Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	apostle_n	master_n	servant_n	1,864	5	7.1466	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45243	A review and examination of a pamphlet lately published bearing the title Protesters no subverters, and presbyterie no papacy, &c. / by some lovers of the interest of Christ in the Church of Scotland.	Hutcheson, George, 1615-1674.	1659 (1659)	Wing H3828; ESTC R36812	117,426	140

shall deny them also any power over our Consciences nor shall we set them on Christs Throne which they charge upon our opinion Arg. 3. as to the acknowledgement of their Sentences to be just or any approbation in our practice and active obedience of what in our Consciences we disallow which is all can be inferred from the principles of Non-conformists concerning the freedom of Conscience mentioned also Arg. 3. Yet it cannot from all these be inferred that there is not a command of God oblieging us in Conscience to suffer unjustly rather than make a Schism and pour contempt upon standing lawfull Authority Nor is it soundly argued that because they do not their duty in their station for which they must give an account to God therefore we are not bound to suffer what we are called to in our stations Or that suppose men should play the Popes in pronouncing an unjust Sentence such as is above qualified against a man as they have it Arg. 14. Therefore the sufferer may lawfully sin too This opinion is so far from dethroning that it doth exalt Christ and doth deny to men what is not due to them and yet giveth to Christ what is due to Him Likewise when they urge so much Arg. 9 and 10. that it argueth the Scriptures of imperfection giveth what is due to them to Judicatories and must infer the infallibility of Judicatories that they must not be contradicted nor contra acted but their will must be a law as they elsewhere tell us There is all along a great mistake in the case For not only is that of not contradicting put in without cause seing men may contradict as to the declaration of their judgement when yet they submit But we never asserted a Judicatory might be contra-acted in no case as we cleared before in laying aside their eleventh Argument and other reasonings we are only now debating about Submission to Sentences qualified as is above expressed And what submission we pay in these we are so far from setting up mens infallibility or from derogating from the Scriptures as to their perfection and sole Authority over our Consciences that it is not out of conscience of the justice of the Sentence but in obedience to the sole command of God bidding us respect lawfull Authority and suffer in such cases that we pay it And it is upon the supposition of the Judges fallibility yea and their erring actually that we presse this Submission as contra-distinct to active obedience So also as to the Scriptures which they cite Arg. 2. That we should not be the servants of men but stand fast in our Christian liberty and obey God rather than men They have borrowed these weapons from Independents who as Mr. Rutherfurd telleth us Peac. Plea pag. 193. borrowed them from Anabaptists and Socinians arguing against the places of Kings Judges and Magistrates But the argument is easily answered that we obey God and not men and are His servants and not theirs in this Submission And that the people of God are free as to the enslaving of their Conscience with the approbation or their practice with doing of any thing that is unjust yet they have not an immunity from stouping to suffer when God calls them to it And let the case be but instanced in a Magistrates unjust Sentence against particular persons and it will say for it self whether their Christian liberty will reach a Non-submission or not Likewise when they urge Arg. 12. that unjust Sentences are null in themselves and therefore cannot bind to Submission and subjection We grant that in foro interno it is a null Sentence not oblieging the Conscience to any approbation thereof Yet in foro externo it is so far valide as a man cannot deny submission thereunto without sinning against God in contemning the standing lawfull Authority of a Church in making a Schism and declining to suffer when God calleth him to it And in this the very Independents agree though they differ about the subject invested with the power of the keyes for they tell us in their Defence of the nine Positions pag. 210. That a Minister derives all his authority from Christ by the Church indeed applying that Office to him to which the authority is annexed by the institution of Christ Hence being the Minister of Christ to them if they without Christ depose him they hinder the exercise of his Office but his right remaineth 2. While they urge that Ministers are over us in the Lord 1 Thess 5.12 Arg. 1. And that we are to be subordinate to Church-power only in the Lord pag. 95 96. That is so far from warranting Non-submission and contra-acting in the Question betwixt us that it doth strongly assert it For to omit many other things which the Learned finde imported in this to be subject in the Lord as it imports 1. An acknowledgment in our Consciences of their lawfull Authority And 2. active obedience to what they command in the Lord So 3. in the case of an unjust Sentence it requireth such submission and passive obedience as He hath enjoyned us in His Word in such cases which what it is hath been spoken to before and so it confirmeth our Assertion That this is not a forced Interpretation may appear were it but from this one consideration That this qualification of Submission and Obedience in the Lord is not required in reference to Chruch-judicatories only but of children also in reference to their Parents and consequently of all inferiours paying subjection to their Superiours in their several stations as is clear from Eph. 6.1 Col. 3.18 and elsewhere Now it is not to be supposed that the Apostle warranteth children servants or subjects to resist and counteract all the unjust corrections and Sentences of their Masters and Superiours but that they should submit and suffer rather For we find in Scripture that it is the commendable duty of children to submit to their parents even when they chasten them for their pleasure only Heb. 12.9 10. As also of christian servants to suffer unjustly under their bad Masters 1 Pet. 2.18 19 20. and generally of all Christians to suffer under their persecuting Magistrats 1 Pet. 3.14 15 16 17. and 4.12 13 14.15 16. and frequently throughout the Scriptures And this together with what hath formerly been produced may satisfie that part of Arg. 1. wherein they call for a precept or precedent in Scripture to clear this matter For here we find there is Scripture-warrant for this Submission to which we may adde That the practice of the suffering People of God in all generations is a clearer Commentary to these Texts than all the glosses tending but to sedition schism and confusion of human society they can fasten upon them 3. While they urge Arg. 15. pag. 113 114. That this brings in a Tyranny in the Church and by parity of reason condemneth defensive Arms which are judged lawfull against State-tyranny We are so far from allowing Tyranny or Injustice

in the least that we maintain that all Judicatories are bound to judge righteous judgement at their peril And if they proceed to ruine all Religion as this Argument carrieth it with vehemency enough to say no more we have already cleared what the People of God may lawfully do in such a case yea in unjust Sentences of lesser moment not only inferiour Judicatories but even particular persons in their stations may do more than whisper once against them as they are pleased to phrase it and yet submit when they have done But as to the Question betwixt us and this Church they will find their Argument from defensive Arms to fail them For not to dip any further in that Question no learned man ever allowed even the body of a Nation or their Representatives in Parliament to rise against a Prince far lesse a party only be they persons or some inferiour Judicatories against the Supream Magistrate or a National Church and her Representatives which is our case upon the account only of the unjust sufferings of particular persons while yet the affairs of Church and State were well ordered That would soon make more unjust sufferers than would be under lawfull Authority not resisted possibly in many ages And we believe it is without precept or precedent that privat subjects or inferiour Courts should rise in Arms against their Prince or Parliaments only because they inflict some unjust Sentences on themselves or some privat subjects while yet they adhere unto and overturn none of the righteous things concluded in a Nation And therefore this Church being through mercy setled in the matter of Doctrine Worship and Government they may spare this Argument till they prove this Church to be overturning all or any of these 4. That wherein they seem to place no small confidence in this matter as appeareth by their frequent repeating and expatiating thereupon is that reason of the Apostles for their Non-submission to the Council at Jerusalem Acts. 5.29 It is better to obey God than men together with these Commands of God enjoyning Ministers to preach the Word and Christians to partake of the Sacrament in remembrance of Christ 2 Tim. 4.2 1 Cor. 11.24 These they propound Arg. 2. p. 99. and the most of their reasoning thereupon is again recapitulate in short Arg. 4. That these duties being commanded by God they cannot omit them without sin upon that non-relevant reason of the meer will of men unjustly sentencing them with Deposition and Excommunication This they urge further Arg. 2. pag. 100 101. from the instances not only of the Apostles and Jeremiah and Amos to which we have spoken before but of Daniel counteracting the Decree of Darius Dan. 6. and of the mans confessing Christ though cast-out by the Jews for it Joh. 9. But to say nothing that this last instance will not prove that Non-submission to the Sentence of Excommunication which they there speak of unlesse they make it appear that the man did not only confesse Christ still but obtrude himself also upon the Jews in their Church-societie The Answer to this is easie if we take notice of a twofold distinction 1. We would distinguish humane prohibitions of duties commanded by God For some prohibitions are not only restraints put upon some persons as to the exercise of these duties upon the account of these persons incapacity real or supposed to go about the same But are in effect and chiefly a condemning of these duties in their very nature and kind as not to be observed by any person whatsoever and so do not touch upon the incapacity of the persons who are prohibited but upon the things themselves considered as such moral performances which are prohibited Such a prohibition was that of Darius which was a politicall Decree prohibiting the very duty of Prayer unto God and that to all men universally not to Daniel or some others only upon any personal incapacity in them So the Decree of the Jews was against the very duty of confessing Christ and not a restraint upon some persons only that they should not be the performers of that duty And their Decree against the Apostles preaching was a Law and dogmatick Determination against the whole Doctrine of the Gospel and the publishing thereof to the world and not a restraint put upon the Apostles only while they allowed others to do it For it may appear from their own words Act. 4.17 and 5.2 that their quarrel was not against the Apostles preaching but against the Doctrine which they preached in this Name They offered not to silence them from publishing Doctrine simpliciter but from publishing this Doctrine Again There are some prohibitions which are meer disciplinary Sentences restraining persons from such duties of an office or the use of such priviledges as they not only allow of in their nature and kind but do allow others in the practice and enjoyment of them and do only restrain others therefrom upon the account of their personal incapacity real or supposed Ex. gr when a Church-judicatory deposeth a Minister from preaching of Christ upon the account of insufficiency or scandall or debarreth a Member from participation of publick Ordinances suppose they do erre in the particular yet they are so far from condemning of these duties of preaching of Christ and partaking of the Ordinances that they provide another to preach in the room of him whom they have put out and do see to the dispensing of the Ordinances daily and to the inviting of the rest of the Congregation to joyn in the participation thereof That there is a vast difference betwixt these two sorts of prohibitions may appear further in this beside what is said that prohibitions of the first sort are simply and in their nature and kind unlawfull nor can any such Decree be lawfully made at any time But disciplinary Sentences are not unlawfull in their nature and kind but may in some cases lawfully be pronounced and executed as is confessed by all And as to the application of the distinction to the case in hand We need not meddle with it in the matter of prayer and confessing Christ seing as we shall hear upon the second distinction these fall not within the compasse of Disciplinary Sentences But as to the matter of preaching and participation of publick Ordinances which are the things in debate betwixt us we may hence take a clear solution of the difficulty For let once a Church-judicatory grow so corrupt as to condemn the duties of preaching Christ and participation of publick Ordinances in their very nature and kind and as to all sorts of persons universally which is the true case held out in their Instances for even the false Priest at Bethel and the Rulers at Jerusalem did condemn the Doctrine preached by Amos and Jeremiah and did not quarrell only their preaching of it while they did allow it in others And in that case we should without scruple as was said before conclude them no true