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
A34505	The downfal of Anti-Christ, or, A treatise by R.C.	Carpenter, Richard, d. 1670?	1644 (1644)	Wing C620; ESTC R23897	263,376	604

When yee shall have done all those Lu. 17. 10. things which are commanded you say wee are unprofitable servants we have done that which was our dutie to doe Humilitie doth not consist in esteeming our selves the greatest sinners for then it should consist in a lye because we are not all the greatest but in esteeming our selves great sinners and ready to be the greatest if God should pull away himselfe from us and feeble workers with Gods grace Our Saviours case was different for hee was most humble yet could not esteeme himselfe a sinner O Humilitie saith Saint Bernard Quàm facilè S. Bern. vincis invincibilem How easily doest thou conquer him that is invincible For man was made to fill up the now-disturbed number of the Angels which were created some while before the World not long for it is not likely that so noble a part of the World should be long created before the whole to which it belonged They fell downe though not from the possession yet from the title of happinesse by pride Not from the possession for had they beene united to God by the Beatifical Visiō they could not have sinned and therfore not have lost it by sin Wee rising up to the seats prepared for them ascend by Humility rising by falling and falling by rising if wee rise before he raiseth us who being dead and buried was not raised but rose from death to life by his own power Pride and Humility are of contrary dispositions and moreover they worke contrarily upon the subjects in which they are lodged and are in the effect and course of their proceedings contrary even to themselves Pride was the first sin in the Angels and therefore Humilitie is the first vertue in men and all your thoughts words and actions must be steeped in it Other Vertues keepe within a compasse or only now and then goe some of them together or always or direct all Vertues outwardly in respect of the Vertues as Prudence but Humility is an ingredient in every Vertue RULE 4. IN your entrance upon every worke having first examined the motives ingredients and circumstances for one evill circumstance will corrupt the whole lumpe and poyson a good action and it is not vertuous to pray ordinarily in the streets with outward observance though it be vertuous to pray and it being now cleere to you that your intended work falleth in wholly and meeteth in the same point with Gods holy will commend it seriously to GOD. And when you goe to dinner or to bed or turne to the acts and exercises of your Vocation begin all with a cleane and pure intention for the love and honour of GOD. And even the naturall work to which your nature is vehemently carried and by which you gaine temporally being turned towards the true Loadstone and put in the way to Gods glory doth rise above nature and above it selfe and is much more gainfull spiritually as being performed not because it is agreeable with your desire but because it is conformable to the divine will And often in the performance and execution of the worke if it require a long continuance of action renew and if need bee rectifie smooth and polish your intention for being neglected it quickly groweth crooked And when you are called to a difficult work or a work that lyes thwart and strives against the current of your naturall inclination dignifie and sweeten it often with the comfortable remembrance of your most noble end And whereas wee are openly commanded so closely to carrie the good deeds of the right hand that the left hand be not of the Counsell and again to turn so much of our selves outward that our light may shine before men it is in our duty to observe the Golden Mean and keep the middle way betwixt the two Rocks Carry an even hand betvvixt your concealing your good vvorks and your being a light to others You must not conceale all neither must you shine onely Hide the inward but shew the outward not alwayes nor with a sinister intention to the left hand but to GOD and those that will bee edified Every Vertue standeth betwixt two extreames and yet toucheth neither whereof the one offendeth in excesse the other in defect The one is too couragious the other is over-dull but under the Vertue Now the Devill delighteth much to shew himselfe not in his own likenesse but in that extream which is like and more nigh to the Vertue or at least to the appearance of it as Prodigalitie is more like to Liberalitie then Covetousnesse God hath true Saints and true Martyrs which are both inside and outside The Devill hath false Saints and false Martyrs which are all outside like his fairnesse As Prudence is the Governesse of all Vertues so principally of Devotion RULE 5. KEep your heart always calme and suffer it to be stirred onely with the gentle East and West-winds of holy inspirations to zeal and vertuous anger Examine your inward motions whether they be inspirations or no before you cry come in for when God offereth an inspiration hee will stand waiting with it while you measure it by some better known and revealed Law of his And be very watchfull over such Anger For it is a more knottie and difficult piece of work to be answerable to Ephes 4. 26. the rule of Saint Paul Be angry and sin not the Prophet David spoke the same words from the same spirit then not to be angry As the Curre taken out of the kennell and provoked to barke will need an able and cunning hand to hold him And maintaine alwayes a strong Guard before the weake doores of your senses that no vain thing invade the sense of seeing hearing or the rest and use in times of such danger Ejaculations and Aspirations which are short sayings of the soule to God or of things concerning God and are like darts cast into the bosome of our beloved These motions will do excellently at all times when they come in the resemblance of our pious affections As upon this occasion Lord shut the windows of my soule that looking thorow them she may not be defiled O sweet Comforter speak inwardly to my soul and when thou speakest to her speake words of comfort or binde her with some other chaine that busied in listning to thee shee may not heare thy holy name dishonoured And upon other occasions Oh that my head were waters Jer. 9. 1. and mine eyes a fountain of teares that I might weepe day and night O Lord Whom Psal 73. 25 have I in Heaven but thee and there is none upon earth that I desire besides thee Take counsell my soule Commit thy way unto the Psal 37. 5. Lord trust also in him and hee shall bring it to passe Hearke my soule when we taste the thing we taste is joyned to us We neither see nor heare in this manner and having tasted we know And when the Body tasteth wee commonly see first and

knowing what shee beleeves The Greek and Latin editions have in the 8. chapter of Genesis The Crow went out and returned not But the English agreeing with the Hebrew hath And he sent forth a Raven which went forth to and fro untill the waters were dried up from off the earth For he went out and now and then returned to the top of the Arke flew to and fro as Birds are wont And though the Dove also went out of the Arke yet because she could not finde cleane footing shee returned and He put forth his hand and took her and pulled her in unto him into the Arke How ready the good old man was Hee met her with his hand and tooke hold of her lest the weary thing should fall and succoured her weaknesse with his strength and pulled her in and did not leave her in uncertainties but pulled her unto himselfe This man knew how to carry his hand in Gods Arke But what became of the Crow The Crow saith Saint Austin fastned upon the floating carcasses of men beasts and birds there feasted and delighted himselfe abroad out of the Arke and in the midst of the troubled waters with filth and carrion The Papists lay to our charge that no man goeth from them to us but with a desire of more liberty and licentiousnesse I am certaine that some have done so whom the Devill hath tossed from one extremity to another from a roughnesse which God requires not to a rudenesse which he hates But these have begun to be rude privately amongst them and then have rather turned Atheists then Protestants And many have runne Saint Austins course who having rejected the Manichees and betook himselfe to the Church of God became a stout Defender of the one and a strong opposer of the other God call'd me and I heard him he brought me and I came And being safe come I shall be valiant Though a Partridge steale the egges of her neighbour Partridge hatch them and bring them up yet whensoever the young Partridge shall heare the call of his true mother though he was taken from her in the egge before hee could see her or heare her and before he was a Partridge he will forsake his false mother and her covey and drawne by a kind of secret correspondence returne presently to the true one And so have I. I thanke the Priest that offered me entertainment at Doway and there the honour to be made Doctor if I would law downe the Religion of England But I am well here both soule and body it shall suffice me for this world that I can be a Doctor both here S. Ambr. and there Omnia habemus in Christo omnia nobis Christus saith Saint Ambrose I shall have all things in Christ and Christ will bee all things to me Quicquid amaveris S. August Psal 39. saith Saint Austin ille tibi erit he will be to thee whatsoever thou lovest And therefore shall not I runne after him when hee cals O quam pauci post te volunt ire Domine cum tamen pervenire ad te nemo est qui nolit O Lord saith Saint Bernard how few will goe afcer thee And yet there is no man but would faine come to thee And a little after Non curant quaerere quem tamen desiderant invenire cupiunt te consequi S. Bern. sed nolunt sequi they doe not endeavour to seeke whom notwithstanding they desire to finde they would overtake thee and yet they will not follow thee But I will imitate Saint Ignatius the Martyr running violently through all dangers to God Being sent from Syria to Rome with tenne Souldiers to secure his appearance whom for their cruelty he calleth tenne Leopards in his Epistle to the Romans which hee wrote in the way he desires them by any meanes not to be an impediment to his Martyrdome tels them that he is Dei frumentum Gods corne and must be ground with the teeth of wilde beasts or he cannot be serv'd as pure manchet to the Kings table no man ever pleaded so much for his life adjoyning that noble speech Ignis Crux bestiae confractio ossium membrorum divisio totius corporis contritio tota tormenta Diaboli in me veniant tantum Christo fruar Let fire the Crosse beasts breaking of bones division of joynts and bruising of the whole body and all the torments of the Devill fall in heaps upon me onely what man onely speake onely let me enjoy Christ This last note of his was very sweete and ravishing Why but blessed Saint faire and so ftly know first what you doe Fire will burne and burning is intolerable when your flesh fries you will tell me another tale The paines of the Crosse you may best conceive by our Saviours Passion he was wounded all over And for Beasts you may see every day they have teeth and jawes and clawes too and are commonly hungry and know not how to be mercifull because they want reason by which mercie is knowne to be mercie and a Lion is not a sociable creature he will roare you may heare him a great while before you can see him And what is the breaking of the bones thou mayest give a guesse if ever thou had'st but one out of joynt they will ake when they are broken Judge of the rest These mischievous things are not throughly knowne and conceived in the soule till they are throughly knowne and felt in the body Sense doubtlesse did object all these difficulties to his reason yet all could not stay him from the Lions And that I may fore-stall and prevent an occasion of idle discourse I will take off the seeming edge of a colourable objection Perhaps it may be said that I have scattered a word now and then and even in publike against those that now appeare to be the cleaner and most uncorrupt part of Christians Those I mean whom injurious tongues call Puritanes I call the world to witnesse and answer with me that I never used any such words but with this qualification and seasoning of what was said that my stroke was not intended against such whom rude livers call'd Puritanes as running contrarily to their practises but against those that shrouding themselves under the specious title cast a deepe scandall upon the true Israelites by the corruptiōs of their owne lives And I am no changeling no Chamelion For with such I never was nor ever shall be friends A little farther I never was the Author or the Promotor of new inventions I went alwayes in the steps which I found trod before me Although I was commanded not to preach in the after-noone yet I never omitted to expound the Catechisme I never taxed my Parishioners above the levell of their ordinary duties I never vexed them with Law-suits More Although my annuall meanes is quickly counted I never tooke of it what hath beene taken nor ever what was due to me by agreement with me And why I am a