Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A65568
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The state of blessedness by W.W.
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W. W., M.A. and chaplain to a person of honour.
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1681
(1681)
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Wing W153; ESTC R26302
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19,505
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32
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secure of one another Lastly Every soul is happy in the Government of it self and settles all its faculties in peace and order Death ends the great controversie between the Flesh and Spirit and those affections that would sometimes revolt and lean to the wrong side shall be perfectly reduc'd and become faithful There shall be no more bitter chidings between an enraged injured Conscience and a Tyrannous arbitrary Will The warm disputes between Faith and Reason shall be stated and determin'd The conflicts between Hope and Fear shall have an end and all the jars and contradictions of our cross and perverse passions shall be laid aside Every faculty shall comply and yield to the Government of Reason and there shall be no dissention no Schism in the Soul Oh! Happy is that State with which neither God nor man hath any quarrel happy that Church where the Head and every Member are inseperably joynted and sinew'd together by Unity and Concord happy that Man that is reconciled to God in Charity withal Men and at Peace in his own Conscience If you can fancy any bliss in these and I wish that our experience may teach us of this Nation to understand them all then conceive how incomparably happy the Saints are and how desirable a place the Kingdom of Heaven is where blessed Peace-makers are they all 3. By Light we may understand Liberty as it 's opposite is taken for restraint St. Peter and St. Jude tell us that the laps'd Angels are imprison'd in chains of Darkness till the day of Judgment and the Prophet Isaiah foretold that the Messiah should be for a Light to the Gentiles to open the eyes of the blind and to bring them that sit in darkness out of the Prison house Isaiah 42.6 7. Where darkness and Prison-house signifie the same thing viz. A restraint of Mind a narrowness of understanding So we say of a Recluse a man of close retirement that he dwells in darkness that he does not see the Light as if he had not eye-room not space enough to look about him but light is a spacious thing and of a vast extant and therefore a proper Metaphor to express Liberty by Now the Liberty of Saints consist in the Freedom of of Thought and Action and enjoyment a latitude to do and think their own pleasure Not that Heaven is a lawless place of Sin and disorder and Tolleration But every man is a Law to himself whose soul is grown to a perfection like that of God and capable of Willing of Thinking of doing nothing but what is innocent and good what becomes that sacred place and company what suits with the Majesty of God in whose immediate presence they are and the chast unsully'd purity of their own minds And therefore to do what they please is to do what they ought For they can neither do nor take pleasure in any thing but what is excellent and holy and to these they have all the freedom they can wish When we frail Mortals attempt any thing that is good and worthy what rubs do we meet with What difficulties lie in our way What checks do we feel in our natures VVhat dullness and irksomness in our Flesh How dubiously and cowardly we go about it as if we were afraid to displease our corrupt natures or disoblige the wicked one by any thing that 's good and vertuous How do we resolve and then repent How tremblingly do we put forth our hand which withers in the motion and then we recall it into our bosome How importunately doth the flesh press us to forbear How doth Satan crowd something else into our thoughts How are our lusts alarm'd and stand up in their own defence as if they were injuriously dealt with and betray'd Thus when we would do Good Evil is present with us when we would break Prison and get away from these restraints our fetters hang at our feet we run in chains the race that is set before us and are in constant danger to fall and be overtaken The flesh is a continual weight upon our Spirits and either sinks us into the puddle of base thoughts and foul degenerous actions or at least keeps us dull and heartless lazy and slow in our nobler undertakings aad pursuits That as long as we carry this load of Clay about us we must expect to find it troublesome and untoward to every thing that is spiritual and sublime David proposed well Psal 119.32 I will run the way of thy Commandments but then as if he had been stopt as if the flesh had bid him stand he remembred that his Soul was under the Arrest of the Body and adds a Condition to the Promise When thou shalt enlarge my heart It is not only backward it self to all good motions but encumbers the mind with a multitude of engagements brings it into a necessary acquaintance with the VVorld and is apt to endanger and betray it into excess and dotage and how hard a thing is it to have much to do with the VVorld and be innocent How hard to use it as not abusing it How hard to want it and not to covet it How hard to possess it and not be endear'd to it It is apt to cling to our thoughts and to stick and fasten upon our affections It will strangely grow and encroach upon us it will insinuate it self into our very Souls and become as great a Master there as God himself and at length engross all our devoirs for no man can serve God and Mammon But the Blessed Saints have none of this Dirt upon their heels they are not stak't and fastned to the Earth nor embodied and streightn'd in these Tabernacles of Clay but they are freer then Air and as active as Angels they have no engagements to call them off from Duty nor any intruding lusts to disturb them at it They have no peevish disatisfi'd Passions to contradict what their Reason proposes nor such awkard unweildy constitutions as we have to protract their designs or spoil and bungle them in the execution Their Consciences forbid them nothing that their wills incline to neither are their actions bawk'd and bounded by Law or impotence But they are free to do every thing that is either their duty or delight without regret or fear in themselves without gainsaying and reproof from any other without defect and imperfection in the Act it self after the best and most accomplish't manner And now are we not asham'd by this time of what many senceless wretches among us but Saints if you will take them in their own Language impudently prophane these glorious names of light and liberty with The carnal desires of the flesh the vitious inclinations of corrupt nature that deserve and were wont to own no better a name then Lust they call Light because they Pimp and direct them through the paths of darkness to their shameful practices so shameful that modesty would leave them nameless and yet they impudently call them Liberty