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	keep_v	lord_n	3,471	5	4.2901	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50383	Unity restor'd to the Church of England by John Mayer.	Mayer, John, 1583-1664.	1661 (1661)	Wing M1426; ESTC R28824	26,506	53

the people perfect in them I hold it most necessary for if a man must in his own house dayly speak of the Commandements Deut. 6. how much more ought the Minister of God in his house and add together with the people the precatiuncle set forth in the end For the Ministers giving warning to keep divers holy days which have not most anciently been kept in the Church of God that is the Saints days Of Saints days there is great need to put down the keeping of all these both because we do not read of any such days keeping before anno 501. which was a time of great Superstition Anastasius being then Bishop of Rome who was a Nestorian Heretick and caused Macedonius Bishop of Constantinople to keep the Feasts of Peter and Paul which had never been done in the East before as I have shewed in my History of the Church where I have also proved by good reason that it was a corrupt Superstition crept into the Church to injoin the keeping of them First because working was prohibited poor men upon those days who can hardly live upon their labour all the six days when as the Lord alloweth all to work upon all the six dayes and prohibiteth work only upon the seventh Secondly such as are idly disposed both poor men and Servants had by this means a Cloak for their Idlenesse to the great detriment of the Common-wealth and because Idlenesse giveth advantage to to fleshly lusts which fight against the Soul the keeping of those days was a letting loose of the reins to wicked mens inordinate affections that they might run to all excesse of riot as former experience hath often proved especially at the Festival time of Christmas when so many dayes together were spent in idlenesse and vanity and if there were nothing else amisse in keeping these days but idlenesse when all should work it were enough to presse to the putting of them down for that idlenesse is so much condemned in holy Scripture Thirdly because they are commanded to be kept holy by resorting to Church to read and hear the word of God and to pray and yet no days are spent so prophanely there being no care had but to keep labouring men and Trades-men from the necessary work of their Callings and if they do their work to punish them and so the holy day is made but a stale to bring money into the Commissaries Court. Fourthly It is too great an honor to be given to any but God to call a day after his name to keep it in way of honouring them for this commeth near to the worshipping of the Saints departed and Mine honour saith the Lord will I not give to another If it had pleased God that such honour should be given to his Saints surely something would have been said of it and days should have been instituted under the old Testament by Abraham Isaac and Jacob Joseph and Moses Samuel and David c. and under the new by the Apostles before that so long a time as five hundred years had passed Lastly in other reformed Churches this burden of keeping any holy days besides the Lords days and some to the honor of our Lord Jesus Christ as the day of his Nativity without the tale of so many days more added of his Resurrection Ascension and of his sending down of the Holy Ghost at Pentecost and the day of his Passion hath been long ago cast off but not the keeping of the day of the Lords Nativity as lately hath been done in England when our Divines Assembled at Westminster could not find that any days ought to be kept holy but the Lords days whenas by ancient History it appeareth that the day of the Lords Nativity was kept in the very first Century of years after Christs death for there it is recorded that in the year 130 Nativitatis Domini Telesphorus being Bishop of Rome he amongst other Decrees made this for one that three Masses should be said that is there should be three Communions as upon a most high day upon the day of the Lords Nativity one in the Evening when he was born another in the night when by Angels from heaven his birth was declared a third at day light because the first day of Salvation then began to shine whereby it is intimated that our Lords Birth day had been kept before in his Church no man being to tel how long whence it may be gathered that the custom began immediately after his Ascention to Heaven now the Solemnity thereof began to be more increased among Christans but the increasing thereof by keeping 12 days was not brought in til 400 years after wherefore upon the reasons before going they may be cut off and it will be best pleasing to our Lord to keep his day alone by doing duties of Devotion in Feasting and other expressions of joy and exercising liberality to the poor partly upon other days also when that day approacheth And thus much touching Holy days Now to say something touching the Holy Communion and the Service appointed about it the Exhortations to be made to the Communicants before receiving are all very good and Godly if they were not too much tyring to the Minister after his Spirits spent so much before in praying reading and preaching and therefore it were to be wished that all the Service going before might be omitted as being in effect said before amongst all the people and one of the Exhortations to prepare to the worthy receiving and so proceed immediately to that short one beginning thus Ye that do truly and earnestly repent ye of your sins c. to the end a Psalm being finally sung as Christ hath given us example and then The peace of God which passeth all understanding c. some places of Scripture tending to stir up Charity to the poor Of kneeling being in conclusion recited and the Alms gathered For the gesture of kneeling appointed in receiving it is a gesture shewing the greatest humility that can be as is in all reason expected by the Lord when at his hands we receive so great a Blessing and the Minister at the same instant is praying that the body of our Lord Jesus Christ should preserve us bodies and souls to eternall life Whereas it is excepted against by some because at the Institution the Apostles did not kneel but sit and as it was done then so ought we to do I answer this I deny but what they were commanded to do we ought to do that is to take bread Give thanks break and eat it as his body in remembrance of him c. for the gesture sith there is nothing said we are left to our own liberty therein and the Governours of the Church have power to appoint in what Gesture it shall be done so that it be according to the generall rule most decent such is kneeling for a subject before his Soveraign confering some honor upon him as he doth that