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Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
work_n	day_n	rest_n	rest_v	12,213	5	9.7997	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28844	Maxims and reflections upon plays (In answer to a discourse, Of the lawfullness and vnlawfullness of plays. Printed before a late play entituled, Beauty in distress.) Written in French by the Bp. of Meaux. And now made English. The preface by another hand.; Maximes et réflexions sur la comédie. English.	Bossuet, Jacques Bénigne, 1627-1704.; Collier, Jeremy, 1650-1726.	1699 (1699)	Wing B3786; ESTC R202902	73,555	157

Command of keeping Holy the sabbath-Sabbath-day Now it is tru●… that in Exodus we find that Command delivered and enforced after the following manner Six days thou shalt do thy work and on the seventh day thou Shalt rest that thine Oxe and thine Ass and all whom those Beasts represent all whose life is imployed continually in Labour may rest and the Son of thy handmaid and the stranger may be refreshed Now upon this occasion we may justly make St. Pauls Reflection Doth God take care for Oxen No! Without all controversy his concern that They might rest was not so great as to produce an express Command for that purpose But that Fatherly Care and Compassion which as David observes hath a tender regard to the safety both of Man and Beast provided for the Refreshment even of Brutes themselves that men might learn by this Example not to harass and oppress those that are like themselves with never ceasing Drudgery and Toil. Or else the Reason of that Command may be to show that the Goodness of God extends to the Preservation of our Bodies and would have some convenient Intermission for their Comfort from that labour and fatigue which is common to us with Creatures of an inferiour Degree So that this Rest of Mankind is a Second and less principall motive for the Institution of the Sabbath But to infer from thence that Sports nay even that publick Sports were allowed to that ancient and peculiar people of God betrays so gross Ignorance of their Constitution and Customes as deserves no other answer than Disdain and Contempt of the wretched consequences deduced from this Law The Rest of the Jewish nation consisted in an Intermission of Bodily Labour by which they might have leisure to employ their thoughts in meditations upon God and his Law and to dedicate that time to his more immediate Service But to seek their own Pleasure and especially so unthinking a Pleasure as that of Plays supposing that Age to have been addicted to such sort of Diversions had doubtless been a manifest Profanation and crying Abuse of that Holy Day Isaiah is express in this matter For there God rebukes the Iews severely and upbraids them over and over for doing their own will and seeking their own Pleasure upon the day he had Sanctisied and Set apart to his own use For looking upon the sabbath as a Day of Delight or as a Day of Ostentation and Vainglory He shews them what Sort of Pleasure it was intended they should persue upon this Day Thou shalt delight thy self in the Lord says he Some luterpreters indeed put another sense upon these Passages but it is such as comes all to one at the last since all agree that the proper Delight and Pleasure of the Sabbath is to take pleasure in God and Good things And yet now men go so far as to propose the pleasure of Plays which is a Delight so immediately and entirely sensuall for an Imitation of God's Spiritual and Divine Rest and a part of that Refreshment which He hath directed and ordained for Mankind But let us leave these Reasonings to their Authour which indeed are so extravagant and odd that it is hard to say whether they be more despicable for the Weakness or detestable for the Profaneness of them He that shall undertake to defend acting Plays upon Sundays either upon the Principles of this Discourse or upon any Others of his own would do well in the first place to make out the Priviledge This Trade can pretend to above all the rest that This Should lay claim to the Day which is God's Peculiar and presume to appropriate any part of it to It self Is the Profession of a Player more Liberal more to be respected and encouraged than that of Painting and Sculpture not to mention any of those Arts which are usefull for the necessary supplyes of humane Life Do not Players subsist upon this Odious Art And can we with any colour of reason excuse those who oblige them to the exercise of their usual Labours by paying them for working upon a day when others are forbidden to exercise more honest Callings This certainly is carrying Licentiousness to much too high a Pitch The Commands of God and That in particular which regards the Sanctification of Holy Days will be too much disrespected and forgotten and upon these Terms God's own Day will in a little time be less His than any of the other Six Such wicked and forced Expositions do men study to find out to abandon this day to Vanity and Pleasure After this I should scarce think that frivolous Excuse for Plays upon Festivalls and Holydays worth an Answer which grounds it self upon a Pretence that the Theatres are not opened till the Publick Worship is ended and the Church doors are shut For why should not all other Labours and Trades be indulged by the same reason most of which without dispute are much more profitable and necessary and have a better Title to be allowed Who is it I beseech you that first reserved this day and cut it off from common use and why should not He have the whole as well as any part of it What reason can be alledged why all the four and twenty hours of this Day should not be His as entirely as those of all the rest of the Days are Ours I own there are some Diversions which the Church it self does not absolutely prohibit out of the time of Divine service but Plays were never any of that Number The Discipline of the Church hath ever been uniform and consistent with it self in this point And the Council of Reims toward the Close of the last Age in the Title of Feastdays after having in the Third Chapter instanced in some Sports which ought not to be permitted or at least not till Service was over does afterwards in the Sixth Chapter put in a rank by themselves the Diversions of the Theatres as things that cast a blemish upon Morality and Decency and the Holiness of the Church and therefore absolutely forbidden upon Holydays St. Charles had made the same declaration against them and all the Ancient and Modern Canons speak the same Language without any Limitation or Reserve in their Favour St. Thomas whom they so confidently and groundlesly top upon us at every turn for a Warranter of Licentiousness does among other necessary conditions for even Innocent Diversions require this as an indispensable one that they be indulged only at convenient seasons And What is the meaning of this Precaution but to inform us that there are some among them which however allowable they be at other times yet ought not by any means to be suffered upon Holy Days But indeed it is not reasonable to require from us particular passages out of This or any other Divines condemning this abominable Division men are now content to make of times set apart for Religion between That and the world not to say the Devil They were

who lived in the Thirteenth Century We find among the Sermons printed in St. Ambrose one of St Coesarius Archbishop of Arles where he tells us three or four times over That whoever hunts any part of Lent horum quadraginta dierum curriculo does not really fast no says he not though he abstain from food longer than Ordinary and do not eat till the Evening which was the constant usage of that Age It is true he does not refresh himself at common hours but notwithstanding that he hath not fasted unto the Lord for Fasting implyes a great deal more then eating later than is usuall Potes videri tardius te refecisse non tamen Domino jejunasse This Author lived about the End of the sixth Century In the ninth Age Pope Nicolas imposes the same Observance upon the Bulgarians who consulted him for direction and grounds it upon the Tradition of the former Ages of the Church This severity was derived from the primitive Discipline in the case of Penitents And what was then thought expedient for particular Persons and Cases was afterwards judged a proper Course for the observance of Lent This being a Season when the whole Church and every member of it put themselves into the condition of Penitents And lest any should imagine that this discipline of Penitents was unreasonable and beyond all measure Rigorous St. Thomas justifies it with this Argument that such Publick Shews and Exercises take off from the Seriousness of the mind and are a great Hindrance to Recollection That the State of Penitents is a State of uneasiness and Trouble and therefore the Church hath a right and does well in such Circumstances to use her right of debarring such from the use and enjoyment of such things which though usefull in their own Nature are yet by no means proper for these persons present Condition And that nothing less than a case of Necessity is a good Exception to this Rule ubi Necessitas exposcit as for instance If a man had no other way of getting his Living but by Hunting All which is agreeable to the Canons to the Doctrine of the Saints and to the Master of the Sentences And having by all these Authorities Moderated the Diversions which a private Penitent may allow himself in for the refreshment of his own mind and the keeping up a good Correspondence with his Neighbours and acquantance he forbids such the Use of all Publick Shews and all those exercises which discompose the mind and render it unfit for Serious Thought Notwithstanding all which the Discourser in the Passage now before us hath declared it allowable to see and hear Plays all Lent long for these are his very words He discovers in this no manner of Inconsistence with that Spirit of mortification and deep Sorrow which the Church at that time makes publick Profession of and he hath the confidence to call this Answering all Objections to the Contrary in Th. Aquinas his own Words The same Author declares himself yet farther upon this subject in that Question already quoted out of his Summes where in the Fourth Article he inquires Whether there can be any Sin in the Defect or too rigid Forbearance of Diversion That is In refusing and denying a mans self every thing that may contribute to the recreating his Mind For That is the meaning of Lud●…s or Play mentioned there And the first Objection he raises is this that in all appedrance there can be no Sin in the defect of these Diversions because no Sin is prescribed to Penitents and yet all Diversions are prohibited so such For This agrees with a Passage in a Book attributed to St. Augustin where he says that if a Penitent desire to obtain the grace of a full and perfect Pardon it is necessary for him to forbear Diversions and the Shews of the World during his State of Humiliation for his Sins This Passage was in the Text of the Master of the Sentences and the Doctrine contained in it received as uncontestable because agreeing exactly with all the ancient Canons St. Thomas likewise replyes that Lamentation and Grief for Sin are commanded the Penitents and therefore Diversion is not allowed to such because Reason requires the abatement of such things to persons under Circumstances of Sorrow Paenitentibus luctus indicitur pro peccatis ideo inter dicitur eis ludus Nec hoc pertinet ad vitium defectus quia hoc ipsum est secundum rationem quod in eis ludus diminuatur This is the only Restriction produced there which yet does not in any degree affect the publick Diversions because it does not take off the Prohibition of Shews but it leaves that in full force as we find it expressly laid in all those Canons that concern a Penitentiall State And this the same Author himself acknowledges in the passage lately cited out of his Book upon the Sentences Let not men therefore injure the Doctrine and misrepresent the Judgment of so Pious and Great a man by pretending his Authority for so manifest a Relaxation of Ecclesiasticall Discipline It is enough and too much to introduce him as a Vindicator of Plays which yet he never intended But it is too great too shameless an abuse to make him justify acting in Lent though he have not in the whole Compass of his Works one single Passage which either directly or by remote Consequence can bear this Construction Nay when on the Contrary he hath so expresly declared that the Publick Shews are so perfectly inconsistent with that Spirit of Mortification and Repen tance which the Church at the season of Lent particularly labours so earnestly to revive and cherish in the mind of every Christian. XXX The Profanation of the Lord●… Day The command of keeping Festivals holy explained As to the Lord's Day and the Observation of it our Author begins with this remark That the Holy-days are given us not only to sanctify them and that we may have then more leisure then at other times we have for attending the service of God but also that we may rest after the Example of God himself And from hence he infers that since Pleasure is the proper Rest of Man according to St. Thomas He may even upon Sundays allow himself the Pleasure of Plays provided this be not done till the publick Offices of the Day be over And here again he endeavours to draw St. Thomas over to his party Who yet first of all says not one word of what he makes him say and Secondly though he had said what he is produced for yet no Conclusion can be drawn from thence in favour of Plays which are the subject of the present Discourse I should be much to blame to spend time in a formall Confutation of One who does not understand what he reads But yet his Profanations of Scripture and the Rest of Almighty God are the less to be endured because of their direct tendency to overthrow the