Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	church_n	communicate_v	communion_n	1,771	5	9.7997	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66000	A sermon preached before the Right Honourable the lord mayor, and the Court of Aldermen, at the Guild-Hall Chappel on November the 23d. 1684 by Thomas Wagstaffe ...	Wagstaffe, Thomas, 1645-1712.	1685 (1685)	Wing W213; ESTC R34696	16,892	34

do not know what they say they take their own unreasonable Frets and Discontents for Offence which notwithstanding in the Gospel-Sense is quite contrary 2. If the Matter of Offence be in things indifferent in their Nature where our Liberty is already determined we cannot forhare them tho our weak Brother should thereby be offended And this is our Case the things in Controversie we believe to be of an indifferent Nature and such as are in our Superiours Power to impose and when lawful Authority hath interposed we are no longer free and the things which are indifferent in their Nature are not now indifferent in their use we are under the binding Power of the Law and are obliged to observe them by Virtue of those Injunctions which command us to submit our selves to the Powers set over us And now in this Case what would they have us to do would they have us despise Authority and break thro the Laws this perhaps might please and satisfie them but sure they do not expect we should wound our own Consciences to heal theirs that we should Sin our selves to prevent Sin in them For if they do not we do believe we are bound in Conscience to obey our Governours in all things Lawful the things that occasion'd the Scandals the Apostle speaks of were as yet left undetermin'd and they might as well omit as use them But 't is not so with us we are tyed up by Laws and therefore if our Brethren should be offended we may be sorry but we cannot help it We may wish they were more Judicious and Understanding than to be scandaliz'd at Innocent Rites and we may take all the Care we can to inform them better but we must not therefore forbear them and disobey our Rulers we may have all Tenderness and Charity for them But Charity begins at home we cannot out of Love to them ruin our selves and neglect our Duty and make other Mens mistakes the Rule of our Consciences And this is the third Thing 4. I shall indeavour to make out that tho they are not offended by us yet they are really offended by the Leaders of the Separation And this will retort the Argument upon themselves For this purpose I shall need only to remind you That the formal Nature of Scandal is such a Behaviour of ours as whereby our Brother is lead into Sin And to make this good against the Heads of the Separation I shall premise and take for granted these three Things First That Obedience to Governours in all Lawful Things is a Duty 2. That Separation from a Lawful Communion from a Church whereof we are National Members and wherein we may Communicate without Sin is a Sin 3. That the Church of England is such a Church These three which might easily be made out but would take up too much time for the present Discourse and which I must now therefore take for granted But they being granted it will follow that those Persons who entice them from their Obedience and who lead them into Schism are the persons that really offend them i.e. these are the Men that Occasion them to Sin Those therefore that lead them into Conventicles and teach them to despise Dominion and speak evil of Dignities those that make them believe two or three Ceremonies are as heavy as the Mosaical Yoke that by calling hard Names as Antichrist and Baal's Priests fright and scare poor Poeple from our Communion these are they that offend them that is who make them Sin and pervert them from their Duty Where therefore they learn to be proud and untractable to be Factious and Schismatical to be Seditious and Ungovernable there it is they must lay their Offence And if it be seriously enquired into whence it is that these Men have taken such an ill and Unrighteous Opinion concerning us and the things we use as to believe the Communicating with us will pollute and defile them this cannot be in the things themselves and 't is some what odd that Men should believe the Church of England is Popishly given which notwithstanding is and any man may know it that will the chiefest support of Protestanism and the greatest Bulwark against Popery in the World 't is strange that Men in their wits should think that whining and sighing that undigested thoughts and crude not to say nonsensical Expressions should be the Spirit of Prayer and more fit to express the Necessities of a Congregation than these that have been deliberately pen'd by the most Judicious and Godly in a Nation I say whence is it that Men take up such Unrighteous Estimates there is not one of a thousand of them that ever examined the truth of things or have any thing to say besides some scurrilous Expressions they take them upon trust and swallow down every thing their Leaders dictate and so they become offended and seperate from us and fly from our Communion And so long as they are made to believe that when we kneel at the receiving the Communion we are Idolaters that the Cross in Baptism is making new Sacraments that when they Communicate with us they shall joyn themselves to a Company of Jews Heathens or Papists these Men indeed are offended but wo be to them by whom such Offences come who raise up Bug-bears and scare-Crows and drive Christian People from what they are bound in Conscience to do these therefore that make them divide and separate that are always railing at an Innocent Church that feed their prejudices and what their Discontents that insinuate into the injudicious unstable and unsettled these how much soever they may humour and please them Are in truth the Persons that offend them that is that withdraw them from their Duty and Occasion them to Sin For 5. The Church of England hath upon no account given Occasion of Offence to any she hath not done any thing that may Discourage any Honest Man in the way of his Salvation But hath used all means to set up the Kingdom of Christ and to promote the Interest of Souls Her Doctrines are the same with the Gospel and the Faith which was once delivered to the Saints she hath preserved pure and deliver'd uncorrupted to her Children And those who are offended at these would likewise be offended at Christ if he was alive But this I shall not now need to insist upon it being not denyed by any except the wildest sort of Separatists But doth she not give Milk with one Breast and Poyson with the other tho' her Doctrines be pure yet the Liturgy and Ceremonies she imposes may pollute and defile our Consciences And this might be something if our Ceremonies were Numerous and Cumbersome if they were a Clog and Impediment to Piety and Devotion if they were invented and set up by our Church and not used by the best Christians in Ancient Times But if they are for their number few for their Nature fit and apt to promote Religion and God's Worship If

enter into Men's Consciences to their own Judge they stand or fall But the ground of this inquiry is this They are always quarrelling at our Ceremonies always angry at and displeas'd with them and nothing we can do can perswade them to an approbation of them Now this which they take to be their offence is an undenyable Argument against it and so long as they continue in that mind they are not only not offended but it is impossible they should be so For suppose there was that real evil in them which they either do or make us believe they think there is the imposing them by the Church or the using them our selves what inconvenience soever they may bring to us can never hazard them who run from them as far as they are able Let our Ceremonies be as Anti-Christian and Idolatrous as they would have them what harm is that to those who will not so much as touch them with one of their Fingers Had these People too great an opinion of Ceremonies were they apt to worship and adore them and should our just and decent use of them bring them to this they would indeed be offended tho we had not given the occasion But now to scorn and hate them to vilifie and reproach them and all that use them and yet cry out they are offended at them is a contradiction In the Case of Meat offer'd to Idols the Strong are forbidden to eat not because the weak Brother is angry or displeas'd with so doing but for fear he should be too well pleas'd with it that is should like it so well as to do it himself and it was not because they had an ill opinion but too good opinion of an Idol for as yet they had Conscience towards the Idol and might be emboldened to eat it as part of the Idol Worship Their Weakness consisted in having too good thoughts of these things and therefore they should be forborn lest they should esteem them yet more and so be confirm'd in or return'd to Idolatry And in this Sense if our Brethren were offended they should then frequent our Assemblies and Idolize our Ceremonies and Esteem them holier than we do our selves But when they revile and clamour against them when they deride and scoff at them if there should be any hurt in them these of all Men are not like to be spoiled by our Example tho kneeling at the Sacrament should be Idolatry and the Surpliss and Common-Prayer downright Popery yet the Christianity of such cannot be endangered by them For how can they be poluted and their weak Consciences wounded by any thing they will not use These People therefore think they are offended only because they are angry and vexed and who can help it such things will be so long as there are peevish unquiet and troublesome Natures in the World but surely they ought not to hinder the Church from injoyning or us from using any thing that is decent and useful Nay this is so far from being a Scandal or any Inducement for us to forbear these things that upon this very account and for their sakes we ought to be more Zealous and Earnest in them if by any means we might bring them to some Conscience of these things if our careful discharge of our Duty might win upon them and they seeing our good works might be brought to a just regard for Authority and a right esteem for the Peace and Union of the Church For those that for matter of Rites can separate and divide have too mean Esteem of Unity and Obedience and while they see us loose and careless in our Duty it will be apt to confirm them in their Error The Weakness of our Brethren plainly consists in too much slighting Decency and Ceremonies and too little regard for Authority And an indifferency coldness or complying with them will nourish their mistakes will confirm them in their ill grounded Opinion and really offend them There is one Objection to this and that is That tho they should not be offended in Reference to the use of the Ceremonies because they do not use them yet the Ceremonies being imposed by the Church and they having such an Aversion to them are thereby prejudic'd against our Communion and so want the means of Salvation that is amongst us and by that means they may tho not by the other be offended This Objection I do not know that it is urged by any of them nor indeed can it well be by those who think they have purer Ordinances and purer Ways of Worship But what weight there is in this Objection and how far the Church in its Impositions may have regard to the Prejudices of People and whether this will relate to the Case of our present Dissenters will be spoke to under another Head 3. Supposing they are really offended yet however these two things ought to be considered First That this cannot with any Sense or Conscience be used by them that are offended 2. If the matter of Offence be in things indifferent we cannot forbear them upon the account of a weak Brother where our Liberty is already determin'd First That this cannot with any Sence or Conscience be urged by them that are offended I know they think they say something when they say they are offended but whatsoever it may be against us to be sure it is nothing for themselves For they do not consider that to be offended is a Sin as well as to offend and the weak Brother that falls is in as much danger as he that makes him For a Scandal becomes a Sin no otherwise than as it hath Relation to other Mens Sins and if it be a Sin in the remote Occasion 't is certainly so in the immediate Actor He that causes a man to forsake his Duty which is the Gospel Scandal is guilty of and punishable for the Scandal and he that does it is guilty of and punishable for the Transgression of Gods Law In short if it be a Sin to entice to temper or to provoke to Sin 't is certainly not less to act and to perform it and therefore we read in the Scandals the Gospel speaks of These that were offended were not so very Innocent nor in a very hopeful Condition But they are said to be lost to perish and to be destroyed And now is not this a hopeful Argument and can any man use it that is really offended all that he says must rebound upon himself and every clamour against us flies in his own Face for it is certainly a Duty not to be scandaliz'd as well as not to scandal and if they are offended and are sensible of it they Sin knowingly and if they know it why do they not remove their Offences and forbare to Sin For 't is certainly a very strange thing for Men perpetually to cry out They are in a fault and yet never take care to mend it But the truth is the Men that talk at this rate