Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	bind_v	law_n	obligation_n	1,168	5	9.4651	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67688	Religious loyalty, or, Old allegiance to the new king a sermon, preached on the eighth of February 1684 ... / by Erasmus Warren ...	Warren, Erasmus.	1685 (1685)	Wing W968; ESTC R15670	26,631	34

NOBLES or WHITE ONES Eccles 10.17 So that what may we not with humble Confidence look for that it is fit a good Prince should do for his Subjects For those Subjects of His who as they think and own that they are bound in Conscience to serve Him with their lives so I trust will always be ready at His first command faithfully to perform what they heartily profess You therefore that hear me this day as you tender your RELIGION be not defective in this piece of LOYALTY which is a part thereof TRUST your KING and trust Him BOLDLY as it becomes ingenuous and honest Subjects Banish all unreasonable Doubts down with all Ill-natur'd Fears cast off all unbecoming Jealousies and let no vainly diffident surmises boil up in your hearts or sloat in your minds Our RELIGION and our LAWS our LIBERTIES and our PROPERTIES are things most Dear and Pretious to us Believe therefore that he will take due care of them that he will graciously patronize and protect them It was the Greek Orator's saying of the KING of Macedon 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Demost Olynth 2. I should verily think Philip to be formidable and wonderful if so be I could see he grew great by just proceedings Question not but we have a KING who will keep and encrease his Grandeur by his Justice and that at such a Rate as to become a meet Object both of Dread and Admiration I will venture to speak but one word more Never fear but he will answer or come up to that most true Character or Definition of a KING which the learned Father has rightly drawn up 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Clem. 〈◊〉 St●om Lib. 1. HE is A KING WHO RULES ACCORDING TO LAWS So none shall have cause Just cause to complain either of the Weight or Crookedness of his Scepter Lastly If we would fear the KING aright we must obey him readily Kings and Rulers are said in Scripture to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Powers and as they have power to command and make Laws so we that are under them must execute and fulfill them with all humble and faithful readiness and obsequiousness And here to smooth our way to this important Work I shall endeavour to remove one grand Impediment or considerable Stumbling-block which Prejudice or Mistake is apt to throw before many I mean a conceit that Submission to the penalties of good Laws is Equivalent to Obedience So have I heard some stifly argue and I have seen their practice correspond to their reasonings For they have made light of violating most wholesom Laws upon this presumption that they could salve the violations they wilfully ran upon by undergoing such punishments as those Laws inflicted which in their Opinion would be tantamount to punctual observing them But this is a weak and groundless imagination and a fansie most wild and monstrously nonsensical To hold th●t suffering Penalties is a proper Supplement of totally absent or deficient Obedience is as much as to assert that cutting down Trees or stubbing them up for Barrenness is the same thing with their Fruitfulness There is no such miraculous virtue in these sufferings as to rectifie Obliquities into Obedience or to work so strange a transmutation in them as to render them like it or equipollent to it Let none therefore venture to infringe Penal Laws upon this vain persuasion that the smart they shall endure be it either in corporal or pecuniary Penalties may be surrogated into the place of real Obedience and by an adequate vicariousness so exactly fill up the room thereof as to be in any measure as good as that It cannot be so for these gross absurdities which thereupon would ensue First It would change the use and utterly invert the Influence of Penalties They are applied as Sanctions to establish those Laws whereunto they are annexed And not only so but to inforce the direct observance of them But were suffering of Penalties equal to Obedience they would not only fail of this use or end but produce an effect clean contrary to it For then instead of ratifying and inforcing the respective Laws to which they are appendent they would justifie Delinquents in their most malitious contempts and violations of the same For let them break these Laws as heinously as they please it is but their undergoing the appointed punishments and then 't is all one as if they had never broke them as if they had faithfully kept them And so Penalties which are intended for the defence and conservation of Laws and Government would effectually work the subversion of both by making way for disorders inconsistent with either Secondly Suffering of Penalties cannot possibly be equivalent to Obedience because it doth not answer the Obligation of the Law and is by no means fully commensurate thereunto Even slight Consideration will make any Man sensible that penal Laws have a double force or virtue in them The one preceptive or directive which binds to Duty The other punitive and inflictive which ties to Penance in case the Duty imposed be wilfully neglected Whence it is evident that they who suffer by such Laws cannot reckon their sufferings equivalent to obeying them Inasmuch as their sufferings imply such a failure as leaves the best part of these Laws unsatisfied and eluded For therefore do they fall under their punitive because they slighted their preceptive force Which we must own to be far the best as containing the noblest Obligation an Obligation to duty To which if they had come up or regularly conformed they could never have been attaqued by the punitive strength or power thereof And that Penal Laws do primarily and chiefly oblige to Obedience which I justly call their noblest obligation and so that Penalties affixed to them do onely inforce the Obligation is clear from hence in that the same Laws were they made to be not penal but purely imperative would still bind the Conscience as firmly as ever Thirdly Suffering of Penalties cannot be ranked with performing Obedience because it answers not the scope and fulfils not the design of the Law The intent of the Law is to make Men Cives bonos good Subjects But good Subjects we cannot be unless we obey those good Laws under which we live But then who can think they are obedient who break wholsom Laws and are punished for it Much less who can think this is real Obedience or equivalent to it Lastly Suffering Penalties can hold no just proportion with Obedience or be in any measure like it or comparable to it because it does not excuse before GOD. A Law is a Law because it is Obligatory And therefore it is called Lex say some à ligando from binding But the reason why Laws do bind is because they are made and promulgated by rightful Ligislators who have curam communitatis the charge of the People over whom they preside at least in the work of Legislation But whoever are placed in this capacity of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉