Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
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A45683
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Two sermons lately preached at the Assizes in St. Maries Church in Leicester the former March 23, 1670, the latter July 27, 1671 / by Robert Harrison.
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Harrison, Robert, fl. 1648-1672.
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1672
(1672)
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Wing H909; ESTC R25412
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38,889
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70
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lyes convenient for his Honour as Naboths Vineyard did for King Ahab Men would be like devouring Fish in a Pond or ravenous Beasts in a Wilderness the great ones would eat up the little ones and the strong would prey upon the weak they would become Lions for rage cruelty and oppression Foxes for subtilty in evil Swine for filthiness and uncleanness Dogs for envy and malice Wolves for rapine yea as the wild Asses Colt for folly and stupidity It would neither be incivility nor calumny to describe men by such compellations were there no Law to restrain their exorbitancies and to correct their manners You have heard the Confirmation of the Doctrine with Reasons be pleased to put them together The great God commands the execution of Judgment he commends it also It is a remedy to remove curses a means to procure blessings for us and our Children after us the neglect of it is a mighty provocation to the Lord and without it there can be no peaceable living in the world And now consider whether a vigorous and constant execution of righteous judgment be not a duty of grand concernment to a people professing Religion I am now to Apply and the Uses of our Observation are only two which I shall briefly dispatch First This should stir up the people of England unto unfeigned thankfulness to Almighty God for the good and wholesome Laws we enjoy and for those Magistrates that are diligent and faithfull in the execution of them It is a mercy to have Judges modo audeant quae sentiunt as the Orator hath it So that they have courage and integrity to do what they think fit and equal to be done who will not be swayed by the gifts nor scared by the greatness of men to pass an unrighteous sentence Let us praise God for such The next Use is of Exhortation and here I shall endeavour in a few words to divide to every one his portion and to press home the Duty of my Text to persons especially concerned in it And in the first place I beseech you My Lord the venerable Judge of this Circuit to suffer the word of Exhortation I would not forget to whom I speak yet I must remember from whom I speak I have a message from the Great God the Judge of all the World unto You this day and it is to mind you of your Duty that you do Justice and execute right without respect of persons that you quit not the Guilty nor condemn the Innocent But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream In this River there must be no ebbing nor flowing the banks at all times are to be full and the current mighty neither must the stream be stopped or turned another way for then iniquity will take place and whosoever drinks of this puddle it will be like the water of jealousie to him bitter water that causeth the curse I beseech you My Lord follow your pattern Job 29. 14. I put on righteousness and it cloathed me my judgment was as a robe and a diadem They who wear justice for a cloak need no cloak for injustice Justice is both a Cloak and an Helmet it will adorn you it will secure you God forbid that any should find you like the brooks of Teman that when they come for the waters of judgment they should find the brooks dry There is abundance of filth in this Nation for iniquity abounds every where and certainly there can be no better expedient used for the cleansing out these increased dunghils of impiety then by letting forth the river of justice to run down upon them as Hercules cleansed the Augaean Stable by letting the River Alphaeus into it 2. My next errand is to you the honourable and worshipfull Justices of this County I beseech you give no just cause of complaining in our streets through your neglect of Justice Take heed of being tainted with those sins which you are to punish in others if the Justice be a person of a lewd life himself it cannot be expected that he should use any just severity against those who are fly-blown with the like transgressions Allow not of sin in your selves nor in your Servants nor in any others but frown upon it wherever you meet with it a frown of yours may do more service to God then many Sermons of ours 3. I am to exhort you the learned Lawyers to put forth your utmost endeavours for the strengthning of the stream of justice by an honest and quick dispatch of your Clients Causes and not to weaken it by unnecessary delays and injurious defalcatious Be faithfull to your Engagements and do not seek to make a prey of those that seek to you for relief This would be Savage cruelty indeed even like to that of the Wolf which undertook to cure the Sheep of his Cough but 't was by sucking out his blood The remedy proved worse than the disease 4. Let me exhort you who are to be of the Grand Inquest to do your duty in making faithfull Presentments according to your Oath Take notice of the reigning fins of your Country and do not conceal any of them as Rachel did her Fathers Images by sitting upon them Spare neither great nor small rich nor poor but do you sincerely endeavour also That judgment may run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream Lastly To put a period to my discourse of the things which we have spoken this is the sum Vt ex parte sua agat unusquisque quod suum est that every one should perform the duty belonging to him that Magistrates rule justly and according to Law that Ministers preach faithfully according to the Scriptures that the people live peaceable and quiet lives in all godliness and honesty that all of us endeavour the good and welfare of the Nation and none among us be as a Wen or Wolf drawing away nourishment from the body without doing it any service Finally Brethren whatsoever things are true whatsoever things are honest whatsoever things are just whatsoever things are pure whatsoever things are of good report if there be any virtue and if there be any praise think on these things and the God of peace shall be with you Which God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus that great Shepherd of the sheep through the blood of the everlasting Covenant make you perfect in every good work to do his will working in you that which is well-pleasing in his sight through Jesus Christ to whom be glory for ever and ever Amen FINIS Prov. 14. ver 34. Righteousness exalteth a Nation but Sin is a reproach to any people IN a late discourse upon the like occasion I endeavoured from another Text to set forth the great duty of a pure and powerful administration of Righteous Judgment which is to run down as waters and as a
TWO SERMONS Lately Preached at the ASSIZES IN St. Maries Church IN LEICESTER The former March 23. 1670. The latter July 27. 1671. By Robert Harrison M. A. late Student of Christ-Church Oxon. now Rector of Wyfordby in Leicester-shire Micah 6. 8. He hath shewed thee O man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God LONDON Printed and are to be sold by Tho. Sawbridge at the three Fower de Luces in Little-Britain 1672. VIRO ORNATISSIMO D. Johanni Hartopp BARONETTO Vice-Comiti pro Tempore COMIT LEICESTER Patrono suo multis nominibus Colendissimo Hasce Conciones binas In quibus de Judicio Justitia disseritur Haud ita pridem In Templo S. MARIAE Leicestriae habitas Gratitudinis Observantiae Ergo D. D. D. ROBERTVS HARRISON Amos 5. vers 23 24. Take thou away from me the noise of thy Songs for I will not hear the melody of thy Viols But let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream IT is the unspeakable Folly of vain man when he lyes under the pressures or is within the sight of approaching Evils when he 's made sensible of the frowns of the Almighty and comes to feel the effects of his displeasure upon him for sin to conceit that any thing which looks like Duty though never so sleight and formal will serve the turn to smooth Gods brow to turn away his wrath and to take the sinner into favour again As if the holy God who is present every where and knoweth all things was either ignorant or unmindfull of inward dispositions and affections and had respect only to outward actions and deportments in Religious undertakings Men indeed look on the outward appearance but the Lord looketh on the heart Surely saith Elihu God will not hear vanity neither will the Almighty regard it To take the estimate of Divine mysteries according to the shallow scantling of common sence and opinion argues gross ignorance and blindness of mind and is a sad indication of a carnal and unconverted estate Thus many in a day of fears as did the sinning Israelites go on blindfold in Duty resting in their outside performances which are no better than the Sacrifices of fools the blind and the lame and that which cost them nought Yet in these vain Oblations they will securely confide and now conclude themselves sufficiently guarded against the loudest thunders of most terrible Comminations But how highly the great God is displeased with such empty insignificant Services we may clearly perceive from the Scripture now before us where he abominates and rejects them and severely prohibites the Formalists farther procedure and continuance in them Take thou away from me the noise of thy Songs for I will not hear the melody of thy Viols c. Which words contain a Prohibition and a Precept The Prohibition in the 23d v. is tempered with Indignation the Precept in the 24th calls for Reformation Or in the Text considered with its coherence we have reported and reproved the great Corruptions and Disorders in Church and State The Church was guilty of Will-worship and Superstition the State of Cruelty and Oppression both these must be removed before God will be intreated Reformation is first to begin at the Church but it is not to end there the stream thereof must run thorow the State in like manner that so it may refresh and make glad the whole City of God The waters of the Sanctuary which were first to the ankles afterward increased to be up to the knees and then to the loins and at the last they became a great River waters to swim in a River that could not be passed over which issued toward the East Country and ran down into the Desart Such should be the stream of Justice it should run thorow the whole Country that none may complain of the want of it but that every one may have a free and easie access unto it that so righteousness and judgment may be executed for all that are oppressed Ps. 103. v. 6. Thus you have the Division I shall now proceed to the Exposition of the Text. And first briefly of the Prohibition Take thou away from me the noise of thy Songs c. These words admit of divers readings which do nothing vary from the sence of our English Version wherefore I need not run out time to repeat them to you There 's a Meiosis in this verse Minus dicitur plus intelligitur for we are not only to understand the Lords dislike of their Ceremonies and Superstitious Services though that be sad enough seeing it is his approbation and acceptance that makes our performances of any worth or significancy but also his exceeding hatred and abhorrence of them as things which he could no longer endure nor would he any more be burdened with them and therefore he bids them take away these provocations from him viz. the noise of their Songs and the melody of their Viols Which expressions do figuratively include all the Israelites Festivals Incense Sacrifices and external Services spoken of in the foregoing verses where the Lord by his Prophet declarâ—h his great displeasure against them and in this verse his utter rejection of them But it may be Quaery'd Why would God cast off and forbid the offering up of those Sacrifices and the performance of that Service which he himself had commanded To this I answer 1 Negatively God doth not here simply and absolutely reject the Sacrifices and Service of his own institution but together with these he requires a due administration of Judgment and Justice and if either may be omitted and put off he had rather it be Sacrifice than Judgment according to Drusius upon the place who hath therefore rendred the following verse Potius volvatur ut aqua judicium rather let Judgment roul down as water q. d. rather then with the neglect of this you presume to draw nigh to God though in the wayes of his own appointment And in this sence is that Scripture to be understood Mat. 9. 13. I will have mercy and not Sacrifice i. e. mercy rather then Sacrifice The Lord preferrs justice mercy and peace before Sacrifices the substance of the second before the ceremonies of the first Table and is graciously pleased that his own immediate Service should stay for these as you may read Mat. 5. 23 24. If thou bring thy gift to the Altar and there remembrest that thy Brother hath ought against thee Leave there thy gift before the Altar and go thy way first be reconciled to thy Brother and then come and offer thy gift Nor 2dly were all those external Rites and Ceremonies observed by the Israelites I mean the ten Tribes whom our Prophet here all along chiefly reproves complexly considered of Gods Institution and therefore the Lord calls them their Songs and the melody of their Viols