Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A Word B Word C Word D Occurrence Frequency Band MI MI Band Prominent
duty_n child_n family_n parent_n 3,006 5 8.2083 4 true
View all documents for the selected quad

Text snippets containing the quad

ID Title Author Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) STC Words Pages
A46761 The reasonableness and certainty of the Christian religion by Robert Jenkin ... Jenkin, Robert, 1656-1727. 1700 (1700) Wing J571; ESTC R8976 581,258 1,291

There are 2 snippets containing the selected quad. | View lemmatised text

in so few Generations of Men supposing it had ever been known to Adam's Posterity If it were never known but the Relation of it were always conveyed down in Metaphor and Allegory then this Allegory must pass for Historical Truth in those Ages and the Reason why it was delivered to them in Allegory must be because that manner of delivering it was most suitable to that Age and most credible and every way most proper and if it were most fitting that it should be thought to have happened so this is a good Argument that it did really happen so since there is nothing hinders but it might so have happened and it was most probable at least to the first Ages of the World that it did so come to pass or else it would not have been requisite to relate it in this manner 3. The Fall of our First Parents brought a Curse upon their Posterity And here it must be acknowledg'd that God may bestow his infinite Grace and Mercies upon what Terms he pleaseth and therefore he might ordain that the Happiness or Unhappiness of their Posterity should depend upon the Obedience or Disobedience of our First Parents 1. God might ordain that the Condition of their Posterity in this World should depend upon it so that they should have been immortal upon their Obedience and should become mortal upon their Disobedience that they should be made subject to Cares and Labours to Diseases and Dangers by reason of the Fall of our First Parents from which otherwise they should have been exempt This is esteem'd just in all Governments amongst Men that Children should be reduced to Poverty and Disgrace by the Fault of their Parents from whom Riches and Honour were to have descended upon them And this way of Proceeding is just both in Humane Laws and in the Dispensations of Providence because God and our Country have an antecedent Right and Interest in us superior to any Man 's private Title or Welfare and this they may justly make use of to restrain Men from those Crimes out of Love and Concern for their Posterity from which no consideration of themselves could have with held them The Experience of the World has found this to be the most effectual Remedy with many Men and therefore the wisest and justest Governments have made use of it and the most wise and just God might think fit to deal in this manner with our First Parents by representing to them that the Happiness or Misery of their Posterity depended upon their Good or ill Behaviour in this one Instance of their Duty We daily see that Children commonly inherit the Diseases of their Parents and an extravagant and vicious Father leaves his Son Heir to nothing but the Name and Shadow perhaps of a Great Family with an infirm and sickly Constitution and little or nothing to support and relieve it Now if these Miseries and Calamities had been entail'd upon all the Race of Mankind from Adam the thing would have been the same in the Nature and Justice of it for Numbers cannot alter the Nature of Things as it is now when they descend upon some only from their immediate Parents And therefore it must be much rather just that the Fall of our First Parents should make their whole Race only liable to such Calamities but not involve All necessarily in them 2. The Communications of God's Grace and the Favours and Blessings of his more immediate Presence might depend upon the Behaviour of the First Parents of Mankind He might send them out of Paradise and might withdraw his free and usual Communications of himself from them and their Posterity upon this Forfeiture by their Disobedience 3. The Proneness which we cannot but observe in our selves to Sin might proceed from hence We daily see and feel the corruption of our Nature by whatsoever means we became subject to it So that it is in vain to object that it would be unjust that all Mankind should be involv'd in Adam's Sin For the Condition which we are in is matter of Fact of which no man doth or can doubt The Question is only how we come into this Condition and since we are born in it and it is our Natural and Hereditary evil the Justice and Goodness of God is cleared and vindicated by assigning a Cause for it from the Imputations of such as must acknowledge the same corruption of Nature but will allow no Cause or Reason for it except the arbitrary Will and Pleasure of the Creator The Children of vicious Parents are generally most enclin'd to Vice and if Men may partake of the evil Dispositions and Inclinations of their more immediate Parents why might not the Corruption of the Humane Nature in our First Parents descend upon all their Posterity 4. The Happiness of Men in the next Life might depend upon the Obedience of our First Parents For when God proposed to bestow upon Men Rewards of Glory and Happiness which far surpass any Pretences of Desert or Claim of Right that they in a State of Righteousness and Innocency could have been able to make since the Promises were so great and the Happiness so far exceeding any thing to which Men could pretend a Right we must be very unreasonable unless we will confess that God might bestow his own Gifts upon his own Terms He might therefore debar Men from Heaven upon the Transgression o● our First Parents because the Promise of Heaven was ●n act of his free Bounty For no Man can pretend that an Innocent Creature which preserves its Integrity must for that Reason be advanced to the unspeakable Joys of Heaven No Creature can be profitable to his Maker and an unprofitable Servant can merit no such Reward And what God was not obliged to bestow tho' Men continued in the State of Innocency he might with all the Justice and Reason in the World refuse when Men became divested of their Innocency and thereby forfeited all pretences to that Happiness which was promised upon condition that our First Parents had continued in their Primitive and Original State of Righteousness 5. God might ordain that all Men should become liable to Eternal Misery by the Fall of our First Parents and that those who would not accept of Means appointed of Salvation by Faith in Christ to rescue them from it should perish eternally We no sooner read of the Fall of Man but Christ is forthwith promised even before the Curse was denounced upon Adam and Eve for their Offence the Seed of the Woman is immediately promised to bruise the Sepents Head and afterwards the Judgment is denounced first upon Eve and then upon Adam for their Transgression and the Seed of the Womans bruising the Serpent's Head is to be understood of Victory over our Spiritual Enemies and that Conquest which should be obtained over Death and Hell by Christ For the Temporal Punishment which was to befall Adam and Eve and their Posterity is afterwards added and therefore this Promise
be more easily observ'd than this so it was most proper for the place in which they were and for their manner of Life and State of Innocence The common Rules and Laws of Morality could then scarce have any place but it was requisite that this or some such other Instance of Obedience should be imposed Theft and Murder and Adultery and other Sins against Moral Duties were then either impossible to be committed or so unnatural that it can hardly be imagined how any of them should be committed when there were yet but two Persons in the World in a State of perfect Innocence and therefore in Moral Duties there could be no Tryal of the Obedience of our First parent besides these were so well known to them that there could be no need of any Command concerning them But God gives them a Command in a Thing of an indifferent Nature that so he might have a plainer proof of their Obedience in a thing which was both indifferent of it self and so easy to them that nothing but a careless and perverse Neglect could betray them into Disobedience To suppose Good and Evil to be in the Nature of Things only and not in the Commandments and Prohibitions of God is in effect a renouncing of God's Authority but this Tree was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil For it made them sensible of the Divine Authority upon which Moral Good and Evil formally depend tho' matterially they be in the Nature of Things Whatever God is pleased to command or forbid however indifferent it be in it self is for that very Reason so far as it is commanded or forbidden by him as truly Good or Evil as if it were absolutely and morally so being enacted by the same Divine Authority whereby all Moral Precepts become obligatory as Laws to us for all Moral Truths or Precepts or Rules of Life however certain and necessary in themselves yet receive the Obligation of Laws from the Divine Authority this being the most certain Truth in Morality and in order of Nature antecedent to all others that God is to be obeyed in all that he commands or forbids But the Divine Authority was solely and purely concern'd in this Commandment which had no foundation in the Nature of Things but depended meerly upon the Will and Pleasure of God and by the Transgression of this Law it became notorious to our First parents and their unhappy Posterity that both Good and Evil whatever they may be in Speculation and abstracted Notions yet as they concern us in the Practice of our Lives are to be resolv'd ultimately into the Divine Authority God is our Lawgiver and nothing can be a Law to us but by His enacting and what he enacts must be a Law to us and of the same necessary indspensable Obligation so far as he is pleased to enjoyn it whether it be a Moral Precept or only an indifferent Thing in its own Nature It seems then that God was pleased to manifest his Soveraign Authority in this Commandment and to shew that it is absolute and independant upon Moral Good or Evil and that tho' his infinite Holiness and Goodness would not permit him to Command any thing contrary to Moral Duties nor suffer him not to command Moral Good and forbid Moral Evil yet his Authority is arbitrary over us extending as far beyond all the Duties of Morality as he pleases which indeed are only Truths and Precepts but not Duties to us but by Vertue of his Authority This Commandment therefore was given in Assertion of God's Authority whom it is always and in every thing good to obey and evil to disobey as our First parents found by sad Experience (n) Maim More New voeh Par● 〈◊〉 c. 2. Maimonides observes that they had the Knowledge of Truth and Falshood before but Good and Evil became known to them by their Fall whereby they understood the Value of that Good which they had lost and were made sensible of the Misery of that Condition into which they had brought themselves They perceived how good it was to obey God and how evil to be disobedient to Him in any thing whatsoever (o) Lib. 1. Disc xxvi● Mr. Mede has observed that their Sin was Sacrilege God had reserved that Tree as holy to himself in Token of his Dominion and Soveraignty and appointed it to such uses as he had designed it for and therefore it was a Sacrilegious Prophanation to eat of it it was a Theft or Robbery no less than the Robbing of God as the Prophet stiles Sacrilege and an Invasion of his Right And the Lord God said Behold the Man is become as one of us to know Good and Evil. Gen. iii. 22. which words are generally supposed to have been spoken by a severe Sarcasm or with an upbraiding Anger and Indignation but they seem to admit of an easier Sense if they be thus interpreted The man is become as one of us he has made himself as one of us he has assumed to himself an equality with us Christ thought it not robbery to be equal with God Phil. ii 6. to be equal is there to claim an Equality and so to become as one of us is to challenge or pretend to become as one of us according to the Devil's Suggestion Christ knew it to be no Injury or Presumption in Himself who was in the Form of God and was God as well as Man to assume to Himself an Equality with the Father But our First Parents who were made in the Image of God and after his Likeness were not contented with this but affected something higher than the Perfections of a Creature and aim'd at an independant State of Wisdom and Immortality being seduced by the Serpent who said unto the Woman Ye shall not surely die ye shall be as Gods knowing Good and Evil. Gen. iii. 4 5. This was a most heinous Crime to believe the Serpent rather than God Himself and to be seduced by him and hope by his Advice to procure to themselves Divine Wisdom and Immortal Happiness II. The Consequences of the Fall of our First Parents were answerable to their Crime and were either upon themselves or upon their Posterity or upon the Serpent and other Creatures I. The Curse upon the Serpent was by a visible Object and Representation to denote that Curse and Punishment which was denounced against the Tempter himself who assumed the Body of a Serpent The Serpent before had a freer and stronger Motion and could lift up himself and reach the Fruits of the Trees but is since confined to the Ground and is forced to seek his Food in the Dust And there being Relations of Serpents which carry Part of their Body erect this before the Curse might belong to the whole Kind of them in another manner than it doth since to any one Sort. The Basilisk is said to go with his Head and Breast erect and a Serpent call'd (p) Knexe's Hist of Ceyl Part 1.