Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	command_v	servant_n	unprofitable_a	1,244	5	10.6349	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A00643	The souls looking-glasse lively representing its estate before God: with a treatise of conscience; wherein the definitions and distinctions thereof are unfolded, and severall cases resolved: by that reverend and faithfull minister of the Word, William Fenner, B.D. sometimes fellow of Pembroke-hall in Cambridge, and late parson of Rochford in Essex.	Fenner, William, 1600-1640.; Calamy, Edmund, 1600-1666.	1640 (1640)	STC 10779; ESTC S101939	116,565	318

do not trouble their thoughts to aim at Gods commandment in it Let me tell you Conscience will not count this obedience For conscience feeleth no bond but Gods word and if ye do not look at that it is no obedience with conscience conscience will never acquit you or absolve you for this it accounteth of this obedience as no obedience at all See 1. Cor. 10.25 and so forward There the Apostle handling that question of conscience at last concludeth Whether ye eat or drink or whatsoever ye do do all to the glory of God vers 31. Let your hearts look at that and aim at that in whatsoever ye do still look at God all is lost with conscience else Though ye eat never so soberly and drink never so moderately pray never so duly conscience counteth it all nothing if ye do not look at God It is God onely his word that doth bind it and it will never give a discharge except your hearts look at him Vse 3 3. This serveth to confute our Antinomists such as say the law of God bindeth not the conscience of the regenerate Ye see here that the law of God bindeth the conscience and therefore if the regenerate have any conscience at all as certainly they have the best conscience of all men then it must needs bind their conscience From what Christians are freed We confesse the conscience of the regenerate is freed from many things by Christ First it is freed from the yoke and bondage of the ceremoniall law Gal. 5.1 Stand fast in the libertie wherewith Christ hath made us free and be not entangled with the yoke of bondage Everie mans conscience is freed from that yoke of the ceremoniall law because it ended in Christ Secondly the conscience of the regenerate is freed from seeking justification by the deeds of the law Indeed the first covenant was by the works of the law He that doeth them shall live in them But the second covenant speaketh better things He that believeth shall be saved It is true if God had not sent his Sonne we must have sought justification by the works of the law Though it were impossible to find it by reason of our sinnes yet conscience was bound that way But now that Christ Jesus hath sealed up a new covenant in his own bloud conscience is freed from that former Rom. 3.28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law For though justifying faith never be without the sincere doing of the law yet the deeds of the law have no influence into justification Conscience is freed from seeking justification thereby Thirdly the conscience of the regenerate is freed from the rigour of the law They are bound in conscience to use the law as a rule of their life and in sinceritie to obey it but are not bound by the gospel to the rigour of it that they are freed from Rom. 6.14 and so they are not under the law but under grace I grant that all carnall people who are yet out of Christ do all lie under the rigour of the law and as long as they submit not to Jesus Christ nor get into him they are bound in conscience to keep it though they cannot They cannot sinne in one tittle but conscience will condemne them before God They shall be condemned for every vain thought for every idle word for every the least sinne for every the least lust for any the least omission of good They lie under the rigour of the law and they are bound in conscience to keep it and they shall be countable for every transgression because they are under the law But the conscience of the regenerate is free from this rigour because they are under grace and therefore they are delivered from the law Rom. 7.6 The Lord hath delivered them by the body of Christ and therefore they are not bound by the gospel to all that obedience that the law in rigour requireth Fourthly the conscience of the regenerate is freed from the curse of the morall law For though the law doth condemn yet their conscience needeth not fear it because they are in Christ There is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus Rom. 8.1 which walk not after the flesh but after the spirit Indeed those that are not regenerate not ingraffed into Christ they are still in the mouth of the gunshot the law doth condemn them and they have no shelter and their conscience is bound by it and they shall find one day that by it their conscience will condemne them to hell It may be now for the present their conscience is quiet and they choke it and so it letteth them alone yet they are condemned in conscience and one day they shall find it But the regenerate are by Christ freed in conscience from all this condemnation Thus farre we grant But the Antinomists Antinomists and I know not what Marcionites would have more They cannot abide to heare that a regenerate person is bound to any sincere obedience to Gods law as the rule of their life They crie out against the morall law as once the Babylonians did against Jerusalem Down with it down with it even to the ground O ye do not preach Christ if ye talk of the law Beloved these are drunken opinions fitter to be preached among drunkards and Epicures and monsters then among the peculiar ones of God The law of God doth bind the conscience of all the people of God so that they are bound to make it a rule of life Nay the Scripture calleth it Christs bond whereby he bindeth his people to him Psal 2.1 2 3. The kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord and against his Anointed saying Let us break their bonds and cast away their cords from us Tush we will not be tied by his laws nor be so precisely strait-laced with such commandments as these Here the laws of the Lord are called bonds and cords Gods people are bound to him by them But the wicked they stand out and refuse to be bound Now if the law be called a bond I pray what bond is it but of conscience It is not a bond like a prisoners fetters to be put about their legs This is a spirituall bond that bindeth the conscience But let me prove it to you by arguments There be sundrie arguments to prove it Arguments That Gods law bindeth the conscience of the regenerate Arg. 1 First That which hath power to say to the conscience of the regenerate This is thy dutie and this must be done that bindeth the conscience But the law of God hath power to say thus to the conscience This is your dutie Who can tell better then Christ When ye have done all these things that are commanded you Luke 17.10 say We are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to do Mark He speaketh of Gods law things commanded now the law is nothing else but a catalogue of those things that God hath commanded us When ye have done all these things saith our Saviour know it is your dutie Here

upon God to comfort it If thou goest and daubest up the matter thy self and criest Peace peace to thy self thou dost not wait upon God Thus I have answered the last question How if a man have a burdened and troubled conscience what must such a man do to be freed from it And hitherto we have spoken of the two last adjuncts of conscience a Quiet conscience and an Unquiet conscience What they be and How they differ and we have resolved and answered the questions and difficulties about them Conscience beareth witnesse of our persons COncerning the witnesse of conscience I told you that conscience beareth witnesse of two things 1. It beareth witnesse of our actions 2. It beareth witnesse of our persons The former hath been declared unto you at large I come now to the latter Conscience beareth witnesse also of our persons whether we be good or evil whether in Christ or in sinne And here I will shew you foure things 1. That every mans conscience may inform him what state he is in whether of salvation or damnation whether of grace or of nature 2. How conscience doth it 3. When conscience doth it 4. How it cometh to passe then that so many thousands mistake and are ignorant and deluded about their estates I. For the first That every mans conscience may inform him what estate he is in 1. Everie mans conscience may inform him in what state he is whether good or bad I speak especially of such as live under the light of the Gospel of Christ There are two rules the one is Gods word which pointeth out both estates and the other is every mans conscience which is privy to the frame and standing of every mans own heart and which of these estates his estate is conscience is privy ●o this I will instance in some sorts of men 1. The Jews who contented ●hemselves with formality they sacrificed they offered they payed their tithes they did that which Moses commanded them for the letter of it now ye shall see their conscience could tell them that they were not perfect nor upright with God All their duties and formalities and gifts and sacrifices could not make them that did the service perfect as perteining to the conscience Heb. 9.9 Mark Their consciences could say they were not upright for all this As they were not upright so their consciences could tell them they were not upright 2. Another instance we have in the Scribes and Pharisees When they would have condemned the woman taken in adultery their own conscience was privy that they were sinners themselves John 18.9 So also it is with a child of God His conscience is able to inform him that he is a child of God and that he doth truly serve God 2. Tim. 1.3 I thank God saith Paul whom I serve with a pure conscience His conscience told him he was a true servant of God and that he was Gods whose I am saith he So Davids conscience I am thine save me for I have sought thy commandments So the church My beloved is mine and I am his Ye see then how conscience can inform and tell us what estate we are in whether we be godly or carnall whether our conversation be in heaven or on earth whether we be in Christ or out of him The spirit of man knoweth what is in him It is easie to know what our great thoughts of heart are upon what our greatest purposes and projects and studies be whether about God or the world the spirit of a man must needs know it And therefore every man may draw out from conscience a ●rue conclusion how it is with him The ●easons are these 1. The first is taken from the nature ●f conscience The nature of consci●nce is such that it must needs be able ●o know what is with a man Now his welldoings or his illdoings are with ●im he was with himself when he did ●hem When thou art proud or impa●ient or carelesse in any duty thou art with thy self when thou art so All thy illdoings are with thee and therefore thy conscience must needs know what thou art Isai 59.12 Our transgressions are with us and as for our iniquities we know them Take a curser and as Solomon saith Thine own heart knoweth that thou hast used to curse others Eccles 7.22 So it is with a godly soul Thine obedience is with thee and thy self-deniall is with thee and thy care to walk before God all is with thee and therefore thou must needs know it This is the nature of conscience It is privy to what is with one 2. The second reason is taken from the equity of Gods judgements on the wicked The Lord he will judge none to hell but his conscience shall confesse he was one that walked in the way to hell and death Ye may reade it in the man that had not on the wedding-garment When Christ did charge him with his not having on a wedding-garment and did condemn him to utter darknesse the text saith Matth. 22.12 he was speechlesse that is his conscience confessed that Christs judgement was just I have not on a wedding-garment saith his conscience and it is my fault that I have none and I am rightly condemned Thus his conscience did know it otherwise he could not have been speechlesse in his own defense As Festus told Agrippa that he answered the Priests Acts 25.16 It is not the manner of the Romanes to deliver any man to dye before that he who is accused have his accusers face to face and have licence to answer for himself concerning the crime laid against him So may I say that the great Judge of quick and dead will not judge any man to hell but he will have his accusers face to face and if he can answer for himself he may Now if conscience be not privy to what estate soever a wicked man is in his conscience could never accuse him face to face at the last day nor justifie the Lord Jesus and make the sinner stand speechlesse before God He might answer Lord I do not know any such thing as is laid to my charge I am not convinced that the case is thus and thus with me that I am in such an estate as I am accused of No wicked man shall be able to say thus Therefore conscience can inform a man in what estate he is 3. The third reason is taken from the Lords manner of judging the godly He will judge them and absolve them secundùm allegata probata as we say according to the word and their own consciences Ye may see the true form of judgement which the Lord will go by Matth 25. Where the Lord convinceth the whole world who were righteous and who not who to be judged to punishment and who to life for ever at last he concludeth The wicked shall go away into everlasting punishment but the righteous into life eternall As if he had said Your consciences