Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
Text snippets containing the quad
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A52535
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A discourse of natural and reveal'd religion in several essays, or, The light of nature a guide to divine truth.
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Nourse, Timothy, d. 1699.
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1691
(1691)
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Wing N1417; ESTC R16135
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159,871
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385
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growing in the Field till the Harvest of the World Whosoever shall endeavour to destroy them will in all likelihood tread down the good Grain also and since they cannot prevent the Enemies malice 't is the duty of the Labourers when they sow good Grain to be watchfull and to nip these spreading weeds at their first appearance for they are of a hungry and devouring Nature robbing all the good Juyce and Nutriment to themselves and by the many windings of their Wyres they pluck the Stalks of good Corn down to the Ground There is nothing certainly more pernicious to the Peace and Tranquillity of Religion than frequent disputations about it for though many at first out of an itch of Ostentation may enter upon a Dispute yet they seldom quit it but with great Animosity and by their endless controversies bring the Mysteries of Religion and the Articles of our Faith under Scepticism and Doubt Happy were the Patriarchs of the first Age without dispute whose Religion consisted in an Adoration of Almighty God their Creator They never troubled their Brains with Metaphysical Quiddities and Distinctions 't was their early business of the morning to make their offerings to the God of Heaven for the expiation of their sins and thereby make him propitious They did celebrate his Praises in some short pious Hymns expressing his Greatness and Goodness and afterwards betaking themselves to the ordinary Duties of their Life which were for the most part pastoral they could not but make infinite improvements of their time by observing the Power and Goodness of their Maker in the bountifull returns from the Earth and by observing dayly the Beauties of Nature with the Vicissitudes of Seasons and the favourable influence of the heavens The Works of God were the subject of their innocent Speculation whose wonders also they transmitted to Posterity by telling what deliverances their Fore-fathers as also they themselves had found at his hands Meditations and Discourses like these did intersere commonly in all the Employments and Occurrences of their Lives and thus by an innocent Labour of Body and by Methods of Sobriety Temperance and Frugality unknown to those of this luxurious and degenerate Age they did arrive to length of days retaining to the last an uninterrupted Health and Vegeteness of Mind and when Nature had spun its course they did wind up their Lives by recommending their Spirits into the hands of their Creator and slept with their Fathers leaving their Children to follow their good Examples Thus far'd it with the happy Patriarchs And truly under the Gospel I cannot see but Men may be as happy nay more happy if they please the Duties which Christ requires of us carry their own reward tending all of them to the perfecting of the Moral Law and to settle the Spirit upon a true Basis of repose The Articles of Faith as they are tender'd to us in the Gospel are few and to an humble and unprejudic'd Mind carry light and life with them although disputations and heterodox Questions may arise in the Church and embroil many with Faction and perplex'd Notions what is this to a modest and humble Christian The practice of whose life consists First in a dutiful Adoration of Almighty God expecting Salvation from him through the Merits of his only Son Jesus Christ our Lord resigning up himself wholly to his Providence and being always thankful under every circumstance of life Secondly in performing works of Justice and Charity towards his Neighbour and lastly in living soberly as to himself and bringing his extravagant Passions and desires under subjection Let not such a one discompose his Rest by endeavouring to fathom the inexhaustible depths of Knowledge with intricate and fruitless Enquiries which indeed are those Thorns and Thistles from whence Men shall never gather Grapes nor Figs they who fall amongst them will be entangled with their prickly Snares No let a Man live so as to have a care of himself and to hope the best of another and thus being freed from superfluous Anxiety he will go through with the Duties of Life and even of Death with great alacrity having attain'd to a true Settlement and Tranquillity of Mind FINIS Books Printed for John Newton at the three Pidgeons in Fleet-street THe History of the most Renowned Don Quixot of Sancha and his trusty Squire Sancha Pancha now made English according to the Humour of our Modern Language and adorned with several Coper Cuts by J. P. The History of the Venetian Conquests from the Year 1684. to the Year 1688. Translated out of French by Sir J. M. A Consolatory Discourse for the support of Widows and Orphans of general use to all Christians who either are or may be left in such Circumstances The Rehearsal as it is now acted at the Theatre Royal the fifth Edition with Amendments and large Additions of the Author The Disorders of Basset a Novel done out of French A Memorial for the Learned Or Miscellany of choice Collections from most Eminent Authors in History Philosophy Physick and Heraldry by J. D. Gent. The Ghost of the Emperor Charles the fifth appearing to Volcart the Porter Or a Dialogue touching the Times Some Odes of Horace imitated with Relation to His Majesty and the Times by John Glauvell of Lincolns-Inn Gent.
Blasphemers who spit their Venom against Heaven adding withal that this is no new thing since in all Ages there have been wicked and prophane Men Qui adversus hanc Doctrinae partem ore rabido Lib. 1. Inst Cap. 18. Sect. ult latrarent which Language of his is so virulent and unchristian like that I know not how to make it English And to conclude this Chapter says Calvin If it shall seem difficult to any what we now assert to wit That there is no Agreement of God with Man when Man by the just Impulse of God does that which is not lawful for him to do he cryes out Who can forbear trembling at the Judgments of God who works in the Hearts of Men whatsoever he will More justly may we cry out Who can forbear trembling to hear such desperate Doctrine 'T is true he denies every where that God is the cause of Sin but whether that which I have cited out of him and which was delivered by him not occasionally but ex professo be not a proof of his making God to be the cause of Sin I know not what can ever be proved upon the Earth and if he contradicts himself let those who follow him look to that he seeming in this Particular to be an Example of that Judgment which he so often ascribes to God of being deliver'd over in Reprobum sensum or of having the Eyes of his Understanding darkned And thus much for the Doctrine of Calvin whom I shall forbear to treat with that scurrilous Language he so freely bestows on those who differ from him in Opinion upon this Point He was certainly a learned Man and of a strict Life and severe but withal of a most morose and sour Disposition most vexatious furious and obstinate as are all those who follow him most opiniative of himself a Vilifier of such as deserted from him and as to what concerns the Point in question his Doctrine is little less than Blasphemy For according to this Doctrine Man is made a meer stupid dead and Passive Principle and Free Grace is built upon the greatest Similitude of which a Rational Nature is capable if so be it be capable thereof a necessity to Sin But God has given us faculties to discriminate betwixt Good and Evil and Abilities also to arbitrate upon them To what purpose otherwise are all those Menaces Exhortations and Prohibitions so frequently us'd and insisted on in Scripture What meaneth the Spirit of God when we are required to do good and eschew evil to repent us of our sinful ways and to turn unto the Lord to put on the Armour of God and to withstand the Wiles of the Devil and to work out our Salvatition with fear and trembling For if so be I have not a power to obey these Injunctions How is it that God commands me to do that which is impossible and yet punishes the non-performance with Eternal Death This is all one as if a General should bind his Soldiers Hands and Feet and having done so require him to rise up to apply himself to his Service and to combat the Enemy and then execute the man for not executing his Commands Besides supposing the Will to be thus impotent and deprav'd might not the Sinner thus interrogate his Soul Why am I thus sollicitous to withstand the Assaults of the Devil Why do I thus tire and weary out my self with vain Endeavours Why do I embitter the Pleasures and Enjoyments of my Life with Grief and Anxiety when it lies not in my own power to remove my Fear Nay might not the Reprobate thus expostulate with God as Sostratus in Lucian did with Minos Seest thou not with what Injustice thou art chargeable who hast doom'd me to everlasting Misery being subservient and instrumental only in those Evils which Fate had predefin'd and yet thou rewardest others with Happiness who are no other than the Dispensers of that Good to which the guidance of their unalterable Decrees had pre-ordain'd them Was there not the same Necessity in both why then is there such inequality in the Sentence These and such like prodigious Blasphemies are the Natural or rather the Unnatural Consequences of this Doctrine 'T is true if we look back on man as in a state of Nature and as under the deprivation of that Primitive Perfection with which he was once invested he has no Abilities of himself to fulfil the Will of God nor perform those Christian Duties which are requir'd of him unless he be first illuminated by God's Holy Spirit quicken'd with his Grace and encouraged by the discoveries and Gracious promises of the Gospel But this is nothing to the Question for we now consider man under his moral Capacity and of moral Actions 't is that Calvin tells us That it is of the special Grace of God as often as we think of doing any thing which may concern our Temporal Good or as often as our minds and thoughts have a version to any thing that may hurt us Upon these moral Actions then it is that Calvin does chiefly controvert though the Arguments and Examples he makes use of are taken in a manner all of them from the Old Testament To all which I answer First in general That those Expressions which we meet with every where in Scripture are not to be understood in strict Propriety of Language but per Modum Recipientis and in the same Sense as God is said every where to repent to be jealous to be angry to forget to hear and see with such like Passions and Affections as are infinitely short of the Divine Nature it seeming good to the Holy Spirit to use such Descriptions to make weak and ignorant men more capable to understand the Will of God by such sensible and familiar Representations And that this is the true Sense of them is evident from those infinite Places in the Old Testament where Men are invited to Repentance and Amendment of Life to turn to the Lord and where heavy Judgments are every where denounc'd against those who shall not conform themselves to such Admonitions all which would be nothing but a mere delusion of men if they were not able to turn themselves one way or other 'T is certain also that the Prophets every where use many Rhetorical and Figurative Expressions Emblems and Similitudes as doth David also Job and almost all the Ancient Writers Now to understand all these literally would be to lead us into endless Perplexities we have therefore no other Rule to understand them by but by interpreting them in such a Sense as shall agree best with the Nature and Attributes of God with the general Context and Scope of Scripture and with the Nature also of Men endu'd with Reasonable Souls Now so it is that the Actions of Men are ascrib'd also to God not only from that general Influence he has upon his Creatures as their Creator and by which he gives them Beings and affords them his general