Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	covenant_n	law_n	moral_a	1,086	5	9.5331	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A49463	The life of faith Wherein is shewed the general use of faith in all the passages of a Christians life. Together with a discourse of right judgment on Joh.7.24. By H. Lukin.	Lukin, H. (Henry), 1628-1719.	1660 (1660)	Wing L3477; ESTC R213826	80,145	275

THE LIFE OF FAITH Wherein Is shewed the general use of Faith in all the passages of a Christians life Together With a Discourse of right Judgment on Joh. 7.24 By H. Lukin Now the Just shall live by Faith Heb. 10. Do ye judge uprightly O ye Sons of men Psal 58.1 LONDON Printed by J. H. for John Allen as the Rising-Sun in St. Pauls Church-yard 1660. To all that have obtained precious Faith Grace and Peace IT was the wish of a good man That he could be the same to God that his right hand was to himself my goodness extends not unto God but to the Saints that are upon earth and to the excellent in whom is my delight For these would I gladly spend and be spent if I might in any thing be a helper of their Faith and Joy I thank God I am not yet in Zacharies case that I should be fain to write my mind but when either the hand of violence or the clods of the Valley shall stop my mouth I shall be as unable to write as speak It is but little that I can do by speaking my words will reach but to few and where they do reach I may complain with Melancthon that Old Adam is too hard for me And I am willing to try this way also if by any means I may help forward any in the way to Heaven and I hope I shall the more willingly dye if I may leave any thing behind me which may be of the least use to the Church of God when I shall sleep in the dust I confess I have not in the publishing of this smal Treatise done as the Romans were wont in preferring Laws consulted first with the Learned to know whether what I have written be not already contained in somwhat that hath been written before or whether it be not contrary to the Doctrine formerly received or whether it may be useful to the Church but I remember the Counsel of Petrarcha Quia simul omnia vel legere vel audire meminisse non potes utilissimis quidem quando brevitas est amica memoriae brevissimis quoque te fulcias We cannot read or hear every thing therefore I have chosen to treat of those things that are most useful and have handled them very briefly For the manner of handling these things I lie open to the judgment of others he that is afraid of leaves must not go to the wood we say and he that is afraid of mens censures must not write Books else we had enjoyed more of many learned mens labours If in any thing I may not be well understood by ordinary Readers I may answer as the Protestants do to the Papists about the perspicuity of the Scriptures it is not the manner of delivery but the thing delivered that makes it obscure and there are other things plain enough for them to make things obscure which are in themselves plain by great swelling words of vanity besides the sinfulness of it is such an unmanly piece of Padantry as I have alwaies abhorred from yet if at any time I have happened to speak of such things as have been above the reach of ordinary hearers I have not accounted it altogether lost labor to such if they have thereby been delivered from the opinion of their own omnisciency and understood thus much by it that they did not understand all things I fear God who knows with what aim and intention I write and speak every word and I dare not accept of the service of Fancy Pride Vain-glory or any corrupt Passion which are ready enough to mingle themselves with whatever we do in that which I must go to God with in Prayer to commend to his blessing and now at my parting with you I will give you a few words of advice and I beseech you let my counsel be acceptable to you First Learn to understand the nature of the Covenant of Grace that you may know upon what terms God and you are agreed there is no exception therein either against infirmities on your part or against afflictions on Gods part you may break the Commands of God not of right but it may de facto so fall out and God may visit you with a Rod for it and yet not break his Covenant Psal 89.30 c. There is not perfect obedience required on your part that is as absolutely necessary to salvation though perfect obedience is our duty else our moral infirmities were no sins where there is no Law there is no Transgression neither hath God promised worldly happiness Though my house be not so with God saith David yet he hath made with me an everlasting Covenant in all things ordered and sure c. 2 Sam. 23.5 Though my house be not so with God that is either as ver 3. he had not ruled in the fear of God but had miscarried in the business of Uriah and it is most likely in other things by Absaloms insinuations and the effect of them upon the people 2 Sam. 15.3 c. or it had not been as a morning without clouds c. as ver 4. but its happiness had been eclipsed by the business of Amnon and worse by that of Absolom Yet the Covenant of God was so ordered in all things as it remained sure as to spiritual things which are therefore called the sure mercies of David Isa 55.3 If these things were well understood and considered we should not be discouraged by our infirmities though we might be humbled for them as an eminent Saint said on his death bed he had much peace and quietness not so much from a greater measure of Grace than other Christians had or from any immediate witness of the Spirit but because he had a more clear understanding of the Covenant of Grace than many others having studied it and preached it so many years Again we shall neither charge God foolishly in afflictions as if he did us any wrong in not standing to his Covenant nor take him for our enemy as Job 13.24 interpreting them as evidences of his wrath or effects of revenging justice And lastly We shall not flatter our selves with hopes of outward prosperity nor be troubled with disappointment when we faile of it which is an addition to mens misery when as one saies expectation takes more upon trust than enjoyment is able to discharge If we have food and raiment let us be therewith contented 1 Tim. 6.8 We indented with God for no more than Jacob did Gen. 28.20 as to this life Mat. 6.33 compared with 31. 2. Mind your present duty and the work of every day in the day Every day brings trouble enough with it as we say in our Proverb There is much talk of the Turk and the Spaniard and our next neighbour doth us more hurt than both of them we look with dreadful apprehensions upon the evils that are at a distance and mind not our present dangers which we are continually in or the temptations which

strengthens his confidence Psa 121.2 My help stands in the name of the Lord that hath made heaven and earth as if he had said I will never distrust his power for deliverance or protection who could erect such a stately Fabrick from nothing And there are other historical passages of Scripture also which may be of like use unto us both for encouragement Deut. 8.17 and caution 1 Cor. 10.11 yea and for confirming our Faith in the Messiah John 20.31 that History of the acts and Sermons of Christ being written by John in his old age for the confirming of the Deity of Christ against those which then begun to deny it at the request of the Bishops of Asia which is the reason why he disputes more clearly of the Deity of Christ than any of the other Evangelists and records divers of his miracles which serve for the confirmation thereof that the rest do omit And for those points of Doctrine which Faith assents to and are not otherwise demonstrable by reason they are generally reckoned amongst those Fundamentalls the belief of which is necessary to Salvation But herein the use of Faith in this particular doth further appear when men do not believe such things as these it brings them to flat Atheisme at last for they first question and by degrees deny the Authority of the Scriptures when they see the improbability or rather impossibility as seems to their reason of many things both in the Doctrine and History of it as in Philosophy because some cannot conceive how such a vast body as it is demonstrable that the Sun is should move so many thousand miles in an hour as it is necessary it must if we suppose that it move at all venture rather to deny the received opinion of its motion and entertain that paradox of the motion of the earth Secondly Faith submits to the commands of the Word Heb. 11. we shall finde many eminent acts of Obedience ascribed to Faith as ver 8. By faith Abraham when he was called to go out into a place which he should afterwards receive for an inheritance obeyed and he went out not knowing whither he went It was an hard tryall for as the Proverb is patriae fumus igne alien● luculentior the smoak of our own Country is as good as the fire of another and he was to go he knew not whither for God only bade him go into a country that he would shew him Gen. 11.33 So that command which was yet more hard of offering up his son he submitted to by faith ver 17. he was to offer up his son which was against nature yea his only begotten son that is of his wife and the son of the promise in whom his seed was to be called So ver 29. By faith they passed through the red sea when it was very unlikely the unruly surges of it should keep their place while they went so many miles ver 30. By faith they compassed the walls of Jericho seven dayes together with ramms hornes a very ridiculous thing in the eyes of men Now Faith doth thus submit to the commands of God because we are thereby brought into covenant with God and consequently subject our selves to his authority as a wife by taking another to be her husband doth oblige her self to those duties which do immediately result from such a relation and to that subjection which is due from a wife to an husband So by taking God to be our God and Christ to be our husband we are ipso jure obliged to submit to all his commands Deut. 26.17 Jer. 31.32 We are indeed obliged to this subjection before we believe but by faith we own our obligation and do actually and professedly make a recognition thereof So that we may say as Salvian de guberunt Dei lib. 3. Fides est fidelis Deo esse hoc est fideliter Dei mandata servare Faith is to be faithful to God that is faithfully to keep his commands yet I am far from thinking with Socinus Defens 108. that fides in Christum ista opera sunt re ipsa idem and that a faith of such a latitude is the matter of our Justification and holds the same place in the Covenant of Grace which perfect obedience should have done in the Covenant of Works these are not Faith formally but only effectivè true Faith necessarily producing these Vide Stresonis meditat de fide sect 34 c. Secondly Faith receives the Word as the Word of God 1 Thes 2.13 in which place we may observe three things 1. The power of the Word it wrought effectually 2. The persons in whom it had this efficacy they were such as did believe 3. The reason of it they received it not as the word of Man but as the Word of God which implies two things First Their receiving it Qua Verbum Dei or under that notion considered as the Word of God or believing it to be so whether it be strictly and properly the object of Faith that the Scriptures are the Word of God I will not stand here to dispute or determine and how the preaching of men may be received as the Word of God you may see in the fore-mentioned Treatise of Mr. Hieron We are to prove all things that we may hold fast that which is good 1 Thes 5.21 and that we may do so we are to search the Scriptures to see how that which we hear doth accord therewith Act. 17.11 and what is rightly deduced or inferred from the Word is of the same authority with the Scriptures as Daille and Vedelius have sufficiently proved against the new Methodists in France as they are called who by denying this did undertake quite to overthrow the Doctrine of the Protestants whatever the success of such an undertaking would have been their boasts may serve for a caution to those who decry consequences but I hope men are not so zealous now against them as they sometime were else I should before this time have taught that small Treatise of Daille to speak English wherein he useth his wonted candor and clearness Secondly To receive the Word as the Word of God is to receive it as becomes the Word of God that is as the Word of such a God who is so wise so just and faithful so good so holy that all his commands must needs be holy and just and good Rom. 7.12 and so not to be disputed but obeyed for by Faith we believe the nature of God as well as his beeing Now Faith is in this respect of singular use in the whole course of our lives how oft do men stand and dispute the commands of God till they reason themselves out of their duty in things that are against carnal reason and carnal interest things which are of meer positive institution not of any natural moral right but Faith considers not any thing against a Command as it is said Abraham did not against the Promise Rom. 4.19 If Christ bid