Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	estate_n	gain_v	great_a	18	3	2.0863	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A54949	A spittle sermon preach'd in St. Brides Parish-Church, on Wednesday in Easterweek, being the second day of April, 1684 before the Right Honourable the Lord Mayor, the Court of Aldermen, and the sheriffs of the now Protestant, and loyal city of London / by Thomas Pittis ...	Pittis, Thomas, 1636-1687.	1684 (1684)	Wing P2318; ESTC R10785	19,235	47

so managed that we may accomplish the duty we are directed to in my Text. Secondly In perswading to the full and frequent exercise of it That in the morning we may according to our abilities sow our seed and in the evening may not withhold our hands And these two things I shall endeavour to accomplish as plainly and as briefly as I may First Let me exhibit the methods and ways by which we may expend and lay out our Wealth that may easily be spared from our selves and families so as to follow the sacred direction in this Text and several other in Holy Writ And here I need not speak of the various Objects that are rendred capable of our Charity and Relief The Government it self is too often forced to beg though it is to keep us all in order And yet it is dismiss'd without a Free-will-offering when we are obliged to it by way of gratitude for that Peace and Security under the shadow of which we enjoy our own None can think they shall want Objects either deserving or craving their Charity though they had a Million to expend in its service supposing it to be confined to the limits of this City if I may measure the whole by the bounds of that part in which I have my lot and residence though in the computation we should make a sufficient and vast abatement Any way that by our Charity we may contribute to the advantage and welfare of the Goods Bodies or Souls of others that may want help and accessions to either so as it be done according to proportion and opportunity will in the general discharge this duty in my Text. But more particularly there are three chanels into which our Charity dispersing it self may overflow to the disburthening the fountain by the disposal of our large or increasing Mammon And these are Hospitality Liberality and Munificence First We may sow the seed of our Wealth that I may sometimes use the Metaphor in my Text by being hospitable in our houses and entertainments And this does not only support the dignity of men to set a lustre on the different Orders in the World by shewing a decent mixture of Authority and Wealth that uphold each other But it invites Inferiors and those that are entertained not only to an awful and affectionate regard to the hospitable person But it causes men to be acquainted with and to love each other by keeping up a decent and as far as it is fitting a familiar friendship that so Order may be the Parent of Peace and there may be no Jars or Discords in our various Societies nor any Complaints heard in our Streets This vertue of Hospitality the Greeks were wont to express by 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as if it were an essential ingredient to the hospitable man to make his entertainments not to flow from necessity but delight And therefore the pleasure that accrued to him from his kindness to strangers might be a great compensation for the charge and expence But farther yet The exercise of this Splendid and Noble Vertue gains not only Honour and Reputation in the World but Friends too And it is not unfrequently rewarded in this life by such correspondencies and accessions to our Wealth by a kind reception of grateful guests that more than double our favours upon our selves However if an affable courteous and generous temper should not attract to its Owner its due and just reward here through any ill Fate or the Ingratitude of others but be upbraided by disingenuity and unkindness yet to be sure he shall not alwayes miss his recompence For his large mind shall in a future Region enter where an Estate cannot and gain a glorious and eternal habitation when his most stately Mansion in this World nay the Palaces of Princes shall prove so ruinous that they can no longer house their Inhabitants For the great God has so twisted our interest with our duty that he who commands us to use Hospitality instamping this sacred Vertue upon our minds writing it also in large characters in the Old Testament and the New has graciously promised to reward these actions though their native goodness is a sufficient argument to recommend their practice If we receive therefore strangers with compassion and courtesie or supply the wants of those whose necessitous inability or present misfortunes cannot make provision for themselves The most gracious God whose nature is to be liberal will not only conduct us in our Pilgrimage here but hereafter allot us eternal Mansions full of quiet and pleasant repose when our dayes shall be accomplished in this lower World and the dissolution of our bodies shall put a period to the enjoyment of those possessions which we have yet the fruition of It was always amongst mankind not only a piece of good Nature but Religion to provide for and protect to the utmost of their power him whom their Favour and Hospitality admitted as a guest into their houses Hence was it that the old man of Giheah when he had received the travelling Levite into his house at such a time as the whole Town were inhospitable and the Hectoring Blades of the Sons of Belial had a resolution to break the Sacred Bonds not only of Hospitality but Chastity too and to that end beset the house crying out with a large and common throat Bring forth the man that came into thine house that we may know him offering not only violence to their neighbour and to one whose Function being Sacred might have been his protection especially when he was a stranger too but to the natural propensity and Laws of mankind yet the good old man quickly reprehended such rude violence though with Rhetorick that might have softned the most uncultivated Clowns or any except such Miscreants as these Nay my brethren sayes he ver 23. nay I pray you do not so wickedly And he draws his Argument from the common right and Laws of hospitality Seeing this man is come into mine house do not this folly Now this is not the only reason to preserve the rights of hospitality sacred But the great God whom all mankind have cause to fear was not only angry at their rudeness and incivility but utterly dissatisfied with and resolved to punish the crimes both of their desire and action And this appears in the succeeding punishment For though the merits of the cause are exhibited to us Judges 19. yet it is apparent in the next Chapter that although the body of the Israelites lost forty thousand in two Battels the Benjamites had their Cities reduced to ashes and their Beasts and Men smitten with the Sword and only six hundred escaped this punishment like Job's messengers that the dislike of such crimes might be continued to posterity Nor is this example only upon record to encourage hospitality and deterr men from acting contrary to the Laws of it But there are also more early patterns of this Vertue and great advantages that did attend it

demolished will remain in the Memories of some men as long as the Annals of time shall last till they become as old as History Hence came our Magnificent Buildings our Churches Colledges Hospitals and the like things that are the glory of a Land which Domesticks enjoy and Foreigners stand amazed at whilst they make narrow Inspections into them and carry reports into their own Countreys that the Examples may be entered amongst the Records of time From hence proceed our publick Revenues that enrich those Buildings which are an Ornament to themselves so that they become open Attestations to the great transcendent and infinite glory of the Supream God whom we pretend to worship are Seminaries and publick Schools of Literature or a lasting and perpetual relief to the Poor They proclaim the Religion and Charity of Nations and are acceptable to all that see or know them These Munificent gifts have been so common in former days that they almost seem needless in our own So that Charity which then ran in one stream has been forced by Laws to divert into divers and yet Chanels are opened for more So that although in some times the sence of Mens Consciences may be more affected with these things and they who receive more than ordinary influence from the Heavens are so spurr'd forward to Gratitude and returns that their inward shame may forcibly provoke them to publick acts of Benevolence and Bounty Yet the reason when time draws men towards the dregs and bottom of the World why they grow more contracted and penurious is not because we have fewer Objects or less Arguments to prevail for our Munificence but because mens Hearts and Consciences are narrowed being heated and scorched another way they are shrunk to this and by a long and continued time of tenderness they now grow hard and brawny Or else because their Iniquities abound so that the Charity of many is waxen cold and fashionable Vices become so numerous that they are also very chargeable to maintain For though it cannot but be apparent to the World that in this great and renowned City many famous and publick Buildings have like the Phoenix arisen out of ashes and the Charity of well-disposed persons has been sent abroad to both Universities and to other Publick Places of the Land Yet the increase of Wealth must alwayes be an argument to enlarge our Bounty since the Necessitous will continue to be more numerous than the Rich And should we take a view of the large and stately Structure of Solomon's Temple under the Law and thereby measure the enlarged hearts of the Professors of that antiquated Religion by those many great and splendid gifts that were amass'd together to compleat the building and the rich Utensils that were contained in it we must presently vilifie and explode our selves in the same Periods in which we magnifie and extol them There are two Churches that yet lie waste in this City which Christian men of ingenuity and Purse methinks should have some regard to And this I speak with the more confidence because I have no Free-hold in either the one bears the name of Christ the great Saviour and Redeemer of the World to which two of your Hospitals are specially related The other that of the most famous S. Paul who being his extraordinary Apostle became the Teacher and Doctor of the Gentiles the posterity of whom we cannot deny our selves to be unless we had rather be accounted Jews The building these which are now the blemish would mightily advance the ornament of this City and far exceed the glory of all the largest Inscriptions and heighth of a Monument But alas I am too mean to direct However I wish I had time enough to epitomize Examples of the great Bounty of the Primitive and most refined Christians in works of Piety and enlarged Charity although they were harassed with Tryals and Afflictions yet they liberally dispersed what the rage of their adversaries permitted them to enjoy The Rich and the Poor the hard season then requiring it threw all into a common bag laying it at the Apostles feet and rather became Objects of their own Charity than others should want sustenance and relief And afterwards when the Sun shined more favourably on them they scattered their Bounty as he did his Rayes In the morning they sowed their seed and in the evening they withheld not their hands knowing that in proportion to their seed so would the increase of their harvest be But alas this would be too large a task for me to accomplish and too much for you to hear at once Nay a Breviary of their pious and charitable works might seem only to enlarge our arraignment and upbraid our neglects Let us a little consider the fresh charity of later Ages especially that which I am bound to recommend and that shall be all that I will trouble you with upon this last Head And here you must understand the charitable and encreasing Fund by the largeness of the Disbursement which will appear by this True Report c. All that I need to note from hence is what is remark'd in the Report it self that the disproportion betwixt the Revenue and the Disbursements is an argument to engage the direction of mens Charity to these most Christian and Compassionate Foundations And now I have nothing else remaining but to exhort you according to your abilities to be followers of the best and most charitable examples And in this I must crave leave to beg a rais'd attention though it has been already sufficiently tired because time commands me to crowd my materials into a narrow room and only to mention those Heads that might be enlarged to fill a Volume Charity is so great and such a spreading duty that it makes men to be like God himself who causes his Sun to shine and strains his refreshing showers through the Clouds both upon the just and the unjust who giveth liberally and upbraids not the receiver It imitates the great Saviour of the World whose Charity to men was that which brought him down from Heaven and was the motive that caused him to mediate betwixt God and man that a whole Species might not be eternally ruined This caused him to preach his Doctrine on the earth to go about doing good and to endure his Tragical Tortures and Death It treads in the steps of the holy Spirit of God who diffuses the rayes of glorious light and sheds his influence on all that are qualified to receive it Charity is an eternal Vertue venerable not only for its excellence but its age For as God was from all eternity good so will he remain beyond all periods And as this is a Vertue communicated to men in which he delighteth they shall carry it with them into the most lofty Regions when they shall be for ever with the Lord when Faith shall be swallowed up in Vision and Prospect and Hope in an everlasting Fruition 'T is the only way that we