A03549:205
The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in…The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in…
The second tome of homilies of such matters as were promised, and entitled in the former part of homilies. Set out by the authority of the Queens Majesty: and to be read in every parish church agreeably.The second tome of homilees of such matters as were promised, and intituled in the former part of homilees. Set out by the aucthoritie of the Queenes Maiestie: and to be read in euery parishe church agreeably.
Imprinted at London : In Poules Churchyarde, by Richard Jugge, and John Cawood, printers to the Queens Majesty, 1571Imprinted at London : In Poules Churchyarde, by Richarde Iugge, and Iohn Cawood, printers to the Queenes Maiestie, 1571
No title page in the transcription: set from the catalogue record.
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Fasting was one of the means whereby almighty God was occasioned to alter the thing which he had purposed concerning Ahab, for murdering the innocent man Naboth, to possess his vineyard. God spake unto Elia, saying: Go thy way and say unto Ahab, Hast thou killed, and also gotten possession? Thus saith the Lord: 1It the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth, shall dogs even lick thy blood also. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity: Yea, the dogs shall eat him of Ahab's stock that dyeth in the City, and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat. This punishment had almighty God determined for Ahab in this world, and to destroy all the male kind that was begotten of Ahab's body, besides that punishment which ⟨p. 194⟩should have happened unto him in the world to come. When Ahab heard this, he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon him, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went bare footed. Then the word of the Lord came to Elia, saying: Seest thou how Ahab is humbled before me? Because he submitteth him self before me, I will not bring that evil in his days, but in his sons days will I bring it upon his house. Although Ahab through the wicked counsel of Jezebel his wife had committed shameful murder, and against all right, disherited and dispossessed for ever Naboth's stock of that vineyard: yet upon his humble submission in heart unto God, which he declared outwardly by putting on sackcloth and fasting, God changed his sentence, so that the punishment which he had determined, fell not upon Ahab's house in his time, but was deferred unto the days of Joram his son. Here we may see of what force our outward fast is, when it is accompanied with the inward fast of the mind, which is (as is said) a sorrowfulness of heart, detesting and bewailing our sinful doings. The like is to be seen in the Ninevites: For when God had determined to destroy the whole City of Nineveh, and the time which he had appointed, was even no we at hand, he sent the prophet Jonah to say unto them: yet forty 2days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. The people by and by believed God, and gave them selves to fasting, yea, the king by the advice of his council caused to be proclaimed, saying: Let neither man nor beast, bullock nor sheep taste any thing, ⟨p. 195⟩