Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	faith_n	good_a	work_n	3,907	5	6.0359	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A77987	Habakkuks prayer applyed to the churches present occasions, on Hab. 3. 2. And Christs counsel to the church of Philadelphia, on Rev. 3. 11. / Preached before the provincial assembly of London. By that late reverend and faithful minister of Jesus Christ Mr. Samuel Balmford, pastor of Albons Woodstreet.	Balmford, Samuel, d. 1659?	1659 (1659)	Wing B608; Thomason E1910_2; ESTC R209972	36,857	123

and will fulfill his determined work within his appointed time for them or in plenitudine temporis in the fulness of time determined yet this is a sense that falls too short of the Emphasis of the doubling of this Phrase in our Text which may seem to import more than so Yet secondly neither do I take the midst here Geometricè precisè for the midst according to a precise measure as some do For they that think he prayes that this reviving work of God might be wrought either about the middle of the years of the worlds duration presuming it shall last 6000. years or just between Samuels Prophecying and Christ his coming or suffering supposing just 490. years between that Prophet and the Captivity in Babylon and as many between the Captivity and Christ they build upon uncertainties and that in the judgement of our latest English Annotators c. What construction then may we make of this expression The meaning may be taken up as I conceive As the Psalmist prayed for himself or rather in behalf of the Church Ps 102. 23 24. with those whom I account most judicious in these two particulars 1. In the midst of the years i. e. In the middle course of thy Church or people while yet they are not grown up to a maturity or ripeness of age suffer them not to perish but hold them up in life Now that ancient people of God saith Calvin and our Genevian Annotators after him came not to their fulnesse of age till Christ and therefore should they not have been held up in a Church frame till then they had sunk as it were in the flower or middle of their age therefore he prayes thus c. 2. In the midst of years i. e. illorum calamitosorum infaelicium dierum c. of those calamitous and unhappy dayes or years when thy people shall be under the Chaldean bondage when they shall be tumbled headlong into miseries and be even overwhelmed with the waves of afflictions rushing in upon them and over them then do thou revive thy work thy work of promised grace and goodness on their behalf Etiamsi videmur destinati esse morti tamen nos rest●t●e so Calvin And this I take to be the most genuine sense of this expression This midst of years being as emphatical as Davids midst of troubles Psal 138. 7. or the mountains being carried into the midst of the Seas Psal 46. 2 c. But to proceed to the last Quere Fourthly what means that abrupt speeh make known in the midst of c. what would he have made known Truly 't is very easie to gather both what and how by referring to the foregoing words viz. Make known thy reviving and revived work c. Let it be actually seen that it is thy work that such people are thine and that such works of Providence for them are thine let them and all the world about take notice of it And withall in so doing make know what a God thou art as for wisdom and truth and power and other excellencies so for mercy in wrath remembring mercy as follows in the last clause Of which excellent and comfortable sentence I shall be able to speak but briefly and that as a ground onely of that one point I shall speak unto for our instruction which I gather up out of this branch of the Use thus Obs There be good grounds for the people of God to build their faith and prayers upon that God will preserve his Church and restore it unto a comfortable condition in the midst of the greatest dangers or miseries they can fall into in this life Or thus Gods people may rely on him for reviving grace amidst their most perplexed desperate and according to man deadest condition When there is otherwise no hope of recovery they may hopefully apply themselves unto him I take the Observation in this frame bcause I finde the Prophet praying to this purpose and all warrantable prayers are grounded upon Principles of Faith and this Prayer was intended for the use of Gods people and not for the Prophet himself onely as if the Spirit of God from heaven had shewed them how God was to be sought unto And therefore we might state the Point thus That it is the duty of Gods people to pray unto him to revive his work in the midst of most unlikely years So Calvin Sect. Now that in the depth of distresses the people of God have good ground of reliance on him for reviving grace I will first shew by way of Instance and then of Reason By way of Instance to make it appear that God hath revived his work in the midst of calamitous and disastrous times besides those of the Babylonish Captivity I will mind you but of two most memorable cases Instances out of the Scriptures We are not to omit that reviving was granted for which most directly this Prayer was made In that God hath preserved life of grace in his people druing the Captivity refreshing and confirming them by his servants the Prophets as Ezekiel Daniel and others lest they should despair and utterly sink with grief and restored them c. witnesse Haggie and Zacharie following One before that Captivity viz. Gods deliverance of his people out of Egypt For in the midst of the years of their bondage there under Pharaoh while they were groaning heavily under it and felt their pressures tasks and burdens multiplyed upon them then God sent them reviving comfort by Moses and wrought their deliverance wonderfully when according to man they were out of all hope of any such thing And this is that case which this Prophet most of all commends to their Posterity in this Prayer as a ground of Faith by way of president Though there be some mixed references in it to some other writings vouchsafed them in languishing and fainting cases while they were in the Land of Canaan Among other verses see the 13 14 15 c. Another after the Babylonish Captivity viz. The redemption of his people wrought by Christ For in the midst of years of sad and mournfull condition when his people were much degenerated and corrupted though they had the second Temple standing amongst them yet much polluted in worship as well as in other sinfull courses and thereupon left destitute of Prophets for a time and deprived of the Royal dignity among them being subdued by Romans then was Christ sent into the world and when the hearts of the best were troubled with longing expextation of a Messiah Venit Christus cum morbus creverit ad summum paroxysmum Then Christ came as a great Physitian when the disease was grown to the highest and sharpest fit of it then came he to work the Patients most necessary spiritual deliverance And this is that reviving act which divers Pontificial Expositors at least make the Allegorical sense of our Text and think it most intended by the Spirit in this place But it may suffice