Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	ceremonial_a	law_n	moral_a	2,252	5	9.4056	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29932	Dwelling with God, the interest and duty of believers in opposition to the complemental, heartless, and reserved religion of the hypocrite / opened in eight sermons by John Bryan ...	Bryan, John, d. 1676.; Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1670 (1670)	Wing B5243; ESTC R31994	149,472	465

Persons as prophane and upon that strict profession of walking precisely according to the Rule of the written Word which they think gives you no Warrant for your seperation from their Society in the service of God and my humble and earnest request to you is to lay aside your prejudice and examine by that good Word whether your separation be not sinful I shall presume you will freely grant both that it 's necessary to Salvation that a Man be a member of the true Visible Church because in the Word you finde the profession of the true Religion yea the very hope of Salvation and joyning to the true Chruch going together and that so long as God continueth the Doctrine of Salvation to a People and his Solemn Worship so long he dwells among that People and Salvation may be had there and that no utter separation may be made from those Assemblies where God dwelleth and where Men may be assured to finde Salvation though there may be many great corruptions both in Doctrine and Worship in those Assemblies There were so in the Church of the Jewes in Christ's time the Priests and Teachers were ignorant and wicked and had a corrupt and unlawful entrance into their Calling and the People were like to the Priest generally notoriously and obstinately ungodly and the Worship used in that Church was wofully corrupt many superstitious Ceremonies the Observation whereof were more strictly urged than the Commandments and Ordinances of God the Temples made a Den of Thieves the Discipline and censures shamefully abused the Doctrine was corrupt in many points and the great Sacrament of the Passover ill timed yet the Word tells you Christ whose example it binds you to follow and you profess your selves followers of him in all imitable things made no separation from this Church professed himself a Member of it was by Circumcision incorporated a Member of it received Baptisme in a Congregation of that People was a hearer of their common-service and their Teachers allowing and commanding his Disciples to hear them communicated in the Pass-over with the People and the Priest no more did his Apostles make separation from this Church after his Ascention till their Day had its period Peter and John went to their publick Prayer in their Temple So Paul and Barnabas in their Synagogue By their example it appeares that till God hath forsaken the Church no Man may forsake it and that it is no sufficient warrant to separate from a Church because it is guilty of such sins and corruptions as deserves God should forsake it and for which he hath threatned in his Word that he will forsake it till it appear that God hath put in Execution that which he justly threatned we ought to acknowledge and receive it as his House and not to refuse to dwell with him in it For shall Man be holier than God and hate corruption more than he And yet we may not communicate with it by consenting to any corruptions that are or shall be detected or proved to be in it wherein we have our Saviour's example to guide us All this I take for granted that you will surely grant because many Books largely asserting all this have been many Years in the hands of those who have led away many to separation a syllable whereof they have not gain said and they are in yours nor have I heard a word of your dissenting But this I hear you say that you question the constitution of the Church of England and that you cannot joyn with their Congregations in Divine Worship because they stand under an Antichristian Government and the worship in them is a devised worship Touching the constitution of the Church of England I have no more but this to commend to your consideration namely the answer that was long since given to the Brownists to which I never saw reply given Their Objection was this that the People of England were never rightly called for in the beginning of the Queen's Reign they were by her command and Proclamation compelled to embrace the Protestant Religion and to conform to God's worship whereas in the New Testament we have no Example of People compelled to the Service of God christ commanding Fishermen to convert souls by preaching not Princes to make Disciples by compulsion Therefore the church of Christ had no right constitution The Answer to the separation of old is this that if we speak of a Church first planted the people of such a Nation are first called by the word before they come to be a Church but it is not so of a Countrey where for a long time true Religion hath been professed which is our case And as to that part of the Object that there is no such example in the New Testament 1. The Magistrates were then Enemies to the Christian Religion 2. It sufficeth that we have examples in the Old Testament 2 Kings 23. 21. 2 Chr. 15. 13. 33. 16. 34. 33. Nor have Christian Princes less power in their Dominion to abolish Idolatry and by Law and penalties to compel their Subjects where there is a parity of reason 3. We finde that private Governours in the New-Testament have required and brought in their Families to embrace and profess the Christian Faith Joh. 4. 53. Acts 10. 21. 16. 34. 18. 8. 1 Cor. 1. 16. But that these did any more than teach and command them to learn consent and profess some question if they did so much And so much they did may and ought to do Gen. 8. 9. And whether a Christian Magistrate may do more For though it 's out of all doubt that not only all external duties of the Second Table but also all such of the First Table of the Moral Law are directly and properly of political cognizance yet they doubt much whether any Evangelical Ceremonies or Formes of Worship which relate to Christ be so because they are supernatural and Conscience is the only Rule whereby the Merit of those Duties is to be Judged which must be satisfied before any Papal Injunction can be imposed or obedience can be safely yielded and therefore they would have the ranged not among the essential but among the contingentials of Political Government But they earnestly deny that any internal duties and matters of Faith and Evangelical Doctrine fall within the spheer of that cognizance either directly or indirectly because no humane power extends to acts of the Soul and it is the duty of the Minister and not of the Magistrate to reform even in such matters and yet the Magistrate may and ought to exercise his power for restraining and punishing the fruits and effects of such Errours when the peace of the Common-wealth comes to be disturbed thereby but he has no warrant to punish the misbelief or incredulity concerning Articles of Chirstian Faith no nor Idolatrous Formes of Worship unless they proceed from the errour or obliquity of their Subjects

please as shape a Coat for the Moon So also the necessity of the obedience of Mankind to the Moral Law 'T is as inseparable as it s very being it being impossible to receive a being and not with it a bond of obligation Men when they sin spurn not only against Moses but against very Nature He that owns the ground owns the Fruit also We are not our own in any of our actions And how easie a way Men have to choak temptations to Atheisme Let them take leave to deny Moses and trample him under-foot yet in their Souls they finde written in very legible Letters every Commandment of this Law 't was born with them and suckt from Natures own instruction Why then should they suspect the Law of Moses and think it a trick foysted upon them to deprive them of their pleasures Nature bearing witness that Moses is no Deceiver Finally How inexcusable Men are that live in such an Age wherein they have both these Laws One to confirm the other Two witnesses if both accuse us at the last Day how shall we escape condemnation Manifold are the uses this written Law of God doth serve unto Some common to the Elect and Reprobate Viz. to shew the excellency of Man's Nature before the Fall when he had power perfectly to keep it and the excellency of that supernatural condition in the life to come when there shall be the same yea a more glorious power and the corruption of our present condition how short we come of due perfection and the Lord 's right notwithstanding to require perfect obedience of us and to punish us for default in the least point It serves also to illustrate the Law of Nature obtenebrated by the Fall the Law of incorrupted Nature being the same in substance with the Decalogue also to discover and convince all Men of sin and their obnoxiousness to eternal Death to be a Bridle to restrain them from gross sins and finally Men are taught thereby what a one God is and how he ought to be worshipped either proper and peculiar to the Elect it serves as a guide to point thèm to Christ the Mediator and to kindle a desire in them to seek eternal righteousness and salvation by him and when they are in Christ to be a Rule of Thankfulness for the Redemption purchased by him Every Man should be thankful in the best manner he can for a benefit received What better Rule can a Christian have than that which God hath made He hath shewed thee O Man what is good and what doth the Lord require of thee but to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with the Lord thy God Micah 6. 8. Tit. 2. 11 12. Qu. Why have you dwelt so long upon this point Answ To work in you whose dwelling the Lord is a detestation of the Antinomian Errours Many have cut off some uses of the moral Law or falsly glossed upon it but few would ever wholly abrogate it but this unhappy Sect. Like Nero who wished Rome had but one Neck that he might cut it off at one blow So these would deal with this Law of Moses It follows not the Gospel is come in therefore the Law must go out Hagar so long as she is obedient may dwell in Abraham's House To make it clear to you that the decalogue pertains to Christians consider 1. That it is confirmed by Christ 2. Commanded to Christians by the Apostle 3. Established by the Gospel how it teacheth Christ to be the end of the Law and that Justification cannot be had without that perfect righteousness which the Law requires or satisfaction for unrighteousness and that Men ought to study and endeavour it and that the observation of it is a testimony of our communion with God that he dwelleth in us and we in him as you heard in a former discourse Obj. Christians are not justified by the Law neither do they receive the promise by it therefore it pertains not at all to them Ans The consequence is false unless they could prove there were no other necessary uses of the Law but we have shewed many and there 's a number more Obj. 2d If believers are not under the Law but under Grace to them the Law doth not pertain but the former is true Ergo the latter Ans 'T is a fallacy termed from ambiguous or that which may be taken more wayes than one Not to be under the Law is not to be freed from it as a rule of life for we are inclined and disposed by God's free Spirit to the willing obedience of it but to be delivered from the burden of the Law exacting in our own Persons perfect obedience as necessary to life and from the malediction of it due to disobedience these we are freed from by Christ To be under grace is to be justified and regenerate Obj. Christians are mortified and dead to the Law Ans The same fallacy and the same solution Believers are moreover freed from that irratation to sin which is effected in unregenerate Men by the Law Obj. 4th But now we are delivered from the Law that being dead wherein we were held Ans The same again and the Apostle opens his meaning in the words that follow declaring our manumission from the servitude of the Law from its rigorous exaction and curse and that we have a spirit of ingenuity to obey willingly Obj. 5. Gospel-Ministers are Ministers of the Spirit not of the Letter Ans The meaning is no more but this that their Ministry is more efficacious than the Ministry of the Old Testament Obj. 6. If the Law pertain to Christians then they are under the curse of it but the latter is false Ergo the former Answ The meaning of those words of the Apostle upon which the consequence of the Connexion is grounded is plainly this that they that think Righteousness to come by the works of the Law and promise themselves Eternal life thereby are under the curse of it Obj. Christians are no longer under a School-Master Ans 1. The place is impertinent for it speaks of the Ceremonial Law mainly if not only 2. If at all of the moral the consequence is denyed for though they be not under a School-Master as the faithful under the Old Testament were yet it follows not that obligation to obedience is taken away Obj. 8. Christians are redeemed from the Laws subjection Ans Not simply as if they owed no more obedience but so far forth that they are not bound to a perfect fulfilling of it but that unfeigned assent and consent shall be accepted Obj. 9. Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free Ans From the Ceremonial Law Obj. 10. Against Spiritual Men there is no Law Ans To hold their Consciences under guilt yet they must be taught their duty by this holy and just and good Law Obj. 11. The Law is not made for a righteous Man Ans The meaning is