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	pray_v	prayer_n	1,314	5	6.4509	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A93147	White salt: or, A sober correction of a mad world, in some wel-wishes to goodness. / By John Sherman, B.D.	Sherman, John, d. 1663.	1654 (1654)	Wing S3387; Thomason E1517_1; ESTC R203564	80,830	261

of St. Paul in 1 Tim. 2.5 There is one God and one Mediator betwixt God and man the man Christ Jesus If they say there are more Mediators Christ is the only Mediator of Redemption others of Intercession the text doth contradict there is one as one God so one Mediator as is noted so that there is not one for Redemption another for Intercession If they say though there is none betwixt Christ and God but betwixt us and Christ it is answered from the text that there is one betwixt God and us not betwixt God and Saints or Angels so that our prayers are immediately commended to Christ and by him to God Estius upon the place here saith that here is not excluded other Mediators of an imperfect account But what account shall we make of any other when in their own confession Christ is a perfect Mediator and others are imperfect And what esteem can we make of their intercession when Christ is acknowledged to be the only Mediator of Redemption For 1. they do not keep this distinction in their practice but pray to the Saints as if they were also Mediators by redemption 2. If they do perform an office of intercession under Christ they do it by their merits as Aquinas before That they do not intercede thus appeareth thus 1 Because they cannot prove any merit 2 If they have any they have none to spare for others surely 3 If they have any to spare they have all from Christ And if they have so much from Christ as some superfluous what hinders but that they should be Mediators of Redemption as well as of Intercession For Christ intercedeth by the same whereby he did redeem now he redeemed by his merits therefore he intercedeth by his merits therefore by the same proportion that they do intercede for us by their merits they may also redeem us by their merits and so they enterfeer in their own distinction But to leave this discourse This prayer is an act of high worship which belongs to God by Christ to him we should go in our prayers and by Christ we should we have warrant for this And in the frequency of this devotion doth goodness appear as we take it in the latitude Goodness strictly hath in it a respect to communication but yet as it hath some respect to grace so it also attendeth the means of reception And if we cannot give well without charity and cannot have charity but from God and cannot have it from God but by prayer then goodness will be exercised in prayer to God that he would be good to us in giving us that grace which most properly doth denominate us good The Heathen could see that we are not good by outward goods and therefore if one hath a better estate he is not the better man but hath the better estate so if he hath the better horse he is not the better man but hath the better horse if he hath better clothes he is not the better man yet but hath the better clothes But neither are we said formally to be good by faith and hope because the acts of those habits are terminated towards us but the actions of charity are terminated from us either to God or our neighbor for God Why should we not then use this excellent mean of supplication for this excellent quality How can we do better then in asking that gift from God whereby we are disposed to do good Not that we should begge this only for it will not go alone but because unless we beg it of God we shall not have it and unless we have it those that begge of us are like to go without and we shall do no good in the world The uncharitable man is the man 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that conferreth nothing to the publique Indeed we have other virtues to solicit the Throne of grace for There is faith the prime virtue as being the root of other virtues which denies any thing in us towards salvation and layeth hold on Christ and his righteousness There is hope the Anchor of the soul amidst all the storms of afflictions There is humility which is in season when we are in prosperity there is patience which is proper when we are low and in adversity there is meekness when we are inraged or provoked But charity is all or supposeth all That which it is not it doth include Particularly it supposeth faith By faith I go out of my self that I may receive Christ and happiness by him but by charity I go out of my self that I may be wholly Gods because he hath made Christ mine and as he giveth me Christ by faith so I give my self to him and to others for him by charity Therefore if thou wilt de any thing pray and if thou wilt pray for any thing pray for charity which hath relation to all the world God Neighbors Enemies Infidels all St. Chrysostom hath a conceit that no temporal thing is to be the object of prayer 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 nothing that belongeth to this life of ours so much that holy Archbishop was for mortification so little for the world and therefore that petition for daily bread they understood of spiritual and Sacramental bread As if they only had understood and practised that precept of our Saviour Matth. 6.33 Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you in way of overplus But then by this account this grace of charity is most to be desired for this is it which throwes about here and there these temporal things this is it without which the poor cannot live Although the begging poor are not wont to have any virtue yet they live by a virtue in others and that is charity That which is not necessarily connexed with our happiness we refer to Gods infinite wisdom and so save our selves the care of it but that which no man can use ill as a principle that which God worketh in us and without us that which is it whereby we live well as he describeth virtue that we must desire and that if any other is charity And for our incouragement if we request spirituals we make an argument not to be denyed because they are such and such as do belong to Evangelical promises which like election are absolute yet not without means and therefore we must pray for them In things temporal we may lose our hope but in things spiritual we cannot if we do not lose our hold So then let us never give over prayer let us pray continually as the Apostle bids us not as if we ought never to leave off the act of prayer as some anciently conceived but never leave off the duty and continually in regard of seasons and need And therefore how often we should pray who can tell for who can tell how often we shall have occasion At evening and in the morning and at noon-day will I pray and make a noise

and he shall hear my voice Psal 55.17 In the beginning and in the middle and in the end of the day prayer hath its season for it is the beginning and progress and perfection of a Christian though not ultimately yet dispositively For this way he beginneth he continueth he is perfected in goodness because thus he attaineth what God dispenseth For prayer is directed to God as Thomas noted not as to change Gods purpose but to obtain what he hath by his Providence disposed for us In this good action were all good men conversant Surely in this some hypocrites are much but without it was never any which was real It is not therefore a trial of our goodness but a necessary condition It is not a distinctive property but a certain ingredient He that useth it may be bad as the Pharisees were who prayed long for a pretence and devoured widows houses but none that do not use it can be good How can we be children without prayer So it is more easie to discern the negative he is not good because he doth not pray then the affirmative he doth pray therefore he is good For the act may be done in hypocrisie and that is worst of all Indeed inward acts of duty or acts of inward duties are good arguments that we are good as if we love God fear God rejoyce in God hope in God but outward acts are not as such as outward because they may be done extrinsecally for the end God loveth Adverbs as he said because they respect the internal act of the performance and have relation properly to the form not the matter of the action Yet let not the hypocrite make thee an Atheist as if because he doth not pray but for secular ends therefore thou shouldst not pray at all Do that which he doth but do it not as he doth it Pray better and pray that he may pray better CHAP. IX HE that knoweth not how to pray let him go to Sea as it is said The Mariners with Jonah when they were in a storm cryed every one to his God if any could help them But we need not go to Sea for need of prayers we have so much necessity of them on the land We have rocks and sands and tumults and waves and Freebooters and storms without being at Sea But we had need go to Sea to have water enough to mourn Next to prayers therefore we speak for tears for indeed we should speak to God in prayer for tears Nay we should not speak for them without them that it might be seen what we speak for unless we should have so many tears as for them we could not speak Tears with prayers do excellently they make our prayers more fluent and our voice more liquid and more acceptable to heaven The very Heathen gave his good word of mourning men that they are good men God gave us tears only for sin saith the Father homiletically St. Chrysostom yet we may also with them lament the sad conditions of others Surely that which we should mainly spend these superfluities upon is the superfluity of naughtiness which is not to be understood distinctively of some sins but affirmatively of all but yet we may weep for the evil of punishment upon others Otherwise we are not so good as Hoggs which will bemoan the cryes of their fellows Even Christ wept passionately over Jerusalem upon this consideration He that was to shed bloud for them began first in tears He turned afterward this water into wine for them but he also did weep as for their sins so for their miseries David did mourn for the sins of others not exclusively to their sufferings had they been in them Psal 119.136 And Jeremy did mourn for the sufferings of the Jews not exclusively to their sins Jer. 9.1 And therefore we use the liberty or not the liberty but the duty of bewailing the stain of our people which have been cut off by the civil and cruel sword Take which side we will we are on an Isthmus betwixt two Seas of lamentations I hope no good body will interdict us water of sorrow for those who fell on either side as we take side very improperly for the right cause hath no sides but sides are declensions from the right way Sides have been in some mens way much but they are out of the High way Those who were by some false Prophets misled by plausible pretences unto an offence have more cause to be sorrowed for as having the advantage of piety that good intentions without malice should be abused without a cause And those that fell in a good cause deserve double affectionateness of mourning because they fell and the cause with them into disgrace for want of prosperity It is very strange to prove the cause after the victory and not to know what we fight for untill we have done And it will undo all the Diptycks to make virtue always fortunate Yet nothing is more deplorable then afflicted virtue unless it be triumphing wickedness which draws God into danger in the opinion of the World either of appoving evil or not approving good We understand nothing of heaven or earth if we think we cannot have a blessing derived to us from God unless it be lapped up in a temporal success But that the world should think so and those who would be accounted Gods eldest children this is if any other a lamentation Shall we conclude the way we go is good because we finde a bagge of gold in it And shall we conclude that the way is naught because we finde a cross in it This indeed was the case betwixt Job and his friends they would perswade him that he was wicked because he was forsaken as they thought of God Because he was persecuted of the Devil and his friends therefore also he must be persecuted of God too Alas they understood not nor Job neither well which was the negative cause of his trouble that there is a sort of afflictions which belong to trial and are as the sufferings of martyrdom neither punishments nor yet also properly chastisements Had they been chastisements the person morally had been safe but since they were trials the person was more glorious to have the honour of the combate laid upon him To say no more to this point as for them who measure the cause and their goodness by the event how ticklish a ground do they stand upon If they stand they tremble if they fall they perish by their own argument Some have been already ashamed of this argument and if things succeed not always to others what will they think and what shall we do then for them Will they give us leave then to mourn The prosperity of the wicked is sad to envy but indeed it is more sad to virtue because he hath it by sin and a curse which will soon make it a miserable bargain If they could tie God to them as the Heathens did their gods they might be