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
A44682	A letter written out of the countrey to a person of quality in the city who took offence at the late sermon of Dr. Stillingfleet, Dean of S. Pauls, before the Lord Mayor	Howe, John, 1630-1705.	1680 (1680)	Wing H3031; ESTC R15459	34,926	55

of others whensoever that can be seasonably endeavoured for upon more probable and hopeful terms than he hath proposed in this Sermon Therefore be you serious and fervent in Requests to this purpose as you have that love to God and his Church which you profess and that value for this worthy Person which I reckon you still ought to have or if that can be fit to be added any kindness for Sir Your affectionate Servant c. SInce my writing these Pages I hear of Answers to the Dean's Sermon which in so remote a Corner I have had no opportunity to see What is here written may therefore upon comparing be communicated or suppressed as shall be thought fit And so I should take leave of you but that it may be needful whereas I have principally considered in these Papers the case of such as think it unlawful to joyn in the publick Assemblies to add somewhat whomsoever it may serve in reference to their case that think otherwise For to say the truth this is here the more common case And though the Doctor believes they that frequent the separate Meetings do generally judge it unlawful to joyn in the Publick Howsoever it is with you and it is likely the Doctor speaks of what is more within the compass of his own knowledge or theirs who inform him It is with us in this part of this Country quite contrary And I may truly say that in this place and others where I have sometimes occasionally been the generality of them who come to the other Meetings do also attend the Publick Now these may perhaps think themselves left under blame and may apprehend the Doctors Consequence is strong against them that if occasional Communion be lawful constant Communion must be a Duty Which he no doubt understands exclusively of any distinct way of Communion And if indeed they judge that Consequence strong I would fain know what hurt they can think it doth them Why should any man be afraid of his duty or of the truth which makes it known And if hereupon they can with the satisfaction of their own Consciences wave all other opportunities of worshipping God with others of his People they have the less to do And why should they complain who are satisfy'd But in short either they apprehend such other additional means a real necessary help and advantage to them or they do not If they do not they have no cause to trouble themselves nor to grudge that so much is said for others Whose for ought I know may as the Doctor thinks for I cannot make an estimate from this or that little spot be the much more common case If they do they have little reason to be concern'd about the Doctors Consequence Which I much wonder if he himself can think strong It hath not you see been altogether overlook't in the foregoing Discourse And if any feel themselves wounded by it He is so great an Achilles that they may have their Wound and Healing from the same Hand For as hath been noted from him in his Preface to the Irenicum he seems plainly to intimate that men have no Charter or Grant of Divine Power to make other Conditions of church-Church-Communion than Christ hath made If so then the Conditions by which this way of Communion is distinguished from the other supposing they be lawful are still in themselves matter of liberty not of duty And so 't is left to the prudence of a Christian to determine him as in all like cases this way or that as will make most for the common good consistently with that of his own Soul That is Sin or Duty which in this or that case will do more hurt or good There being no particular rule to guide a mans practice he must have recourse to that general one By which it may be my duty upon some great reason to do that at one time which for as great reason I ought not to do in a continued course And it is highly commendable when a Christian understands the latitude which the Law of Christ hath left him Is in his own Spirit exempt from servile restraints by other imagined bonds And can with a generous liberty pure from base self-respects turn himself this way or that as shall make most for the service of the ends he lives for And when any accordingly use that liberty 't is a fancy of none but half-witted persons to think they must therefore addict themselves to this or that Party If a mans case come to be so stated that he hath reason to apprehend it will do more good than hurt to others that he own a sort of Christians who have particularly modified themselves otherwise than they needed by any divine injunction or by any that God hath empowr'd men to put them under by communicating with them under the common notion of Christians only not as so modified He doth but express the genuine complexion of a truly Christian Spirit But he is not to do so in a continued course if he find it will be a real damage to his own soul in comparison of another way that he finds more edifying Perhaps if he will be religious only after the mode of this or that party his Fare may be either too fine or too course for his constant diet I may besides my own inclination drink a single glass of Wine out of Civility to one person or of Water to another when I am not for any mans pleasure to destroy my health by tying my self to drink nothing else And whatever Christian condescendingness and goodness of temper may prompt a man to who makes not what others do but what they ought to do his rule and measure They have least reason to expect much compliance from others who bind themselves up within their own party are enwrapt as Leviathan in his Scales call themselves the Church as many say here is Christ and there is Christ and call all men Separatists that will not be of their Church And perhaps they assume and appropriate the name with no more pretence or colour and with no better-sense than if an humorsom company of men should distinguish themselve from others by wearing a blue or a yellow girdle and call themselves mankind Do not too many in our daies distinguish their Church and Christian Communion by things no more belonging to a Church or to Christianity than a girdle of this or that colour to humane Nature And which no more qualify for Christian Society than that doth for human If however an ingenuous free spirited man out of respect to his present company or for any other valuable reason should in such a case put on a blue girdle I shall find no fault with him But if any should go about to pinch him too close with it so as would be inconvenient to his ease and health or oblige him to protest against the true humanity of all that neglect it I doubt not he would throw it away with scorn Much less would he be a consederate with them that use it if they professedly combine for the destruction of the rest of mankind that use it not when many of them that refuse it apprehend it a real grievance Especially when they that would impose it live with many of the rest under the Government of a just and sovereign Prince from whom they have no Charter for their imposition but who hath declared he will not have his subjects so impos'd upon In sum we are all indispensably oblig'd by our Lord Jesus Christ the sovereign Prince and Ruler of his Church to the substance of all Christian Ordinances As to uninstituted modes thereof we are free And they that understand their liberty may use or not use them as is more for their own and the common good They that understand it not and think themselves under an obligation from Christ not to admit questionable devised additions into their worship they are not therefore to deprive themselves of the substantial Ordinances of the Christian Religion whereof there is no question I shut up all with the words of the great Apostle Rom. 14. 3. 4. One beleiveth that he may eat all things another who is weak eateth herbs Let not him that eateth despise him that eateth not for God hath received him v. 13. Let us not therefore judge one another any more but judge this rather that no man put a stumbling block or an occasion to fall in his brothers way FINIS Errata PAge 2. l. 4. after may r. by dependence on divine help p. 3. l. 21. r. reverent p. 6. l. 19. r. Assemblies p. 7. l. 27. r. supposes p. 9. l. 2. r. One l. 5. r. design p. 13. l. 9. r. were p. 22. l. 13. r. become p. 25. l. 1. after according r. to p. 26. l. 23. after government r. these words as we suppose he means blot them out in l. 24. p. 29. l. 24. r. separate p. 33. l. 3. r. inclination p. 34. l. 18. r. obliged p. 36. l. 23. r. impracticable * Sermon on Josh. 24. 15.