Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	act_n	believe_v	faith_n	1,015	5	5.7119	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45785	A sermon preached before the King at White-Hall November 23, 1684 by Gilbert Ironside ...	Ironside, Gilbert, 1588-1671.	1685 (1685)	Wing I1049; ESTC R5618	18,482	39

e. let them work miracles bring to pass Heroick Acts without proper and competent means The Sum is and it ought to be the governing Rule in our whole lives We are to do our Duties when called to it not else no not in the Acts of our general calling as we are Christians Let not this seem strange to any The great Duty of Christianity is to believe with our hearts and confess with our mouths that Jesus is the Christ neither is it sufficient to keep Faith only in our hearts as some Hereticks in the Primitive times blasphemed though it be to save our lives but then 't is when we are requir'd to make Confession with our mouths and the Ancient Church to check the Forwardness and blind zeal of some hasty Christians refus'd those that offer'd themselves to the rage of Persecution forbid'em I say to be taken into the Catalogue of Martyrs So likewise for our Duties to men we are in 6. Gal. requir'd to do good to all men but t is as is there express'd as we have opportunity And as for particular Callings we have the same Apostles Rules in two Epistles In the 12. Rom. 4. All members says the Apostle have not the same office and therefore v. 16. let every one attend on the office wherein he is plac'd whether it be Ministry Teaching or Ruling v. 7 8. The same counsel we have 1 Ep. Cor. 7.20 Let every man abide in the same Calling wherein he was called Art thou call'd being a Servant care not for it v. 21. though if thou mayst be made free use it rather And v. 24. he repeats it again and to enforce it upon them uses the great engaging term of Christianity Brethren let every man in the Calling wherein he is called abide with God otherwise you sin against the common notion of Brethren you walk not as Christians and therefore 2ly you forfeit the great blessing that attends our living suitably to that Relation neither do you abide with God and how then can you expect God's favour when you go away from him God's Protection to his Church is promis'd upon this condition In the 90 Psalm it is written He shall give his Angels charge over thee to keep thee and if they have charge over us we need not doubt the services of other creatures but then t is in all thy ways not else and That clause the Lyer and the Murderer from the beginning left out in his Temptation to our Lord. T is very observable how particular the Apostles are in laying out the respective Duties of Inferiours Obedience in this world is the great thing the sins of Superiors are remitted to the other world and then Great men shall be greatly tormented But the Apostles are in nothing more exact in their commands upon Christendom than in laying out the Duties of Servants to Masters not so much as answering again Children to Parents Wives to Husbands all Inferiors to their Betters valuing of men by the discharge of these offices And t was good advice therefore of a Cardinal Jackson Tone 1. p. 232. much commended by a great Divine of our Church in reading of St. Paul's Epistles to begin with the end of them which contain the plain Duties of a Christian life private and publick for being once well acquainted with them we shall more easily attain to the true sense of the former part which being usually Doctrinal are the more difficult And as the Apostles were thus careful in enjoyning the Duties of these particular Callings so the Christians were as careful in performing them though mean and base ones When the Publicans and Souldiers chang'd their Religions they kept their Callings still would fight for their Emperor and dye for Christ at the same time not but that Callings may and must be sometimes changed too as if one be subordinate to the other or in case of disability of Body Mind Estate or Private necessity as when Paul made Tents and we have power over our selves and be at our own disposal If thou mayst be made free use it rather never out of Pride Lightness Ambition Covetousness Idleness Pragmaticalness and as Busy bodies and without Authority For what I pray makes a Calling either to a Profession or single Action but first Fitness of Abilities secondly Authority both of them necessary always but the latter absolutely and in the highest degree And therefore when men loath the Stations in which God hath set them and either utterly abandon them or reach at those Imployments which in the ordinary course of Providence are deny'd them when he shall teach that ought to learn and he command that ought to obey such Inversions and transposing of things are no more hurtful to men then hateful to God So much for Professions and Callings without Authority The like must be said concerning single Actions upon any emergent occasion When Demetrius the Silver-Smith in the 19. Acts being afraid upon the account of St. Paul's preaching of losing his Trade in making Shrines for the Goddess Diana of his own head had called the Craftsmen together though he spake notably in the behalf of the great Goddess Diana whom all Asia and the world worshipp'd and had fill'd his hearers with wrath against St. Paul and the whole City with confusion crying out for the space of two hours Great is Diana of the Ephesians and yet the biggest part knew not for what they came together the Town-clerk to still the people very wisely and very loyally told them If Demetrius and his Crafts-men have a matter against any man the Law is open and there are Deputies or as t is in the Margent of our Bible the Court-days are kept let them plead one another and it shall be determin'd in a lawful Assembly and ye ought to be quiet and do nothing rashly for we are in danger of being accus'd for this days riot for as much as there can be no cause given for this concourse of people As for the Church examine the whole Bible Old and New Testament you will find Priests and Prophets and Apostles and all the People of God and the Son of God himself submitting and ruling their outward behaviour by humane Constitutions and Powers as carefully as this Town-clerck The Acts of the Apostles and the life and death of Christ are perfect submission to the Emperial Laws The Apostles refer themselves to them First for Obedience and then for Protection We have them both notably at once in St. Paul I appeal to Caesar and I am a Roman and when wrongfully imprison'd in the 16 of the Acts and the Inferiour Magistrates fear'd when they heard they were Romans and sent to set them at Liberty privily no says St. Paul They have beaten us openly uncondem'd being Romans and have cast us into Prison and now would they thrust us out privily Nay verily let them come themselves and fetch us out v. 37. But their Obedience to the Laws they allways perform'd