Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	law_n	nature_n	precept_n	1,292	5	9.1116	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A55819	A letter to a friend relating to the present convocation at Westminster	Prideaux, Humphrey, 1648-1724.; Kidder, Richard, 1633-1703.; Tillotson, John, 1630-1694.	1690 (1690)	Wing P3413; ESTC R23295	18,264	30

ruine Is it not enough that we have had already a twenty years War about them and is it not enough that ever since our deliverance from that for the sake of those trifles we have for these thirty years last past driven up our divisions and animosities against each other to that height as that we had almost totally given up our Church to Popery and our Government to Tyranny thereby Certainly after all this it 's time to sit down and consider whether those things are of such great value for the sake of which we bring so much mischief to this poor distressed Church and Nation that nothing must be abated of that unreasonable rigor whereby we have hitherto maintained them And if the consideration of things past cannot move us I beseech you consider a little the present posture of our affairs we have a formidable Enemy in our neighbourhood now engaged in War against us who thinks of nothing less than subjugating these three Kingdoms to his absolute Tyranny and imposing Popish Idolatry and Superstition upon all the Inhabitants of them and that which gives him the greatest advantage against us and the greatest hopes for our destruction is our divisions among our selves at home which enfeeble both our hearts and hands for the battel and make us unable to resist him with that success which formerly used to attend most of our other expeditions against Enemies altogether as potent and what remedy have we left to prevent this terrible ruin that now so formidably threatens us but to come to as firm a union among our selves as we are able and could but this be once happily effected we need not fear all the power of France and Rome in the firmest union against us but should be strong enough to resist all their efforts for our ruin and by the blessing of God still continue in safety in spight of all the endeavours of both to the contrary And since it hath pleased God to move the King to call us together in Convocation in this conjuncture I hope we shall not let slip this opportunity of doing the utmost we are able to unite the Nation now our affairs do so much require it for the publick safety thereof For the expectations of all men are now upon us for this purpose and the hopes of preserving Church and State in the great dangers under which they are now both involv'd do in a great measure depend upon what we shall doe for our common Peace now met together and put in a way to remove those obstacles which have so long disturbed it Have we not already lost our reputation with the people of the Land by insisting too rigorously on those things And now we have in a great measure again retriev'd it by our firm and successfull engagement against the Popish cause shall we be so far infatuated as again to run the same risk will we but now come to that temper and moderation in our establishments as may remove that bone of contention which hath so long disturbed us and think of such abatements as may tend to the setling of Peace and Union among us the mouths of all this people shall bless us and we shall acquire thereby that veneration and regard among them that they shall all look on us as the onely faithfull Shepherds whose voice they are to hear and we thereby be enabled to discharge the duties of our Ministry among them with that comfort to our selves and benefit to them as shall soon fix our Church upon a foundation never more to be shaken by any of its Enemies But if on the contrary we still persist in our old rigor and abate no expression in our Liturgy nor ceremony in our Worship for the sake of so great a good for my part I can expect nothing less than that we become abhorr'd of the whole Nation as the common Enemies of its peace and be treated accordingly in every Parish where we live among them Were those matters in which abatements are desired of us by our dissenting Brethren things of that moment that they either carried with them the force of a divine Institution or were of their own nature so necessary to our Worship that either the Honour of God or the Interest of man's Salvation should suffer the least prejudice by their omission it would become us then whatever the Consequences should be to stick to them to the utmost and with the same constancy as formerly the ancient Christians did against the Arrians not yield a letter to them to end the whole controversie between us But notwithstanding what our learned Prolocutor hath been pleased in his Latin Speech to the Convocation to suggest this is by no means our present case For what Article of Faith what necessary requisite of our Worship is it in which any alterations are at all intended to be proposed in this present Convocation if he knows of any such he would doe well to discover them and when they come to be offered oppose them to the utmosh But alas the alterations intended how great oppositions soever they may meet with are so far from touching upon any thing of this nature that I can assure him and he himself well knows it as being one of the Commission where they are prepared that they are onely in those indifferent things which have through all ages of the Church from the beginning been ever allowed to be alterable whensoever the good of the Church should require it And therefore since at present as I have shown not onely the good of the Church in order to the establishment of its peace among us but also the publick interest of the State too in order to its preservation in its present exigencies do so much require that those alterations should be made why do we so obstinately stick at those matters whereby not onely the cause of God in the welfare of his Church but our own also in the publick interest of the Nation is so greatly prejudiced by us As it is a great errour in some of our dissenting Brethren to allow nothing lawfull to be made use of in our publick Worship but what they find particular warrant for in Scripture so is it no less a mistake in us to hold any thing of this nature not prescribed there to be unalterable For our Saviour having given us his divine Law and therein among other Precepts commanded in the Worship of God the Celebration of his Sacraments and the Government of his Church for the better influencing of every member of it to all the duties enjoined for this very reason descended not to prescribe the particular manner rites and constitutions which his Church afterwards made use of in the performance of all this because it was impossible that any unalterable rule could at all be given of those matters For the reason of these being only decency and order in the Church of God and to be as helps therein the better to influence the