Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	charity_n	good_a	work_n	979	5	5.4756	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30498	The holy truth and its professors defended in an answer to a letter writ by Lawrence Potts, priest of Staplestown near Catherlough, unto Robert Lacky, a parishioner and formerly hearer of the said priest, occassioned by his forsaking his ministry and embracing the blessed truth herein vindicated / by John Burnyeat [and] John Watson.	Burnyeat, John, 1631-1690.; Watson, John, 1650?-1710.	1688 (1688)	Wing B5966; ESTC R36040	22,397	32

says that God is Love and the more a man hath of Love the nearer he doth approach to the Nature of God and so tellest us what Paul saith of Charity c. But what doth all this towards the proving us to be defective in this great badge and mark of a Christian Disciple That this is both your and our Duty we grant but thou dost not shew matter of Fact wherein we are guilty it is an easie matter to accuse and charge but wise men will consider how they can make good the Accusation before they charge But since thou hast provoked thereunto let us take an observation of the Works of your Church and Ministry and see how you have born this badge and mark of a Disciple of Christ or whether we can find any Defects in her or not that we may see whether there is any reason to forsake her or not For many years past the Fruits of your Church and Ministers have been such that we think it will be hard for any to say they are the badge and marks of Christian Disciples for thou speakst in thy Letter of the Protestant Religion as it is profest in the Church of England and Ireland and so it is of that Church we now have Reason to take an observation let it be considered from whence hath all that great Persecution for many years proceeded whereby so many Families have been ruined many thousands imprisoned their Goods taken away not leaving some so much as a Bed to lie upon Cattel to till the Ground nor Corn for Bread and Seed nor Tools to work withal Whipping Stocking Stoning and grievously abusing so that many thereby have lost their Lives and meerly because they could not come to your Worship for Conscience sake or for meeting together to worship God according to their Faith and in these Persecutions the Ministers have often had a hand themselves in sending forth wicked Informers and sometimes appearing in their own persons besides the great Sufferings wherein many have suffered for the Ministers Wages and Hire which hath not been a little this in England Yet we have not escaped in Ireland but have often been imprisoned for meeting together to worship the Living God as we have also been for the Ministers Wages Now these not being the acts and deeds of former ages but of our present age and of a people yet living We need not say much to make it out it being still as Wounds bleeding which may be seen therefore come to the Application and see where the Imputation of this great Desect which thou couldst not omit will fall If thou canst prove these doings of yours to be the effects of Love and Charity then thou clearest your Church from this great defect and if so may be it may be a true Church but sure they manifest quite the contrary and were never the marks of a true but of a false Church as may be seen from the days of Cain downwards So that there 's no want of Reasons why R. L and others may turn from your Church and so in turning from you to the Truth which the Quakers are Witnesses of is not unsafe but a safe way to Heaven notwithstanding all that thou hast said to the contrary in reflection upon us and our Religion as also upon him as if he had forsaken you and changed his Religion out of Covetousness for which thou neither dost nor canst give any grounded Reason and therefore having said so much already we need not say much more to these matters When he answered thee and told thee it was the Love of God manifested in his heart c. and not Covetousness neither Humours Passions nor Prejudice c. for all he tells thee so yet thou still asserts that it plainly appears to be out of Covetousness and sayest in this as in other things he shakes hands with the Papists and not meerly for Conscience sake so here as in other things thou dost charge and accuse without proving what thou sayest as if thou knew his Heart and Conscience better than himself what dost thou think who is now judging another mans Servant and who is now assuming Gods Prerogative And when he tells thee it was the Love of God manifested thou tellest him it seems to thee that God had withdrawn his Love from him in suffering him to forsake so rational and pure a Religion as the established one is for a Persuasion that has either little or no Reason or Purity in it Ans. As for your esteablished Religion what Reason and Purity is in it or the contrary we have in some measure before shewed and all that will but observe your Religion and the effects of it may easily see that this is but a vain boast in thee to set forth your Religion for such a rational and pure one And for thy saying That which he hath chosen hath little either of Reason or Purity in it it is but thy Say so thou dost not undertake to prove or make it out at all so that if people will believe what thou saist it must be because thou saist it and not from any thing thou makest appear to manifest what thou saist to be true Thou goest on still after the same rate and when he saith he felt nothing of incurring the Displeasure of the Lord but on the contrary had more Peace in his own Conscience than when under thy Teaching thou tellest him of what Paul saith of some whom God had given up to a reprobate mind and so wouldst persuade him that this is his state and when he speaks of enjoying Peace more than when under thy Doctrine thou saist the reason is plain enough while under thy Doctrine his Conscience was under a tenderness it wassore with sin c. Ans. Truly we believe there was Reason for it to be sore with Sin but he might stay long there before it would be saved from Sin and so healed from that soreness for that you never come to by your own confession for all your days you are complaining that there is no Health in you so you are like to be sore with Sin but all that see their infirmity and what Physicians of no value you are had need to look out for a better Religion and better Ministers or Physicians to their Souls So that it s still evident he had reason to forsake yours and look out for a Religion that had more Power and Vertue in it to deliver from Sin and heal the Wounds it had made but it is not to be questioned that if he had slayed with thee and lived in his vain Conversation that would have been better born with by thee than his owning of that which leads to a Reformation and so like them of old that while people put it into their mouths they cried Peace but when they did not then prepared War against them Thou tellest him of going into the Quakers old way of uncharitable censuring because he saith many of the