Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	according_a	law_n	nature_n	1,115	5	5.3946	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A62249	The dew of Hermon which fell upon the hill of Sion, or, An answer to a book entituled, Sions groans for her distressed, &c. offered to the King's Majesty, Parliament, and people wherein is pretended to be proved by Scripture, reason, and authority of fifteen ancients, that equal protection under different perswasions, is the undoubted right of Christian liberty : but hereby confuted, wherein the power and proceedings of the Kings Majesty and the church are vindicated.	H. S. (Henry Savage), 1604?-1672.	1663 (1663)	Wing S760; ESTC R34021	70,693	96

and liberty and consequently all civil society which not men only but even beasts birds fishes and in sects themselves seem to affect would fall to the ground Yet let the Magistrate do what he can and let him do but Justice the wicked will have a cohabitation among the Just and that for these reasons viz. because he is not omniscient and sees not all wickednesse 2. although he sees it yet he may not by testimonies be able to convince all men of their wicked deeds 3. because that though he may convince yet all wickednesse is not capital whereof persons may be convinced without which a man cannot be taken out of the world and this is the event of Gods providence If they say that he might have used natural means to obstruct so great an evil as sin is and to advance the happinesse of man I say then either the means must be made connatural to man or man to the means If the first this is done already in as much as moral and civil means are most connatural to man a free agent and animal politicum If the second its impossible to be done in as much as it were to make him an animate thing or at the least a Brute which work this without choice and that without proper appetition and consequently he must not have made him at all for it is well said of Lactantius de falsa sapientia which is of his works l. 3. c. 18. Who considering the devotion of Plato who gave thanks to Nature for three things 1. That he was born a man and not a beast 2. That he was a man rather then a woman a Grecian and not a Barbarian 3. That he was an Athenian and lived in the time of Socrates Then which saies he what can be said more like a Dotard as though if he had been a Barbarian a Woman or an Asse he had been the same Plato that he was and not that very thing which had been so born If they say that God then may use supernatural means by working transcendently above the wills of men without destroying their Nature or abridging their freedome Whereunto it is answered that as had God done the other he would have destroyed his providence touching the creation of man so should he do this he would destroy his providence preparatory to the last Judgement wherein every man shall receive according to that he hath done in the body whether good or evil But though this Exposition be pious and not to be rejected yet this Parable methinks more naturally admits of another which I shall lay before the Reader and which may import the duty of the Magistrate and Minister of Gods word as well as the event of Gods providence It is thus There are two sorts of evils which may grow up with the good seed of the Law of Nature implanted in man in his first creation or of the Gospel given for mans renovation The one sort may be compared to tares as here whereof there is a sort which the Greeks say to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 such as grows up of it self among the wheat in an over-moist and corrupt earth without any seed sown at all Such are those evils either in manners or opinion which though they seem to us that cannot see all things to grow of themselves yet they owe their beginning to the enemy the Devil who first corrupted endeavours daily more more to corrupt our Nature The other sort of evils are compared to thorns and briars Heb. 6. 8. whose end is to be burned such as are desperate and incorrigible sinners as may be clearly seen by the scope of the Apostle in that place The first sort are evils of infirmity for the most part which are entwisted with our Nature as tares are with corn and therefore cannot be cut down unlesse the good grain goes down with them all men even the best being subject unto them Should the Magistrate cut down all these he must cut himself down for company and should S. Paul have delivered men to Satan for these he must have given himself into his hands for though he knew nothing by himself yet was he not hereby justified Nevertheless he used a severity towards himself by keeping down his body and bringing it into subjection as a Magistrate may do towards his Subjects for reforming of lesser evils and preventing of greater nay S. Paul had the messenger of Satan a thorn in his flesh sent to him least he should be puffed up with the abundance of Revelations 2 Cor. 12. 7. The second sort are evils of presumption which like bryars and thorns are not necessarily entwisted with our Nature but yet growing up amongst the good grain will choak it and therefore calls for present cursing and lastly for burning least in the end of the world it being all become bryars and thorns there would remain no harvest to the great Husbandman to be brought into his barnes by his reapers and so this world destroys Gods providence preparatory to the last Judgement on the right hand as the forementioned supposition would destroy it on the left Sect. 13. THeir next Argument is taken from the fallibility of Magistrates which renders them they say uncapable of judging Answ It is true that no man is infallible if he were he were no man they needed not to have produced the authority of S. Peter to prove it And now brethren I wot that through ignorance ye did it as did also your Rulers The which place proves it but weakly neither in as much as there appeared much of malice in the condemnation of our Saviour in denying and delivering him to be crucified whom Pilate himself was determined to let go They did it ignorantly only in this respect namely that they knew him not to be the Lord of Glory S. Peter makes no mention of their malice though great least thereby they might have thought the door of mercy to have been shut against them and so they might have come to the same end as their ring-leader Judas did Here was a double defect which occasioned a wrong judegment one was of knowledge and a well informed understanding the other was of an honest purpose of mind neither of these does destroy the power of a Magistrate the Rulers remained Rulers still notwithstanding their ignorance or malice in this action Indeed Plato saies Beatas civitates fore si aut Philosophi regnarent aut reges philosopharentur 'T is true that happy is that City where Princes are qualified with gifts suitable to their high calling But if he want it as if Philosophy did give a right to anothers Kingdom or were necessarily required to the establishment of his own I say that then it was a saying becoming one that held a community of goods and wives whereby he would take from some that which was their own and give to others that which belonged to them Lact. l. 3. 20. This consideration therefore serves only