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	sin_n	1,294	5	4.8298	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A60521	The character of a weaned Christian, or, The evangelical art of promoting self-denial being an essay, alluding to the severities and advantages of infant-weaning, both pleasant and profitable / by S. S., ...	Smith, Samuel, 1620-1698.	1675 (1675)	Wing S4164; ESTC R19902	63,054	160

Love that the Lord strikes and stroaks a Saint Thus his Faith can turn an Hell of deep disquietment in Sense into an Heaven of Joy and Triumph A weaned Saint highthens his contentment to a thankful Spirit for Afflictions as happy opportunities of Improving a Gracious Frame This thankfulness is conjoyned with a Resolution to hold fast his Integrity though the Lord smite him into the place of Dragons and cover him with the shaddow of Death Yea a weaned Saint is quickened to become more Active in Obedience by how much the more he is deprest in grievous exigencies and distresses Thus the Ball struck with the Racket rebounds the higher The Vine being pruned bleeds not to death but weeps it self into greater Fruitfulness Again a Saint Censures not the Lords weaning Methods before the Result and winding up of the design When the Lord fires him out of all his Earthly injoyments yet he knows that the good will of the Lord dwells in the Bush to make it flourish in the midst of the consuming Flames Therefore says he it is good to draw nigh to the Holy One when his Dispensations are most dreadful and severe Thus his Faith informs and assures him that he can as little want the Discipline of the Cross as an Heavenly Inheritance That by deep and heavy Tryals the Lord stamps a Badg of honour upon him accounting him to be his Champion and a resolute defender of the Faith of Christ Thus weaned Saints quiet themselves under all their distresses yea Triumph in the Cross of Christ as the top of their felicity and the Crest of their preferment 10. The tenth sort of Sinners not thorowly weaned are partial but not Repenting Reformadoes A Child withdrawn only from the Breast yet brought up by hand with the Bottle and the Spoon is not weaned in as proper strict Sence but only equivocally till it can acquiesce in a more Manly kind of Food So though Sinners lie not soaking at the Brests of the World by some accidental diversion from the more Usual and common ways of cherishing their Lusts yet if they find pleasures from some more Refined methods and secret contrivances in sinning which more sutably promote their present design they cannot be said to be weaned in any tolerable sence Lust is Lust whether it be maintained by secret immediate Self-Love in Acts of Self-seeking self-confidence and self-exalting or from the Bottle and Spoon of some forreign collateral succours which more visibly tend to the sensual gratification of our fleshly Appetite There is a strange kind of sinful metempsychosis the strength of concupiscence may pass out of one extreem into another Lesser Lusts may be intent upon feeding the main Spring as paying a Homage to it yet are they no Losers by this Officiousness for they are not starved hereby but strengthned Thus divers parts of the Body serve to convey nourishment to the Liver as the Fountain of Blood from whence they are moistned and supplied afterwards with an Addition of growth and strength So little are our hearts weaned from the Love and Reign of any sin while its proper operations are suspended to uphold the design or gratifie the Interest of some Capital Lust Every Breast doth not agree with the Constitution of every Child Nor doth every particular kind of sin suit the desire of every sinner Some as Romulus and Remus suck a Wolf in the Exercise of Oppressive Power Others though they live not on Rapine and sucking of Blood as Eagles yet as the Salamander they take delight to frisk in the Flames of Contention And as the Cameleon they pant and gasp after the pleasing yet fickle Air of popular applause The Epicure though he do not make the Wedg of Gold his Confidence yet he makes his Belly and sensual Pleasures his God As Cleopatra who at one draught exhausted as many dissolved Pearls as amounted to the value of a Kingdom Such dig their Graves with their Teeth and are buried Alive in their excessive Riots as Sardanapalus that Monster of Intemperance 11. The Eleventh sort of Sinners not really weaned are such who though they may comply with easier and plain commands yet remain partial in their Obedience and limp like a Badger with one Leg when Commands are difficult or lie cross to Carnal Reason personal Credit or Worldly Interest For the Former this is a deep tryal of self denial when an Injunction is put on a person the dutiful observance of which seems to Contradict Duty When the precept of tryal seems to thwart the setled Precept of ordinary Obedience Nay to justle and run counterwise against the Promise of God When a Man can hardly obey God but he must make him a Lyar. As in Abraham's Case he could not offer up his Son but he must violate that Command Thou shalt not kill yea if he had consulted Carnal Reason he must have offered some Violence to his Faith and seemingly to the Veracity of God that all Nations should be called and blest in Isaac Now different Obligations begetting cross apprehensions in the Soul do exceedingly puzzle oppress and distract it yea increase its tryals and troubles to a perplexing height Yet a Weaned Soul who is not selfconceited nor strives for the supremacy of his own Will can reconcile seeming contrariant Precepts in the Holy Vnity and simplicity of the Divine Nature For the very Command of the Lord stamps Holiness on that very Action which otherwise were unlawful You must know that other Actions which are only indifferent in their own nature yet become absolutely necessary upon a Divine positive Law injoyning them Some are commanded because precedently good in their own Nature as to love God for himself to hate sin as an unnatural Act to a Mans self Moral Duties are generally and universally known by the very Light of Nature and are grounded in their necessity and suitableness on the very notion of the Deity and his unchangeable Holiness But particular positive Duties which bind by express Revelation are good and necessary to be fulfilled because of the Wisdom and Authority of the Lawgiver though Carnal Reason cannot guess at their Equity usefulness or necessity Of this Nature were the Jewish Ceremonies which yet were punctually in every Circumstance observed by the Faithful Forefathers What Reason can be assigned why the Jews should be prohibited such and such sorts of Meats which were pallatable and wholsome yet they were tutored in their Bill of Fare and trained up to Self-denial in these severe restrictions Though I suppose some Moralities might lie couchant in them As they might not plough with an Ox and an Ass nor sow divers Seeds promiscuously in the same plat of Ground nor wear a Garment of Linsi-Woolsie to signifie how hatefull to God all impure mixtures are in his Service or any disagreeing Principles in Religion But if such Mysteries never were made known in these positive Laws yet the bare Authority of God is Reason sufficient and obliging why

the minutest Circumstances of any Action otherwise indifferent should be observed and punctually fulfilled Thus it is with weaned Saints for true Obedience is uniform and universal As Saints will impose no Laws in Divine concernments upon themselves as absolutely necessary so they are very cautious in abstaining from all the occasions appearances of evil They are weaned from the Bottle and the Spoon from all the accessory helps and incouragements of their Lusts as well as from the Breasts of more visible pleasing and grosser Temptations to Sin They are troubled for an impure Dream and will not speculate the least iniquity so much as in their fancy Also they are Curious about the least Circumstance of every Action that it be done for Manner Measure Time and Place to a right End and in a due Order and Decorum Moses and Noah in erecting the Tabernacle Ark were in every Circumstance directed and limited by Divine appointment Weaned Souls are faithful in every punctilio of their charge But Hypocrits make Laws and impose severities on themselves as pleasing Bonds whereas Christ's Laws are Yokes and pinching Fetters which they strive to dissolve and break away from This shews they are not weaned from an opinion of self-superintendency and the admiration of their Carnal Wisdom The great Contest 'twixt God and Sinners is whose Will shall stand for a Law Rule in the Ordering out of their Affections and Actions Yet our Wills are too big and head-strong for our blinded corrupt understandings to Govern Hence we are guided by no fixt strict Rule but hurried by Pride and Passion issuing from our darkned and mistaken apprehensions of the chiefest good Therefore we had need be weaned from self-Supremarcy that we may be directed safely according to the Wisdom of God revealed in the written Word and not led by Fancy or the impulses of a private Spirit For we easily are induced to believe that Lawful necessary and commendable which we have a mind to in gratifying our Lusts or advancing our Worldly Interest But in a truly weaned Frame of Submission to all God's Laws in every Circumstance consists our true Liberty Safety Wisdom and Magnanimity of Spirit Otherwise we shall soon become Captives to Satan and our Lusts Moralists and Hypocrits may proceed far in a course of Obedience and yet not be truly weaned because not thorowly brought off from the Dictates of Carnal Reason to subscribe only to the Lords good Will and Pleasure in ordering out the minutest Circumstances of their Actions The strength of Wisdom and sincerity of Obedience is seen most in a strict Observance of all due Circumstances These many times amount to more considerable weight in the Lords account than either the matter of Duty or of Sin Therefore David prays Order my steps in thy Word as cautiously and curiously as they who climb Rocks or dance upon a Rope How severely hath the Lord punisht an Error or failure in the very Circumstance of a Command When the Commission hath not been fulfilled to the least tittle and punctilio Such who are not thorowly weaned conceit they may make bold in the manner or measure or Order of managing a Duty according to the module of their Carnal apprehension and that this oversight or rash Zeal in underacting or over-acting may plead an indulgence of Course But the Lord hath given Instances to the Contrary viz. in Sauls sparing Agag and in his not staying for Samuel when he was distrest by the Philistins In Lots Wife looking back In Vzzah's touching the Ark and the Bethshemites prying into the Ark when recovered from the Philistines In the young Prophet going back with the Old to eat and to drink 1 Kings 13.18 though he were over-reacht by the pretence of an Angelical Revelation A weaned Saint is Cautious about the least Sin and very Curious about the least Circumstance of a Duty Therefore Naaman was not thorowly weaned when he excepted against washing his Leprosie seaven times in the Waters of Jordan Nor those who walkt to go down into Egypt who surrounded the Borders to espy where they might find out the most convenient passages to slip into Egypt without any suspicion of a Design in it Isa 30.1 2. Yet how did these Hypocrits profess a weaned Frame in Jer. 42. Whether the Lords Answer be good or evil Politically they mean and not morally yet we will obey though to our inconvenience and disadvantage So that person in 1 Kings 20.35 36 37. was more nicely and superstitiously Conscientious than truly respectful to the Prophet who refused to wound him by a Divine Commission therefore he was slain by a Lion not because he had a Cowards heart but for his pretended Sanctity and the scrupulosity of an Hypocrite So that weaned Saints do not Judg of the Equity or necessity of Divine Commands by outward appearance to their Carnal Reason but readily obey their Commission when they espy the stamp and warrant of Divine Authority though the matter or Circumstance of the Command seem unreasonable and ridiculous Yea lie Cross to their personal Reputation and Worldly Interest I may instance in Noahs building the Ark for which he was flouted as if he doated and would set a ship to Sail on dry Land In Joshuah's compassing Jerico seaven times with the blast of Rams Horns which seemed a foolish stratagem to any politick Engineer Yet being weaned from self-guidance he was assured of victory made ready to his hand and that he should dispossess the Canaanites as easily as he could put off his Shoos Gideon also slew the Midianites as one Man because he was weaned from his own Carnal Wisdom and did not dispute the unlikeliness of the means Some proud huffing Alexander would have laught at the blast of Trumpets at Lamps inclosed in Earthen Pitchers as a likely Stratagem by the dashing of which in pieces the destruction of so Potent an Enemy was to be obtained But Gideons Faith silenced all Carnal Reason so that by a weaned Frame he got the Conquest A rare Example for us Christians if we would defeat our Spiritual Enemies not to dispute much less despise the Institutions of Christ in the Gospel though they seem never so inconsiderable slight idle vain and foolish The Apostles as despicable as they seemed to be yet being weaned by Christ's Call from their Carnal Wisdom and the Worlds splendor proved Men of Courage because of Self-denial They endured hardship as Gideon's reduced three hundered Soldiers who did not bow down upon their knees in a sordid Compliance with sinners humors or any excess in Worldly pleasures but were wholly intent upon their March and Message By these despicable Babes and Sucklings did the Lord ordain strength to still or stop the Mouths of the Enemy the Atheist and Avenger viz. the persecutors of the Gospel By these weanlings the Lord confounded the Carnal Wisdom of the chiefest Philosophers and Politicians among the Gentile Nations They only carried forth the Light and

to the full and will add no Sorrow with it Together with the Confluence of Creature-Comforts grow up greater Cares our Table many times proves a Snare and our Supplies our Surfeits But in the Complacential Love of God is no danger no fear of Excess or of making any forfeiture Here is no occasion of Repenance for misplacing of our hearts Other Delights cloy and satiate but do not satisfy But Spiritual Joys yield fresh sweetness without Satiety When we settle our Affections upon the Lord and his Excellencies we transplant them from Earth to Heaven to ripen in a better Climate We lose not but only exchange our Joys for more solid durable refined Comforts Regeneration Adoption to an Heavenly Inheritance and the Kisses of Christ's Spirit Sealing Communion with God through Christ is a greater Cause of Glorying than the highest Preferments in the World Therefore let poor Saints rejoyce that they are exalted in being weaned even to a Contempt of gilded Vanities and let Rich Saints Glory in this that they are Spiritually abased and made vile in their own Eyes as considering that Man is altogether Vanity in his best Estate For when his Gracious endowments are improved to the highest pitch of excellency they would yet fade away as the Beauty of a Flower were they not rooted and preserved in Christ Jesus What Hypocrites become by the Art of dissimulation appearing to Be that and Do that which they neither Are nor Act in Truth Such should Saints become by the right Art of Spiritual weaning In the prudent regulation and composure of their Natural passions they should carry it so as if they were not Men but Acted like Angels while they walk in the pathetick strains of Nature They must so contrive to bound and conceal their Passions for the want or loss of the Creature as if there were no reality in their weeping Yea in the highest Spring-Tide of prosperity they must rejoyce as if they rejoyced not Yet in the Exercise of Holy Duties they must so express reality as if they were All Affection made up with nothing else They must so weep for Sin as if their Head were a Fountain of Tears and so rejoyce in the Lord and his Image drawn out upon their Hearts as if they were Joy it self They must so Commerce and Trade with Heaven as if they were a Flame of Zeal an Holy-Covetousness and Emulation it self Yet Saints are so weaned from Ostentation by humility that though they be full of Holiness they pursue after more eminent Degrees as if they had none at all In point of Self-denyal he mourns for Sin as if he mourned not because he counts it no Compensation to Divine Justice He rejoyces in the Acting of his Graces as if he rejoyced not because though they be admirable endowments of the New-Creature yet they Eannot Create a Title unto Heavenly Glory as the Meritorious Cause thereof He trades with Christ in Holy Duties as if he traded not because he attributes no success to his own skill and industry yea his Spiritual gains or advantages are reaped and possest without observation by Carnal Persons towards whom his Conversation in Heaven while himself remains a Pilgrim on Earth is altogether a Mystery and a Riddle A weaned Self-denying Saint is silent and reserved in driving on secret Communion with the Lord yet is he not slight and remiss but sincerely fervent and fruitful in all the ways of Righteousness Thus Saints being weaned from their own Credit and Applause make the fittest and most active Projectors for Christ's Honour and the Propagation of his Kingdom But here it may be Objected by Christ's weak Babes I fear I am not Spiritually weaned because I cannot affirm that my Delight is fixed in the Lord. How little is my Mind Abstracted from Conversing with empty shadows and how deeply Immersed in sensitive feculent Delights How seldom do the discoveries of the Lords infinite Excellencies transform me into a God-like Life To this I Answer thus in the General I intended That foregoing Character of weaned Saints rather for the Imitation of Babes in Christ than to assert it to be the minimum quod sic the least Essential qualifications or Constitutive Properties of sincerity in Evangelical Weanlings Christians who falsly argue for a Nullity of Grace in themselves from its Impotency must consider that the right Art of Spiritual weaning is not easily learnt and practis'd because it is a Sacred Mystery Yet New-born Saints are under the Conduct of Christ's Spirit who safely and tenderly leads them through the Labyrinth of the Worlds Perplexing Cares and Temptations that they may not be devoured by the Minotaur of a Flesh-pleasing Sensuality Christ's very Babes have a supernatural Sagacity and Instinct to foresee their Dangers and being conscious of their own Infirmity to resist Temptations they have so much strength as to cry out incessantly Abba Father succour me with thy preventing assisting Grace that I may carry on that Weaning-Design to which by Baptism I stand obliged They can and do claim spiritual Kindred with God himself nor will they desist from pleading their spiritual Interest in his Wisdom Power Love Goodness and Faithfulness to shield them from Temptations and to promote their Self-denial to the Pitch of Heavenly-mindedness They will creep as well as they can into the Presence of their Father when they cannot run the way of his Commandments with inlargment of Affection answerable to their desire They testifie their Love and Gratitude their Prowess and Resolution against sin Satan and the World as they are Able therefore they shall though weakly weaned divide the Celestial Inheritance equally with the Angels who Excel in strength Take a really weaned Saint at the lowest Ebb of his Affections Godward yet he is to be preferred before the most Zealous Hypocrite because as the World and his Lusts are the Joy of his Soul so the Creature is the Soul of his Joy and his Joy only the Blaze of the Creature But the Newly weaned Christian doth not so eagerly intermeddle with worldly concernments as quite to Degenerate and Degrade himself from his Spiritual Constitution by becoming One Spirit with Sensitive Objects of a Base alloy He never so mixes his Heart with nor lifts it up to Creature-Vanities as quite to lose the Sagacity of his Soul in not apprehending any quick touch of the Divine Greatness or not relishing the sweetness of the Infinite Goodness of the Lord. Still there is a more potent supernatural Principle within him drawing off his heart from a Pursuit of the Dunghil-Profits and besotting-Pleasures of the World So that as the Needle in the Mariners Compass he is still restless till he Center in the Increated Perfections of the Supream Being and Original Source of All things Still he prays wean me and I shall be weaned for thou art my Praise that is the superexcellent Object of my Love and Delight If at any time Christ's weaned Babes wonder at the Grandure and