Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	action_n	good_a	law_n	1,011	5	4.8972	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26195	The arraignment of rebellion, or, The irresistibility of sovereign powers vindicated and maintain'd in a reply to a letter / by John Aucher ...	Aucher, John, 1619-1701.	1684 (1684)	Wing A4191; ESTC R14611	67,159	122

what Revelations from Heaven between God and his own Soul the secret whisperings of a private spirit to impower him in it For besides that a man 's own ambition will easily whisper and prompt him to such motions God's own secret and immediate way is not so very secret and immediate And upon this reason because Power and authority being a relative to obedience the Power of the King to the obedience of the people if it were thus privately and secretly conveyed to him onely whose interest and advantage it is to pretend it how could this draw after it the subjection and obedience of the people unless we should resolve quite contrary to David's Omnis homo mendax All men are liars that every man speaks right and truth in his own cause Which principle as soon as ever it could be taken up must necessarily be proved false by so many pretenders as would arise under the favour of it one against another And therefore the revelation in this case must be to the People as well as to the Prince or as God has better design'd it to a Prophet known and acknowledged by all Otherwise if God should secretly call him to be the Prince or Protector yet where has the People by this any call or warrant to be his subjects If he have a revelation to be our Sovreign yet we have no revelation to be his subjects And how is he a Prince then that has no People Let the Prince therefore that pretends this tenure produce his Prophet and the Prophet produce his Commission Which if he can confirm with no better miracle than that lying wonder of success and causing Fire to come down from Heaven killing and slaying as many as will not receive him he proves himself but a false Prophet by all this As appears Rev. 13.13 And he and the Beast which he worships the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 shall both be cast alive says God into a lake of fire burning with brimstone But indeed whatsoever is said this immediate way and call could onely be expected when God was pleas'd to govern immediately by a voice and revelation from Heaven as among the Jews But for the generality of mankind and the rest of the world he has left them as the Wise man tells us in the hands of their own counsels Christ's Kingdom is not of this world Nor has he ever been known from the first day of his Incarnation to call or consecrate any man to Power and Dominion merely Secular by any of his Apostles or Prophets in an extraordinary way All that he does peculiarly in this matter is by giving laws to hold us fast to duty and Allegiance confirm and ratify the Covenants we have made and the Oaths we have taken impower the Person whom the Law has appointed for our Prince over-rule all the actions and counsels both of Prince and People as seems best to his divine Wisedom and for the good of his Church And lastly when he pleases to alter the Government not by permission barely which wicked and unreasonable men may extort from him but by his own act and approbation he so disposes and orders affairs and Persons that by the laws and rights among men it is transferred to another Think not that I am come to destroy the Law I am not come to destroy but to fulfill This though spoken by our Saviour in relation to the Mosaical law is verified likewise of him in relation to the law of Nature and of Nations and the Municipal laws of every particular Kingdom so far as they are not repugnant to that Supreme Law of his laid down in the Holy Scripture He comes not to destroy but to fulfill them not to supersede or evacuate them but to hold us the faster and the closer to them to make us the more dutifull and observant to them in our several places and relations whether of Nature Nations or those of our own Land And this the Apostle has plainly intimated When as a motive of all chearfull ready obedience of wives to their Husbands of children to their Parents of servants to their Masters and so of subjects to their Sovreigns he tell us that in obeying them we obey not men but God even the Lord Christ Whereby it appears that their laws are not their laws but Christ's And that he dictates to us by their mouths this being that which as it preserves peace and a decent Subordination among men does admirably set forth the Excellency of Christ's Oeconomy and Government of the world with such a power of Wisedom as becomes him that is the Wisedom of the Father as without making use of the strength of his arm or doing every thing by mere force he does yet effect and bring to pass what alterations he pleases in the world by his wonderfull and wise disposing the counsels and affairs of men to his designed issue Attingit à fine usque ad finem fortiter says the Wiseman disponit omnia suaviter Wisedom reacheth from one end to another mightily and sweetly does she order all things Fortiter suaviter mightily and sweetly And therefore supposing onely Paternal power or the authority of Parents over their children immediately from God and wherein the child to be under obedience was never askt his I or No to assent or differ The mediate or more remote way I shall grant to be in our own choice and Election Which yet after we have determined and bound our selves boared our selves as it were through the Ear by entring into Oaths and promise of Obedience those two 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 6. we are then as fast and as irreversibly bound for so long as we have bound our selves as if we were bound immediately by God and a voice from Heaven And as it was with the servant boared through the Ear there is no Jubilee to set us free Consider the case of Ananias's sacrilege Acts 5. The same sin as Achan's Josh 7. And both punished with death though Achan's was in stealing part of that which God had immediately and by himself consecrated to himself The wedge of Gold and the Babilonish garment Ananias's in detaining part of that which he himself of himself had dedicated to God's service Which to shew it was by this promise and consecration of his as holy now and irrevocable as if God had immediately consecrated it himself St. Peter tells him 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Thou hast not lyed unto or cheated men but God So to whom we give our lawfull promise of subjection and obedience thereby discriminating that Person from the rest of the lump setting him up in a peculiar reference to God Almighty to whom all our obedience and subjection is especially due which is the proper notion of Consecration He is then as truely sacred and to be used cum discrimine with respect and reverence by us as if God had plac'd

behold all things are become New A new Testament and a new spirit like new wine put into new bottles for the preservation of both And as the old Covenant of Circumcision which while it was in force was urg'd by God with so much strictness and severity that the omitting of it was instant death and excision Whosoever among you is not circumcis'd that soul shall be cut off from his people Is yet become in the New Testament not unnecessary onely but far more hurtfull and pernicious in the use of it than the contempt or neglect of it could formerly have been If ye be circumcised says St. Paul Christ shall profit you nothing So the Old Testament spirit which was accounted for righteousness to Phinehas Elias and the rest will bring as swift destruction upon any now who pretend to it As many of you as are justifyed by the Law are faln from Grace 'T is a plain renouncing and bidding farewell to the spirit of Grace to justify your actions by the spirit of the Law a preferring Moses before Christ a direct apostatizing to the sect of the Jews and the most hatefull opposition to Christ and his Gospel Which is made so much more odious than the Judaism of Old in as much as it pretends to this from a height and growth in Christianity A Judaism not from the Jews but Judas who in appearance of kindness and greater interest and familiarity with his Master did shamelesly betray him Thus they are forsooth lifted above Ordinances and while the rest of the Apostles are put upon duties Watching and Praying in the garden While all other Christians are under command to their Superiours Defrauding no man Truth in their promisses and the like and not thinking our selves worthy to sit down with Christ on his Throne esteem it a special privilege to enjoy him in his Sacraments To shew forth the Lord's death till he come as we are bidden in the Holy Supper and to be born again of water and the spirit as a necessary condition of seeing the Kingdom of God Judas rushes in with a hasty kiss And so these overgrown Christians with their lanterns and weapons and armed men fall presently a kissing of Christ no longer to be kept off at the distance of a Sacrament or the reverence of a duty but under colour of a greater growth and interest in him betray him manifestly to the Jews and that Old Testament spirit in all his Laws and Sacraments and services to be crucified by them at their will That there are indeed several degrees and growths in Christanity is perfectly true There is the Babe and the perfect man in Christ there is the weaker and the stronger Christian and that both in respect of knowledge and in respect of Grace whereby some Christians are more regenerate have mortified farther than others Some Christians are more knowing and so at greater freedom and liberty than others But yet certainly they are all within the same inclosure of Obedience to the Laws and Commandments of Christ The less knowing Christian may perhaps miss some part of that liberty which Christ hath purchased for him but the most knowing must not dare to transgress the least law or command of his Master The freedom onely lies in matters of a middle nature which being under no command or prohibition at all the weak or ignorant Christian does by his want of knowledge conceive otherwise and so obliges himself to doe or not to doe accordingly And thus likewise in the growth of Grace and degrees of mortification He that mortifies least must yet be supposed to mortifie every known lust and to practise an Uniform obedience to the Laws of Christ He that is partial to himself in either is but almost a Christian The degree consists not in mortifying this sin which another does not or in obeying this law or command of Christ which another Christian on the same occasion would not But in mortifying this sin in a greater measure hating it with a more perfect hatred watching more diligently against the occasions and provocations which lead to it praying more frequently and earnestly against it So in obeying the command with a greater desire and delight Virtutis amore making it our own choice judging the command most fit and reasonable the yoke to be an easie yoke and so our obedience and submission to it the very pleasurable part of our lives And yet farther enlarging our mortification to some freedoms and Indulgences allow'd unto us by God and his Church wherein we think fit to restrain our selves All things are lawfull for me says the Apostle but I will not be brought under the power of any And thus in our obedience not confining it barely to the plain laws and commands of our Lord but aiming likewise at his counsels and endeavouring towards perfection And while we might without sin nay doe well as S. Paul says by giving our Virgin in marriage yet resolve by giving her not in marriage to doe better Put our selves with the Apostle into the Theatre when we might have the benefit to escape Persecution Labour with our hands when we have a power to live of the Gospel and the like SECTION III. But yet all this makes nothing at all against obliging men to some certain measures of doctrine and worship gather'd out of the New Testament For that some doctrines there are in the New Testament so apprimely necessary that he is not a Christian that is ignorant of them or does not believe them Some parts of God's worship are of such universal interest and concernment that no Christian Church or communion can be without them And to pretend a weakness or unsuitableness of our spirits unto them is to profess our selves really Infidels And for other doctrines as Stars of a lesser magnitude yet certainly God's revealing them unto us in the New Testament does lay an obligation upon us of receiving them as soon as they are propounded unto us by authority of his word And so for our worship if it take in all that is commanded by God in this matter and add nothing forbidden by him supplying the rest with a suitable respect to God and our selves and the whole Church I know not what fault there can be in obliging men to an observation of it Weakness of Conscience was very pleadable in the days of the Apostles and first planting of Christanity When all men being Jews or Gentiles the Christian Jews were to receive Doctrines and Sacraments utterly destructive to what they had received before from the mouth of God which was given unto them by the Ministery of Angels confirm'd by Miracles and endear'd unto them by the Wisedom and witness of all Ages And no marvel if pious souls stuck now and then could not instantly unlearn the Religion of the Prophets and Patriarchs of God and his holy Angels nor swallow down every Camel without chewing And so the Gentiles