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
A64130	A sermon preached at the funerall of that worthy knight Sr. George Dalston of Dalston in Cumberland, September 28. 1657. By J.T. D.D.	Taylor, Jeremy, 1613-1667.	1658 (1658)	Wing T392A; ESTC R219166	28,574	39

heard Moses and the Prophets now hear one from the dead whose life and death would each of them make an excellent Sermon if this dead man had a good interpreter for he being dead yet speaketh and calleth upon us to live well and to live quickly to watch perpetually and to work assiduously for we shall descend into the same shadows of death Linquenda tellus et domus et placens Vxor atque harum quas colis arborum Te praeter in visas Cupressos Nulla brevem Dominum sequetur Thou must leave thy rich land and thy well built house and thy pleasing wife and of all the trees of thy Orchard or thy wood nothing shall attend thee to thy grave but oak for thy Coffin and Cypress for thy funeral It shall not then be inquired how long thou hast liv'd but how well None below will be concerned whither thou wert rich or poor but all the spirits of light and darkness shall be busie in the scrutiny of thy life for the good Angels would fain carry thy soul to Christ and if they do the Devils will follow and accuse thee there and when thou appearest before the righteous judge what will become of thee unless Christ be thy advocate and God be merciful and appeased and the Angels be thy guards and a holy conscience be thy comfort There will to every one of us come a time when we shall with great passion and great interest inquire how have I spent my days how have I laid out my money how have I imployed my time how have I served God and how repented me of my sins and upon our answers to these questions depends a happy or an unhappy Eternitie and blessed is he who concerning these things takes care in time and of this care I may with much confidence and comfort propound to you the example of this good man whose reliques lie before you Sir George Dalston of Dalston in Cumberland a worthy man belov'd of his Country useful to his friends friendly to all men careful of his religion and a true servant of God He was descended of an Antient and a worthy house in Cumberland and he adorned his family and extraction with a more worthy comportment for to be of a worthy family and to bring to it no stock of our proper vertue is to be upbraided by our family and a worthy Father can be no honour to his Son when it shall be said behold the difference this crab descended from a goodly apple-tree but he who beautifies the eschutcheon of his Ancestors by worthy atchievements by learning or by wisdome by valour and by great imployments by a holy life and an useful converlation that man is the parent of his own fame and a new beginner of an Antient family for as conversation is a perpetual creation so is the progression of a family in a line of worthy descendants a dayly beginning of its honour and a new stabiliment He was bred in learning in which Cambridge was his tiring room and the Court of Queen Elizabeth was his stage in which he first represented the part of a hopeful young man but there he stayed not his friends not being desirous that the levities of youth should be fermented by the liberties of a rich and splendid Court caused him to lie in the restraints and to grow ripe in the sobrieties of a Country life and a married state In which as I am informed he behaved himself with so great worthiness thiness and gave such probation of his love of justice popular regards of his Countries good and abilities to serve them that for almost 40. years together his Country chose him for their Knight to serve in all the intervening parliaments Magistratus indicatorium imployment shews the man he was a leading man in Parliaments prevailing there by the great reputation of his justice and integrity and yet he was not unpleasant and hated at Court for he had well understood that the true interest of Courts and Parliaments were one and that they are like the humours of the body if you increase one beyond its limit that destroys all the rest and it self at last and when they look upon themselves as enemies and that hot and cold must fight the prevailing part is abated in the conflict and the vanquish'd part is destroyed but when they look upon themselves as varieties serving the differing aspects and necessities of the same body they are for the allay of each others exorbitances and excesses and by keeping their own measures they preserve the man this the good man well understood for so he comported himself that he was loud in Parliaments and valued at Court he was respected in very many Parliaments and was worthily regarded by the worthy Kings which without an Orator commends a man Gravissimi principis judicium in minoribus etiam rebus consequi pulchrum est said Rliny To be approved though but in lesser matters by the judgement of a wise Prince is a great ornament to the man For as King Theodoric in Cassiodore said Nequen dignus est à quopiam redargui qui nostro judicio meretur absolvi No man ought to reprove him whom the King commends But I need no artifices to represent him worthy his arguments of probation were within in the magazines of a good heart and represented themselves by worthy actions For God was pleased to invest him with a marvailous sweet Nature which is certainly to be reckoned as one half of the grace of God because a good nature being the reliques and remains of that ship wrack which Adam made is the proper and immediate disposition to holiness as the corruption of Adam was to disobedience and peevish Councels A good nature will not upbraid the more imperfect persons will not deride the ignorant will not reproach the erring man will not smite sinners on the face will not despise the penitent A good Nature is apt to forgive injuries to pitty the miserable to rescue the oppressed to make every ones condition as tolerable as he can and so would he For as when good Nature is heightned by the grace of God that which was natural becomes now spiritual so these actions which proceeded from an excellent nature and were pleasing and useful to men when they derive from a new principle of grace they become pleasant in the eyes of God then obedience to laws is duty to God justice is righteousness bounty becomes graciousness and alms is charity And indeed this is a grace in which this good man was very remarkable being very frequent and much in alms tender hearted to the poor open handed to relieve their needs the bellies of the poor did bless him he filled them with food and gladness and I have heard that he was so regular so constant so free in this duty that in these late unhappy wars being in a garison and neer the suffering some rude accidents the beggars made themselves his guard and rescued him