Selected quad for the lemma: world_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
world_n	call_v	day_n	sabbath_n	2,477	5	9.8919	5	false

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

were so many Metropolitans and of so great Erudition and Learning as they were almost all able to dispute of Dogms to whom when their gathering together in one seemed to add a confidence of daring and decreeing something from themselves yet notwithstanding they would presume nothing arrogate nothing at all to themselves but take all possible heed lest they should deliver to their Posterity what themselves had not received from their Fathers and not only well disposed the matter for the present but also give example to them that were to come to wit that they should reverence the Dogms of Sacred Antiquity and condemn adinventa the additional inventions of prophane Novelty Had Abstinence from certain kind of Meats for 40. days before Easter been a Superstitious Novelty its manifest no Introducer of it could have perswaded it to a Christian Church thus principled as the Doctors of this Age were They would all unanimously have reclaimed nothing must be Innovated besides what has been delivered to us by our Ancestors Or was Lent first taught in the Age fore-going and were the present Pastors of this 5th Age in the actual belief and practice of it If so how possibly could they profess to be such Zelots for Antiquity and such Exploders of Novelty and yet themselves most Religious Observers of a Superstitious practice never heard of till it was of late invented by their immediate Progenitors And how would their Adversary Nestorius have upbraided them with it when they objected to him the Novelty of his Doctrin Or perhaps was Lent first introduced in the third Age But that could not be neither the Doctors of that Age being no less Zealous for delivered doctri●s and practices nor less Opposers of Novelties than the 5th Age as is manifest by the contest betwixt the Bishop of Carthage and the Bishop of Rome and his Collegues where the Assertors of Re-baptization wanted neither Wit nor Eloquence nor number nor verisimilitude of truth nor Oracles of the Divine Law but understood after a bad and a new manner as S. Vincent says chap. 9 10. How then came they to lose their cause S. Stephen and his Collegues reclaimed Nihil novandum nisi quod traditum est Nothing is to be innovated besides what has been delivered to us Agrippinus Bishop of Carthage holding Rebaptization against the Divine Canon against the rule of the Universal Church against the sense of all his fellow-Priests against the Custom and Institutions of his Ancestors and hereby as S. Vincent observes giving a form of Sacriledge to all Hereticks this overthrew him This then was not an Age wherein to Introduce either Novel practices or Doctrins into the Church nor any other before S. Vincent For he tells us chap. 9. Mos iste c. That Custom has always flourished in the Church and by how much any one has been more Religious the more readily has he opposed new Inventions We have hereof plenty of examples every where And this manner of discoursing proves a Priori that had Lent been a Superstitious Novelty it could not possibly have been brought into the Christian Church for the first 500. years and yet its manifest by all the Christian Writes of the 4th and 5th Age that it was then Universally practised both in the Eastern and Western Church whence it follows that it is no Superstitious practice but true Christian Piety and was taught the World by the first planters of Christianity Although our Learned Adversaries deny not but that the prime Doctors and chief Champions of Christianity of the 4th and 5th Age were Zealous Observers and Preachers of the Quadragesimal Fast of Lent and for this cause appeal to the first 300. years yet for the satisfaction of others less Learned I have thought fit to Transcribe their Testimonies as they are cited by Bishop Gunning in his Learned Treatise in defence of the Paschal or Lent-Fast Hear then the Testimonies of the Christian Doctors of the 4th and 5th Century and if you have the least grain of Christian modesty dread to call that Superstition which so many Grave Fathers extol as singular Christian Piety S. Basil in his Sermons de Iejunio makes mention of Lent-Fast For he makes mention of five days Fasting together commanded to be observed by all degrees all over the world which returned by an orderly course Now in other his Contemporaries we find express mention of a forty-Forty-days Fast nor was there ever by Christians Fasted five days consequently but in Lent and the reason he mentions five days is because the Grecians only Fasted five days in every week in Lent leaving out Saturday and Sunday Hear his own words Hom. 1. Let us as becomes Saints receive the days that are at hand not with a sad Soul but with a chearful affection Be not sad when thou art Cured Whoever amidst sumptuous Feasts and continual delights was made partaker of any Spiritual gift Moses that he might a second time receive the Law needed a second Fast. Doest thou not eat Flesh But thou eatest up thy Brother Doest thou abstain from Wine But thou doest not forbear to injure thy Neighbour Thou expectest the Evening before thou take thy refection but spends the whole day in Law-Courts Let not Drunkenness introduce thee to the mysteries of Fasting The Wrestler is exercised before he wrestle for the Prize the Faster is prepared to Fast by Temperance Do not as if thou would'st Revenge thy self on the days of Fasting or mock the Author of the Law lay up against these five days the Treasure of Surfetting Our Lord who has brought us to the recourse of this time give us as to Combatants throughout these days in which we are called out to Combate to declare the strength and Nerves of Continence Orat. 2. Fasting is at all times profitable to those who voluntarily undertake it but much more at this time when the denuntiation of Fasting is proclaimed all over the World Nor is there any Island nor Continent nor City nor Nation nor the farthest corner of the World where the Edict of Fasting is not heard S. Gregory Nazianzen Orat. 4. Christ Fasted a little before his Temptation we before the Paschal feast And Orat. 41 42. Yesterday I was Crucified with Christ to day I am as it were glorified with him S. Epiphanius In expositione fidei Catholicae The same Church has been wont to observe Lent continuing in Fastings But the 6. days of the week before Easter all the people continue in dry dyet using then Bread Salt and Water at the Evening Yet those that are very devout pass two three and four days and some the whole week untill Cock-crowing on Easter-day S. Ambrose in his book de Helia Jejunio A Lent is fasted with us all days except Saturday and the Lords-day And Serm. 25. Our Lord after he had fasted 40. days overcame the Devil not but that he could have overcome him before his fastings but that he might shew unto us that then

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