Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	pray_v	prayer_n	time_n	3,922	5	4.3812	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A81131	The arraignment of unbelief, as the grand cause of our nationall non-establishment: cleared in a sermon to the Honourable House of Commons in Parliament, at Margarets Westminster, upon the 28th. of May, 1645. being the day of their publike fast. / By Joseph Caryl, late preacher to the Honourable Society of Lincolnes-Inne, now pastor at Magnus neer the bridge, London.	Caryl, Joseph, 1602-1673.; England and Wales. Parliament.	1645 (1645)	Wing C749; Thomason E286_5; ESTC R200075	31,767	54

of holy rhetorique in it Beleeve in the Lord your God so shall you be established beleeve his Prophets so shall you prosper 2 Chron. 20. 20. The prosperity of our worldly affairs as well as of our heavenly depends upon and flowes from the actings of our faith In the next place Give me leave Honourable and beloved to be an informer this day against the Kingdoms greatest enemy and the hinderer of our National establishment It was the custome of the Iews as some of the Learned have observed from the story of Naboth 1 King 21. 10. upon the day of their solemn fast to accuse and charge notorious offenders How many things and persons have been and still are suspected yea charged with that notorious offence the shaking of this nation while that which is most guilty is not thought on at all by many and not enough thought on by any I mean and I 'le name it unbelief And I mean not only unbelief abroad and at large but your own in whose ears I chiefely speak this day and into whose hands that great and noble work of establishing this shaken and of uniting this divided Kingdom is committed Though it be uncomely for me to charge you yet it is the duty of this day for you to enquire of your own hearts whether your own unbelief hath not impeded that long prayed for and long waited for effect and issue of your counsels the establishment of this Nation This Nation hath been long in counsell and yet it is not established long in action and yet it is not established We have prayed long fasted long and yet we are not established I have the text and my point to warrant if I accuse and arraign unbelief as the cause of all this Why what hath unbelief done or who hath seen it doing this evil Unbelief is an invisible enemy and therefore a more dangerous enemy But though it be invisible in its nature yet it is not only visible but palpable in its effects as holy faith also is Hence as faith is called effectuall faith and prayer effectuall prayer because these break forth and operate in glorious effects so unbelief may be called effectuall unbelief because it breaks forth and operates in lamentable effects And whatsoever is or can be lookt upon as a cause of our continued troubles and shakings is without any strain or slander reducible to unbelief as the cause of those causes and therefore the cause of those effects First Some say we are not established because we are so divided And are not our divisions the fruit of our unbelief Hearts not joyned in faith to God cannot joyn or not firmely joyn to one another in love They that go off from God and every act of unbelief in us is a step from him seldome keep close to one another Faith is the cement and soder of affection Secondly If it be said we are not established because still so unreformed sinne abounds still and therefore trouble abounds still I grant it But whence is it that sinne abounds I must set that also upon the head of unbelief It is unbelief which protects sinne and keeps it alive notwithstanding the sentence of death hath gone out so often against it Though it hath so often in these sin-mortifying duties of prayer and fasting been carried out to execution Sinne laughs at all our daies of sorrow and humiliation at our fasts and prayers while unbelief backs and stands to it For as faith is a shield to the new-man which quenches all the fiery darts of the Devil so unbelief is a shield to the old-man which quenches all the holy darts of the Spirit The word cannot wound a sinner while he is armed with unbelief Sinne will save its skinne much more its heart till faith sets it naked to the stroaks and smitings of the word Thirdly If it be said Surely we are not established because we are grown so carelesse so cold and formall in those Kingdom-establishing duties fasting and prayer Many neglect to keep them as counting such daies lost out of the calendar of their lives But most are negligent in keeping them and have turned the whole businesse into a meer bodily exercise or the hanging down of their heads for a day This neglect to keep fasts and negligent keeping of them is so grosse and notorious that it makes many hearts to bleed while they think of it Hence some have thought it most safe to move for the supersedeating of these duties fearing that such setled fasts will but more unsettle the Kingdom and rather provoke the Lord then pacifie him towards us Reasons may be given for the laying down of these Monethly and the keeping only of occasionall fasts though in one sense our monethly fasts are occasionall the great occasion why they began continuing to this day But how sad is it to consider that this should be given as a reason That we have laid down these fasts because we are weary keeping them or are grown formall in keeping of them To break off from such a duty upon these terms is a lamentation and will be one What have we fasted away the tendernesse of our hearts and our sensiblenesse of Gods hand have we prayed away our zeal for God and our love to communion with him this is dreadfull But how dreadfull soever it is this which God forbid if it be so must be charged upon unbelief Why do any neglect fasts it is because they do not beleeve it will quit cost to observe them they beleeve more gain is to be got by working in their callings and more comfort will come in by letting themselves out in pleasures therefore they will not forbear their labours or abridge themselves for a day of their pleasures No man will afflict his body as in such daies he must much lesse his soul as in such daies he ought unlesse faith shew him a benefit which will bear his charge and comforts which will swallow up his sorrows in doing them And whence is it that many who appear outwardly in these duties are so formall rather personating the faster and petitioner then being fasters and petitioners is it not from unbelief They who have slight thoughts of a duty must needs act it slightly And whence is it that prayer and fasting are at any time successelesse and ineffectuall is not this from unbelief Praying without beleeving is a taking of Gods Name in vain and in regard of any fruit a vain help for man Prayer without faith is nothing but a noise of words meer babling it is but speaking not praying In the sixth of Matthew Christ reproves those who thought to be heard for their much speaking We shall surely be heard if we pray but a little but we shall never be heard how much soever we speak And if faith be mixt in the duty how long soever we continue speaking how many words yea repetitions soever we use in it Christ will not call it much speaking but much

from the words the first I shall but touch in generall take it thus Promises of mercy from God include mans duty Acts of spirituall duty and acts of corporall and civill duty Deliverance and establishment are promised to King Ahaz and his people but they cannot enjoy either except they beleeve The Lord made glorious promises for the restauration of Israel and concludes them all with this asseveration I the Lord have spoken it and I will do it Ezek. 36. 36. neverthelesse he adds ver 37. Thus saith the Lord God I will yet for this be enquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them What the Lord will do we must beleeve he will do and we must pray that he would do it These are acts of spirituall duty And these are not all when the Lord promises we must not only set our hearts awork to beleeve and pray but we must set our hands awork to labour and do While Iacob was travelling to Padan-aram the Lord appears to him in a vision at Bethel and thus encourages him Behold I am with thee and will keep thee in all places whither thou goest and will bring thee again into this land for I will not leave thee till I have done all that I have spoken to thee of Gen. 28. 15. And when upon the discourteous usage of his uncle Laban he meditated a departure from him the Lord gives him his Passe-port ch 31. 2 Return unto the land of thy fathers and I will be with thee How might Iacob at the appearance of any danger have pleaded these promises and rested under the shadow of them for protection Lord I have thy word surer then the foundations of Heaven and earth for my safety unlesse thy truth or thy power fail I cannot miscarry let Esau threaten and muster all his forces against me let earth and hell enter league and associate themselves against me here I sit under the banner of those gracious promises which thou hast displayed over me I will not trouble my self Lord thou standest charg'd to keep me from all anoyance But doth Iacob make this use of the promise Nothing lesse He beleeves but he is not carelesse he trusts in God but he neglects not himself though God had said I will keep thee whither soever thou goest yet he labours to keep himself read how upon the approach of his bloudy brother he sends presents to appease him how he divides his flocks and family to make resistance or escape him That of Paul Acts 27. is eminent to this purpose where with his weather-beaten companions in that voyage having been in great stresse at sea he steps forth ver 22. to revive their fainting spirits with a comfortable message Be of good cheer for there shall be no losse of any mans life amongst you but of the ship For there stood by me this night the Angel of the Lord whose I am and whom I serve saying Fear not Paul thou must be brought before Caesar and lo God hath given thee all those that sail with thee Pauls faith closes fully with this promise ver 25. I beleeve God that it shall be even as he hath told me Yet at the 31 verse when the ship-men under colour of casting out Anchors were about to escape in the cock-boat Paul saith to the Centurion and the Souldiers except these abide in the ship ye cannot be saved Not saved Paul where then is the word and promise of thy God upon which thou didst even now so confidently pronounce safety to us all If we run out of the way of God we run out of the word of God To rely upon the word and then go out of the way of God is not faith but presumption Providence will not serve our negligence neither will the promise keep us except we keep the condition of the promise If ye beleeve not surely ye shall not be established Observe secondly Without beleeving there is no establishing Vnbelief is a barre in the way of promised blessings I saith the Prophet have made you large promises but take heed ye do not straiten the hand of God in giving out the mercy promised As faith stops the severest threatnings of destruction so unbelief stops the sweetest promises of deliverance Jonah prophesies chap. 3. 4. Yet fourty daies and Nineveh shall be overthrown but the faith of Nineveh overthrew that prophecie the City stood and the prophecie fell Why The people of Nineveh beleeved God and proclaimed a fast c. ver 5. What faith can do to a prophecie of judgement the same can unbelief to a promise of mercy overthrow it The Psalmist assignes this to the unbelief of the works of God as well as of his word Psal 78. 32 33. They beleeved not his wondrous works therefore their daies did he consume in vanity and their years in trouble But are not the daies of all men consumed in vanity Is not man at his best estate altogether vanity Yes but here was a speciall vanity and somewhat more poenall and judiciall lay upon that generation for their unbelief then lies upon man-kinde as the fruit of sinne in generall And what was that even the evil threatned in the text they could not be established God lets them wander fourty years in a wildernesse up and down forward and backward now in hope anon in fear now in joy anon in sorrow now a successe by and by a disappointment They looked for Canaan but to Canaan they could not come they looked for a setled condition but God kept them upon uncertainties they went toyling about the wildernesse to seek a passage out yet most of them found none but at the door of the grave this was the spending of their years in vanity and they spent them thus because of their unbelief The land of Canaan was so much promised to the Israelites that it was called the land of promise yet unbelief kept them out fourty years The Apostle is as plain Heb. 3. 19. So we see they could not enter in because of unbelief Their unbelief built a wall between them and Canaan it locked up the passages so fast that they could not enter in And as it blockt up the way against the unbeleeving Israelites so against Moses the Captain and conductor of Israel he must deliver up his leading-staff and resign his Commission to his servant Ioshua he must die on this side Iordan The reason is given Numb 20. 12. And the Lord spake unto Moses and Aaron saying Because ye beleeve me not to sanctifie me in the eies of the children of Israel therefore ye shall not bring this Congregation into the land which I have given them The Prophet Ieremiah chap. 17. 5. pronounceth a curse upon the man that trusteth upon man and maketh flesh his arm and whose heart departeth from the Lord. The Apostle expounds whose heart that is Heb. 3. 12. Take heed lest there be in any of you an evil heart of unbelief in departing from the living