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
A62735	Primordia, or, The rise and growth of the first church of God described by Tho. Tanner ... ; to which are added two letters of Mr. Rvdyerd's, in answer to two questions propounded by the author, one about the multiplying of mankind until the flood ; the other concerning the multiplying of the children of Israel in Egypt.	Tanner, Thomas, 1630-1682.; Rudyerd, James, b. 1575 or 6.	1683 (1683)	Wing T145; ESTC R14957	173,444	408

it seems as having a design upon his Friend so called hold him unto Shuah's Daughter with whom Iudah was taken in his vagary Which friendship howsoever continued till after her death good men being seldome forward to shake off even their Back-friends So that Hirah being with him to comfort him was as ready to help him at another turn even as lewd Suburbers delight to draw in Country-men into the Stews and to wait for him like a Pander and conceal his prank while he suffered him rather than himself to go aside unto a seeming Harlot and when Iudah came back to carry a Kid for him unto the Woman to redeem Iudah's pledges because he was ashamed to send by any but a Stranger So that Iudah seems to have continued still under the same or like temptations as long as he retaineth this acquaintance And it is by his temptations that we must endeavour to excuse him whereof this Heathen Hirah was the first Then we must consider that it was but simple fornication upon surprize and without design that Iudah suffered himself to be drawn in by whereas his marriage was a setled resolution And that God suffered him to be thus betrayed punishing one sin by another and the consequences of it for his injustice in denying his third Son Shelah unto Tamar which he was bound to do by a known Law amongst them Or for his distrust in God lest he should take away Shelah for doing his Duty as he had done the other two for wickedness Add to this the subtilty of Tamar who was a Free-woman of Israel by her marriage unto Er the eldest Son of Iudah whatsoever she was before that knew where the soft place was in Iudah's Head and meant to be meet with him inasmuch as she had been of a long time wronged and saw no other likelihood of redress but this for the Law as we may learn more clearly by the reviving of it was this viz. If Brethren dwell together and one of them dye and have no Child the Wife of the dead shall not marry without unto a Stranger her Husband 's Brother shall go in unto her and take her to him to Wife and perform the duty of an Husband's Brother unto her And it shall be that the first-born which she beareth shall succeed in the name of his Brother which is dead that his name be not put out of Israel The Law then obliging Tamar to live within under a Widow's guise and not to marry without but expect she had indeed Onan given to her but he hating to raise up Seed unto his Brother more than to lye with a taking Woman spilt his Seed upon the ground thinking it may be after that to go into fruitless dalliance And the thing displeased the Lord so that he slew him also after his Brother Er. The reason of Onan's sin is to be understood viz. Because he would have the eldest Brother's Right extinct and be eldest himself whereas if he had begotten a Son on Tamar even that Son should have carried the birth-right from him And when Tamar had remained still a shady Widow in hope of Shelah and she saw that he was grown and not given to her she began not only to despair of an Husband but of an interest in the house of Iudah which ought not to be denyed her It was the least of her intention therefore to play the Harlot whatever Iudah meant for being sped by him she put on her Widows Garments again and betook herself to her former place So that she may seem no more to blame than an honest Woman that puts her self into an Harlots place and so defrauds her own Husband Ay but the Law was That the Brother and not the Father-in-Law should raise up Seed unto the first Husband How then can Tamar be excused for tempting and lying with the Father We must not take Tamar for a scrupulous Casuist though she meant not to be an Harlot but contained ever after as it is most likely Iudah did of whose refraining there in mention but of his marrying again we read not but for an interested wronged Person that sought to right herself the best she could For if she conceived she should be wrapped up in the inheritance of her Issue which Iudah could not abandon or if not yet Iudah could not wrong her any further But take the Case as it will bear For a Brother to lye with his Brothers Wife or Widow in any other Case than this is incest And it is no more incest in the Father-in-Law so far as touching of bloud is intended for the Father-in-Law has no more blood in his Son's Wife that never conceived than in the Brother There is only the reverence of Descent that is more And the reason of another Descent viz. of inheritance being the reason of the Law that allows the dispensation it is the less wonder that Tamar should lay aside the respect of reverence only to a Father that would hold her still under greater wrong unless she laid this Veil aside and put another on which is all that I have to say for her But as for Iudah as his soul hated incest so neither was he guilty of it in the least as he was beguiled And though his two Sons Pharez and Zarah were misbegotten by mistake on Tamar yet they were not base-born but came by due Right into their Father Er's Lot as much as if Shelah had begotten them who ought to have endeavoured it So that Iudah by God's permission did but supply his Son's place as a punishment for his with-holding him And when God had pardoned all this to Iudah neither his Father nor his Brethren eyed him the worse but God himself prospered him the more For whereas his Brethren had all more Children than he when they came to be numbred at their going out of Egypt Iudah had seventy four thousand and six hundred males from twenty years and upwards whereas no other Tribe could come within ten thousand of His. If all this doth not satisfie let us hear the pious Bishop a little further I find not many of Iacob's Sons more faulty than Iudah who yet is singled out from all the rest to be the Royal Progenitor of Christ and to be honoured with the dignity of the birth-right that God's Election might not be of merit Else however he had sped alone Thamar had not been joined in this Line Even Iudah marries a Canaanite It is no marvel though his Seed prosper not Yet that good Children may not be too much discouraged with their unlawful propagation the Fathers of the promised Seed are raised from an incestuous Bed And as I may add in Christ's Genealogy we have Rahab the Harlot Ruth the Moabitess and Bathsheba to chuse the adulterous Wife of David But as the Apostle speaks he put no difference betwixt us and them purifying their hearts by faith Such was the state of the first visible Church which

the way which I propounded last was to detect their legerity by arguing à necessario ad impossibile from a thing necessary to a thing impossible I have shewed that Sacrifices were necessary to do away sin if they like not that yet they seem not to deny but that they were apt and fit enough to set forth some conspicuous worship and service unto God And if this sacrificing for either end was a Duty not revealed nor likely nor possible to be excogitated by any man then man was obliged to an impossibility by nature at least excogitating which is absurd Quia nemo tenetur ad impossibile Will they say that it was not necessary from the beginning to offer any Sacrifice at all but only to set up some way of worship and that another way might have been invented if this had not been fit enough They themselves are not able in this light of day so long after to shew what that other way might have been Will they say they deny not some direction but that it came in use divinâ quâdam ratione they know not how but by mens using of their right minds the government of God it may be over-ruling them This I have noted before was the shift of the old Pelagians who finding some Grace to be undeniable would have it all to be placed in the natural gifts of knowledge Free-will and moral Vertues together with the benefits of Gods Providence and Government but all this as I have also shewed before is not enough to constitute a Religion which must needs come from some Law imposed and revealed from God himself much less a Covenant betwixt God and man or a certain sign thereof as Sacrifice was viz. Of our first Parents thereby entring into the Covenant of Grace Gather my Saints together unto me he says Psal. 50.5 those that have made a Covenant with me by Sacrifice Which was not the sign of the Covenant by Moses but only circumcisio● But from which of the first reasons however over-ruled should it proceed From Adam's He was at an utter loss and if he had gone about such a thing of his own head more apt to fall into the snare of the Tempter again than to hit it right towards God From Cain He was a Reprobate From Abel Noah and Abraham according to such respective enlightnings as they had Then so many good men so much variety of sacrificing which was all but uniform until the Law of Moses Let us therefore come to the last winding up of the botom 1. It was not probable 2. It was morally impossible that any man should invent sacrificing so as to please God thereby upon their own accounts 1. It was not probable that either Adam or Abel should invent the sacrificing of living Creatures since of Cain there remains no further Question as to his own person whatsoever his Descendents did because he brought only of the fruits of the ground as any acceptable service unto God For Adam and Eve for their parts they being due to death themselves from which they were but reprieved only in respect of temporal death it cannot well be imagined that one of the first thoughts that should enter into their minds should be to kill any of their lower Fellow Creatures as being a●raid in themselves to see what natural death might be much more a violent one in any other more especially wrought by their own hands which had brought all other things into bondage with themselves howsoever innocent And as for Abel he could have no less estranged apprehensions from the like slaughter For a righteous man regardeth the life of his Beast but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel even as the very Sacrifices of the Heathen And Abel besides was a Shepherd which sort of men are so tender of their Flocks that David encountred a Lyon and a Bear in their defence and our Saviour himself saith The Thief cometh not but for to steal and to kill and to destroy but the good Shepherd giveth his life for the Sheep 2. So that it was morally impossible that such good men as these should ever devise such a way as this of their own heads or approve of it in their own conceits if they had not been informed of a mystery in the Case For it would have been a sin against the Creator to have slain his Creature for no mischief done nor yet for food if he had not required Sacrifice or the death of the innocent which he valued less instead of the nocent which he loved more What was his speech to Ionah Should not I spare Niniveh that great City wherein are more than sixscore thousand persons that cannot discern betwixt their right hands and their left and also much Cattel The Children and the Cattel being innocent alike and so far Objects of Divine compassion according to their different worths and natures We hear what they say That these did it to acknowledge the right and dominion of the Lord of life and death and that it was not unnatural because that God confirm'd it afterwards by Moses and Christ in fine abolish'd it which he never did any Law of Nature which is eternal and immutable But if they did this to acknowledge the right of the Lord of life and death only why did they take his right from him Was that the proper way to acknowledge it For if they slew the Creature in their own right before God had put it into their hands they wronged the Lord of life by bare killing much more by presenting of such a death as an acceptable token to him To the Lord of life a living Present is a fitter token than a dead for he delighteth not in the death of any of his Creatures he willeth not so much as the death of a Sinner but rather that he should turn and live But as the same is the Lord of death by his own free dispensation for again he saith Return ye Children of men so he will be avenged on them that take this out of his hand to hasten the end of any of his Creatures having once said Vengeance is mine and I will repay it saith the Lord. In a word if there had been no mystery in Sacrifices they had been as un●atural in themselves as Zipporah counted Circumcision or as we may account the severities of Moses and of Ioshuah and more especially of David who was a merciful man in his own nature who put the Ammonites under Saws and Harrows of Iron and hewed them with Axes and cast them into the Brick-kilns or made them pass through them not only those that resisted at Rablah but all the Children of Ammon A thing which even Turks and Tartars would at this day shrink from committing as contrary to the Laws both of Nature and of Nations So that God's confirming of Sacrifices afterwards doth only prove that they were his Ordinance before and