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	lord_n	week_n	2,075	5	9.7497	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55343	A directory for youth Through all the difficulties attending that state of life. Or a discouse of youthful lusts. In which the nature and dinds of them are described, and remedies against them laid down. First preached to young people, and now published at their request. By Samuel Pomfret, minister of the gospel.	Pomfret, Samuel, d. 1722.	1693 (1693)	Wing P2798; ESTC R224107	117,456	254

seldom of all Acts of Disobedience ●uffer that of marrying against the consent of Parents go off the stage of this Life unpunished And then for Servants that are under the Yoke who are in great danger of miscarry●ng in that Relation let me prevail with ●hem to treasure up these following Scri●●ures Eph. 6. 5 6 7 8. Col. 3. 22 23 24 ●5 1 Tim. 6. 1 2. And especially study that Titus 2. 9 10. and 1 Pet. 2. 18. Exhort Servants to be obedient to their own Masters ●nd to please them well in all things not answering again not purloining but shewing all ●ood fidelity that they may adorn the Doctrine ●f God our Saviour in all things O remember that in serving your Masters after the flesh in singleness of Spirit you herein serve the Lord Christ Remedies against that Youthful Sin of Sabbath-breaking I Have shewed you how prone Youth is to this Sin and those that are afraid of pilfering from Man and robbing their Masters of their Goods yet make no Conscience of pilfering and robbing God of his time O what multitudes of Youth make this day to be the day of finding their carnal pleasures and recreating themselves wherefore to direct you how you may flee this Sin 1. Consider God hath sanctified and blessed this day not only as a day for his own Worship but for his own Workmanship in a new creating us in Christ Jesus it 's a special day for dispensing of Grace and Pardon to undone condemned Sinners and should we not then sanctify it and keep it holy On this day the golden Scepter of Grace and Mercy is held forth and Proclamation is made of an Act of Oblivion to all rebellious Sinners that shall throw down their Weapons of Enmity and come in and subject themselves to the Lord Jesus that their Sins and Iniquities however aggravated shall be pardoned and be remembred no more for ever and not only so but a Marriage Feast is on this day instituted to be celebrated a Feast of fat things wherein the returning Prodigal is crowned with all the expressions of joy and honour Bring forth the fatted Calf the best Robe the Ring let Heaven rejoyce and make merry c. O Youth what are thy Esau-like morsels abroad in the Field but as the husks that Swine do eat to the dainties of a Father's house O the time is at hand when the crumbs that fall from the Lord's Table will be more desirable than all the sweet meats of Sin and the Flesh that thou meetest with in thy rambles on God's Holy day Thou gainest a little fleshly content and merriment but losest the blessednesses promised in Isa 56. 2. Blessed Ashre there is the plural number is the man that doth this that keepeth the Sabbath from polluting it The blessedness of gracious communion and fellowship with the Father and with his Son Christ Jesus c. And who can express the heavenly comfort of that O would you ever be drunk with Wine or bewitched with the sordid pleasures of the Flesh If you had once drank of this high Country Wine the Wine of Heaven's consolations Heark Young Man to those that have tryed it Psal 84. How amiable are thy Tabernacles c. And so the Psalm runs on One day in thy Courts is better than a thousand elsewhere I sat down under his shadow with great delight and his fruit was sweet to my taste 2 Cant. 3. But I must not enlarge 2. Meditate upon this how woful a Sin-Sabbath-breaking is and how woful a condition Sabbath-breakers are in To profane the Sabbath is a Sin of an high nature it is a vile despising the Riches of God's goodness Alas You could not have a Sabbath but from his astonishing mercy Be sure then to profane a Sabbath is a surpassing Provocation beyond the Sin of the Devil who never had the mercy of one day of the Son of Man 's afforded him Moreover it indicates and sheweth that you have no delight in God in his Service who have no delight in his day and is thy want of Love to God a small Sin When it is as one saith the very heart of the old Man the badge of Devils and damned Spirits And then consider how woful the condition of Sabbath-breakers is they carry about them the mark of Death and Hell as 't were in their Foreheads wherever they go for it 's past all doubt that Sabbath-breakers are under the wrath of God and in a state of alienation to him and will certainly perish if they continue in that state O Young Man strongly impress this on thy heart and say Is this a tolerable condition Is it wisdom to continue it an hour longer O think with your selves what if I had dyed in this Case what had become of me how exceedingly thou art beholden to the patience of God that he hath not cast thee into Hell The Lord open your eyes and imprint this Meditation upon your hearts then you would admire the mercy of a Sabbath and the provisions of grace in the Ordinances and you would loath and detest the Tempter that would entice you to waste a Moment of so blessed a Day Wherefore to close this I shall recite the Testimony of a wise and learned Person * J. Hales of this Nation who was as is noted of him natus ad exemplar born to be an Example to others This Excellent Person writing to his Children of whom he travail'd in Birth that Christ might be formed in them he freely opens his mind in these following Words I now write something to you says he touching the Observation of the Lord's day because I find in the World much Looseness and Apostacy from this Duty People begin to be cold and careless in it allowing themselves Sports and Recreations and secular Imployments in it without any necessity which is an ill presage and a sad Spectacle He there makes this profession and declaration to them I have found says he by a strict diligent observation that a due observation of the Duties of this Day has ever had joyned to it a Blessing upon the ●est of my time and the Week that has been so begun has been blessed and prosperous to me And on the other side when I have been negligent in and of the Duties of this Day the rest of the Week has been unsuccesful and unhappy to my own secular Imployment and this I do not write lightly or inconsiderately but upon long and sound Experience Here I thought to have given you a quotation of many Instances very remarkable of God's punishing the breakers of this Holy Day but it would swell this Treatise too big for the Poor to purchase it and there are indeed few Months that pass but you have sad memorials hereof at ●yburn of Malefactors crying out of this Sin as introductory to all others and the source and spring of all their Miseries The next Sin that Youth is addicted to is Pride Remedies against

to lye that as soon as the one learns them to go on Earth the other learns them to go to Hell hence these two are joyn'd together in that 58. Psal 3. Speaking of young ones they go astray from the Womb telling lies This is a sin that all but especially young ones are exceedingly prone to whereby Satan leads them captive at his will to make them his Vassals Look there young people there are several sins that are as I may say the very off-spring and Progeny of Satan and in acting of them a sinner resembles the Devil as a Child the Father For instance Pride it 's called their condemnation of the Devil 1 Tim. 3. 6. an angry passionate spirit it 's stiled giving place to the Devil 4. Eph. 26 27. the like one may say of this sin of Lying in the 8. John and the close of the 44. v. the Devil is called a lyer and the Father of Lies and in the 5. of the Acts 3. Satan is there said to fill Ananias his heart to lie against God which sheweth that where there is a lie in the Tongue there is the Devil filling of the Heart ruling in Children of disobedience hence James saith 4. chap. and the 6. v. that it sets all on fire of Hell O how great is the power that Satan acquireth in young people by this sin it gives him that which he so earnestly desires namely a spiritual possession of Souls as a man possesseth and dwells in his House and there it is he learneth young ones that master-piece in the Black Art to call Evil Good and Good Evil and to deny the fact when they have committed sin as 2 Kings 5. 25. thy Servant said lying Gehazi went no whether thus Jacobs Sons after they had wickedly sold their Brother come with a plausible Tale tho a palpable lye to their Father we found this bloody Garment in the Field but whose it is we know not 37. Gen. 32. 12. Another Sin young ones are given to is neglect of Relative duties as honouring and obeying their Parents and Masters c. this is a sin peculiar to young people and there are but few that escape the guilt of it Hence have Ministers Ecclesiastical Fathers almost every Lords-day Bills of complaint like Ezekiels Roll filled with lamentation put into our hands begging our earnest Prayers for rebellious and disobedient Children and Servants Though the justice of God is ordinarily manifest in the execution of his threatned Judgments upon Children of Belial even in this Life yet alas how seldom do young people take and improve such awful awakening warnings to hear and fear and do no more so wickedly How common is it for Children yea when grown up and their Parents grown old to set light by them and to speak Sawcily and Contemptuously of them and to them behaving themselves proudly and rudely before them as if they were their equals a practice most vile against the light of Nature and always according to the Scripture entaileth a Curse upon such unnatural Children 27. Deut. 16. Cursed be he that setteth light by his Father or his Mother and all the people shall say Amen The punishment that the Heathens inflicted on such was to few them in a Sack with a Dog Cat Viper and Ape an Emblem of unnaturalness and so drown them together and the punishment that the Law of God in the time of Moses did assign to a rebellious Son was to be stoned to Death 21. Deut. 18. If a man have a stubborn and rebellious Son which will not obey the voice of his Father or the voice of his Mother then shall they lay hold on him and bring him out unto the Elders of the City and all the men of the City shall stone him with stones till he dye And it is observable now under the Gospel how the holy and wise Povidence of God ordinarily sets a mark upon disobedient Children either in imbittering their lives with a succession of miseries and vexations here or suffering them to fall by an untimely Death 13. Another Sin Youth is prone to is Sabbath breaking a day which usually young people meet together upon to walk abroad in the Fields and take their pleasure and run into all excess of Riot Chambering acting their filthy lusts drinking Healths playing at Cards Dancing Swearing and sometimes Quarrelling Fighting Thieving Robbing of Orchards and Gardens and thus inverting that Day which God hath sanctified and appropriated to his own Honour and Service and the saving of souls to the service of the Devil and damning their own souls sure I am the whole Christian world at this day groans under the tragical and bitter effects of this sin and he is nothing worthy of Eyes that weeps not to see whole droves running headlong to Hell through this breach viz. the Breach of the Sabbath Verily the Devil hath more service done on this day than on all the six besides and how deplorable is the serious consideration hereof that the day which should be Christ's is the Devil 's great harvest of Souls and that day which should make joy in Heaven by an addition to the Church of such as shall be saved should ever prove Satans triumph and Hells inlarging it self beyond Measure at the accession of so vast a multitude of Sabbath-breakers into it 14. Another sin that Youth is exceedingly prone to is nourishing of vain hope and flattering themselves with the thought of long life putting far away from them the memorial of the evil Day Young people account it a kind of death to think of Death the meditations or tydings of it are like those of the Judges coming to the Bench to Malefactors entertained with great reluctancy and when they cannot wholly banish the items of it out of their Consciences they will be sure to set it a great way off as those bold sinners did the Prophets Vision in the 12. of Ezek. 27. the Vision that he sees is for many days to come and hence as that evil Servant in the 24. Mat. 48. when he saith in his heart my Lord de●ayeth his coming he began to smite his fellow Servant and to eat and drink with the drunken so young people when they once drive off the thoughts of death as far as they can from day to day then they run a whoring from God lay aside Religious duties let loose the reins of their Lusts laugh at the tremendous threatnings of the Almighty It is one of the greatest strengthners of temptations to Luxury Pride and almost every sin in the World when sinners are bold to promise themselves many years to come as you may see in that 12. Luke 17 18 19. where our Saviour brings in that foolish rich man speaking to his soul after this manner Soul take thine ease eat drink be merry thou hast goods laid up for many years O young men as you would escape the rebukes an angry God and an exasperated guilty Conscience promise not your selves long