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	obedience_n	require_v	3,312	5	7.2188	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A57683	A sermon preached at a visitation in Honiton in Devon, on Wensday in Easter week, 1676 by J.R. Rector of Lezant in Cornwall.	J. R. (James Rossington), b. 1642 or 3.	1676 (1676)	Wing R1995; ESTC R23078	23,190	40

unhallowed and common for which cause Justinian the Emperour enacted a Law against them and the ancient Council of Gangra held in the purer times of the Church about the year 324. pronounced Anathema against Eustachius and his adherents who held that Churches should be neglected and publick meetings in them left off and that there should be no other Churches but mens private houses and no other meetings but Conventicles Even in heathen Rome the most learned P. Aerodius tells us when a sort of Innovatours kept their Conventicles in opposition to the way received among them of worshipping their Gods the Senate made an Act there should be no such meeting as tending to the disturbance of the State and the publick peace Et si quis tale sacrum solemne necessarium duceret and the Senate gave him leave it must be with this condition that when he performed his offices of Religion his own way ita id sacrum faceret dum ne plures quam quinque sacrificio interessent and if they were thus sollicitous to preserve and establish as a sacred inviolable thing the Idolatrous worship of their false Gods what care can be great enough to secure the solemn worship of the only true God when it is shaken by such divisions moreover in the days of Charles the Great there was a Cannon made in the Council of Towers wherein the people were required to behave themselves reverently in the Church to which our 18. Canon well agrees and both to that of St. Paul 1 Cor. 11. but this by the way since then we have every where Churches erected and places of publick worship which we are strictly enjoyned by authority to frequent and repair unto at all set times and seasons what is it less then schism were there nothing else in it out of contempt and opposition to that Communion to have recourse to private and clandestine meetings and though Antiquity mentions unto us private meetings yet we may finde that they were not set up for a separation or out of opinion that better services were performed there then in the Church but they were necessitated thereunto by reason of persecution which oft-times lay sore on the primitive Christians otherwise they brought upon them the guilt of Schism and were accordingly so censured and held as Schismaticks Thus were the Samaritans reputed whose Schism lay only in their Separating from the appointed place of worship and setting up another in opposition to it for if we audit an account of the Samaritans guilt according to Epiphanius Josephus Scaliger and others Audeam dicere saith Scaliger eos adeo ab omni idololatria abhorrere ut in hac parte Judaos ipsos superare John 8.48 we shall finde they came at last to differ nothing from the Jews but the place of meeting but whether this be such a guilt as should make those terms equivalent he is a Samaritan he hath a devil and is mad I shall not say but it is such as makes our Saviour say some-what exclusively John 4.22 all the blessings and Salvations of the law did indeed hover upon Mount Gerizem were given thence that was the place of them but they were cut away when Schism came the Church is not a place of blessing when it is built against a Church Gerizim is Ebal when it stands in competition with Mount Sion Thus I have in some measure I hope justifyed the Rites and Ceremonies and Constitutions of our Church by shewing how perfectly conformable they are to the customes of the Churches of God All that I have now to adde is a short Paraenesis or Exhortation that you would all be perswaded to a compleat conformity and for you my reverend Brethren of the Clergy as we are set over so we should be both teachers and leaders of the people both by doctrine and example bringing them into these paths of religious worship and directing them to walk orderly therein as the Priests lips should preserve knowledge so we should enable our selves not only to shew In France such who were entrusted with cure of souls were obliged to give account at certain times to the Bishop whether the Rites and Ceremonies of that Church co which they were subject were observed Fran. Synod Capit. lib 5. c. 2. but also defend the lawfulness of our Churches Rites and customes and of that good old way which our Fathers walked in whose steps we follow this the 8 Canon enjoyns us all to preach up twice a year at the least upon penalty of suspensation but because most of us if not all shall amongst our people finde some who will hate or at least dislike us if we plainly tell them a truth that thwarts their prejudices we should therefore prudently insinuate these things and by this innocent Lenocinium steal their affections into all the paths of truth I cannot see how it is consistent with our duty to conceal any part or circumstance of religious worship which hath so immediate attendence and reference to practice much less should we tread in the steps of those in a sence worse then non-conforming Brethren who to gain the affections of the giddy and injudicious and make their lower parts seem tall and reverend discover a dislike to some of the Churches Rites and Ceremonies whereby others are traduced by the male-contented party who brook every man the better by how much the less obedient for persons more superstitious as they call it then they need by which means also they work a kinde of aversion in those who were in a fair way to be perfectly conformable and confirm such who have already forsaken our Communion let us then above all others take heed we do not by this means enhanse the repute of a faction nor let us encourage a peevish Schismatick by Christening his childe without the Cross or Surplice to abate the Cross or Ring to lay aside the Surplice to curtail the prayers to omit the Letany or second service I know recommends a man farther to some humours then all the parts learning and sobriety of another that is faithful to his duty but I beseech all to remember that it is God and conscience and the publick laws that ought to be satisfied and not a private interest or a faction You have all taken the Oaths of Supremacy and Canonical obedience and there is nothing required of you but what the King may lawfully command nothing but what the Canons of the Church enjoyn and what your selves when you entred into the Ministry knew you were all bound to observe but if there be any that will not consider and weigh there Engagements I hope the respective Church-wardens will look to their Oath and make a true Presentment not forswear themselves to excuse their Ministers and methinks none can take it ill if they will not hazard those very souls which themselves labour to save the like care ought the Church-wardens to take in presenting the faults and faileurs of the people as well as of their Minister as by Oath they are bound which in case you wilfully omit the 117 Canon declares the Ordinary may proceed against you in such sort as in causes of wilfull perjury in a Court Ecclesiastical 't is already by Law provided but if the Church-wardens do conscientiously discharge their duty and delinquents be duly presented and then they continue perverse and refractory and so prove contentious they are in the next place to be rejected and censured as Impugners of the Customes of the Church according to that of our Apostle in the text If any seem to be contentious we have no such custome nor the Church of God FINIS