Selected quad for the lemma: prayer_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
prayer_n	pray_v	spirit_n	supplication_n	6,826	5	11.2274	5	true

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56708	A treatise of repentance and of fasting especially of the Lent-fast : in III parts.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1686 (1686)	Wing P857; ESTC R26184	77,506	248

such wretched Souls and deprecate the Divine displeasure beseeching him to turn his anger from us and to spare us for the sake of those pious Souls that with Fasting Mourning and Weeping humbly supplicate his Mercy If the Church did now exercise that ancient Discipline so much spoken of it would be the duty of the very best among us to be present at the Censures passed upon notorious Offenders and I showed out of S. Paul to bewail them and lament over them in the most doleful manner And why should we not do that voluntarily in our private retirements on Fasting-days which the Church doth not call for to be done in publick Nay we should the rather do it as I have often said and bewail this among other things that men are impatient of such discipline or any thing like it that they will not submit to the government of their Spiritual Pastors which is so great a sin that it is next to Rebellion against their Sovereign and that Offenders are so multiplied as beyond all measure to exceed the number of the Good who are not able to curb and restrain them This is a lamentable state of things and ought to affect the hearts of those who fear God with Grief and Sorrow especially when they consider the obstinate hardness of mens hearts in these evil courses their great insensibleness either of their sin or danger and the cause of all this their gross Infidelity Which it should be part of every good mans business to bewail in secret beseeching God all the Lent long to put a stop to the floods of ungodliness that they may not like a deluge overwhelm us It is not the custom of these parts of the World to mourn in Sackcloth and Ashes and therefore I have not pressed the very same significations of Sorrow Grief and Humiliation which were anciently used in the Eastern Countries but something like them and equivalent to them if we be not willing to use it is because we think it a slight matter to offend the Divine Majesty and are not afraid of his Almighty displeasure For let us but awaken in our Souls a sense of the hainous nature of those sins which we and others have committed against God and of the danger we have incurred by our undutifulness to him and we shall not think it unreasonable to submit to some such discipline as this which is here proposed instead of that which was practised of old in other Nations Let every one of us lay aside all this Lent our fine Cloaths and the usual attire of our Bodies for that is still the custom of Mourners in all places and let us retire our selves as much as is possible for so Mourners also do making no visits nor willingly receiving any if nothing but civility oblige us to it Let the time be spent in this retirement in Reading and Prayer in examining our Consciences and bewailing our Offences in taking a view of the miserable estate of mankind and imploring the Divine Mercy towards them in laying to heart the sufferings of any of our Christian Brethren and such like Spiritual Exercises which we are too apt to neglect in a croud of business and of company Let the consideration of it move us to afflict our selves with Fasting or if that cannot be with a spare Diet Let the rich especially and those that live deliciously deny their appetites keep a slender Table and punish their excesses with harder fare Drink no Wine nor strong Liquors without necessity make no Feasts nor accept of invitations to them Give Alms liberally and frequent the publick Prayers and there let us humble our selves before God and blush to lift up our Eyes unto Heaven Yea let us Pray with all Prayer and Supplication in the Spirit as the Apostle enjoyns vi Ephes 18. that is address our selves to him in all sorts of holy thoughts and devout affections and that with great fervour and ardent desires with Tears and knocking our Breasts and bended knees as Theophylact expounds the words beseeching him by the Mystery of his holy Incarnation by his holy Nativity and Circumcision by his Baptism Fasting and Temptation by his Agony and Bloudy Sweat by his Cross and Passion c. graciously to deliver us Tremble to think that you have so oft prayed in the Litany that God would PITIFVLLY BEHOLD THE SORROWS OF YOVR HEARTS when perhaps you had no SORROW at all there and now if you have any let it be testified in all the sorrowful actions that I have named And forbear Musick and Dancing and all such like pleasures Let those that have been slothful content themselves with less sleep that they may have more time for Prayer and Heavenly thoughts They that have been too Voluptuous will do well also to lye hard though not upon the ground Finally let there be a general Abstinence from all manner of Recreations unless the preservation of Health make them necessary and then use them privately Leave the Play-houses quite empty and make the Churches full Go to no publick shows nor meetings but spend the time when you come from Church in setting all things right at home For S. Chrysostom I remember having heard that some of his Auditors since his last Sermon had been at an Horse-race bewails it in his next as the loss of all the pains he had bestowed upon them from the beginning of Lent And among other things tells them it gave great scandal to Jews and to Gentiles who seeing those that were at Church daily mingle themselves at those meetings with such as came not thither think saith he that all we do is a delusion and that we are all alike no better than themselves A great deal more he saith on this subject in his Sixth and Seventh Sermon upon Genesis and begins his Forty first Sermon with the very same matter In like manner S. Basil * Hom. viii in Hexaem p. 110. chides those who as soon as Sermon was done went and plaid at Dice and Tables It being to no purpose to afflict the Body with Fasting if the Mind continue vain and full of vicious Affections And therefore S. Chrysostom frequently beseeches his hearers that when they came home they would spend their time in ruminating upon what they had been taught and conferring one with another about it and thereby free themselves from all bad desires and flee the snares of the Devil For when the Devil saith he sees our Minds solicitous about these Divine matters and perpetually conversant in them he dares not approach us but flees away before the face of a more powerful Spirit working in us Now all this that hath been said doth not come up to the Primitive strictness but it approaches something near unto it and is a great mortification of sensual Nature which delights in company and merry meetings in Feasts and Jollity in Sport and Plays in Laughter and all manner of Mirth and Pleasure Which we ought to lay aside and deny our selves at this Season that we may fulfil the Apostolical Precept iv Jam. 9. 10. Be afflicted and mourn and weep let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to heaviness Humble your selves in the sight of the Lord and he shall lift you up Let the Reader cast his Eyes back to the latter end of the Seventh Chapter of this Book and when he hath perused it again consider with himself what he hath to do Especially in the Great Week of Lent as they anciently called the Week just before Easter which had that Name given it saith the great Man before mentioned because S. Chrysost Hom. xxx in Genes in it certain great and unspeakable benefits were bestowed upon us There was an end put in this Week to the long continued War Death was extinguished the Curse was taken away the tyranny of the Devil dissolved and he himself disarmed God reconciled to mankind Heaven made enterable Men associated with Angels things distant conjoyned the Partition-wall taken down the inclosure laid open the God of Peace pacified all things both in Heaven and in Earth And therefore we call it the Great Week because the Lord graciously conferred on us such a multitude of Gifts therein For which reason many both inlarge their Easting and are remarkable for Watchings and holy Pernoctations and Alms Showing by their deeds the honour they have for this Week For if our Lord freely bestowed such great benefits upon us therein how can we think it decent in us not then to make a show of all possible reverence and honour For even Kings themselves declare in what admiration they have those venerable Days by commanding a vacation to all those who manage Civil affairs by shutting up the doors of the Courts of Judgment and requiring a cessation of all strife and contention that men may have nothing to do but to apply themselves to the right performance of Spiritual offices with the greatest quietness and tranquillity And more than this they honour these Days with another liberality loosing the bonds of Prisoners and letting them go free that as far as Humane power reaches they may imitate their Lord. For as he set us at liberty when we were fast tied and bound with the Chains of our Sins and gave us the injoyment also of innumerable good things so we in like manner ought the best we can to be imitators of this loving kindness of the Lord. You see how every one of us should show in all things the reverence and the honour which is becoming those Days which were the procurers of so many and such good things And therefore now if ever let me intreat you to expel all Worldly thoughts and to keep the Eye of your Mind clear and vigilant Now is the time to Fast more strictly to make more earnest Prayers to be more exact and large in confession of Sins to be diligent in all the actions of Piety to give Alms more liberally to exercise the strictest Patience Forbearance Meekness and all other Vertue That coming with these accomplishments unto Easter-day we may partake of the bounty of the Lord. THE END

many publick judgments of God fall upon us in these days because the Church is negligent in calling offenders to an account And they will not judge that is Afflict themselves for their Offences There are great numbers I doubt not who condemn their Sins in their own Consciences and condemn themselves also for them to deserve punishment from God And this they imagine to be sufficient to make them capable of his Mercy and Forgiveness Whereas they ought to humble themselves with Fasting and Weeping and Mourning with neglect of their Bodies confession of their Guilt confusion of Face lamentable deprecations of Gods displeasure Prayers and Supplications with works of Mery which ought always to accompany Fasting and Prayer as most becoming those who ask mercy of God and as a Revenge upon themselves for their Covetousness and too great love of this present World And because grievous sinners do not thus Afflict themselves with an unfeigned resolution of amendment God himself is pleased to afflict them by sending his Plagues upon them in one sort or other to punish them CHAP. VII Some Cautions to prevent misunderstanding in this matter THUS having proved what I undertook that we ought not to content our selves with inward Sorrow alone without all outward Humiliations and shown the use they have in Religion I proceed now according to the method laid down in the beginning to give some Cautions to prevent the misunderstanding or abuse of this Doctrine 1. And first of all I would not be understood as if I thought they were of such an indispensable necessity that it is impossible for any sinner to obtain Remission and Absolution without them No the very History of the Gospel shows the contrary In which we find our Saviour who came to call sinners to Repentance forgave several persons who did not like that woman in the vii of S. Luke Kiss his very feet wash them with her tears and wipe them with the hair of her head All which were acts of great Humiliation especially the last wherein she imployed that to the meanest use which had been before her principal Ornament and her pride My meaning therefore is that these things are very useful as hath been shown and in some cases necessary when Penitents have been very licentious livers and it is not likely they will otherwise be sufficiently sensible of what they have done and of what they have deserved nor be so humbled as to be reclaimed and brought off from their evil courses 2. They therefore who have constantly led a regular life and are guilty only of the smaller sort of Offences must not take these things as spoken to them unless it be on some occasions which shall be presently mentioned which are intended for gross and scandalous Sinners Such as that woman now named who was a known Harlot unto whom our Lord forgave a great deal when little was forgiven unto Simon who did none of these things vii Luke 46 47. 3. Yet it may be very necessary even for those to take this course who are not such heinous Offenders in case of frequent relapses into the same sin which must be cured by using themselves something severely For though seldom slips of the Tongue suppose may be easily corrected yet frequent returns to folly and that after solemn resolutions to the contrary will require more pains and great Humiliations as a means not only to give a stop to them but to extirpate such roots of bitterness 4. The best also ought to Afflict themselves in times of publick calamity and upon days of solemn Humiliation when men are naturally disposed to that which may signifie their seriousness sobriety sorrow and unworthiness of the Blessings they come to beg of the Father of Mercies 5. By which every one may understand that these Humiliations are not always in season as inward grief and sorrow is But upon such occasions as I have mentioned and also at certain appointed times which the Church hath fixed either Weekly or Yearly for Humiliation in general for our own and other mens Sins or for the bewailing those in particular who have deserved the Censures of the Church when they are executed on them Of which more hereafter 6. At all which times care must be taken that these Humiliations be true significations of our inward grief and proceed from thence And not merely external shews used for fashions sake and to comply with the season For without inward grief and resolutions to be better they are so far from procuring any favour from God that we may justly fear they further incense him as being but a kind of mockery of him Which made the Prophet Joel in the place above named bid the Israelites rend their hearts and not their Garments Not intending hereby to forbid the rending their Garments which he had in effect called for in the preceding words but requiring them not to content themselves with that alone Because that was but a signification and token and a sign where there was nothing really signified thereby could be nothing worth But rather an abomination in the sight of God Who counts it a vile piece of Hypocrisie when we present him with significations which in truth signifie nothing there being nothing within like to that which appears without 7. And further this caution must be used that by these Exercises we neither destroy the health of our Bodies nor suffer any ill affection to be bred in our Minds We ought not to make our selves sick with Fasting nor so weaken our selves by hard usage as to become unfit for our imployments And greater care ought to be taken that we do not grow morose and sowre peevish and untoward unto others while we are severe unto our selves And that the keeping our selves under a strict discipline do not beget a secret pride in us which makes us to think very highly of our selves and to contemn and despise others Just as the conceited Pharisee did the poor Publican in the xviii S. Luke 11 12. But above all we must be watchful that such pride to not creep herewith into our hearts as tempts men to fansie they have by this discipline highly merited at the hands of God whom they had grievously offended Let such Rocks as these be avoided and then these bodily Exercises in their season and due measure may prove very profitable being designed for such other ends and uses as I have named particularly as a means to prevent our relapsing into such sins as have cost us much affliction and trouble 8. But lastly I desire it may be noted that I do not pretend any obligation or fitness either for the use of all and every the very same tokens of inward grief and of the sense we have of our vileness whereby it was expressed in ancient days But we are rather to declare the same things by other signs which are more suitable to our own times For the reason I have shown why they sat down in Sackcloth and