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
A87021	Five propositions to the Kings Majesty and the army, concerning church-government, in the ordering of the discipline thereof towards communicants. / By H. Hammond Doctor in Divinity, and one of the Kings chaplains, now with his Majesty in the army.	Hammond, Henry, 1605-1660.	1647 (1647)	Wing H543; Thomason E401_9; ESTC R201775	3,076	8

FIVE PROPOSITIONS TO THE Kings Majesty And the ARMY concerning Church-Government in the ordering of the Discipline thereof toward Communicants By H. Hammond Doctor in Divinity and one Of the Kings Chaplains now with his Majesty in the Army C. R. Aug 6th CAMBRIDGE Printed for Nathaniel Smith Anno Dom. 1647. Five Propositions to the Kings Majesty and the Army concerning Church-Government in the ordering of the Discipline thereof towards Communicants 1. THat the power may be To provoke to goodnesse putting them in minde of every occasion wherein any Christian vertue of mercifulnesse Almes-giving meeknesse purity peace-making is more then ordinarily seasonable and by our example and the examples of other pious men present or read of in Story especially sacred encouraging to abundance in well doing and upon all occasions remembring them of the various dispensations of the love and mercy of God through Christ wherein they have had their peculiar portion and the infinite immarcessible Crowne that super-abundant weight of glory which is not in the same degree powred out to all but dispensed according to works according to the proportion of that labour of Love and worke of Faith that shall be observable in every Combatant of Christs when the great Leader and Crowner of our Faith shall come out to his day of retributions and each of these is an excellent way to provoke all to well doing the duty prescribed Heb. 10.24 Let us observe one another to sharpen or provoke in one another Charity and good or laudable works 2. To give the Brother a sight not onely of his sins the not doing of which is an argument of a most mortall enmity a hating the Brother in the heart whom we do not in that case rebuke Lev. 19.17 and no man must be ever accounted otherwise then a treacherous contriver of his brothers destruction that is guilty of it but even of his passions his inclinations the weaknesses and peculiar distempers of his nature things of which no man is a competent judge to discerne them in himselfe and wherein a man may live and dye ignorant if he be not taught by anothers more impartiall observation and of which there is farre more reason to expect to be admonisht by a friend that takes notice of them then of a jaundice-looke or earthly breath which being but symptomes of bodily diseases and yet by all rules of friendship to be revealed to him who is concerned to know and seeke out for cure of them are not neare so dangerous to be concealed or unlikely to be discerned by the patient as the more subtle secret diseases of the Soule Thus if the interpretation of learned men will stand good Saint Paul received benefit by the admonition of the by-standers Act. 23.4 without which he had not considered what was his duty to the High Priest And thus did Christ befriend Saint Peter with the knowledge of his passionate temper transported with zeale at the present though he should dye with Christ he will not deny him and afterwards when danger was instant transported as much with a contrary passion and foretold him that he peculiarly should deny him which it seems he never would have discerned in himselfe And if any thing had been armour sufficient against seare this of all others would most probably have secured him 3. The third is in case of falling into but especially continuing in sin frequent repeated importunate calling and rouzing to awake and get out of it That title of the friend among the heathens to be the other or second selfe being far from being lessened or superseded by Christ but improved indeed and applyed to the divinest and most sacred offices of friendship and the rescuing from sin as from the most formidable danger layes an obligation upon every friend every brother i. e. Christian toward every other that comes wit hin the reach of his warmth or influence to supply all those offices that every ones selfe i. e. his soul his conscience is concerned and obliged to do Thus when the conscience beside the directive office hath another of punishing and disciplining too of playing the Erinnys with the torch within us to scorch and light us out of our road of darknesse the Brother the Christian the second soul and conscience within the fellow-Christians breast received thus into his most venerable secrets the knowledge of the deformities and sins of his very soule when either he hath neglected to performe the duty of the Domestick divine guardian the assiduous watch to keepe off the hostile approaches or mines of sinnes or hath not been obeyed in his warnings he hath now this onely last part of duty behind that of becomming the Angell to Lot calling him leading him forcing him out of Sodome setting him without the Port with an escape fly for thy life neither stay thou in all the plaine and againe re-inforcing the admonition and warning with an escape to the mountaines lest thou be consumed And he that hath no heart to be thus importunate upon his perishing brother may by that ghesse how little he hath of that Angelicall temper in him 4 The fourth degree of this duty is in case any or all the former though conscientiously and diligently used have yet been without successe then watching of seasons and opportunities calling in prudence to assist Charity the braine to aide the heart either comming as God to Adam in the coole of the day when the tempter of the wax may probably make it more capable of impression or as the fathers say of Gods dealing with the Elect whom he doth as 't is thought by that meanes infallibly worke on calling him tempore congruo at a fit chosen time when in all probability a seasonable admonition may be hearkened to great variety there is of these opportunities not defineable particularly but onely observable by him that not onely in his duty towards God and toward himself but also toward his weak or sick brother doth walke circumspectly and observingly not as an unwise but wise watchman and that is the meaning of Ephes 5.16 parallel to Dan. 2.8 rendred in the former place redeeming in the latter gaining the time i. e. delaying in time of the rage or fury of the Prince in Dan. or of the evill times in St. Paul and so in the heat of a violent sinne when admonition is out of its place untill the present tempest be over and then there be more hope or possibility for reason to be hearkened to And as a branch of this comes in at last 5 A fift degree of this duty when nothing else will and that may probably or possibly doe some good but never else never upon wearinesse or wrath or any thing but grounds of deepest Charity the breaking of familiar converse with him to whom all other methods of kindnesse have prov'd succeslesse For as in the authoritative processe when the censures of the Church are found necessary to which onely Christ designed them to the saving that which is lost the course is to deny him the most intimate society that of the communion of the faithfull and neither joyne with him in the Prayers and Lessons nor in the participation of the Lords Supper so in the image of that the society of single friends or Christians especially where there is no place for the publike censures either for want of government in a new planted Church or where Schisme hath driven it out or where the crime is not of that nature as to be capable of that publike audience when all the former offices of the Angelus custos have been perform'd improsperously then that of the Angell with Jacob a wrestling to get from him to deny him the blessing of his company and familiarity may prove seasonable not out of a fastidious passionate displeasure to the sinner O he is then the most naturall proper object of pitty and kindnesse the incorrigible sinner is fit for any thing rather then our anger or impatience nor againe lest I be polluted by his company in this case 't is with the friend as with the beleeving Husband if the unbeleeving Wife is willing to live with him let him not depart how knowest thou but that by thy Christian contrary example thou maist yet save thy impenitent heathen brother but I say onely on that great principle of saving Charity that by seeing himselfe avoided withdrawne from left to converse with none beside his sinne but fiends and flatterers he may possibly be ashamed and by that confusion of spirit awakened out of that snare whence the calme lesse sensible admonitions were not able to rouze him and this perhaps was the kinde that belong'd to the disorderly obedient 1 Thes 5.14 which the Thessalonions are so earnestly entreated peculiarly under the notion as brethren to use in this case and an opportunity sometime may be wisely chosen when it may prove proper and seasonable FINIS