Church for habitual Practical Atheists may without breach of Charity be presum'd to be such in Speculation I shall only instance the Profanation of the Lord's Day by Salmon-Fishing there being a vile Pack of brain-sick Hereticks in this Land who allow the Practice of it I am indeed far from pleading for a Judaical Sabbath in this Church But for any who are called Christians to be so employed in the time of God's Solemn Worship must needs be very odious in the Sight of Heaven and exceedingly scandalous in the Eyes of all those who are devoted to a Religious Service Neither find we any such Irregularities tolerated in any Christian Church which passeth not under the name of Barbarous no not in Geneva or Amsterdam I know certainly that this Insolency hath been represented both privately and publickly to the chiefest Governours of this Church and they obtested to implore the Assistance of his Majesties Secret Councel in order to the effectual Suppression of that Scandal as being so reflective upon the present Government but I fear it hath not yet been done for there is neither Bruit nor Fruit of that Address But if the Governours of our Church desire to avoid those bitter Sarcasmes Medice cura teipsum Turpe est Doctori c. De ingratis etiam ingrati queruntur qui non ardet non accendit Si vis me flere c. Which in plain English import that we should wash our own Mouths before we apply Gargarisms to others Or to use our Saviour's Phrase pull out the Beam before thou espy the Mote then let them have a special Care not to be found Profaners of the Lord's Day themselves Which Scandal ' they ought to shun the more solicitously because it was one of the Rocks on which their Predecessours did split if we may believe the verbal Assertion of many living Witnesses and that which a late learned Writer hath consign'd in print Which Reflection should serve at least as a Pharos to prevent all Shipwracks of that nature for the future But how this Beacon hath been observed may be perceived from the ensuing little Story A Bedal of a Country-Church being questioned not long agoe before a Country-Session for bringing home a Burden of Flax on the Lord's Day made this Apology for himself That not many Days before there had been a Bishop in that Village who in his Return from the North where he had been visiting his aged Father of the same Order with himself lodged all Night in the Minister's House though the Incumbent was not at home and not staying to supply that Vacancy travelled many Miles that Day of his Removal which was the Lord's Day with a great Baggage-Horse in his Train whose Burden was far above the Proportion of Flax he had brought home Whence he inferr'd That he thought the Bishops had brought such Carriages in Fashion on the Lord's Day and that he might lawfully imitate them who were the Fathers and Lights of the Church From which blunt but true Story for the poor door-keeper was censured in Publick for all his imaginary Authentick Apology I shall also deduce this Inference That all Church-men should be as vigilant as Dragons over their Conversation in the World that they give not the least Offence unto any that Stumbling-block occasioning the most dangerous Fall which is laid by the imprudent deportment of an Ecclesiastick The Plurality of men being more enclined to live by Examples than by Rules the former being much more obvious to Plebeian heads than the latter besides it hath a secret Magnetical Virtue like the Loadstone it attracts by a Power of which we can give no Account Yea such is the perverseness of humane Nature since that woful Lapse of our first Parents that the generality of men are more prone to follow Evil than to imitate that which is Good But that we may shut up this Point I shall add no more to the Prosecution of Delinquents in Foro Ecclesiastico but only this Wish That the Governours