Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	bind_v	law_n	nature_n	1,568	5	5.4669	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36296	Fifty sermons. The second volume preached by that learned and reverend divine, John Donne ...	Donne, John, 1572-1631.	1649 (1649)	Wing D1862; ESTC R32764	817,703	525

a slumbring of our Religion for a time and that excludes the temporisers the Statist the Politician And so beloved I recommend unto you Integritatem Iesu Jesus and his truth and his whole truth and this whole Truth in your whole lives SERMON VII Preached at a Christning GAL. 3. 27. For all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. THis text is a Reason of a Reason an Argument of an Argument The proposition undertaken by the Apostle to prove is That after faith is come we are no longer under the Schoolmaster the law The reason by which he proves that is For yee are all the Sonnes of God by faith in Christ Jesus And then the reason of that is this text for all yee that are baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Here then is the progresse of a sanctified Man and here is his standing house here is his journey and his Lodging his way and his end The house the lodging the end of all is faith for whatsoever is not of faith is sinne To be sure that you are in the right way to that you must find your selves to be the Sonnes of God And you can prove that by no other way to your selves but because you are baptized into Christ. So that our happinesse is now at that height and so much are we preferred before the Iews that whereas the chiefest happinesse of the Jews was to have the law for without the law they could not have known sinne and the law was their Schoolmaster to find out Christ we are admitted to that degree of perfection that we are got above the law It was their happinesse to have had the law but it is ours not to need it They had the benefit of a guide to direct them but we are at our journies end They had a schoolmaster to lead them to Christ but we have proceeded so farre as that we are in possession of Christ. The law of Moses therefore binds us not at all as it is his Law Whatsoever binds a Christian in that law would have bound him though there had been no law given to Moses The Ceremoniall part of that law which was in the institution Mortale it was mortall It might die and by Christs determination of those Typicall things Mortuum It did die is now also Mortiferum deadly so that it is sinne to draw any part of that law into a necessity of observation because the necessary admission of any Type or figure implies a confession that that which was signified or figured is not yet come So that that law and Christ cannot consist together The Iudiciall law of Moses was certainly the most absolute and perfect law of government which could have been given to that people for whom it was given but yet to thinke that all States are bound to observe those lawes because God gave them hath no more ground then that all Men are bound to goe clothed in beasts skinnes because God apparelled Adam and Eve in that fashion And for the morall part of that law and the abridgement of that morall part the decalogue that begunne not to have force and efficacy then when God writ it in the tables but was always and always shall be written in the hearts of Men And though God of his goodnesse was pleased to give that declaration of it and that provocation to it by so writing it yet if he had not written it or if which is impossible that writing could perish yet that morall law those commandements would bind us that are Christians after the expiration of that law which was Moses law as it did de Iure bind all those which lived before any written law was So that he that will perfectly understand what appertaines to his duty in any of the ten Commandements he must not consider that law with any limitation as it was given to the Iews but consider what he would have done if he had lived before the Tables had been written For certainely even in the Commandement of the Sabbath which was accompanied with so many Ceremonies amongst the Iews that part onely is morall which had bound us though that Commandement had never been given and he that performes that part keepes the Sabbath the Ceremoniall part of it is not onely not necessary but when it is done with an opinion of necessity it is erroneous and sinfull For neither that Commandement nor any other of the ten began to bind them when they were written nor doth bind now except it bound before that Thus far then we are directed by this Text which is as far as we can goe in this life To prove to our selves that we have faith we must prove that wee need not the law To prove that emanecipation and liberty we must prove that we are the sonnes of God To prove that ingraffing and that adoption we must prove that we have put on Christ Iesus And to prove that apparelling of our selves our proofe is that we are baptized into him All proofes must either arrest and determine in some things confessed and agreed upon or else they proceed in infinitum That which the Apostle takes to be that which is granted on all sides and which none can deny is this that to be baptized is to put on Christ And this putting on of Christ doth so far carry us to that Infinitissimum to God himselfe that we are thereby made Semen Dei the seed of God The field is the world and the good seed are the Children of the kingdome And we are translated even into the nature of God By his pretious promises we are made partakers of the Divine nature yea we are discharged of all bodily and earthly incombrances and we are made all spirit yea the spirit of God himselfe He that is joyned to the Lord is one spirit with him All this we have if we doe put on Christ and we doe put on Christ if we be baptized into him These then are the two actions which we are now to consider Baptizari To be washed Induere To be cloathed Induere is to cover so far as that Covering can reach A hat covers the head a glove the hand and other garments more But Christ when he is put on Covers us all If we have weake heads shallow brains either a silexce and a reservednes which make the foole and the wise equall or the good interpretation of friends which put good Constructions upon all that we say or the dignity of autority and some great place which we hold which puts an opinion in the people that we are wise or else we had never been brought thither these cover our heads and hide any defect in them If we have foule hands we can cover them with excuses If they be foule with usurious Extortion we can put on a glove an excuse and say He that borrowed my money got more by it then I that lent it If with bribery in an office we

oppression of inferiours hee begins with that Prohibition Oppresse not the poore And then when he hath brought them to that moderation and that temper then he carries them farther towards perfection to an honouring of God in shewing mercy to the poor In which method so disposed into two parts the fault first and then the duty we shall proceed by these steps First in the first we shall consider the fault it self Oppression which in generall is an unjust damnifying of others And secondly the specification of the Persons the Poore for others our Superiours we may unjustly damnifie too but that is a fault of another nature I should rather call it envy or emulation or ambition or supplantation then oppression and therefore that second branch will fairly admit a little disquisition a short comparison of those two kindes of sinnes Whether emulation of superiours or oppression of inferiours bee in the nature and roote thereof the greater sinne In which latter sinne which is properly the sinne of our Text that is oppression of the poore we shall see in a third branch the iniquity and hainousnesse thereof aggravated in this that it is said to bee a Reproach a Contumely and Contumely and Reproach against whomsoever it bee bent hath always a venemous and a mischievous Nature But much more here where it is bent against God himselfe and against God in that supreme and primary notion as a Creator as a Maker He reproaches the Maker But then whose Maker If I should say I cannot tell the words themselves and the construction thereof in the variety of the Hebrew Grammars would justifie mine ignorance for they will not admit it to bee easily determined whether it bee Factorem ejus or Factorem suum whether he that oppresses the poore be said to reproach his Maker that is made poore or his own Maker And therefore we shall make our use of both for both meet to aggravate the fault If I oppresse the poore I reproach him that made that poore man and made that man poore and I reproach him that made me And in these circumstances The fault Oppression the specification of the Persons the Poore the Probleme the Comparison of the two sinnes the Aggravation as it is a Reproach a reproach against God and God as a Creator as his Creator as my Creator wee shall determine that first part And when in our order thus proposed wee shall come to our second Part which is the recommendation and celebration of the Duty it selfe To honour God by shewing mercy to the poore wee shall first consider the persons the poore and then the act to shew mercy to the poore and lastly the effect and benefit thereof for as the omission of the duty was aggravated with that that it was a reproaching of God the performance thereof is exalted by this That it is an honouring of God After all which we shall conclude all with the consideration of that which is indeed the poorest of all the sickest and forest and saddest the feeblest and faintest the wretchedest and miserablest thing in the world your owne souls and lead you to see how you do reproach God in oppressing how you might honour God in shewing mercy to those poore souls of yours And this will be the compasse in which I shall lead your devotions for this houre this will be the circle which from this center reliefe of the poore which is the summe and resultance of the Text and by these poles the hainousnesse of the fault the happinesse of the duty I shall designe unto you We proposed at first to consider our two parts the fault and the duty in the elegancy of the words chosen by the holy Ghost here according to their origination and extraction in the nature of the words and their latitude and extension in their use in other places of Scripture That we shall do and in that way our first word is oppression Gnashak in the Originall and Gnashak as it does oftentimes signifie vim violence and force so does it often signifie dolum deceit and fraud also so that violence and deceit concurre in this oppression And more then they For Solomon does not depart from that which he meanes when he sayes here He that oppresses the poore reproaches his Maker when he sayes in another place He that macks the poore reproaches his Maker So that now these three violence and deceit and scorne are the elements the ingredients that make up this oppression There is not a more brutish thing then violence amongst beasts all goes by force There is not a more devillish thing then deceit the Serpent destroyed us all by that But man hath raised a degree of oppression beyond beasts and their violence and beyond the devill and his falshood that is scorn For though the devill oppresse man and hate man he does not scorne man he findes man a considerable enemy For when he hath throwne a man into the world oppressed with originall sinne that man is not therefore his the Sacrament of Baptisme frustrates him of that Title When he hath oppressed him in the world by actuall and habituall sinnes that man is not therefore his for a worthy receiving of the body and blood of Christ Jesus frustrates him of that Title And how weake soever man be in himselfe yet in Christo omnia possumus There is one man and in that one man are all men that is all mankinde enwrapped who lye open to the Serpent onely in his heele and the Serpent to him in his head and in him Omnia possumus in Christ the weakest man can do any thing The Devill could oppresse Iob with violence fire and sword and ruine upon his goods and cattell and servants and children and himself too The Devill could oppresse him with deceit corrupt the wife of his bosome to tempt him to desperation but he never came to scorne Iob for he saw Iob did not serve God for nought Iob had good wages and God had hedged him enclosed him for himself Scorne is an affection that implies such a heighth above another as cannot be justified in any but God himself Man can oppresse by deceit The Kings of the earth take counsell together they study how to circumvent and man can oppresse with violence there they breake bands asunder and cast away cords they will be bound by no lawes But then it is onely God who there laughs them to scorne and hath them in derision Now here the oppressor practises the beasts part he comes to violence and the Devils part he comes to deceit and he usurps upon Gods part he comes to that heighth as to think he may scorn and contemne And whom for that is our next consideration he oppresseth the poore he treads down the poore him that was dust before he treads into dirt macerated with his own sweat his own tears his own blood He oppresses him with deceit the credulous and confident wretch who because he is harmlesse in