Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	communion_n	constant_a	occasional_a	1,042	5	14.0130	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A26859	Richard Baxters answer to Dr. Edward Stillingfleet's charge of separation containing, I. some queries necessary for the understanding of his accusation, II. a reply to his letter which denyeth a solution, III. an answer to his printed sermon : humbly tendred, I. to himself, II. to the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor and the court of aldermen, III. to the readers of his accusation, the forum where we are accused.; Answer to Dr. Edward Stillingfleet's charge of separation. 1680	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1680 (1680)	Wing B1183; ESTC R10441	92,845	104

do consent But 1. Did our 18 or 19 years Silencing them do that 2. Do not you do it that make men believe that we are Intolerable and to be Silenced and that Separate from our Congregations as if it were a sin to join with us 3. We desire only a true stating of the Case The honest dealing which you demand I and many others constantly perform and it 's ill to intimate that we do not But you add § 77. It 's hard to understand if occasional Communion be lawful that constant Communion should not be a Duty Ans Some Truths are hard to men of great Wit It 's lawful to have communion in our Assemblies as I am ready to prove and yet you think not any much less constant Communion to be a Duty It 's lawful to have Communion with the French Dutch or Greek Church must constant Communion be therefore a Duty It 's lawful to have Communion with an ignorant Reader or a drunken Priest at least in your Judgment Is it therefore a duty to seek no better § 78. Serm. All understanding men will conclude that they p●efer some little interests of their own before the Honour of Christ and the Peace of the Church Ans 1. The word Little came well in as to your sense Truly Poverty and Ruin are little interests I cannot imagine what you mean 〈◊〉 it be Reputation But is not your Reputation with the Highest Persons and the multitude a more tempting Interest than our Reputation with such as you much Contemn 2. But do you understanding men know our hearts better than we And are you sure that none are understanding that be not as partially Censorious as you If we prefer our Little interest why do we not Conform If you take us all for Mad men dispute not with us if not can we be ignorant that Carnal Interest is on your side and are none of us Capable of it 3. I should have taken it as too sharp an intimation to say that Your Greater Interest swayeth you No man that is a Christian taketh this vain vexatious World for his great Interest And to make the Little Interest of Prosecuted Beggared Ruined Non-conformists to be that which beareth down both all the interest of Wealth Ease and Worldly honours and the interest of the Churches Peace and the interest of their own Salvation and all this by no other proof than a Supposition that your Sagacity knoweth their hearts and that all understanding men are of your mind the naughtiness of this is so great that it will not suffer you to see it Sir as wise as you are I know my own heart better than you do and so do my Brethren know theirs If you would swear the contrary I will not believe you And I tell you it is no Little Interest that moveth me it is greater than a Deanery or a Bishoprick I were worse than mad if 1. I consumed my small estate 2. And my Health 3. And denied my Ease 4. And all worldly Wealth and Pleasure 5. And exposed my self to be called a Schismatick and a Rogue by the Conformists 6. And lay my self under the ruining dangers of the Law And 7. to be written against as doing all this by sin 8. And all this under the languishings and pains of sickness expecting when I am called to my account I say I were worse than mad if I chose all this for that which you call Little interest 9. And if Reputation with my poor despised party be that Little interest you confute your self before where you say how much I have undergone of their impatient Censures Have I flattered them Have I not said more against their faults than you have done though not against their Duty 10. Some of my heart-judges say it is a semel 〈◊〉 to avoid the imputation of mutability But their Companions confute them who charge me with my retractations and who see by my writings that I left room for second thoughts and have not silenced them to escape the Censure of any whomsoever I have left my Reputation to God and never was so thin Skin'd as to be unable to bear a Cholerick breath I liv● not upon Air or the thoughts of men who will shortly with me be silent in the d●st They that know how many Books perhaps scores have been written against me by Sectaries of many sorts and some by good and sober men Presbyterians Independents and Prelatical and how little they have broke my peace will not think applause is my Little interest Had I b●en as you I wo●ld have left cut this Charge of Little interest lest it should te●pt men to compare your Case and ours § 79. Your 5th Advice is just I hate Charging you or any with unjust suspicions of inclinations to Popery I know some sew men whom I have reason to say Defend Grotius as one of their Religion who thought that the Protestants can never unite among themselves till they unite with Rome as the Mistress Church and that the Councils even that of Trent are sound in the Faith and that securing the rights of Kings and Bishops and disowning the Schoolmens abuses and the Clergies evil lives and reducing the Pope to rule us not Arbitrarily but by the Canons are enough to satisfie and reconcile us But to charge this on all or most is unjust We know what Bishop Barlow Bishop Crosts and divers others have done to signifie their Faithfulness to the Protestant Cause And if C●ntzen's way prevail not to drill men they know n●t whither by degrees I hope of the 9000 or 10000 Clergie men in England one thousand will not turn to Popery But I must say that when some Prelates made it their great business to Silence Shame and Ruin us and drive us far enough from Persons of Power undertaking to preserve the Protestant Religion better without us than with us and after all cry out themselves that we are in danger of Popery by their own Pupils and Disciples whose instruction they undertook men will have leave to think of this awake and to judge of Causes by Effects § 80. Your Counsel is good Not to run the hazard of all for a show of greater Liberty to our selves Should I tell you three stories of our hazarding our own Liberties because we would not do what you disswade us from one in 1660 and another 1662 and another about 1667 it would be a pair of Spectacles to some 2. But will not all that have eyes see who doth more for Toleration of Popery they that say Popery and you shall stand and fall together except you will say subscribe and do all that is prescribed you or they that say We cannot do that which we take to be hainous sin Do you think the Papists had not rather with you that we were Silenced than that we Preach who have been their greatest Adversaries If you will rather let in Toleration of Popery than you will Tolerate Protestants that fear the guilt of Lying Perjury and many other Evils should they do that which you Confess indifferent let God be judge between you and us FINIS §. 1. §. 2. §. 3. §. 4. §. 6. §. 7. §. 8. §. 9. §. 10. §. 11. §. 12. §. 13. §. 14. §. 25. §. 16. §. 17. §. 18.

of the Sabbath c. and others against these If not Is not difference in such Doctrines as great a difference as using and not useing some of your Liturgick Forms and Ceremonies IV. Are all different modes of Worship enough to make our Party Separatists Then the French and Dutch Churches are Separatists and either the Cathedrals or the Parish-Churches as to their Vestments Organs Chore mode of Singing c. And the allowed private Baptismes and Communion with the sick are Separations V. Doth every disobedience to the King and Laws and Canons in matters of Religion Government and Worship make men Separatists If so then when ever a Conformist disobediently shortneth his Common-Prayer or leaveth off his Surplice or giveth the Sacrament to one that kneeleth not or receiveth one of another Parish to Communion c. he is a separatist Yea no man then is not a Separatist sometimes VI. If the Diocesane be the lowest political Church and a Parish but a part of a Church as they hold that take a Bishop to be a Constitutive part how is he said to separate from the Church that owneth his Diocesane and the Diocess what ever place in that Diocess he meet in seeing he separateth not from the Kingdom that stayeth in it and owneth the King though in some acts he disobey Nor doth every Boy that is faulty separate from the School VII Is he a greater Separatist that confesseth you to be a true Church and your communion lawful but preferreth another as fitter for him or he that denieth Communion with true worshiping assemblies as unlawful to be Communicated with when it is not so If the former then Condemning you as no Church is a diminution or no aggravation of separation and the Local presence of an Infidel or a Scorner would be a less separate state than the absence of your friends If the latter which is certain then if I can prove the Assemblies lawful which you condemne you are the true Separatists that condemn them and deny Communion with them and declare such Communion to be unlawful I Communicate with your Assemblies and you utterly shun refuse and condemn Communion with ours which then is the Separatist if I prove ours to be as good as yours VIII Many English Doctors say Rome is a true Church as a Knave or Thief is a true man and we separated not from It but they cast Us out for doing our duty and not sinning as they do I say not as they for as the Pope claimeth the Headship of the Church Universally that form of Policy is not of God and we separate from that essencial form of their pretended Church But ad hominem if the Diocesane also be a true Church and we cast out of it for not sinning are We separatists or are our Ejectors such IX I have shewed you that the Canons Excommunicate ipso facto all that say the imposed Conformity is unlawful If this be unjust is it Separation to be so Excommunicated and who is the Schismatick here And what shall be thought of such Church-men as will first ipso facto Excommunicate us for our duty and then as you do call us Separatists Would you have Excommunicate Men Communicate with you I and many do so because you shall be the Executioners of your own sentence and not I But with what face can men cast Men out by Canon ipso facto and then revile them for not coming in You can mean no other in common sense but that we are Schismaticks or separatists because we are not of the Conformist's judgment And that is not in our power And you differ more in judgment in greater matters from each other and yet call it not Schisme or Separation Yea you differ about the very essential form of your National Church one part taking it to be the Kings supremacy and another to be the Bishops or Clergy's Power And therefore you cannot be truly of one National Church that are not for one essential Form X. If men be wrongfully Excommunicate are they thereby absolved from all publick Worshipping of God or do they lose their Right to all Church-Communion I have else where cited you Canons enow that say the contrary and that Clave Errante the excommunication hu●teth none but the Excommunicator And I have Cited Bishop Tailor 's Full Consent Must we not then Meet and Worship as we can when you wrongfully Excommunicate us XI Are not the Laity by your Canon forbidden to Receive the Sacrament in another Parish or any other to receive them if they dare not Receive it from a Non-Preaching Minister at Home And if the People judge that he that is unable or unwilling to Preach or that is a Heretick or that liveth in such heinous Sins or Preacheth Malignantly as to do more Harm than Good may not lawfully be owned by them for Christ's Ministers nor their Souls be Committed to their Pastoral Trust Must they therefore be without a Pastors Care or all Publick Worship and Communion and be Condemned for being Wronged XII Were all those Councils Separatists that Decreed That none shall hear Mass from a Fornicating Priest And Were the Canons called the Apostles and the Greek-Church that used them for Separation that said Episcopus ignorantiâ aut malo animo opplotus non est Episcopus sed falsus Episcopus non a Dee sed ab hominibus promotus Was Guildas a Separatist that told the Brittish Wicked Priests That they were not Christ's Ministers but Traitours and that he was not Eximius Christianus that would call them Priests or Ministers of Christ Were Cyprian and all the Carthage-Council Separatists that wrote the Epistle about Martial and Basilides which I Translated and told the People It was their Duty to Separate from Peccatore Praeposito a Scandalous Prelate and that the Chief Power was in them to Choose the Worthy or Refuse the Unworthy and that they were guilty of Sin if they joyned with such Sinners Who made You a more Reverend and Credible Judge of Separation than Cyprian and this Council At least Who will think that you may Judge them Separatists or guilty of Schism XIII Are not the Laity by your Canon to be denied the Sacrament if they be not willing of your Episcopal Confirmation And when Imposition of Hands is made the Signe by which Confirming or Assuring Grace is conveyed and some Bishops assigne no less to it they fear lest it be made a Sacrament Be their Doubts just or not they cannot overcome them And Must they therefore Live without Sacramental Communion By what Law XIV Are not the Laity that dare not Receive the Sacrament Kneeling for the Reasons else-where mentioned to be denied the Sacrament by your Rule And though herein they fear Sin more than they have cause Must they that cannot Change their own Judgments live all their Dayes without the Sacrament When as General Councils Decreed That none should adore Kneeling on any Lord's Day and the Church for a