Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	master_n	parent_n	superior_n	1,280	5	11.2870	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27004	The reasons of the Christian religion the first part, of godliness, proving by natural evidence the being of God ... : the second part, of Christianity, proving by evidence supernatural and natural, the certain truth of the Christian belief ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; also an appendix defending the soul's immortality against the Somatists or Epicureans and other pseudo-philosophers.	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1667 (1667)	Wing B1367; ESTC R5892	599,557	672

themselves as being wholly his own 3. It absolutely subjecteth the Soul to God and sitteth up his Authority as absolute over our thoughts and words and all our actions And maketh the Christians life a course of careful obedience to his Laws so far as they understand them 4. It taketh up a Christians mind with the thankful sense of his Redemption so that the pardon of his sins and his deliverance from hell and his hopes of everlasting glory do form his soul to a holy gratitude and make the expressions of it to be his work 5. It giveth man a sense of the love of God as his gracious Redeemer and so of the goodness and mercifulness of his Nature It causeth them to think of God as their greatest Benefactor and as one that loveth them and as LOVE it self and so it reconcileth their estranged alienated minds to him and maketh the love of God to be the very constitution and life of the Soul 6. It causeth men to believe that there is an everlasting Glory to be enjoyed by holy Souls where we shall see the glory of God and be filled with his love and exercised in perfect love and praise and be with Christ his Angels and Saints for evermore It causeth them to take this felicity for their portion and to set their hearts upon it and to make it the chief care and business of all their lives to seek it 1. It causeth them to live in the joyful hopes and foresight of this blessedness and to do all that they do as means thereunto and thus it sweetneth all their lives and maketh Religion their chief delight 8. It accordingly employeth their thoughts and tongues so that the praises of God and the mention of their everlasting blessedness and of the way thereto is their most delightful conference as it beseemeth travellers to the City of God and so their political converse is in heaven 9. And thus it abateth the fears of death as being but their passage to everlasting life And those that are confirmed Christians indeed do joyfully entertain it and long to see their glorified Lord and the blessed Majesty of their great Creator 10. It causeth men to love all sanctified persons with a special love of complacency and all mankind with a love of benevolence even to love our neighbours as our selves and to abhor that selfishness which would engage us against our neighbours good 11. It causeth men to love their enemies and to forgive and forbear and to avoid all unjust and unmerciful revenge It maketh men meek long-suffering and patient though not impassionate insensible or void of that anger which is the necessary opposer of sin and folly 12. It employeth men in doing all the good they can it maketh them long for the holiness and happiness of one another's souls and desirous to do good to those that are in need according to our power 13. This true Regeneration by the Spirit of Christ doth make those Superiours that hath it even Princes Magistrates Parents and Masters to Rule those under them in holiness love and justice with self-denial seeking more the pleasing of God and the happiness of their Subjects for soul and body than any carnal selfish interest of their own and therefore it must needs be the blessing of that happy Kingdom Society or Family which hath such a holy Governour O that they were not so few 14. It maketh subjects and children and servants submissive and conscionable in all the duties of their Relations and to honour their Superiours as the Officers of God and to obey them in all just subordination to him 15. It causeth men to love Justice and to do as they would be done by and to desire the welfare of the souls bodies estates and honour of their neighbours as their own 16. It causeth men to subdue their adpetites and lusts and fleshly desires and to set up the government of God and sanctified Reason over them and to take their flesh for that greatest enemy in our corrupted state which we must chiefly watch against and master as being a Rebel against God and Reason It alloweth a man so much sensitive pleasure as God forbiddeth not and as tendeth to the holiness of the soul and furthereth us in God's service and all the rest it rebuketh and resisteth 17. It causeth men to estimate all the wealth and honour and dignities of the world as they have respect to God and a better world and as they either help or hinder us in the pleasing of God and seeking immortality and as they are against God and our spiritual work and happiness it causeth us to account them but as meer vanity loss and dung 18. It keepeth men in a life of watchfulness against all those temptations which would draw them from this holy course and in a continual warfare against Satan and his Kingdom under conduct of Jesus Christ 19. It causeth men to prepare for sufferings in this world and to look for no great matters here to expect persecutions crosses losses wants defamations injuries and painful sicknesses and death and to spend their time in preparing all that furniture of mind which is necessary to their support and comfort in such a day of trial that they may be patient and joyful in tribulation and bodily distress as having a comfortable relation to God and Heaven which will incomparably weigh down all 20. It causeth men to acknowledge that all this grace and mercy is from the love of God alone and to depend on him for it by faith in Christ and to devote and refer all to himself again and make it our ultimate end to please him and thus to subserve him as the first Efficient the chief Dirigent and the ultimate final Cause of all of whom and through whom and to whom are all things to whom be Glory for ever Amen This is the true description of that Regenerate Sanctified state which the Spirit of Christ doth work on all whom he will save and that are Christians indeed and not in Name only And certainly this is the Image of God's Holiness and the just constitution and use of a reasonable Soul And therefore he that bringeth men to this is a Real Saviour of whom more anon II. And it is very considerable by what means and in what manner all this is done It is done by the preaching of the Gospel of Christ and that in plainness and simplicity The curiosity of artificial oratory doth usually but hinder the success as painting doth the light of windows It was a few plain men that came with spiritual power and not with the entising words of humane wisdom or curiosities of vain Philosophy who did more in this work than any of their successors have done since As in Naturals every thing is apt to communicate its own nature and not anothers heat causeth heat and cold causeth cold so wit by communication causeth wit and common learning causeth common

dearest friend before the will and interest of God § 13. Nor should the publick interest of States or Kingdoms be pleaded against his will and interest But yet we must take heed how we oppose or neglect this last especially because the will of God doth take most pleasure in the publick or common benefit of his creatures and therefore these two are very seldom separated nor ever at all as to their real good though as to carnal lower good it may so fall out All these are so plain that to stand to prove or illustrate them were but to be unnecessarily and unprofitably tedious § 14. It being a God of infinite Wisdom and Goodness as well as power who is our Owner his Title to us is a great consolation to the upright For as he hath taught men and bruits too to love their Own it intimateth that he will not despise his Own and therefore his interest in us is our comfort § 15. No man is capable of giving any thing properly to God but onely by obediential reddition of his own no nor to man but as God's Steward and according to our propriety secundum quid in respect to other Claimers CHAP. VIII II. Of GOD's Relation to Man as his Governour sect 1. GOD having made Man a rational free Agent and sociable among sensible Objects and out of sight of his invisible Creator and so infirm and defectible it followeth necessarily that he is a creature which must be governed by moral means and not only moved by natural necessitation as inanimates and bruits The thing that I am first to prove is That Man's Creator hath made him such a creature whose nature requireth a Government that he hath a necessity of Government and an aptitude to it By Government I mean the exercise of the moral means of Laws and Execution by a Ruler for the right ordering of the Subjects actions to the good of the Society and the honour of the Governour I distinguish Laws from all meer natural motions and necessitation for though analogically the Shepherd is said to rule his Sheep and the Rider his Horse yea and the Pilot his Ship and the Plow-man his Plow and the Archer his Arrow yet this is but equivocally called Government and is not that which we here mean which is the proposal of duty seconded with rewards or punishment for the neglects by those in authority for the right governing of those that are committed to their care and trust So that it is not all moral means neither which is called Government for the instruction or perswasion of an Equal is not such Laws and Judgment and Execution are the constitutive parts of Government But by Laws I mean the whole kind and not only written Laws nor those only which are made by Sovereign Rulers of Common-wealths which by excellency are called Laws but I mean The signification of the will of a Governour making the subjects duty and determining of Rewards to the obedient and punishments to the disobedient Or An authoritative constitution de debito officii praemii poenae for the ends of Government So that as Parents and Tutors and Masters do truly govern as well as Kings so they have truly Laws though not in such eminency as the Laws of Republicks The will of a Parent a Tutor or Master manifested concerning duty is truly a Law to a Child a Scholar or a Servant If any dislike the use of the word Law in so large a sense it sufficeth now for me to tell them in what sense I use it and so it will serve to the understanding of my mind I take it for such an Instrument of Government The parts of it are 1. The constituting of the debitum officii or what shall be due from the Subject 2. The constituting the debitum praemii vel poenae or what shall be due to the Subject which is in order to the promoting of obedience though as to the performances obedience may be in order to the reward Now that man is a creature made to be governed by such a proper moral Government I prove 1. The several parts of Government are necessary therefore Government is necessary From all the parts of Government to the whole is an unquestionable consequence It is necessary that man have Duty prescribed and imposed else man shall have nothing which he ought to do Take away Duty and we are good for nothing nor have any employment fit for reason And take away all Reward and Punishment and you take away Duty in effect experience teacheth us that it will not be done for a rational agent will have ends and motives for what he doth 2. From the imbecility of our younger state so weak is our infant understanding and so strong our sensitive inclination that if Parents should leave all their Children ungoverned abused Reason would make man worse than beasts 3. From the common infirmity and badness of all the world The wise are so few and the ignorant so many that if all the ignorant were left ungoverned to do what they list they would be like an Army of blind men in a fight or like a world of men bewildred in the dark What a confused loathsome spectacle would the world be and the rather because men are bad as well as foolish Would all the sensual vitious persons in the world be ordered like men without any Government by such as are wiser than themselves 4. From the power of sensitive objects The baits of sense are so numerous so near and so powerful that they would bear down reason in the most without the help of Laws nay Laws themselves even of God and Man do so little with the most as tell us what they would be without them 5. The variety of mens minds and interests and dispositions is such as that the world ungoverned would be utterly in confusion as many minds and ways as men No two men are in all things of the same apprehensions 6. From the nature of mans powers He is a noble creature and therefore hath answerable ends to be attain'd and therefore must have the conduct of answerable means He is a rational free Agent and therefore must have his End and Means proposed to his Reason and is not to be moved by Sense alone his chiefest End as well as his chief Governour being out of his sight 7. The experience of all mankind constraineth them to consent to this that Man is a creature made for Government Therefore even among Cannibals Parents govern their Children and Husbands govern their Wives and in all the rational world there are Rulers and Subjects Masters and Servants Tutors and Scholars which all are Governours or Governed Few men are to be found alive on earth who would have all men or any men save themselves ungoverned Otherwise Men would be worse to Men I say not than Serpents and Toads and Tygers are to one another but than any of them are to men