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	parent_n	perform_v	7,128	5	8.6080	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A84291	An exhortation to catechizing: the long neglect whereof is sadly lamented. And the speedy reviving as earnestly desired. / By the provincial assembly at London. August 30. 1655.	London (England). Provincial Assembly.	1655 (1655)	Wing E3867; Thomason E853_32; ESTC R207472	12,493	23

we shall give the best sense to the worst of their answers and put some necessary words into their mouths the better to facilitate the expression of their thoughts that we shall carefully manage every part of this businesse with the best of our wisdome and endeavour to credit them as well as to instruct them and to procure them both the more esteeme in the Church and favour when they come home And if any of them shall yet chance to look upon it as some indignity to them to sit under the Deske when some of their fellowes advance themselves to stand in the Pulpit we doubt not but to convince them that all intelligent men account such forwardnesse not a specimen of more knowledge but lesse modesty then their years seeme to bespeak Alas it is only their ignorance that oiles their tongues had they but had the patience to have beene duly Catechized they had not had the presumption to preach or rather prate so impertinently Their want of learning is the principal faculty that qualifies them for such exercises Had they beene swifter to hear they would have beene slower to speak We are so sufficiently acquainted with the untractable temper of such impetuous spiritati that we begin to excuse their parents and masters that they forbear to interpose their interest and authority for the further restraining them What hope is there that they who pretend God doth immediately Commission them to preach will yeeld obedience to any mortal man that shall command them to be silent But we must needs say we extremely marvel how it comes to passe that any parents and masters albeit they hereupon neglect to forbid these bold yonkers to preach yet should pretend a secret check in their consciences and make a pitifull doubt whether they may require them to learne We wonder how they have beene so strangely inveigled as to tolerate all things by scrupling them and to let the reines loose purely out of strictnesse to think it a sinne in themselves to presse a duty on others and a breach of Gods holy Lawes to enjoyne the keeping of them how it comes about that they who can allow themselves to be severe enough to their servants for loytering in their shops cannot finde it in their hearts to rebuke them for neglect of the Church that they who hold themselves bound in conscience to informe their servants in all the secrets of their trade should think themselves as much tied up from pressing them to learne the mysteries of Religion We shall say but this that we see too much cause to fear lest they who use not all the means they can to bring their children and servants to the Faith be themselves brought at last to an unprofitable repentance Sure we are they who have not learned their duty to God will never rightly performe their dutie to men We wish that sawey behaviour and lame accounts be not too sad proofs of this unhappie truth We take it to be so necessary that all Parents and Masters bring their young ones to be Catechized that we think it needlesse to presse it any further Only we are sorry to consider that some who professe themselves convinced of the usefulnesse of Catechizing are at a stand about those Catechismes which we would commend to their use we meane those excellent ones which were not long since composed by the Reverend Divines assembled at Westminster attested by the Church of Scotland recommended to this Nation by the High Court of Parliament If we be not too much mistaken the larger Catechisme is as compleat a body of positive Divinity as any we know extant this day and we beleeve that whosoever shall peruse it with a judicious and unprejudiced eye will easily observe the singular skill of those eminent workmen who so accurately folded so much variety of choice matter in so few plaine words so artificially digested the questions so irrefragably confirmed every branch of the answers by so many clear proofs of Scripture all along quoted in the margent We professe to look on that larger Catechisme as an excellent card not only for vulgar Christians but all younger Divines to steere the course of their studies Nor yet do we think higher then some most Reverend men have beene pleased to speak of it and they such as by reason of their interest in the Episcopal cause were not like to overvalue any labour of the Assemblies beyond the just rate of its apparant desert The truth is we judge that larger Catechisme to be an useful Comment for our selves to have recourse to in the explication of the lesser which we esteeme better tempered to the capacities and memories of younger people And this testimony we may freely give to this lesser Catechisme that it hath this considerable excellency above all those we have seene that every answer is an intire proposition without relation to the question preceding In short we humbly blesse God for so great a help as he hath graciously afforded these Churches in this little piece and we as heartily blush to think of our own un●xcusable neglect of so precious a means for the instruction of our people And yet too though we most passionately wish that all our Brethren would unanimously concurre in the joynt use of one and the same and that the Assemblies Catechisme yet shall we abundantly rejoyce to see them perswaded to use any other Orthodox Catechisme which they in their wisdom shall judge better calculated to the condition of their people We see indeed too much cause and so we doubt not do all our Brethren to abhorre the Racovian and Biddles Catechisme but for all those which have beene ordinary amongst us however it hath pleased some body in a sullen gravity to put them to rebuke yet Red. Red. P. 555. we professe to receive them with reverence and could readily comply with our Brethren in the use of any one of them So that the younger people may be taught to know who made them and why be made them how good and happy man was made by God how evill and wretched he hath made himself what need he had that the Lord Jesus should die for him that the Holy Ghost should regenerate him what priviledges he doth enjoy and may expect by Christ what duties he is obliged to by those priviledges how he is to present his petitions to God how to receive the seales of Gods gracious Covenant with other particulars of like nature we shall think them singularly happy what ever be the forme wherein they shall learne them We shall not too morosely stand upon circumstantial differences where there is a fair accord in material principles But our hearts even bleed to consider how many precious souls are in daily danger of perishing eternally for want of meet instruction in these necessary points Woe is us while we have too supinely neglected the seasonable sowing of better seed how wickedly diligent hath the envious man beene in scattering his

tares We estimate his excessive paines in sowing by the cursed plenty of his harvest Not to take notice of lesser weeds though such as have all but too much poison in them how do we see Popery Libertinisme Socinianisme Ranting Quaking spreading themselves so widely as if they meant to overgrow the whole face of the Nation and scarce leave roome to the true Religion to put forth its head among them How often do we see several Sects in the same family and many a subdivision in each Sect How do we see sundry perverse doctrines as perniciously practised that which some please to call Religion quite contrary to the nature of what is such indeed sacrilegiously breaking all the bonds of society and yokes of government which are the only securers of true liberty We pray God the State do not one day feele what it is to let all loose in the Church sure we are that too many masters of private families are already faine to sit down under the unsufferable losse of a considerable parcel of their authority and well were it for them if they mist it but one day in seven We do not despaire but they will at last grow so wise as to see how much of their own interest is involved in the cause of God and that it is an apparant disadvantage to their secular affaires to neglect the spiritual instruction of their children and servants But for our Reverend and deare Brethren of the Ministery we cannot easily admit the least doubt that they are not fully convinced of an especial duty they owe to God who hath honoured them to set them as Stewards in his house to give every one his proper portion in due season and of all others young ones would be most carefully provided for to the truth whereof God hath appointed them to take a peculiar care as the most precious treasure in his house to the soules of their hearers who are not capable of being saved without the knowledge of the truth to the soules of young men especially who if they be not taught the truth in their greener yeares will more difficultly learne it when they are growne elder and the more ripe the more rotten to themselves who owe a just account for every particular soule committed to their charge They know how great a price the least soule hath cost that the weakest lamb stood Christ no lesse then the strongest sheep how rich a prey Satan hath ever reckon'd on in the poorest soul how industrious he is in hunting how many nimble beagles he hath that rejoyce to do their best in the worst service he lists to imploy them how great advantages they have at this time by the many sad breaches in all our hedges how little we can answer it that so many breaches have been made while we so speciously pretended and solemnly vowed to repaire them how heavy censures are dayly cast on our sincerest endeavours of a pure Reformation as if they aimed only at ruining We have good hopes that all who unfeignedly love God and his truth will in the serious consideration of these particulars and many more which their owne wisdome will readily prompt them immediately lay aside whatever pretences and conscientiously joyne with us in a speedy reviving of that most necessary though neglected exercise of Catechizing which seemes of all others the most probable meanes both for the timely baying back of that fearful inundation of pestilent Heresies which hath too farre broken in upon us and for the better preventing of those mischievous effects which they daily threaten We cannot entertaine the least surmise of any of our Reverend Brethren that they will look on this Work as too troublesome an addition to their other labours on the Lords day We are confident they rejoyce to spend themselves in the service of God and his Church and reckon not on the consuming of their oile while they may lend their light yea that they feele no greater burden then the heavinesse of their people in hearing Besides we easily foresee how much their Catechizing will seasonably conduce to a just vindication of the honour of their Doctrine from those absurd reproaches with which some slanderous Pamphleters endeavour to blast it impudently saying any thing and proving nothing yea saying nothing but what hath beene as often answered as objected We doubt not but that modell of Divinity which is commonly taught in our Churches hath a faire conformity to the patterne in the Mount We are sure its aime is to advance the glory of Gods grace to staine the pride of mans nature to make the Saints walke much the more comfortably nothing the lesse carefully to damme up that cursed fountaine of self-conceit whence daily issue so many impure streames not to open a sluce to any of those horrible abominations which threaten to over-whelme the face of the world The knowne practises of those blessed men who have beene the most zealous Preachers and resolute Champions for our Doctrine have all along sufficienly vindicated it from these both senselesse and frontlesse calumniations And howbeit it be pretended that we impose on other mens beliefe and suffer our selves to be over-ruled by corrupt inierests Yet we doubt not but it clearly appeares to the children of wisdome that we make Gods Word our onely rule and his glory our onely aime and drive no other designe but to bring our people to the saving knowledge of the onely true God and Jèsus Christ whom he hath sent It is our griefe to see poore soules taught to hate our Doctrine before they know it If they were duely Catechized we hope many of them would both acknowledge and adore that beauty of holinesse which gloriously shines in every lineament of it Could we dispense with our selves to borrow a wilde straine from the ranting Rhetorick of a Thrasonical adversarie we should terme it an Apocryphal diabolisme to say that we will not suffer the Lord Jesus quietly to inherit the glory and praise of his ever-blessed work of Redemption in the just compasse and extent of it that wee set bounds and barres to the grace of God which he never set that we preach this in effect for Gospel to the world that God never bare any good will to the greatest part of them but decreed peremptorily from eternity eternally to torment them with the vengeance of eternal fire how innocently blamelessely spotlessely soever they should live in the world all their dayes I. G. Catabapt Epist to Read p. antepen Be it knowne we extend the glory of the work of Redemption farre more then they who accuse us of restraining it We not onely teach that God gave his only begotten ●…ne that whosoever beleeves should not perish but have life everlasting but also adde that Christ redeemed his people from their sinnes as well as from the wrath due to them from the world and themselves as well as from Hell and Satan We teach that Christ purchased our faith in order