Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	christian_n	day_n	sabbath_n	1,144	5	9.3710	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A96264	A sermon touching the divine right and due observation of the Lords day Preached before the Lord Deputy, and the Lords Spiritual & Temporal of the kingdom of Ireland; in time of Parliament. At Christ-Church Dublin. On Sunday the 6th. of October, 1695. With a preface humbly address'd to the whole body of English Protestants: especially those inhabiting the kingdom of Ireland. By Edward Lord Bishop of Cork and Ross.	Wettenhall, Edward, 1636-1713.	1697 (1697)	Wing W1520A; ESTC R229732	26,838	68

best part of my books having been strangers to my Eyes now above seven years for which reason I have forborn to cite parricularly most of the Authorities I have alledged as I pass along But if need be I promise sacredly particular citations in a new Edition when God shall restore my books to me I alledge what I do now mostly out of Excerpta taken many years ago by my self but not with connexions and references so particular as I can fully trust to But to Return That which makes many persons of sound and good Judgment shy of this name Sabbath under Christianity is I conceive for that they who use it most seem under this style to endeavour the introducing a Judaical Yoke and entiteling the Lords day to all the Sabbatical strictnesses or severities of the bodily Rest imposed on the old people by the letter of the fourth Commandment and the Precepts appendant to it in the Law As to Duration of time they would oblige all Christian people to a Natural day of twenty four hours from Even to Even or from twelve of the Clock Midnight to twelve of the Clock Midnight in all which space they would bear us in hand nothing is to be done which was not lawful for the Jews to have done on their Sabbath Nay indeed as to the strictness of the Rest diverse Liberties allowed because not forbidden the Jews are by these teachers upon the pretence of a Sabbath Spiritual as well as Corporal said to be forbidden Christian people even by the letter of the fourth Commandment And thus intolerable burthens and inextricable snares the particulars of which would require a volume to set down are prepared for us As to all which I conceive if People would duely heed no more need to be said for the disentangling Conscience from the scruples these men have injected than that truely Apostolical Canon Acts xv It seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us to lay no greater burden upon you than these necessary things That ye abstain from meats offered to Idols and from bloud and from things strangled and from fornication Amongst which necessary things there is no Syllable importing any of the Sabbatical Rites Nor can it be said the Reason of such silence was the sense the world had of the immutable Obligation of the fourth Command for the Obligation of the sixth and seventh Commandments must be acknowledged as immutable yet is there mention here of Fornication and of Blood in the very Conciliary Decree I do conclude therefore as well from hence as from Colloss ii urged in the discourse that all the Ceremonial part of the fourth Command with the appendant Laws are truely ceased nailed to the Cross of Christ and by it taken away which is amply sufficient for the setting Conscience at liberty But I must together conclude that the Natural and Spiritual part of that Commandment are no whit at all infringed The natural part was and is nothing but immutable and Eternal Equity That God should have a due proportion of our time And that not so much privately by secret Devotion of our own though that be necessary also as by a publick separating it or cutting it off from Common Employments to publick sacred Offices Thus much of a Sabbath I insist on to be perpetually and naturally Moral from Paradise in Eden to Paradise in a better World And as to the Spiritual part of the Command that certainly is so far from being abated by the Gospel-Oeconomy that it is rather set higher There is none deny the Christian is bound to the Spiritual Rest onely some tell us and that not without Reason that this is our Duty for our whole life and not for one day in the week onely I embrace with all my heart this Doctrine of Christian peoples being obliged to endeavour their whole life may be a Spiritual Sabbath a Rest from Sin Carnality Voluptuousness c. And I onely desire we may hold to it Let all those therefore who hold this Doctrine pardon me if I adventure according to their Concessions Minus aequo petere ut aequum feram to intreat them and all Christian People but to keep the Lords day as such a Spiritual Rest In plain terms I would desire no more towards the keeping Holy the Lords day than that the Christians of the present Age would in private keep the Lords day as perfectly a Spiritual Sabbath as the Primitive Christians did every day in the week onely with this Addition That what publick Offices the Primitive Christians observed constantly on each Lords day may also be observed thereon by us at present and what Liberties they forbore always may be forborn on this day The point of controversy falls mainly on private or family-Family-duties These some men cannot endure that all Christian People should be obliged to And for the shifting off the necessity of these and setting the ordinary people free to Games and Sports on the Lords Day-afternoon diverse Laborious and some truely not unlearned Books have been written Wherein I must confess I cannot but wonder to see Protestant Doctors hunt for and greedily snap those Nice distinctions in use with the Popish Schools for the defence of the corruptions of their Church and gravely apply them for the decision of Cases of Conscience against their Protestant Brethren I will 〈◊〉 lanch forth into particulars of Controversy but instead thereof pursuant to what I now desired onely lay down two conclusions which I suppose must approve themselves by their own intrinsick Evidence without Controversy to the conscience of all who understand and will consider them 1. None who call themselves Christians may in this Age make such Liberties Sports Games and Recreations as it cannot be proved the Primitive Christians allowed themselves on any days to be their ordinary divertisments on the Lords Day And if so I am sure Cards Dice Tables c. within doors Dancing Pipeing Revells c. without doors must all be laid aside For none can shew the Antient Christians used these any daies On the contrary many Canons of the antient Councils severelly condemn them at all times especially to some Persons And if there should be any of our Clergy who plead for those within-door Games mentioned they will do well to consult the XLII Irish Canon and the Old Injunctions in the Reformation of King Edward and Queen Elizabeth whence most probably the Compilers of our Canons more immediatly took those parts of them and whence I hope they may be satisfied But to proceed I say 2dly In all doubtful cases it is still the best to take the safer side and that which in it self cannot be sinful but is Pious and commendable Now certainly upon the Lords day preparing our selves for our publick Devotions by private Prayer Examination of Conscience and composing our minds to a serious temper and awful apprehensions of God whom we are to worship before we go to Church Recollections in convenient time when we

are returned Examining and Instructing our Children and Servants causing them to attend Reading and Family-prayers and Psalms for some reasonable time and restraining them all the day long from many Liberties usual on common dayes all these can have of themselves no sin in them but are pious and commendable and will turn to our own and our Families account one day if not at present Herein let the forced Concessions of some of the keenest disputants in behalf of Sunday Sports be heard 1. Whatever may hinder either the worship of God it self or our profiting therein should be forborn and avoided For all such things whatsoever Ironsides 7 Questions Cap. 24. p. 224. p. 269. as keep us from or hinder us in the Publik Worship are altogether unlawful on the Lords Day 2. It is not unlawful to observe the Lords Day with as great strictness as the Jews did the Sabbath provided we have no opinion that such rest is of necessity to be observed under pain of sin putting Religion therein p. 227. And that we censure not others who use their liberty nor out of a superstitious fear decline the doing any work of Necessity or Charity the benefit whereof would be utterly lost were the present opportunity neglected 3. Those who can and will spend the vacant time of the Lords Day in the private Exercises of piety ought not to be discountenanced or disheartened but encouraged rather p. 268. In a word let all follow thus what their own consciences when they are serious cannot what the very learned defenders of such Liberties as they are fond of when they consulted their own consciences could not but confess and there is little question but the whole Lords Day will be generally spent as in this discourse is pressed It may be observed I have not pressed such severities as exclude due refreshments and keeping the spirits in vigour and cheerfulness Nor do I suppose those expressions giving the whole day to God and the like which I have produced out of holy mens writings use to be taken in such a rigorous sense that the private and publick duties having been conscientiously performed and secured any should conclude it unlawful for people to walk abroad awhile in fresh air and Contemplate the works of God and enjoy themselves in beholding and moderately using them No nor for them sitting at home to let drop at their Meals or otherwise out of the times of their Devotions something of innocent cheerful discourse or as occasion offers to speak touching matters of concernment to them or of the common Occurrents in Human affairs though the less of this the better In a word That which I insist on as required is that All this day Christians take care not to disorder their hearts for the worship of God but that after their several refreshments they may return again with composed minds to the thoughts of God and Heaven and their duties and in the Evening sweetly commit their Souls and Bodys their family and substance to the Divine protection reposing themselves comfortably in Gods favour and in the good hopes of his acceptance in Christ Jesus If thus the day be spent it is as much given to God as our present condition will suffer us But will some say if this be all you contend for who denies the Divine obligation of the Lords Day or its observation thus stated I answer many have done and still do deny it Onely it comes to pass in this particular case what does more generally when men write in defence of such Doctrines which their Interest rather than their Conscience approves that by their own concessions in conscience they sometimes contradict what they have said for Interest And hence it is that we may easily pick out of our very Adversaries writings sundry memorable passages which favour us and so sometimes they deny what we contend for and sometimes they grant it In the mean time what is the effect which these Learned mens denying flatly and directly sometimes in their writings sometimes in ordinary discourse and it were to be wished they did it not in their most sacred discourses too what I say is the effect which their denying the morality of the fourth command has in the World Truely nothing but the growth of Licentiousness and Irreligion I know they pretend onely to Innocent Liberty and easing peoples Consciences of endless Scruples But is not Conscience easy enough by asserting such a Morality and Observation of a Christian Sabbath as above They would be understood to deny meerly such a Natural Morality of the letter of the fourth Command as there is in the first Thou shalt have no other Gods but me That is thou shall worship the Lord thy God and him alone shalt thou serve The Justness and Obligation whereof the very light of Nature or reflecting upon the very Terms doth dictate to us They would be content they 'l say to allow unto the fourth Command a kind of Equitahle morality and own the command too in some regard as positively Moral Nor do I deny but that when they thus speak they speak what if strictly taken and well understood is reason and as farr forth as there is reason and truth in it I have owned it But the People in the mean time understand not the Nice and distinct degrees of Morality And when they read or here learned men deny the Morality of the fourth Commandment they take all at Random and think themselves at liberty They say with themselves If indeed we keep the Lords Day t is true we do well but if we see fit to travel or if we take our pleasure or bodily ease all that day we sin not For the fourth command is not moral And the Lords Day is onely a Church Holy day All dayes under the Gospel are equal as our most learned Doctors teach us Now is it not evident that by these Terms such learned men have betrayed poor plain people into Licentiousness Prophaness and Irreligion And were it not better to be more cautious and allow all the Decalogue to be moral as indeed it is in one degree or other though one command or one duty may sometimes give place to another as Sacrifice to Mercy and onely to teach that the fourth command had one sense to the Jews and another to us Christians as had the Preface to all the commands Thy God that brought thee out of the Land c and divers passages in other Commands And finally to press the Evangelical sense of all which none question to be moral enough were not this I say much better than by our Learning and exactness by terms unknown to Scripture and distinctions not understood by common people to become Authors of their sins I leave this to the conscience and consideration of all prudent and serious Christians and pass on to another point in the following discourse which some haply may censure Amongst the constant publick Duties of the Lords day I