Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
duty_n day_n holy_a week_n 1,884 5 10.1877 5 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A30272 Characters of a godly man both as more and less grown in grace / by Daniel Burgess. Burgess, Daniel, 1645-1713. 1691 (1691) Wing B5697; ESTC R23829 60,242 145

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

take another Sign and Seal thereof on my part and give another Bond and put on another Badge on thy own part and as thus anew Encouraged and Engaged go Persevere and make Progress in Faith Hope Love and Obedience The good Man of whom I am speaking is neither Ignorant nor Forgetful nor less than practically mindful hereof He no more dares to Omit what his God Commands than to Commit what he Forbids He as truly dreads to disuse the Cup of the Lord as to Drink the Cup of Devils and to deny to partake of the Lord's Table as to comply and partake of the Table of Devils THIS DOE IN REMEMBRANCE OF ME saith Christ Yea Lord saith he THIS WILL I DOE THIS I CANNOT BUT DOE I whose DESIRE and PRAYER is that in all things Thy Will be done He minds the AUTHOR of that Command who is his Supream Caesar to whom he grudges no Tribute and the COMMAND it self which is as Easie and Pleasant as Beneficial and Honourable as any in the Gospel All the Pain of it is but parting with the Plague of allowed Sin It binds to the Pleasure of receiving the greatest ensurance of Salvation The Benefit no Man knows but he that hath it and the Honour is of things unspeakable Moreover the gracious Man when there is need doth melt his heart with that Argument wherewith Joseph's Brethren did melt his Thy Father did command before he died or when he was dying He reasons with himself thus How my Soul wilt thou look my Saviour in the face at the Resurrection if thou slightest the very Charge he gave thee at his Death Thy Saviour did command this the same Night wherein he was betrayed Wo unto me if I less observe my Redeemer than the Rechabites their Jonadab and the Turks their Mahomet They being under Prohibition abstained from Wine I am a wretch if at a dying Saviour's Command I do not use holy Wine for my Soul's sake and my often infirmities He likewise awefully thinketh of the Scandal given by a neglect of God's holy Table Of the contempt it casts upon the whole Generation of them that have sought God's face therein in all Ages Yea and found it too in degrees of light and strength not communicated ordinarily in other Ordinances Of the sore reproach which it poureth upon the heads of our Martyrs in Q. Maries days who vainly rescued from the Papists the pure administration of the Lord's Supper with the Price of their Life blood if it be so very indifferent a thing that we may without Sin against God and without harm to our selves go without it Nor doth he without trembling consider what a fearful stumbling block unto raw and weak Christians his neglect of the Lord's Table wou'd be Such a stumbling-block as would cause the fall of many and it may be to the Ruin at least to the sore Wounding of their Souls in Grace and Peace In a word if Doubts and Fears perplex him the gracious Man rests not in them He carries his Evidences to Men skilful in God's Law and and takes their Judgment If his Soul be Distempered he will have the advice of a spiritual Physician And that is what God doth ordinarily bless unto his relief But being God hath given WORD and SACRAMENTS for two Breasts of gracious Consolation he cannot make or endure himself to live an Amazon or with but one Breast The Scythian Women cut off one of their Breasts that they might the more advantageously draw their Bows in Battel But the Captain of his Salvation never taught him so to do No but the clean contrary So that he dareth not to Pray for spiritual strength and victory over spiritual Enemies without the use of this especially strengthening Ordinance I mean in conjunction with all others Preparing diligently for the Lord's Table and Repairing frequently unto it and Demeaning himself becomingly at it he conscientiously sets himself to Answer the ends of it in his daily walk with God and Men. Coming from the Ordinance he Reviews the MERCY that he hath received and the DUTY that he hath performed He quickly finds a time to go and offer unto God PRAISES for both and PRAYERS for all supplies of his Spirit for the improvement of both He sedulously watches against the excess of worldly PLEASURES and BUSINESS also which he knoweth to chill spiritual Heat and to rase out holy Impressions He commands all that is within him to act the grace received against the invasion of DISTRUST and the joynt insurrection of DISOBEDIENCE To Plead what God did and what he did at the holy Table against all DISCONTENT under Afflictions against all SINFUL COMPLYANCE under Temptations against all PRIDE and SLOTH in the most Prosperous Condition So far is he from dreaming that his Work is ended when the holy Supper is ended Or that the holy Feast will work like Physick whether one do sleep or wake He tells himself that now his Encouragements are greater and now his Engagements to all Duty are stronger than before he s●t down at the holy Table God expects that he should now fall by Negligence more seldom and rise by Repentance more soon than he used to do before this holy Banquet He telleth himself his Baptismal Covenant is not ordained by God to be thus renewed for nothing No but that in this Ordinance seeing how Christ was Hated for sin Denied for sin and Crucified for sin we might more Hate it more Deny it and more Crucifie it Seeing how Christ loved God and us we might more love God and Him and all days of our lives exclaim O hateful Sin O lovely God and Saviour Having in this Ordinance received from Christ by the hand of his Minister another Seal of our Pardon and our title to Eternal life and having given back unto God another publick Protestation of all Gospel-Obedience we should strive and strain after another degree of Confidence in God and another size of Obedience than what we have yet attained And that upon this Motive-Consideration held in Mind and kept as the apple of our eye for the purpose For this purpose we should indeed be ever telling our selves we are God's Servants and Children by REPEATEDLY SIGNED AND SEALED COVENANT It should never be out of our thoughts We should have our first thoughts of it in the Morning our last thoughts of it at Night and as many thoughts of it as may be all day In our Prayers very many and under our Conflicts with any temptation we should have a special abundance St. Austin saith this holy Supper should be received every lord's-Lord's-Day if he might advise us and as to the taking it every day of the Week that practice he will neither blame nor praise If I erre let the learned teach me better this I judge It would be my Duty to receive it every day of the Week if I could not otherwise keep upon my heart the sense of what is aforesaid from one Lord's-Day to
and Strength to follow it We Approve it as Excellent and worthy of all Acceptation 4. The Fourth is the Immoration of Mind on Suggestions approved Unregenerate men being taken with the taste of their sweet Poysons and pleasant Plagues for so are all sinful motions they begin to stay and dwell upon them in multiplied thoughts To survey their alluring circumstances and muse of their gratifications unto this and that Sense and of their Services unto one and another carnal Interest Regenerate Souls come not much behind them here They also finding holy Motions sweet unto their Taste roll them under their Tongues chew and meditate on them greatly and enlarge their considerations of their goodness and profitableness unto all things Delighting themselves in the considerations and saying of them It is good to be here let us stay and think more of these things 5. The Fifth is the Revocation of Suggestions whereon the Mind hath used much to insist Unregenerate men feed not on sinful Suggestions sparingly but nevertheless the morrow is as to day and more abundant Let Business Sickness Sleep or what will interrupt them they let it not be long before they recal their darling Follies Regenerate men also tho' sometimes forced to lay aside out of mind the holy Subjects they have much entertained therein yet fail not to resume them and take them up again very industriously and chearfully No sooner be their Souls unbent with their necessary Avocations but they do fly back again unto them 6. The Sixth is the Conclusion or Resolution to put the Suggestions into execution Unregenerate men court their Souls thus till they gain their Consent and Purpose for actual sin Which said Consent and Resolved will is no small point but the grand Movement of the whole Man Soul and Body And carries in it virtually Act and all On the other side Regenerate men do not spend their foresaid thoughts for that which Profits not Their Consideration issueth in Conclusion Their Spiritual converses with Holy Suggestions impregnate them with lively Resolutions to perform them as soon as they are able All that the Lord hath said we WILL do and WILL be Obedient is the Resolution made and uttered 7. The Seventh is the Perturbation about putting the Suggestions into resolved execution Unregenerate men ordinarily are put hard to it to bring forth the sin they have Conceived Iniquity it self is painfully and with sorrow brought forth And after Resolution to sin the wicked are observed to be pierced through with many cares And it is not much otherwise with the Regenerate having Resolved to Repent and Believe and Obey the Gospel to Receive Christ the Lord and to walk in him Flesh World and Devil are in arms against them presently Herods a thousand seek the Life of this Resolution to destroy it And there is no small Fear and Care and Anxiety riseth in the poor Resolvers Save Lord or we shall yet Perish is their known cry 8. The Eighth is the Aggression or Attempt of the Execution of the Suggestions about which the Perturbation hath been The Unregenerate know that faint hearts cannot perform the Devil's Commands Difficulties they meet with from within and without Conscience checks them Men reprove them c. but they break thro' all and for the pleasure of sin set before them they set to work try their strength to see what they can do If Saul cannot be the death of David it shall not be for want of Attempts The Regenerate know that the desire of the slothful slayeth him because his hands refuse to labour And tho' the Desire of a man be his Kindness and God and good men will accept where there is a willing mind yet a mind of an unactive will is an ill mind of no good will They therefore suffer not fears of Miscarrying always to hold them back from Endeavouring No but tho' Afraid they Trust tho' they Stagger they Believe tho' they Despair they Hope And aside they go and stir up themselves and make tryal what they can do at Repenting at Believing at Obeying the Gospel Striving to enter in at the strait Gate and to walk in the narrow Way whether they be able or no. 9. The Ninth is that Execution of the Suggestions which was Attempted Unregenerate men such as perish do sooner or later execute those Suggestions of Sin and of Satan the Minister of Sin after whose Execution God will never more strive with them or treat about their peace or be found of them Reader Do not mistake this plain passage as though it did intimate that All that trod the former steps in Sin were incapable of Repentance That horrible untruth my Soul abhorreth and my words favour it not I do think that No man is uncapable of Repentance till he hath so sinned But I dare not think ANY man that hath so sinned to be uncapable of Repentance Alas who shall dare to set limits unto the Divine Grace Or who knows not the instances of its admirable extent unto Manasses Mary Magdalen the Penitent Thief on the Cross c. This is said for prevention of thy causless Self-affrightment But I proceed On the other side Regenerate Souls do after their Thoughts Cares and Attempts actually execute those Suggestions of God and of his Ministers after whose execution God will never totally leave or forsake them But binds himself by Oath and by signed sealed Covenant to be their God and to see that all that he hath be theirs This is done on God's part when they do first sincerely RELY on the Promises of the Gospel-Covenant and CONSENT unto the Demands thereof when they make the ANSWER of a good Conscience as St. Peter saith 1 Pet. 3.21 10. The tenth is Reiteration or Repetition of the said Execution of the Suggestions Unregenerate Men do sin over and over those Sins which they do adventure to defie God withall And the Regenerate do all their days keep doing the things whereby they at first gave glory unto God Every Day of the Week and Hour of the Day the Unregenerate do bid God depart from them In the Language of Practice they do so And as oft doth the Regenerate Soul in the same Language COMMIT and SUBMIT himself unto God in Jesus Christ Commit himself to God's saving Mercy and submit himself to God's ruling Authority both lodged in the hand of Christ Lord Mediator 11. The Eleventh is Propugnation of both Execution and Reiteration of the execution of the Suggestions Sinners Plead violently for Entrance and Continuance in Sin They search the Devil 's whole Armory for Weapons to fight with for Sin against Holiness But is it otherwise with the Regenerate No having Committed and Submitted themselves unto God and doing so anew from day to day and that both as their perfect Duty and infinite Interest and Privilege they do search God's Armory for Arguments and Arms to propugnate Holiness and to Shame and expel Sin Holy Wisdom is justified it is