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
A56600	An answer to a book, spread abroad by the Romish priests, intituled, The touchstone of the reformed Gospel wherein the true doctrine of the Church of England, and many texts of the Holy Scripture are faithfully explained / by the Right Reverend Father in God, Symon, Lord Bishop of Ely.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1692 (1692)	Wing P745; ESTC R10288	116,883	290

was in great distress which made it adviseable for People if they could to keep themselves single whereby they would shift the better and be freed from a great many Cares and Troubles of this Life But he doth not say that hereby they would lay up a Treasure of Satisfactions which would serve more than themselves and might be bestowed upon others This is the meaning of the Roman Church The third XIX Matth. 12. XIX Mat. 12. hath no more in it than the two former It is a Counsel He that is able to receive it let him receive it But they who received it did not thereby make Satisfaction for defects in obedience to God's precepts muchless did they do so much as to have to distribute unto others Let who will look into the other Scriptures which he barely notes he will find them as empty as these especially the first of them X. Luke 25. X. Luke 25. which contains only a question propounded to our Saviour by a tempting Lawyer Unless he means the Answer to it which is a Command for loving God with all the Heart and all the Soul c. And it is not left at our liberty I hope whether we will thus love him or no. Not one of his Fathers say what he would have them The first of them St. Ambrose only says He that obeys a Counsel for instance sells all his Goods to follow Christ may say more than he that obeys only a Precept For he may expect a reward as the Apostles did when they said Behold we have left all and followed thee what therefore shall we have Whereas they that do what they are commanded must say We are unprofitable servants and have but done our Duty Now what doth this Discourse prove But that they shall have a greater reward themselves but there is not a syllable of their supererogating for others Nor in Origen nor Eusebius much less St. Chrysostom● whose business it is to prove that God's Commands are not impossible What is this to Counsels Of which Gregory the Great indeed not Greg. Nyssen who hath no such Work speaks in his Morals but is so far from maintaining works of Supererogation that none can be more express than he for the Protestant Doctrine Of the imperfection of all mens righteousness and renouncing all confidence in our own Merits XIX That by the fall of ADAM we have all lost our Free-will and that it is not in our Power to chuse Good but only Evil. Answer THIS is another insufferable Slander in the first part of it for if we had all lost our freedom of will we should be no longer Men. We only say we have not such a freedom of Will as we formerly had and so all say And he that says which is the second Part of this Proposition It is in our power to chuse that which is Good without the assistance of Grace is a Pelagian that is an Heretick as this Man is by contradicting what we affirm That it is not in our power that is our natural strength to chuse Good that is Spiritual Good of which if he do not speak he only babbles For the will of Man saith Bellarmine * L. VI. de lib. arbitr gratia c 4. himself in things appertaining to Piety and Salvation can do nothing without the assistance of God's Grace yea without his special assistance This is the Doctrine of the Gospel and is our Doctrine in the Tenth Article of our Religion unto which he hath nothing to oppose For not one of his places of Scripture prove Man hath a Power of himself to will what is good without God's Grace His first Scripture 1 Cor. VII 37. 1 Corinth VII 37. speaks of a thing that is neither Good or Evil in it self but indifferent for no man is bound to Marry or not to Marry but it may be as he pleases either way Yet it is manifest by the very Text that the Apostle supposes some Men have not a power to contain and so in their case Marriage becomes necessary As to what he intermixes with this which is very foreign to it My Son give me thy heart let me demand of him whether any man can consent to this unless God draw his heart to him when he asks a man to give it And he that is drawn saith St. Hierom * L. III. adv Pelag doth not run spontaneously of himself but he is brought to it when he either draws back or is slow or unwilling But I will not abuse the Reader 's time in so much as mentioning the rest since we say nothing in this matter but what the Gospel what the Ancient Fathers particularly St. Austin say nay what Bellarmine himself confesses to be true whose words in the conclusion of this Controversy fully express our sense and give an answer to all that this man foolishly as well as falsly charges us withal The Conversion of Man to God L. VI. De Grat. Lib. Arbit c. 15. Decima sent as also every other good work as it is a WORK that is an human act is only from his free Will yet not excluding God's general help as it is PIOVS it is from Grace alone as it is a PIOVS WORK it is both from our free Will and from Grace To this we subscribe XX. That it is impossible to keep the Commandments of God tho assisted with his Grace and the Holy Ghost Answer THIS is such a down-right Calumny that I cannot but say with the Psalmist What shall be done unto thee O thou false Tongue We most thankfully acknowledg the Power of the Divine Grace to be so great that it is possible for us to keep God's Commandments to such a degree as he requires and accepts tho not with such an exact and strict obedience as to stand in no need of his gracious Pardon of our defects Phil. IV. St. Paul means no more when he saith he could do all things that is all before mentioned and harder things yet if occasion were by the help of Christ who administred strength to him to do all those things as Menochius interprets it IV. Philip. 13. I. Luke 5 6. Nor doth St. Luke's Character of Zachary and Elizabeth amount to more than this that they were sincerely good People who were therefore Blameless or Irreprehensible as Menochius translates it because saith Theophylact they acted out of pure respect to God and not to please Men. For many walk in the Law of God who are not irreprehensible because they do all to be seen of men But Zachary both did what God commanded and did it irreprehensibly not performing such things that he might please men Thus he and St. Austin gives another reason of this glossing upon the Virgins mention'd Revel XIV In whose mouth was found no guile because they were irreprehensible as he renders the word we translate without fault before the Throne of God They were saith he therefore without reprehension

performs him those good Offices which the Philippians should have done had they not been absent But he so much neglected himself while he was wholly intent upon serving the Apostle that he fell dangerously sick and lay for a time without hope of Life Finding so little relief in these places of Scripture he betakes himself to arguing from that Article of our Creed The Communion of Saints Which Bellarmine L. 1. de Indulg c. 3. from whom he borrows these goodly proofs manages on this manner We are taught by this Article that all the Faithful are Members of one another being a kind of living Body Now as living Members help one another so the Faithful communicate good things among themselves especially when those which are superfluous to the one are necessary or profitable to the other This is admirable Catholick Doctrine The Saints have more than they need and therefore they communicate it to us for the supply of our wants But this should have been proved and not supposed that the Saints have more than enough something to spare and that their Passions were Satisfactions and Superabundant Satisfactions After which it would still remain a pretty undertaking to prove that because one Member helps another when it suffers any thing therefore the Sufferings of one Member will Cure another Member the Pain for instance of the long Finger will free the little Finger from the pain which it it suffers Thus the Actions and Passions of Saints are not imparted to us as this Man presumes from the Relation we have one to another and yet they serve for very good purposes to the Church as I have already shown And one would imagine he distrusted this Argument after he had set it down because he runs back again to the Scriptures A great Company of which he heaps up to no more purpose than if he had quoted so many Texts of Aristotle I will give the Reader a taste of one or two The first is CXIX Psalm 63. I am a companion of all them that fear thee and of them that keep thy precepts Thus the words run expresly in our Bible Now let me beseech the Reader to consider what Action or Prayer of the Church Triumphant for the Church Militant or Patient or for both he can find contained in this Text as he saith there is in all the Passages he quotes Let him look into the next and I will be his Bonds man if he meet with a word of any Action or Prayer of the Church Triumphant but only mention of many Members which make up but one Body 1 Cor. XII 12. And what Action or Prayer of the Church Triumphant can one gather out of St. Paul's care for all the Churches 2 Cor. XI 28. As for LIII Isaiah the Church always thought it a Prophecy of the Sufferings of Christ and not of the Saints and so the Apostles interpret it in many places If he mean LIII Psalm 9. as one Edition of his Book hath it there are not so many Verses in it and we should be as far to seek for any sense if we should see more and therefore I will look no further What the Fathers affirm he bids us also see but doth not tell us and I cannot trust him so much as to think it worth my pains to look into the places to which he points us St. Austin I am sure the first he names is abused by him who hath not a word of this matter in his Second Chapter of his Book about the Care of the Dead which is altogether concerning this Question Whether the Dead suffer any thing for want of Burial Upon the LXI Psalm indeed which he quotes at last he mentions that place of St. Paul 1 Coloss 24. and discourses how Christ suffered not only in his own Person but in his Members every one of which suffers what comes to his share and all of them together fill up what is wanting of the Sufferings of Christ So that none hath Superabundant Sufferings but he expresly saith That we every one of us Pro modulo nostro according to our small measure Pay what we owe mark that not more than we are obliged unto which is the Romish Doctrine but what we are bound unto and to the utmost of our Power we cast in as it were the stint or measure of Sufferings which will not be filled up till the end of the World Which is directly against what this Man and his Church would have For they that bring in but their share and nothing more than they owe have no redundant Passions out of which flow superfluous Satisfaction XVIII That no Man can do Works of Supererogation Answer HOW should he When no Man can Supererogate till he have first erogated In plainer terms no Man can have any thing to spare to bestow upon others for this they mean by Supererogating till he hath done all that is bound to do for himself And therefore Bishop Andrews * Resp ad Apolog. Bellarmini p. 196. well calls these works of Supererogation proud pretences of doing more than a man needs when he hath not done all he ought For these two things are necessary to make such Works as they mean by this word First That a Man have done all that God's Law commands Secondly That he have done something which it commandeth not But who is there that hath done all which God's Law requires That is who is without all Sin Therefore who can by doing some voluntary things to which he is not bound do above his Duty when he falls so much below it in things expresly commanded There is another great flaw also in this Doctrine for they suppose precepts to require a lower degree of Goodness and counsels a more high or excellent Which is false for Gods Precepts require the heigth of Virtue and Councils only show the means whereby we may more easily in some circumstances attain it As forsaking all keeping Virginity are not perfections but the Instruments of it as they may be used The places which he brings to prove men may do such works are first XIX Matth. 21. XIX Mat. 21. Where there is not a word of doing any thing which might be bestowed upon others but only of laying up treasure to himself in Heaven by doing a thing extraordinary We do not say all things are commanded but some are counselled yet there are men of great Name in the Church such as St. Chrysostome and St. Hilary who call this a Commandment which Christ gave the young man And so it is if he would come and follow Christ that is be one of his constant attendants as the Apostles were who had left all that they might give up themselves wholly to his Service The next is no more to the purpose 1 Cor. VII 25. 1 Cor. VII 25. for no body thinks there is any command to live single but it was a prudent Counsel of the Apostle at that time when the Church