Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	care_n	child_n	good_a	1,003	5	3.6694	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56611	A brief exhortation to those who are shut up from our society and deprived at present of publique instruction. Which may be useful to others also who have any feeling of Gods judgments. By Symon Patrick rector of St. Paul Covent Garden.	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1665 (1665)	Wing P756; ESTC R217129	9,069	17

them to find out those faults that are to be amended And again you will see if you look about you that there are other persons who stand above you requiring other regards then your equals do And here it is much to be considered whether you have dutifully carried your selves to your naturall parents Whether you have honoured the King with your spirituall Governours and Pastors as you ought And whether your Masters and all your betters have had their due respect Have you not been irreverent in your behaviour or speeches to some of these Have you not disobeyed their just commands and contemned their orders Have you not causlesly quarrelled with their injunctions and found fault with their government Nay hath it not been your manner to revile them and speak evil of them Are you not ready to believe all the evil that is spoken by others and to sit in judgment upon your Governors Do you not sleight and undervalue their authority Have you not mean thoughts of them never considering that they are set by God over you I doubt these are sins that have spread themselves far more then the Plague And therefore narrowly examine your selves about them that none of them may escape your notice And then cast your eyes on other persons that are below you who may charge you it is possible with many sins more Consider what care have you taken of your children your servants and all others who are committed to your charge that they may want nothing that is needfull either for their souls or bodies Have you made a conscience to instruct them in their duty or to send them to be instructed I cannot instance in all particulars unless I should write a Book and therefore I desire those who are Parents only to enquire about this one thing which is of great moment Have you put your children in mind often of the vow they made in Baptism Do you remember them of their promise to forsake the devil and all his works and to keep Gods holy will Commandments Do you tell them that God hath taken them to be his children and that they may not therefore do as they list but as he would have them Do you teach them the Catechism which is appointed for their instruction and take care they come to him that hath the cure of souls among you when it is required there reverently to receive his admonitions I fear these things are too much neglected if not despised or else we should see Christian people in better condition If any of you therefore intend now to make one good Christian let him call himself to an account in this particular You see my Brethren already that it is a very serious business to amend seeing there are so many things to be set in order And yet you have not heard all that you have to do if you design a reformation For you are to consider how you have respected your selves to whom there is a great reverence due and whom many things do very much misbecome As for example is it fit for a rational creature to mind nothing else but getting of wealth which he must so shortly leave Hath he nothing else to care for but what he shall eat and what he shall drink and wherewithall he shall be cloathed Is it seemly for ●…m to wallow in drink to burn with lust and filthy desires How doth he look when he is full of wrath and transported by his choller Is he not quite transformed doth he not seem to be beside himself Examine your selves then in these things in matters of temperance of chastity of meekness of patience of heavenly mindedness and such like And think you are not your selves till you be reclaimed from the sottish vice of drinking and tipling from beastly uncleanness from fury and rage which are no less brutish nay from earthly mindedness and the love of money which is a very gross stupidity But I see it will not consist with the brevity I design to say any more on this head but the rest must be left to your own conscience Only let me briefly note two benefits which you will receive by an impartial sober weighing of what hath been said First You will see that it is a work of time and pains to amend so many things as you may find amiss and therefore will require not only your present but your future indeavours Especially if you consider that in all the cases I have mentioned there are these things likewise to be examined and pondered The frequency of those sins the delight you took in them the expense of time and money they put you too the degree of boldness and shamelessness the scandall they brought along with them the dishonour they did to Religion to holy daies and holy things the many reproofs and checks they were against with all the vows and resolutions which you broke that you might commit them If these things I say be weighed you will not easily believe your selves if you should fancy that the business is already done which I suppose was but begun together with this affliction that is upon you And now I mention your affliction it gives ●…it occasion for the second note which I would have you make viz. That your punishment is a great deal less then you deserve That you have not received so many stripes as you have committed offences Here being such a vast number of sins which you may find your selves guilty of it will make you cry out if you be touched with any pious sense It is of the Lords mercies that we are not consumed Why doth a living man complain a man for the punishment of his sin There is no reason that we should repine under his afflicting hand but rather bless his goodness that we are not in a far more lamentable condition II. And that you may not be more miserable nor after severer strokes here fall into everlasting condemnation I beseech you as you love your souls stir them up by the grace of God to a through and speedy reformation in every particular wherein you must charge your selves to have done amiss You see your work do not go about it with a dull and an heavy heart but with earnestness with zeal and fervour of spirit as those who are infinity concerned in it The danger you are in sure will awaken you The judgements of God which hangover your heads will chase away all sloth and laziness And especially the sad sense of your former neglects will make you give all diligence that this business may not miscarry in your hands Which that it may nor III. I beseech you in the next place that your purposes of reformation which I hope you are now forming may proceed upon a right ground and flow from a sound and lasting principle of obedience viz. not meerly from the fear and dread of Gods present judgements but from a true fear of himself and a reverend regard to his Sovereign

authority Not meerly that you may now escape out of his hands and save your lives but that you may be really his friends and live to him If your resolutions take their beginning from the heavy stroke which is upon you yet they must take their growth and confirmation from the consideration of the cause of it which is nothing else but your sins against God These you must hate more then the Plague it self You must purpose to amend out of an abhorrence you have to all disobedience against his Majesty out of a love you bear to his blessed nature and holy will out of a sense that he is your Lord and Governour that all his Laws are just and good that he is your chief good and last end in agreement with whom only you can be happy For if it be nothing else but the present calamities which awaken you when they are gone you will fall asleep and be secure in your sins again But the Fear and the Love of God will alwaies inspire you to do well and they will never let you return to folly any more These will also make you entire in your obedience They are an universal cause of all vertue They will not suffer you to be partial in your duty but throughly instruct you to every good work And here I beseech you again to have a respect to all Gods Commandments for it can never be too often remembred Place not your amendment only in increasing your devotion but in bettering your manners This is the damning hypocrisie of this Age that it sleights all good Morality and spends its zeal only in matters of Worship and Devotion IV. And now I have but one request more to make to you which you will easily grant if the foregoing be entertained It is this If God be pleased to restore you to your liberty again which we continually pray for be sure to make good the Vows which now are upon you Let it be seen that indeed the love of God and Religion is in your hearts and that your purposes are not the fruit of a present passion Cannot you remember that you have made many promises to God before now which were never performed Hath not a sickness or a Sermon begot some resolutions which all vanished away O search I beseech you if you love your eternal life after the cause of this falsness for it will betray your purposes again Was it not because you did not throughly hate the sin which you promised to leave Was it not because a right sense of God and goodness had not setled it self in your minds Did not your disaffection to sin arise only because the temptation was gone Was not your appetite then surfetted and sick which in time recovered it self Then just so it will be hereafter when you go abroad again You will renew your friendship with your evil courses unless you have some good principles in you stronger then all your sinfull appetites and then all the sollicitations of the world If you mean therefore to be as good as your word you see it is of absolute necessity to settle some firm unalterable principle of new obedience in your soul The former advice must be diligently heeded unless you intend to lose all your labour and so must these also that follow 1. The better to assure your future obedience I wish you to make some experiment upon your selves while you remain within doors There are some things that can be done at this very time Let us see you perform them if you would have us believe that you mean to amend Cannot you now be patient and not think hardly of God or men Cannot you bless God for this affliction and pray that it may do you good Cannot you spend your time very much in meditation in prayer and in examining your selves Cannot you seriously desire the prayers of good people for you Cannot you reform that vain and evil communication which we hear many of you entertain at your Windows with idle and loose people that are not at all affected with the judgements of God upon the Land If you will not do these never believe any of the promises you make of amendment in all the rest 2. And then I entreat you to resolve by the grace of God to continue those holy exercises of prayer meditation and examining your selves when you come abroad again in order to make you perform the other parts of your duty They are not all Religion as men foolishly think but they are the helps and means to bring us to the practise of all that God commands Therefore be sure you spend some part of every day in calling to mind your purposes and the grounds or reasons on which they were made Put your selves in mind of God of your dependance on him and of the love and duty you owe him Earnestly beseech him for Jesus his sake to assist you with the grace of his holy Spirit that you may keep your word And take an account of your performance as often as you can And let me take the liberty to tell you it is easie here to read your sin in your present chastisement You have not loved to be retired and so now God shuts you up whether you will or no. Shut up your self therefore hereafter in secret get aside from all company and be alone with your selves and God if you mean to be saved You have complained its like in times past that you had no time to spare from your necessary occasions Behold now God hath taken away this objection from this busie City Now they have leisure enough who would find none before Now he hath left them nothing else to do but to consider their waies Their Trades stood lately in their way to Heaven they could not pass thither through their Shops And so now he hath shut up their shop doors and removed their trade from them He hath made room now for Religion which could find no place a little while ago He would let that into their houses and hearts which was barr'd out by innumerable imployments He seems to bid them now be wise Merchants for better things and to follow a traffique with heaven which they would have no commerce withall before This if our people will not see they must die I think of incurable blindness And let all those whose eyes are opened have a care to amend this great this first fault which makes so many others 3. To which let this request be also added that you would all remember to confirm your resolutions by frequent and reverend receiving of the Sacrament of the Lords Supper A duty too much neglected though it be instituted on purpose for a remembrance of Christs love in giving his life for us then which there is nothing more powerful to move our hearts to all love and obedience This every little business in the world can put by For this men can find no time and so their resolutions are starved