Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	holy_a	keep_v	sabbath_n	2,405	5	9.4746	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A66751	Divine poems (by way of paraphrase) on the Ten commandments illustrated with twelve copper plates, shewing how personal punishments has been inflicted on the transgressors of these Commandments, as is recorded in the Holy Scriptures : also a metrical paraphrase upon the Creed and Lords prayer / written by George Wither.	Wither, George, 1588-1667.	1688 (1688)	Wing W3154; ESTC R25189	42,152	136

He that from Holy Orders goeth back And by his Idleness becometh slack In Duties of his Calling or grown rich By Church promotions thinks it overmuch To execute that Function as he ought To which with wealth and honour he is brought Even he what fair excuse so ere he make Is justly said Gods name in vain to take For if he proveth guiltless he receiv'd A dispensation more than I believ'd A Prayer without Faith a formal mention Of Gods due praise without a due intention Yea vain or complemental Salutations Without Sincerity are prophanations Against this Law though many men have thought That these are signs of persons better taught Dissembling Fasts Thanksgivings mumbled out With babling Repititions and devout In nought but feigned Term or length of Time Do make men guilty likewise of this Crime Nay many Sermons of the vulgar strain Are taking of the Name of God in vain He that his Church or Chappel hath bedeckt And yet Gods living Temples doth neglect He that a love to those doth seem to carry Yet leaves defac'd his outward Sanctuary He that to bend his body is asham'd When he shall here his blessed Saviour nam'd He that without an inward Adoration Bows outwardly or with an Affectation To mimick Gestures or performs the same Unto the vocal sounding of the Name Or either practiseth or leaves undone Such Duties in Contempt of any one Even He though to be guiltless he pretends Against this Third Commandement offends But none this holy precept more have broke Than they who on themselves Christs name have took Yet live like Infidels excepting those Who guild Hypocrisy with Godly shows And under pious habits use to prey On those who being more sincere than they Are threatned and suppose all well bestown While these will take till nothing is their own God keep his Lambs from these as from the worst Of all Dissembers and the most accurst The Faults condemn'd seem nothing to have bin To this abhorred Hell begotten Sin Are Drunken Jollities vnbridled passion A wicked Custom Slight consideration And evil Narture but much blame is cast On Tutors and some Parents for the last All these must therefore shunned be by him That would not Swear For-swear Curse nor Blaspheme This must be likewise heeded that unless We still on all occasions do confess The Name of God and Sanctifie it too By such good Duties as we ought to do As in Relieving those who in his Name Shall ask without abusing of the same In swearing by it when just cause requires In suffering for it though by Sword and Fires When God may be dishonour'd by a base Forsaking of our Faith or of our Place Yea if we be not ready to our might In all Gods Attributes to do him right And honour him in Deed in Word and Thought In what we can although not as we ought We faulter in our Duty and 't is plain We do profess to bear Gods name in vain My Heart LORD GOD so settle in thy way That I this Law may never disobey Amen Commandment IV. IIII. Remember that thou keep holy y e Sabbath day c. 'T is not in the Common Creed That he gather'd Sticks for need Who for Sabbath breaking dy'd For all wants were so supply'd That it seems he did transgress By Contempt or Carelessness He commits the same offence ' Gainst this Precepts moral sence Who the Christian Sabbaths wrongs And a Plague to him belongs Command IV. To hallow do not thou forget Those times which God apart hath set YOu that our Christian Sabbath do despise Behold this Figure with regardful eyes For though on us this Precept doth not lay The Ceremonial service of the day Or to a Jewish Sabbath us confine It n'retheless a Duty doth enjoin Which no man living can be freed from Till to the general Judgment Christ shall come For Nature urges that convenient Rest Should be allowed both to Man and Beast Lest their corporeal substance should miscarry Before the time And 't is as necessary The Soul should have some leisure to attend His will on whom her being doth depend Freemen may rest their bodies when they please And Wise men know how for to take their ease But lab'ring Beasts and Men who are depraved Or they whom wants or Tyrants have enslaved Had restless lived till their life time ended Unless this holy Law had them befriended And they who to the flesh most favour show For Soul affairs but little time allow This God at first foresaw and for that cause Though in Mans heart he then ingrav'd his Laws Essential and long oblig'd him not To such additions as time since begot Yet when he found that error and transgression Had wholly rased out the first impression To stop Corruptions Growth he afterward To Rites to times and places had regard All men at first had liberty to take What daies they pleased holydaies to make Or for convenient Rest Nor did from all This freedom cease when God the Jews did call To keep their Sabbaths For to one set day No Nation were oblig'd save only they Nor had the Gentiles any other ties Save to observe it in a moral wise So far as might preserve unto the Creature The freedom and well being of its nature A Law concerning Rest and holy Dues Confin'd indeed the people of the Jews To one set day even one set day in seven To them were Ceremonies also given Concerning it which no man might transgress Save in great need without much guiltiness That Law which nature simply had received At our first being was to them derived With such like Accidents as might be best To keep them firm and bring in all the rest In Gods appointed season to embrace The Law of Nature in the Law of Grace Their Customs and their Ceremonial day With Christ was buried and so swept away When he arose from death that to renew And celebrate the Sabbath of the Jew We are no more obliged than to rear Their Temple and to build their Altar here And yet lest man's corruption and the lack Of Accidents might bring the Substance back Even to the first neglect Christ dist instate His Church with power to change or abrogate The Circumstances of this Law so far As needful seem'd Provided that it were Essentially preserved and in this She hath performed what required is For though the time be changed it retains The same proportion It for use remains The same in Essence and that being so The same obedience is now due thereto And to what Circumstance the Church thinks fit To help continue the right use of it Now therefore though that every day be free For works which truly necessary be And though those Worshipers which are sincere May worship any day or any where Yet none can without guiltiness despise The Places Rites or Times of Sacrifice Appointed by the Church while they accord What may be authorized by the word This Law is therefore broke

of us not only Guilty stand Of being breakers of this first Command By serving Gods beside and more than him Who from Death Sin and Hell did us redeem But either we neglect him also quite Or practise works to him so opposite That into worse impieties we fall Than such as yet confess no God at all For by distrust self-love backsliding fear Inconstancy Presumption fruitless Care Impatience Grudging Frowardness or Pride With other such our God we have deny'd More oft than once and oftner fear we shall Into this error through our frailty fall This Law in some degree is also broke Unless we to our powers due care have took To Shun each cause of breaking it The Chief Is Ignorance the ground of misbelief The next is to be oft and willingly Among Professors of Idolatry The Third is Servile fear which many ways The Heart unto Idolatry betrays The last not least is when the sway we give To any Lust or Sin For thus believe Such men to gain the full of their delight Will change their God or leave Religion quite Yea they who hate at first so gross a Sin Are by the Devil this way hooked in This Meditation here had found an end But that there are some others who offend Against this Law in such a high Degree As that they must not quite unmention'd be The truest God confessed is by them Their only God They serve and honour him In outward shew and if believe we may What they themselves have pleased been to say They love him too But either they mistake him Or by their own Invention so new Make him That though they speak him by a gracious Name The goodness of his nature they defame By making him the Authour to have bin And cause original of every Sin For in affirming that the fall of Man And Sin and Death from Gods meer will began They say no less although they praise him much For being good to them and some few such To say of these I am no whit afraid As of old Idol-Makers hath been said Their God and they are like for on their Will They ground their practices which must be still Supposed Just and some perchance of them Would be as cruel as they fancy him But that their Finite Natures cannot reach The Tyranies which they of him do preach Let us of such impieties beware What we conceive of God let us have care And not with foolish Hereticks suppose By teaching common truths and making shows Of holy piety to keep Gods eye From seeing when we wrong his Majesty For if he be displeas'd with such as make Good Creatures of his Godhead to partake How much more cause have they his wrath to fear Who make him worse than his worst Creatures are And that prime Attribute have overthrown By which he chiefly to be God is known For none are bound to serve him by this Law But such as he did out of bondage draw For if he drew not all then some there be Who though they have a God ours is not he At least in such a manner as may give These Unbelievers courage to believe Their God they say did some unhappy make To shew his power and for his Glorys sake My God is he who pittied their Estates Whom these do fancy hopeless Reprobates An Issue leaving out of that temptation In which they lying to their Just damnation And for the day of wrath no sinners made But such as do abuse the Grace they had Their God is he who forc'd mankind to fall And mine is he who did Redeem us all My sweet Redeemer so my heart incline That I may always keep this Law of thine Amen Commandment II. Thou shalt not make to thy selfe any Graven image c. Superstition here is free If her Idols rais'd may be And with Zeal the same pursues If will worship she may use When she should obey or hear Sacrifice she doth prepare Such Religion to profess Is but irreligeousness And for that presumptions vain Many Israelites were slain Command II. Let every Hand and Heart refrain An Image of our God to fain THree thousand suffered by their brethrens hand For offering violence to this Command And for committing of the same offence The Sword hath been in action ever since Some where or other to the devastation Of many a powerful and renowned Nation For to adore one Godhead and no moe Save him to whom such Duty all men owe Sufficeth not unless our adoration Be such as may obtain his approbation A forged worship meriteth a Rod As truly as a falsified God And such as do their own Religion frame Serve but their Fancies though God bear the name When humane wit had fool'd away the notion Of Gods true Being and of true Devotion She calling to remembrance that each Creature Had in it some impression of his nature Did blindly seek him by that couz'ning light And lost at last the knowledge of him quite For some did make him Figures like their own Some like to beasts and some like forms unknown Then by degrees the Devil screwed in To seem a God and made the foulest Sin Thought pious worship For though vile it be To picture him whose form we cannot see And to ascribe to him imperfect features Who gave their bodies to the fairest Creatures And in whose Essence all perfections are Yet in their wickedness they staid not there By wicked Ceremonies they invited The world to think the Godhead was delighted With hellish actions for their living seed In horrid wise to death did often bleed As acceptable offerings murtherous hands Were thought the Actors of his just Commands And drunken Riots with lascivious Games Seem'd holy Duties and had holy Names Nor did the Gentiles only thus misdo But many Jews and many Christians too The self same sins in Essence did commit Though with new Vizzards they had covered it For how much better are their Festivals Then Bacchanalian Riots in whose Halls And Parlours are assembled in the stead Of those poor Souls whom Charity should feed A Rout of Roaring Ruffins who are there For nothing but to drink or game and swear Except it be that they might soon undo Those fools which do abuse Gods bounty so Mens follies make them frequently to err And then they Vice for Vertue do prefer Their Superstition makes them think amiss Of God And then their service of him is Accordingly devis'd they favour not That worship which their wit hath not begot They fear him Tyrant-like and dream that he Is pleas'd with such like works as Tyrants be For Carnal wisdom cannot be content Unless it may be suffered to invent The Scoenes which make her Stage Religion seem To Superarrogate in her esteem Some tho' they Scoff Idolatry are hardly brought To serve a God of whom they have not thought A circumscribed Form to which they may Address themselves in that corporeal way Which they affect and therefore up they rear Such Calves