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	love_n	obedience_n	988	5	7.1442	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65195	Two treatises ... both written by Sir Henry Vane, Knight in the time of his imprisonment.	Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Epistle general, to the mystical body of Christ on earth.; Vane, Henry, Sir, 1612?-1662. Face of the times.	1662 (1662)	Wing V80_PARTIAL; Wing V67_PARTIAL; ESTC R7026	96,369	132

Freedom than that wherein man was at first Created in that mutable and Primitive state of purity And what this Freedom is we shall shew that is so worthy to be obtained and fought after in exchange for the other This Freedom consists in the witnessing every respect which is wrought in the Understanding and Will of man by Regeneration and Divine birth of the one or other sort to render them of entire use and service unto that higher and superiour Will in the second Adam the Lord from Heaven that is made and given of the Father to be a quickning Spirit unto them in a twofold capacity First of their natural Head and Sovereign whom they are to serve as in relation of Subjects to their King and Law-giver and therein fulfil and answer the very end of the Law of Nature and actually become those righteous persons against whom there is no Law that can take hold of them to punish them or take the least exception to their perfect Righteousness that have given to them a constant and perpetual Will to do right to every one and love the Lord their God most intirely by influence from their Head who in this respect is the common Parent to both the sorts of Children whom he makes free Citizens and Inhabitants of the Heavenly Jerusalem his own glorified man-head which is the Mother of us all But secondly Christ the second Adam comes forth also in another Headship to the second sort of these Children which is that of Husband and Bridegroom gathering them up into a state of higher Love and Duty than that of Servants and Subjects and receiving them unto more honorable use in familiarity intimacy and a kind of equality comprehending the Love and Duty of righteous and faithful Servants but in respect of the nearness of relation and union becoming much the more excellent and transcendant The Inspiration and holy Anointing which flows from Christ in this twofold Headship of his into the hearts of these his Members hath that effect upon them as joyns them to him in unity and agreement of spirit or of judgment and will and so entirely possesses them engrosses them in the service and to the use of their Lord that it leaves them at no liberty to 〈◊〉 the use or service of any other but in subordination to his will which excludes sin and all evil esteeming it their greatest happi●… thus to be bound up in a way of love delight and entire ob●…nce in the Will of their Head their second Adam and Lord fr●… Heaven Hence they experience that they are not their own in ●…ny thing for it is not they that live but Christ liveth in them and with his Princely prevailing Influence as their Head is their infallible Guide and firm Security in all their operations giving them such an abiding and growth up in all things into him in an entire resignation and obedience to his Will as co-workers together in every thought word and work that they cannot miscarry nor shall ever be hurt by the second death but shall be rewarded with those pleasures that are at his right-hand and at his left in his Kingdom for evermore And although this most perfect Freedom which is obtained by this binding and conjunction in unity and agreement of spirit with Christ be esteemed by the Possessors of it of price inestimable yet it is the greatest bondage and cross that can befall a wicked heart and is that which is reserved by Christ to be their torment for ever in the end which will be given by him to his first Ministry in the hearts where he is finally rejected from whom after he is departed and withdrawn for a season as if they should never hear of him as indeed they shall not to their comfort yet they shall to their terrour and sorrow be made sensible of him by the fastning which he will make of his Darts of enlightnings into the minds of the wicked as sharp Arrows and a gnawing Worm that shall never dye when by the breath of his mouth he shall kindle a fire of Conviction and self-judging in their Conscience together with the just sence of his Divine Vengeance they can no longer flee nor escape from But on the contrary the truly regenerated souls are made willing and exceedingly pleased to draw in this yoke with their Head to see with his eyes and act by his quickning in all they do and to put on with him this lowliness meekness and purity of spirit which feeds on that which is incorruptible and is with God of great price so great as no righteous workers have his praise and blessing but these who are properly Christ's Mystical Body the Branches that abide in him and whose Fruit is permanent unto Life Eternal and this Body or Church of invisible Saints and spiritual Worshippers of the true God even whilst they are in their Wilderness and suppressed state Christ the great Overseer of their souls doth feed with Teachers af●●● his own heart and is not wanting by an outward Ministry under him ●o feed and refresh with Oyl the Lamps of all sorts that he makes use of as his Witnesses and bear his Name whether according to the knowledge his Will that is revealed in the first or in the second Covenant that so h● may by upholding such an Office under him edifie all that are under his Charge as he sees occasion and is agreeable to the condition the Church is in whether of restraint or freedom from the Powers of the World By those which Christ puts in to the Ministry of his Spirit under him we are to understand such ahe gives his Vnction and Mission unto as he is the Head of Nature or of Grace and from their own Experience are made able to minister the knowledge of Christ in his healing and restoring work or in his regenerating and New-creation-building before described giving their Witness according to what they themselves have received of the Spirit in the three distinct Dispensations of it before expressed in the first of which because of the mutable state of the operation thereof both in themselves as well as in their hearers they that are eminent Preachers unto others by the excellency of Gifts with which they are anointed and that from Christ may nevertheless themselves be found at last Cast-awayes But in the other two they which experience the Anointing thereof become Pillars in the House of God that never go out more and may obtain the highest Order and Rank of Ministry in the Church even that of Apostles in the same way as Paul himself did by such a Spiritual Light of Christ as he sayes 1 Cor. 9. 1. Am not I an Apostle have I not seen Jesus Christ our Lord And as thus the Apostolical Order came to have being in the Church by the immediate sight of Christ in Spirit as we see in Paul's Case which comprehends in it all other the inferiour Ranks of Ministers whether Prophets

old ere ever the Earth was And what is true in Christ who is not only the Root but the chief and principal Branch hath its Witness and is declared in the Work which he begets and shines forth in amongst his Members knit to him by an abiding or indissoluable union all that are Branches in this true Vine whose Fruit is such as is cheering both to the heart of God and of Man that is to say of Man considered in his higher or lower attainments and growths up into the knowledge and love of God as he is Man and no more partaking of the Spirit of God by measure And secondly of Man made the only Begotten of God that lyes in the bosom of the Father and is anointed with the Oyl of gladness above his fellows which Christ's exalted Manhead is and that after such sort as not to have and inherit the dignity of it to himself single and alone but as the Head and Husband to that General Assembly of the First-born whose Names are written in Heaven and have right to the double portion The right opening of this is the great Key to all our practical and experimental Knowledge of God which is found amongst the dispersed Seed of God that are either of the one or other birth Children of the first or second Covenant in every Nation Tongue Language or Form truly searing God and working Righteousness and therein accepted of God either through Faith or with that common acceptance declared Gen. 4. If thou dost well shalt thou not be accepted whilst in the mean time they may be great strangers unto if not much prejudiced against one another for not walking together in one and the same way of Profession and external Communion Give me leave then to distinguish this Seed of God into Four sorts Two that are Witnesses unto Christ's first Ministry as he is the Author and Restorer of the Law and Principles of pure Nature and is the dispenser of God's Image and the manifestation of his Will upon the terms of the first Covenant And other two that are Witnesses unto the truth of Christ's second Ministry as he is the new Creator that regenerates and makes over again his first work anew is the Author of Life from the dead and bringer of Immortality to light which is not done by the first Covenant nor can be but by this second knowledge and Image of God begotten and wrought by and according to the tenor of the new and everlasting Covenant The first sort of Witnesses we shall speak unto and rightly to have the knowledge of them we must yet further consider Man in his first make and in the primitive constitution of being that was given to him in his state of Innocency before sin entred So as to enquire upon what terms Man then stood with God and in what respect he was pronounced good in God's eyes and might be said to be accepted of him Man then had the perfect knowledge of God and of Christ as his Creator and Law-giver for God created all things by Jesus Christ by the Word of God's mouth in the Mediator did all things live move and had their being so that what might be known of God even of his Eternal Power and Godhead by the things that were made that is by the means of any created beings visible or invisible it was manifested in man and was shewed to man by that mixt com pound being which was given him of an intellectual and sensual or animal Soul which furnished him with inward and outward senses proportioned for such a knowledge and which were retained in due subjection and subordination the one unto the other From such a prospect and survey of things as Man at first was fitted to receive both from within and without him the invisible things of the Godhead were clearly seen by him rendring him without all excuse being thereby instructed in the duty of his obedience and subjection to the Law of God under which he was made to the glorifying him as God which as God expected and required from man so he owned a liking and acceptance of from man with whom he treated and agreed upon the terms of his personal obedience and entire observance of all his Commands and continuance therein Three things man in this state might and did experimentally find in himself First The light and manifestation of God's Mind and Will as a Law within him called in Scripture The Candle of the Lord the Oyl with which God furnished the Lamp of man's spirit which he was to take care that through his default he did not let it go out nor diminish but quicken and renew it as it should need by such means God instituted The second thing which man experienced was the life of a rational and intellectual Soul that is to say a superior part in the same Soul affording the use of inward senses that by keeping open and awake he had as it were an intercourse with the spiritual and invisible beings of Angels and saw the intrinsick natures of the Creatures And thirdly He found also a brutish nature of which he was compouuded and made which furnished him with the use and operation of outward senses by which he might go abroad and walk up and down in converse with earthly things and inhabitants The fountain of these outward senses his inferior part to be in his soul or spirit With these he came to perform and put in execution that which the superior and directive part of him judged right and fit to be done This was the inward and outward order of actings that Man at first was created in with a freedom to make use of this Light within himself which God as a Talent had committed to him to imploy according to his will and rely upon his guidance and the sufficiency of it to attain the end God set before him in the way of his perfect obedience and keeping out the entrance of sin or else upon the sense of the instability he might discern in these Principles of Freedom that leave him alone and to himself and the Insufficiency to continue by the power of the Grace received in well-doing against all resisting and deceiving temptations to chuse rather to make resignation up of this his Freedom wherein he was at his own guidance and dispose in exchange for a better and more perfect Freedom that is to say in order to be intirely at the will of another and the leading influence thereof in all things even of such another whose service is perfect Freedom and who should be as Surety for the performance of the duty to God's Law and secure us from the penalty of the Curse therein threatned against the Transgression thereof which was pointed out to Adam in the Tree of Life as John interprets by the Promise mentioned Rev. 2. 7. To him that overcometh which is done through Faith will I give to eat of the Tree of Life or Immortality which is fed on

take an account who they are that have acquit themselves as they ought to do in their witnessing-stations and callings and what fruit their witness had how it took place in the hearts of others among whom they conversed and what returns they met with from a wicked and ingrateful world for all the labour of Love and Service they shewed amongst them Of all which Christ intends to take a formal and judicial account at the time of the end that is set by him to this witnessing-work in his witnesses that upon this employment Prophesying in sack-cloth were to continue as in constant war and violent persecution from the Powers of the world for twelve hundred and sixty years together At the end of which time the Judgment or time of Wrath is to come not that which is the final Judgment and Wrath of the great Day but a like proceeding of God towards the World in pleading with it by Fire and Sword upon the finishing the Testimony of his Witnesses as he did by Water upon the first World where he made a visible distinction between the Wicked and the Righteous and between them that truly fear God and are sincere and them that fear him not but are tainted and corrupted with Hypocrisie and Apostacy as is plainly expressed Rev. 11. 18. And the Nations were angry and thy Wrath is come and the time of the Dead or the Cause of thy slain rejected Witnesses that they should be judged and an Inquisition made after their Blood and the hard usage they have met with in the World in order now to receive Countenance and Reward for their Sufferings according to the nature of them and the condition and place in which they gave their Witness whether they were Prophets or Saints that fear God's Name small or great and to yeeld Vengeance and Destruction to impenitent and hardned Sinners that they may no longer corrupt the Earth And therefore as in this place we may see Christ lighteth up his Candles in the World of all sorts and sizes and indeed in all places of it from East to West and hath given the Light of his Glory and Kingdom as that Testimony which is appointed to be given and preached in all the World as a Witness to all Nations and immediately after this is finished then the End comes the End that God will manifest of his patience and long-suffering which he hath exercised towards the World in forbearing to avenge the Cause of his Elect which hath been night and day crying to him How long Lord how long which in this day of his Wrath he will avenge and that speedily and cut the work short in Righteousness And because we have said the Candles or Lamps which God lights up in the World for this his Witnessing-work ever since his Ascention to this day according to the Commission he gave to his Disciples Act. 1. 8. and in them to all his Saints small and great that fear his Name as we shewed before are of several sizes and kinds it may not be improper to declare them As first Their Witnessing-Lights may be such as are in publick Office and Place in the visible Church and so are either those that are in the Ministry or those that give their Witness as the Body of some particular Congregation that own themselves in the sight of the world as a Golden Candlestick or some particular Church-Assembly of visible Saints in order and practice of the Gospel according to their measure and light And under this first head will fall all sorts of Principles and Professions of Godliness that make the Rule of the Word and Spirit of God the Ballance of the Sanctuary the Standard by which they desire to regulate themselves in their Doctrine Worship and Conversation what-ever difference in Principles or Ministry of the knowledge of Christ they are under as hath been before opened and distinctly spoken unto Secondly Their Witnessing-Lights may be Publick Persons with relation to their Office in the Magistracy For it is by me saith Christ that Kings reign and Princes do Justice So that in the administration of pure and impartial Justice as a Magistrate in whatever Place and Calling we are set by God and a lawful Appointment from men we keep on the right way without turning on the right hand or on the left for fear or favour discovering a just mind that is a constant and perpetual or unchangeable will to do right to all whatever discouragement opposition and hatred we meet with in doing our duty This is a Light before men which Christ will own in the day of his appearance to have been for his Service and shall not go without its due reward Thirdly There are also the same witnessing Lights in the lesser sphears of every man's particular station and calling which shine forth in a personal righteous and blameless conversation or where their vote or consent is given in reference to the good of the Church or State or to the private Rule which every Master and Head of a Family is by Christ entrusted with in reference to his own Children and Family who are under his charge and not so much at their own dispose as his who hath a right over them by God's Law and man's and by the duty of this relation every man may be somewhat directed even by the world what he is and what Witness he gives in the measure of the Knowledge and Light of Christ he hath received and shall accordingly be taken notice of and judged by Christ in the day of his Judgment ministring Perdition to ungodly men In this little a faithfulness to Christ is expected and that according to the measure of Light received and the Anointing we are under of which there hath already the several degrees and kinds been made known The use therefore that Christ makes of this Light in the world that these several wayes he makes to shine like Lightning from the East to the West from Jerusalem to the utmost ends of the Earth is as to the world to leave them without excuse and ripen them as white fields to the harvest of his just Vengeance when the time is to put in his Sickle And as to the Witnesses themselves to bring upon them a time of refreshing and rest from the presence of the Lord in the sight of their very Enemies where a Table shall be prepared for them and their Cup shall be made to overflow This then being the Testimony that must be finished and these the Witnesses in their several Places and Callings who have been imployed in bearing and giving their Testimony in the World ever since Christ's Ascention the course whereof hath had its progress from East to West and is now come to these utmost ends of the Earth The Scriptures do with great clearness as to the present dispensations of our day teach us three things First That this Testimony is now upon its finishing point in the World and upon these