Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	age_n	child_n	parent_n	1,638	5	8.6775	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A87089	Death's alarum: or, Security's vvarning-piece. A sermon preached in S. Dionis Back-Church, at the funerall of Mrs. Mary Smith (daughter of Mr. Isaac Colfe, formerly minister of Gods Word at Chadwell in Essex, and late wife of Mr. Richard Smith of London, draper) who dyed the 9th. day of Novemb. 1653. and was buried the 16th of the same moneth. By Nath: Hardy, Mr. of Arts, and preacher to that parish.	Hardy, Nathaniel, 1618-1670.	1653 (1653)	Wing H714; Thomason E725_4; ESTC R206763	23,164	36

require us To cleare this more fully in two particulars 1. We must begin betimes to make our selves ready It is an undoubted maxime in re necessaria non d●u deliberandum where the matter is clearly necessary to dispute much or deliberate long about it is both needlesse and dangerous nothing of more needfull concernment or greater importance to every one of us than the being ready for Christs coming surely then just it is we should set about it presently and make it our first businesse Almighty God in his sublime speech to Job saith concerning the warlike horse that he smelleth the battell afarre off what nature teacheth him let grace us to smell that encounter we must have with death afarre off long before at least in probability it will come and that is in the dayes of our youth The life of man is not without good reason compared to a night Now among the Jewes there were foure watches in the night the first was called Conticinium when all things are silent the second Intempestum the unseasonable time of midnight the third Gallicinium which began at the Cock crowing the last Antelucanum about break of day by these foure watches of the night are morally resembled the foure ages of mans life Child-hood Youth Man-hood Old age and it is worth our observation that when Christ speaketh of our being ready for his coming he mentioneth onely the second and the third watch Thophilact's reason I confesse is most probable because the second and third watches are as it were the dead time of night when most men are in their soundest sleep so that he that is wakefull in those watches may be presumed not to sleep in the first and fourth and so to be ready in the second and third is as much as to be alwayes ready but there may be another apt allusion to our particular purpose as for the first watch he mentioneth it not because Child hood is in no capacity of performing this duty though even then it concerneth Parents to make their Children ready by bringing them to the Holy Sacrament of Baptisme and as for the fourth watch of Old age he specifieth not that neither because Rarissimi sunt qui ad extremum vitae differentes bene operari inveniuntur ita facientes They are very rare who are found ready at Christs coming and yet have not begun before the fourth watch Let it then be our care to begin at the third watch of Man hood nay sooner at the second watch of Youth to prepare and provide for Christs coming Happy is that man who fitteth himself for dying so soon as he cometh to know that he liveth and consecrateth the beginning of his rationall life to a religious Meditation of his mortall end 2. We must hold out to the end of our dayes in this ready posture daily endeavouring greater measure of preparation Those two excuses will be found alike invalid whensoever Christ cometh Fuisse futurum esse I resolved to be ready hereafter and I was ready heretofore since it is neither what thou wouldst be nor what thou hast beene but what thou art when death cometh Unbend not then the bow of thy pious endevor till the string of thy life break cease not running the race of piety till thou art put out of breath be alwaies preparing to meet Christ till he come to thee It is to this purpose well observed what a difference there is between the other life and this as to that life it will be sufficient bene incipere to begin well if we can but enter into that joy of our Lord it is enough he that is once entred into a possession of that blisse shall goe no more out but as to this present life the great care is bene finire to end well since incassum bonum agitur si ante vitae terminum deseratur That work is begun to no purpose which is left off before it is finished no● can this work of preparation be finished till life be ended But it may perhaps and not improbably be objected even by good Christians Alas the practise of this duty in this extent is impossible who is there that can at all times so order his conversation as to be ready for his dissolution We meet with many remora's to stop us in many avocations to turne us aside from this work the labour of our callings the care of our families lawfull recreations many worldly businesses take up our time so that we cannot alwayes be at leisure to thinke of and so provide for Christ's coming To resolve which doubt be pleased to take notice of a double preparation for the coming of Christ to wit habituall and actuall Actuall readinesse consists in the exercise of those spiritual graces and practise of those religious duties which are fit for us to be conversant in at the time of our death such as are selfe examination penitent humiliation believing invocation charitable condonation and the like and truly thus to be alwayes ready is not possible nor requisite It is not possible for our natures which at best are but in part renewed to be wholly taken up with divine performances nor indeed is it requisite since God hath given us time for secular as well as spirituall businesses yea for recreation as well as devotion and if Christ shall come by death to us when about our civill callings or lawfull refreshings our condition were not therefore to be adjudged desperate Indeed on the one hand because death may come at such times it should be our endeavour as much as may be to carry about us heavenly hearts in our earthly employments and on the other hand because the best of us are too deficient in this kinde we may nay ought to beg of God if it be his will that death may rather finde us praying than playing in our chambers than in our shops about devout exercises than worldly businesses In this respect that prayer of the Church From sodaine death good Lord deliver us which by our arrogant novelists among other passages of the lyturgie is causelesly denyed is fit to be made not onely by the worst but by the best of men to whom death may be and many times is so sodaine that they cannot be in an actuall readinesse for it and therefore if it be as doubtlesse it is a very desirable thing to have space before our death of renewing our faith repentance and charity yea and of expressing all these for the comfort and benefit of others that belong to us it must needes be a fit request for all Christians to put up that they may be delivered from sodaine death But besides this actuall there is an habituall readiness which referres not to the action but the disposition the exercise but the state of the person so that he who is by faith engrafted into Christ and by the spirit regenerated to a lively hope and so in a state of grace is