Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	child_n	lord_n	parent_n	6,861	5	8.9911	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A61300	The good masters plea, against the evill servants cavill Discovering the vanity of those men, who judge the service of God to be vaine. Delivered in certaine sermons upon Malachi, 3. 14. Being a taste of the labours of that reverend, faith full, and holy servant of God, Nicholas Stanton, M. of Arts; late preacher of the gospel of Christ, at the parish of Margarets in Ipswich, in Suffolk.	Stanton, Nicholas.	1650 (1650)	Wing S5251; ESTC R222417	42,730	188

have done some good to others but here no body hath been the better for me but for ought I know rather the worse It may be I have been a Ionah or an Achan amongst Gods people to provoke the Lord to displeasure and to cause him to withhold that mercy from that Assembly I joyned with which they might have had if J had been from amongst them but however I have deluded others and play'd the hypocrite seeming better then I am and fit to be amongst Gods people which I was not have hardened my heart and am to be sure never the better if not much the worse These and the like complaints are commonly made by the people of God as if his service were indeed altogether vaine To this I answer divers wayes Answ 1 That the service of God which a Soul does may be may be profitable to others though for the present or in his own apprehension little or nothing so to it selfe For the Acts or parts of Gods service are of divers kinds Some in which the Lord and master himself hath the chiefest hand he being especially the Agent and we patients as hearing the word receiving the sacrament and duties of that nature Other some againe there are in which man is more said to be an Agent then in the former As in prayer workes of charity taking up the crosse and the like Now its true for the first if a soul gets no good at them it selfe at the word at the sacrament and the rest of that kind That service is like to be in vaine altogether But for the latter it will not hold viz. in sufferings for Christ and the like though a man may seeme to have lost not his labour onely but much other wayes in his estate credit liberty and the like in so much that he may suffer the spoyling of all his goods and himselfe dye in the Gaole yet this service may not be in vaine For besides his own gaine in spirituall respects the Church of God may have more light and liberty hereby in after times Also of prayer and seeking the Lord the like may be said for as the Apostle saith 2 Cor. 12.14 that the parents lay up for the Children so doth one Christian for another For these duties are properly compar'd to sowing of seed and Christ saith one soweth Joh. 4.37 and another reapeth And I doubt not but many a christian and parent hath prayers hanging upon Gods file in heaven unanswered for their Children and the Church of God though made long agoe so that that may seeme to be labour lost that was taken that way But yet as Ahasuerus Ester 6.1 call'd for the Records after a certaine time and finding there such a piece of service done by Mordecai not yet rewarded he forthwith gave him wages for his work and bountifully rewarded him So the Lord in his due time will look over his files as I may so speak and finding the parents prayers made for the childe and the Christians prayers made for the Church of God hanging still unanswered he will undoubtedly return them an answer in a time accepted And because a parent or a christian does not receive an answer hereof presently or wages for his work in the service of the Lord or live to see others the better for it shall he therefore conclude It is a vaine service or the work a vaine work Simil. When a man hath beene at paines cost in tilling sowing of his ground though hee doth not live to the harvest to reape the crop himselfe yet wil he not account his labour lost because he can make his will of it and his heires executors and such as he doth intirely love shall be the better for it Even so it is here The Church may be the better others the better for thy labour And therefore this work and service is not to be accounted vaine Answer 2 Secondly I answer that the Lord doth not alwayes pay his servants wages for the work they doe him in ready mony as they use to say Simil. but many times by way of exchange giving of them something in liew yet alwayes for the best unto them Even as you pay your workmen when they have wrought with you and done you service you doe not pay them it may be in ready mony gold silver and the like but with such commodities as they stand in great need of which happily are scarce and rare and such as they could not buy with their money if they had had their wages paid them therein Now if these servants should goe away and exclaime on you and on your service that because you did not pay them in ready money as they expected they should therefore say that your service were a vaine service and that they had wrought with you for nothing and the like would you take this well at their hands Why yet thus dost thou deale by the Lord Thou attendest upon God in duties and ordinances in hearing praying and the like and thou dost him some service Now thou expectest to be paid down at the stub as it were in ready money That is to say thou lookest to grow in parts as in knowledge in quick apprehension and ability of expression in conference or prayer as others doe and because thou dost not so thou art ready to complaine that this service of God is vaine and that thou hast but lost thy labour therein Whereas it may be the Lord hath given thee something in stead of these which is better and daintier and which thou couldst not have purchased with these if thou hadst never so much of them For instance it may be he hath given thee a tender conscience and an humble heart instead of those other which thou didst expect Well if he hath thus paid thee I tell thee he hath done thee no wrong For these are things which thou couldst not have purchased with thy parts were they never so great and high Answ 3 Thirdly I answer that thou canst not conclude that the service of God is in vaine though thou thinkest thy selfe never the better or as yet beest never the better for the present unlesse also thou art able to conclude that thou never shalt be the better hereafter neither which I am sure thou canst not possibly doe Suppose thy prayers as yet be not answered art thou sure that they never shall be answered though thy corruptions be not yet subdued nor Satan as yet troden under foot how dost thou know that they never shall Nay how dost thou know but that this delay may bee fully satisfied for when the Lords time is fully come We find how Moses speaks to the people of the Lord in this manner Deut. 8.15 16. who led thee through that great and terrible wildernesse wherein were siery Serpents and Scorpions and drought where there was no water c. that hee might humble thee and that he might prove thee to doe

had the very best that they had knowing that the better any thing is that they offer to God the greater is the reward that God wil give to them for it For this wil make a soule free for God As David who knowing what a bountiful pay-master the Lord was would not offer him sacrifice 2 Sam. 24.24 of that which should cost him nothing Why just thus doe earnal hearts in doing the Lord service as these people did in offering him sacrifice they bring him the torn blind and lame Yea is there no help but I must doe duties heare pray repent give almes and the like wel then I l'e shift as as wel as I can if I must heare I 'le hear at my leisure when I have little else to doe If I must give it shal be of that which I got by usury bribery or the like If I must pray in my family it shal be the last thing I doe immediately before I goe to bed being half asleep and halfe awake If I must repent I wil doe it when I am ready to dye and goe out of the world when I feel the house crack and it be ready to tumble downe about my eares then wil I seeke out for another habitation and so for other duties This is the practice of carnal hearts thus to turn the Lord off with the worst which is a cleare evidence against them that they Judge his service to be but vaine service Thirdly this truth may be evidenced by their wearinesse in their serving the Lord though in a slighty and formal manner as this people in that place before named are charged with this very thing Malac. 1.13 yee have said what a wearinesse is it and yee have snuffed at it c. And thus are carnal hearts soonest weary though in some regard they have by far the least cause Of all men one would thinke that these people should not be weary of serving the Lord that are at so little paines and cost and so formal therein It might rather be thought that the people of God which doe so put out themselves and spend their spirits in the service of the Lord that they should rather be weary then such as are slighty and formal therein turning the Lord off with lip-labour and bodily exercise And it is true indeed if wearinesse in the service of God did arise from the expence of Spirits then the godly should be sooner weary then those that are carnall but indeed this is not the cause of it but rather a dislike of the service it selfe from an indisposition in the heart being carnal to a duty or service that is of a spirituall nature hence it is that the people of God who love the service of God after such time as they have been much with God in the duties of his service and have both wearyed their bodies and wasted their strength and spirits yet delighting in the Law and Service of God after the innerman are not yet weary of the duty or service it selfe but wish that they had fresh strength and Spirits For it is one thing to be weary in the service of God and another thing to be weary of the service of God The first may befall a gratious heart or child of God but the latter is the property of those that are onely carnall And againe there is much difference betweene that wearisomnesse that ariseth from inabilities to hold out any longer in the duty or service and that which springeth from a dislike of the duty or service it selfe both in the affections from that contrariety that is in the heart being carnal to the duty or service as spiritual as also in the judgement from secret feares and thoughts of losing its labour and so being in vaine The earnal heart is weary of the service of God in this last manner as wel as in the first and that upon this last ground also whereby the truth in hand is evidenced Fourthly it is clearly evidenced that they think the service of God in vaine By those base and hard thoughts which they secretly harbour of such as serve God more and better then themselves this is a thing very commonly found in carnal hearts and who wil serve God a little to be bitter in censuring of them that serve him much those that keep their times and go their pace and are of their Last and straine they can like wel enough But such as exceed them they suspect for too much nicenesse what wil not common Prayers please them but they must have conceived Prayer wil not praying with others and in the family suffice but they must Pray alone and in their closets wil not one Sermon a day content them but they must hear all day long and are not Sermons on the Sunday sufficient but they must run to Sermons and Lectures in the week too c. Thus condemning the generation of the righteous and such as are better then themselves These thoughts and speeches proceed from carnal hearts which conceive in themselves that the service of God is altogether in vaine for if they did really beleeve that it were good and profitable to serve God a little then it would follow even by the rule of common reason that it is much better to serve him more and so still the more the better Take a man which beleeveth that such a worke or Trade is gainefull and profitable though he himselfe cannot work or earne that way by reason of age or infirmities yet wil not hee condemne those that can and doe but wil blesse them and their condition wishing that he were in the same himself Alas saith he I am grown old my sight and strength decayes that my work is gone I can make no earnings but lose my time c. Oh but such or such they are happy for they can work and earne I am glad that others can though J cannot but I would I could work for I know it is profitable worke and wil bring in great advantage to him that labours in it whereas another it may be slights that work and trade and condemnes them of folly that follow it most and all out of ignorance and that because they thinke it to be but labour in vaine Thus it is concerning the service of the Lord and the trade of godlinesse those that are truly godly wil rejoyce that others serve God and can do it better then themselves I am a poore ignorant creature a dwarfe and a nurling and grow very slowly but I am glad to see others grow my Spirit is straitned and bound up but others are large hearted for God and God lets out himselfe to others though he be a stranger to my Soule I am hard hearted and cannot mourn for my own or others sins and for the afflictions of Gods Church and people which I ought to doe but cannot Oh but such or such they can doe these things wel blessed be God I am glad that any