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
A74986	An antidote against heresy: or a preservative for Protestants against the poyson of Papists, Anabaptists, Arrians, Arminians, &c. and their pestilent errours. Shewing the authors of those errours, their grounds and reasons, the time when and occasion how they did arise; with general answers to their arguments taken out of holy scripture and the ancient fathers. Written to stay the wandering and stablish the weak in these dangerous times of Apostasy. / By Richard Allen, M.A. sometime Fellow of Penbrooke [sic] Colledge in Oxford.	Allen, Richard, b. 1604 or 5.	1648 (1648)	Wing A1045A; Thomason E1168_2; ESTC R208803	57,457	159

we have in Christ carnally thinking that now we are freed from all care of good works and may follow what course we please Antidote That we ought to follow good works for the Reasons before named is evident by those places of Scripture Ephes 2.10 We are created unto good works that God hath prepared for us that we should walk in them Tit. 2.14 Who gave himself for us that he might purifie unto himself a people zealous of good works 2 Cor. 5.10 Rev. 20.12 We shall be judged at the last day according to our works therefore look to your works So 1 Pet. 2.12 2 Pet. 1.10 2 Cor. 13.5 Heb. 10.24 2 Cor. 9.2.3 And our best works have not that worthiness in them to deserve at Gods hand 1. Because they are imperfect Isai 64.6 They are a debt that we owe unto God Luke 17.10 When you have done all you can or are commanded to do say you are unprofitable servants for we do but our duty we must do them to serve not deserve 3. If they were perfect yet they are Gods not ours Phil. 2.13 He worketh in us both the will and the deed Joh. 15. Without me ye can do nothing 4. If we ascribe merit to our works we make the death and merits of Christ either unnecessary or insufficient Object But eternal life is called a reward Rom. 2.6 Rev. 20.12 et 22.12 Sol. There is a reward of debt and a reward of grace it is the Apostles own distinction Rom. 4.4 Heaven and eternal life is a reward of grace not of debt God hath made himself a debter to us not by receiving any thing from us but by promising all things to us August in Psalm 132.2 It is said we shall be rewarded not for but according to our works the merit of works is plainly set aside and when God doth crown our works he doth but crown his own gifts August Enarr in Psalm 102.3 The Apostle calls the reward of sin wages because it is of due debt but eternal life he calls a gift because it is not of debt but grace Rom. 6.23 4. The Kingdom of Heaven is called not the wages of servants but the inheritance of Saints or those whom God hath chosen for his children 5. The good man of the house i. Christ Mat. 20. payed at night all his labourers equal wages to shew that they received a gift of grace not a reward of works CHAP. XVII Of Death and Burial Truth THere is no man living that shal not see death for our life is but a race that will come to an end and when we have finisht our course here our body shall turn to dust in the earth and our soul return to God that gave it Errours Enemies to this truth were 1. The old Hereticks called Nazarens affirming That the soul of man and the soul of a beast were both of a like nature and substance from whence sprang up those Hereticks in Arabia the stony called therefore Arabici who affirmed That the soul of man dyes with the body even as the soul of a bruit beast doth 2. Others affirmed That the soul did not dye but sleep in the grave untill the day of Judgment Both these Errours are revived at this day by those that affirm The whole man is mortal And books are written of the mortality of the soul Pope John the 23. was of this opinion That the soul should not see God till the day of Judgment 3. Familists say They ought not to bury the dead because it is said let the dead bury the dead 4. And those are greatly to be blamed that despise Christian buriall and though not guilty of Heresie yet of inhumanity that expose their dead friends undecently or irreverently 5. The Papists account burial of the dead a meritorious work borrowing their authority from the book of Tobit The Reason why the Arabians were so easily taken with this Errour of the souls mortality was because they were Antidote and are at this day a very lewd dissolute and theevish people and this doctrine doth fit such peoples turn very well and the same may be the Reason it is received by many at this day happy were it for them if the soul dye or if it but sleep till the day of Judgment it cannot but be a little refreshing to the thoughts of wicked men that seeing their life so uncertain yet they shall not go presently into torment But Eccles 3.19 20. is to be understood of the state of the body after death for of the soul it is said v. 21. That the soul of man goes upward and the soul of a beast goes downward towards the earth Eccl. 12.7 The dust shall return to the earth as it was and the Spirit shall return to God that gave it Acts 7.59 Lord Jesus receive my Spirit Luk. 23.43 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise That answer of our Saviour to the Sadducees Mat 22.32 puts the Adversary to silence for God is not the God of the dead but of the living Lastly The exceeding joys and hopes of good men and the fears and terrours of wicked men at their departures are sufficient Arguments that the soul sleeps not but goes presently to a place of joy or sorrow whereof the soul hath some secret inklings instinct or divine assurance and whereunto those hopes and fears seem to invite or usher it Secondly After the departure of the soul the body ought to be carryed to the grave and layed up in decent burial if not out of any regard to the party deceased yet out of reverence to the common nature of mankind or of pure shame of that frailty weakness and deformity that our selves are subject to The holy Patriarks and all Gods people of old were very careful of their Sepulchers or burying places as you may read and the Jews used many Ceremonies of comliness at their burials not out of any superstition but in a godly consideration of the Resurrection in the hope whereof those Ceremonies did seem to confirm them and as that doctrine grew clearer so these Ceremonies grew fewer as Tabitha her body was only washed Acts 9.37 And therefore we condemn those numerous superstitious and impious Ceremonies used by the Papists at their burials but yet still we should consider that the dead bodies of our godly and Christian friends are precious things and were the Members of Christ Temples of the Holy Ghost and shall at the last day be raised again and made like unto Christs glorious body in hope whereof in mean space we should lay them up with decency and reverence It is no matter to the dead but 1. It is an honor done to the common nature of mankind 2. A comfort to surviving friends 3. Many ways useful to all that are present CHAP. XVIII Of the Resurrection Truth ALthough our bodies when we are dead shall be turned to dust and ashes yet at the last day they shall be raised again

him he affected also to be equal unto God in Majesty Gen. 3.5 Ye shall be as Gods 2. Unthankfulness for that variety and plenty of all other creatures freely given for their use 3. Foul Apostasy from God to the devil Gods enemy 4. Unbelief the ground of all the rest in despising the Promise and Commandment of God giving credit to the devil who charged God with untruth malice and envy of their good v. 4.5 And therefore this sin is not to be weighed by an apple or measured by the excess of natural appetite 2. Original sin is so called because it takes beginning from our very beginning birth and conception so that we are sinners so soon as we are or begin to be according to that confession of holy David Psal 51.7 I was shapen in wickednes and in sin hath my mother conceived me This Original or birth-sin is propagated over all mankind and that two ways according to the two parts of it sc the guilt of Adams transgression and the corruption of nature the first is propagated by imputation Rom. 5.19 By one mans disobedience many were made sinners And v. 18. By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation And v. 15. By the offence of one many be dead For being all in Adams loins we sinned in him even as Levi being in Abrahams loins payed tythes c. Heb. 7.9 The second comes by generation whereon the first by imputation also is grounded For Adam was the common stock root of al mankind and could not derive unto us who are the branches any better sap or quality then he had himself the streams cannot be sweet if the spring be bitter or pure if that be unclean Job 14.4 Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean truly no man This Original corruption consists 1. In a disability and aversness to all that is good 2. In a proneness to all manner of evil Rom. 7.14 et seq The parts affected with it are indeed all the parts and powers of body and soul the understanding darkned 1 Cor. 2.14 the conscience benummed Ephes 4.19 the will enthralled Rom. 7.23 affections disordered James 4.1 2. all the members of the body made Instruments of sin Rom. 3.13 14 15. 6.19 And so it is said of Adam though himself were created in the Image of God yet after his fall that he begat a son in his own likeness i. corrupt like himself the Image of God being defaced Gen. 5.3 It is clear then that there is original sin i. an haereditary guilt and corruption that comes to us from our parents by natural generation both by plain testimonies of Scripture and also by experience in Infants For although they have not sinned after the likeness of Adams transgression Rom. 5.14 i. actually yet seeing death which is the punishment of sin hath passed upon infants as well as men it is evident that they are born in sin for where there is no sin there can be no punishment due Rom. 5.12 By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin Rom. 6.23 The wages of sin is death Ephes 2.1 3. We are dead in sin and by nature children of wrath John 3.3 6. Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God For that which is born of the flesh is flesh If we were not corrupted with sin in the first birth there would not be such necessity of a second a man in his natural birth is nothing but flesh and that this natural corruption remains stil in the regenerate and is properly sin see Rom 7.14 et seq Gal. 5.17 CHAP. VI. Of Freewill Truth SInce this lamentable fall of our first parents and by means of the same the nature of man is so wholy corrupted and the whole race of mankind brought into that miserable bondage under sin that no man is able by any natural power in himself to beleeve in God or turn unto him to will or think much less do any thing that is good and acceptable in the sight of God Errours Adversaries to this doctrine were of old certain Philosophers out of whose schools crept the doctrine of Freewill taught first by Pelagius and now followed by the Anabaptists Arminians Socinians Papists c. who say That natural men have a power and freedom of will to choose do those things that God commands and to omit or refuse those things that he forbids for otherwise say they God gave his Law in vain in vain also are all counsels exhortations precepts promises and threatenings rewards and punishments neither can a man be justly punisht for not doing those duties that are impossible for him or he not able to perform That our Freewil was not lost in the fall but only weakened that we are but half dead and have some life and power still left in us to stir up our selves that grace is only an help to weak nature and the like Although by the fal of our first parents Antidote the Image of God was defaced and our nature corrupted yet man remains still a creature reasonable and capable of grace having the same parts and faculties that he had before and in them some reliques of Gods image in the understanding some light and knowledg of God and some notions of good and evil in the will a liberty in natural and civil actions and in all things a freedom from compulsion But there is a fourfold estate or condition of man 1. Of Creation 2. Of Corruption 3. Of Renovation 4. Of Glorification All the question is about the second what power a man in this condition hath to convert himself or to do good and it is resolved according to the Scriptures that man by nature hath no power at all to do good or turn himself to God For 2 Cor. 3.5 We are not sufficient of our selves to think any thing as of our selves but our sufficiency is of God Phil. 2.13 It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of his own good pleasure Eph. 2.1 We are by nature dead in sin as unable to turn our selves unto God as a dead man to raise himself to life Joh. 15.5 Saith our Saviour Without me ye can do nothing Joh. 6.44 No man can come unto me except the Father draw him Joh. 6.29 This is the work of God that ye beleeve c. Mat. 16.17 Flesh and blood cannot reveal Christ unto us c. Concil Arausic cap. 19. If man could not retain without the grace of God what he had received how shall he recover without the same what he hath lost Ambros lib. 1. de vocat gent. Never let a man trust his own strength now it is broken that could not support him when it was sound and fresh about him Bern. de gra lib. arb It were better we had never b●en then to be at the disposing of our own will It is our own will that makes us the devils slaves