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
A41233	The lawfull preacher, or, A short discourse proving that they only ought to preach who are ordained ministers occasionally delivered in some lectures at Epping by John Ferriby, minister of Thoydon-Garnon in Essex ; now printed upon the anti-preaching of some against it in the same pulpit about the latter end of November last : as also the pulpit-guard-relieved, in a short appendix in answer to a late book called the pulpit-guard-relieved / written by Tho. Collier.	Ferriby, John, b. 1613 or 14.	1653 (1653)	Wing F819A; ESTC R32027	69,768	96

It is meer mercy that God accepteth according to what a man hath 2 Cor. 8. 12. he may in justice require according to what he first gave 4. The pressing of duty upon people unable to perform it is the ordinary and may prove the efficacious means to enable men to do it The Ninevites repented at the preaching of Jonah Mat. 12. 41. Peter preached repentance Acts 1. 9. and some thousands were by Gods blessing on it enabled to perform it Cap. 4. 4. The few that were truely chosen were of the number of them who were outwardly called before Matth. 24. 14. I confess the means is not effectual to all but must it be therefore used to none nay because we know not to whom it may be effectual therefore it must be used to all that it may be profitable to those to whom God intends it People are much mistaken in the pressing of duty who look upon it onely as a command of obedience not at all as a means of profit in the commands of God there is not only a discovery of duty but an offer of power and strength to perform it It were but vain to bid a groveling child arise which of it self is unable but if at the same time I hold forth my hand to help it it may be a means to raise it It had been an hard injunction of Christ to bid Lazarus arise when he had been dead four daies and not able to stir but when the voice carried with it a secret power to enable him he was able to come out of the grave it was the Angel that stirred the water whereby the diseased were cured at Bethesda must not impotent people be advised therefore to go to the pool because of themselves they could not work the cure But where commanded duties are not practised they leave them without excuse that neglect them God sent Ezekiel to a stubborn people who he knew neither would nor could practise his commands that they might know that there was a Prophet among them Ezek. 2. 5. 5. Duty is not pressed by Ministers as a meritorious cause of salvation but as the condition which God requires in them to whom he will give it When we have done all we can we are unprofitable servants Luk. 17. May not God who in free love gives the reward propose what condition he pleaseth nay which is more he that proposeth the condition makes people to perform what he requires as was touched before which is very plain Ezek. 36. 25 26. 27. The result of all is To beseech you to consider how they cheat you of the Truth and may deceive you of your Souls who preach the neglect or needlesness of that Duty God commands and will have though he himself work it in those to whom hee 'l shew mercy such who call the way easie and broad which Christ calls strait and narrow that promise life to men in sin and strengthen the hands of the wicked in their iniquity 6. I shall desire you That you would be more in judging of yourselves then in censuring others It is now a great part of some mens Religion to finde or make faults in others when they observe not their own they use spectacles to look on others whereby their faults are multiplied but endure not a looking glasse to reflect upon themselves that their deformity might be discovered Indeed mens eyes are naturally placed to look outward on others when they need the help of some reflecting glasse to take an inward view of themselves But surely there is besides nature some wicked art whereby they are holpen notwithstanding the undiscovered beam in their own eye to observe so clearly a smaller moth in their Brothers People are so busied to espy faults in other mens houses that they neglect the cleansing of their own You may observe others faults privately to reprove not publickly to reproach a Brother you may take notice of others sins to be warned by their falls not to make it an occasion of sinning to you yet in this as I would not have you judge them by the reports of others so neither to measure them by the line of malice As report like an evil spirit often presents that which never was in substance so malice like a false glass presents double what is Be chiefly in the examination of your selves with what face will you reprove others when your own faults are more eminent Rom. 2. 21 22 23. A dirty brush seldom makesclean clothes If your brother be guiltless when you accuse him it manifests malice at least too much credulity if faulty yet when you are guilty it argues too little sincerity Prove your selves was Pauls rule 2 Cor. 13. 5. The best Christian is most at home the best husband is most conversant in his own books Is it that there is not work enough at home that you are so busie abroad Is not the sin of your life enough to employ you in the examination of and mourning for it will not the making sure your title to Eternal happiness finde you work enough in private poor souls If you have not work enough to day you will be sure to make more before the morrow Observe your own sins and endeavour to avoid them mark your own temptations and endeavour to resist them Let your own tempations make you pitty others if they do fall Let your own aptness to fall plead excuse if it be but an infirmity I would not have you too rigid against the only infirmities of others yet I would not have you too indulgent toward your own I would have you do with infirmities as modest House-wives do with some lesser pieces of sluttery although they will not endure it in their own yet they will excuse it in their neighbours house Then shall I think you religious indeed and that the Lord intends good to your souls when you accuse not others but your selves when your endeavour is more to amend your own then observe others deformities I thought to have spoken a word to you about the Sacrament but I have been too long in the porch already besides that concerning mine own Congregation only I shall refer it to a more private occasion You may conceive upon what grounds I administer it you know for what reasons I have for some time forborn it some of you have been informed what course I am about in our future preparation for it Onely I cannot but observe that those who before made it their argument against us that we administred it to some whom we had then no power to debar are novv as apt to reproach us vvhen they think we have as little povver to reform it But I am comforted in this providence that I had declared my resolutions about it before it was objected against us I see it is hard to be free from blame when men love to finde fault All I have now to speak to you is that you would not turn your back upon

and the spirit against the flesh and these are contrary one to the other Gal. 5. 17. It is very unlikely that should be from the spirit which is delightfull to the flesh Many smooth the way and widen the gate to heaven I pray God they lead not people that way to hell The down-hill passage is most easie Where Christ saith The way is narrow and the gate is strait that leads to life Mat. 9. 13 14. he presently subjoyns a seasonable warning to take heed of false Prophets The way may be paved with Agates which yet may be painfull to the feet of the traveller the gate may be made of Diamonds which yet may be strait in the passage It hath been the generall practice and constant sign that God hath given of false Prophets to preach smooth things they promise peace Jer. 23. 17. they seduce my people saying Peace when there is no peace and daub with untempered morter Ezek. 13. 10. they see visions of peace ver. 16. they sow pillows to All armholes ver. 18. they save the souls alive ver. 19. they strengthen the hands of the wicked promising life v. 22. It is the duty and delight of true Prophets to promise life to preach peace to those who are entitled to it Yea they would that the peacefull promises of the false Prophets might be fulfilled as Jer. 28. 6. Amen the Lord do so the Lord perform the words which thou hast prophesied but to speak pleasing things to him that lies in sin is so far from preaching Heaven that it may occasion mens running to hell What ease what advantage can it be to godly Ministers to threaten judgement against sinners were it not for Gods command and their profit What probability is there that people should receive advantage by those doctrines that continue their carnall peace They were false Teachers who by their lies caused prophane people to reproach the true Prophets with the burthen of the Lord Jer. 23. 33. they thereby refused the words of the true Prophets because they spake of the judgement of God against them but men that are proclive to sleep need no rocking Let me in the Name of the Holy God warn you of any doctrine that favours or tends to sinfull liberty Indeed Christ hath purchased liberty to his Saints but we must not use our liberty as an occasion to the flesh Gal. 5. 13. To be Christ's freemen and sins slaves at the same time is impossible I cannot but wonder at some new Preachers who cry up mercy and grace as if there were nothing of justice or truth in God at all who dare promise mercy to sinners and by their promise of life strengthen their hands in wickedness It is one thing to offer mercy to people upon repentance another to promise mercy to them while sinners It is one thing to hold out Christ to them that will receive him another to promise Christ to them that refuse him Beware of them who dare perswade you to a neglect of duty who by their preaching can intimate it as needless to be pressed as unnecessary to be practised If there are Impostors under heaven if there are any upon earth that bring another Gospel then what Christ left these are the men who under a pretence of preaching Christ and free-grace brand all those with the name of legal Preachers who but endeavour to convince people of sin or perswade them to their duty As if discovering to men their need of Christ were not preaching of Christ and that the Spirit had not been sent by Christ who came to convince the world of sin Joh. 16. 8. As if pressing men to the duty the God of mercy requires were to deny the freenesse of grace and that Peter had abridged the free grace of God when he commanded people to repent and be converted that their sins might be blotted out Act. 3. 19. As if there were no difference between duty and desert between means and merit There is a vast difference between what God requires as a means to which ex gratiâ he promiseth a reward and the doing of a work which ex debito deserves its wages In this there is a proportion between the work and the reward yea the man performing it doth the work by his own strength but in the other besides the disproportion between the thing required and the reward promised and besides his love in whose power it was to impose no harder a task upon us he that out of grace promiseth the reward out of the same mercy gives strength to perform the means So that in this the doctrine of free-grace is much advanced Can it be thought that man must be only passive in the work of his salvation To what end had he a reasonable soul given him if not to imploy its faculties especially for that better part which cannot be taken from him Hezekiah might have been cured without the application of figs Naaman might have been healed without going to Jordan yet the not use of commanded means might have prevented their desired deliverance but of that infra It is a pretty observation of learned Perkins upon Rev. 3. 20. If any man will open c. mans will is not like a piece of wax only passive which without any action receiveth impression but as fire which as soon as it is fire it burns and as soon as it burns it is fire It is the sad effect such preaching hath produced in many hearers in some that I dare not but hope wel of that they scarcely endure to hear any thing of duty pressed They can be content to hear of believing as a Gospel-duty but if repentance or obedience be mentioned that is what we cannot perform these are but legal duties As if believing were less a duty then repentance or that we were of our selves more able to perform one then the other Or as if repentance were less a Gospel-duty then believing when it is manifest that repentance could have no place under the legal Covenant The Covenant of works was to do or die under which as we are unable to perform so neither could we be profited by repentance It is only the Covenant of grace through Christ that admits repentance That came in through Jesus Christ it was one of the new laws given us by that Lord and then can be nothing else but a Gospel-duty How easie is it for people to mistake and then with violence to pursue what through-mistake they propose as good like some hotmettal'd doggs which over-hunting the true sent are either quite beaten out or follow what is false Friends Is duty more out of fashion now than it was Is it the liberty of Christians to be free from Gods service To be free from sin was to be servants to righteousness Rom. 6. 18. Can the encrease of mercy free us from or should it engage us more to duty May I not say to those who are guilty as Paul Gal. 3. 1.