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	servant_n	5,710	5	6.5909	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44145	Letters written to J.M. a nonconformist teacher, concerning the gift and forms of prayer The second part. By Matthew Hole, B.D. sometime fellow of Exeter College, Oxon. now vicar of Stoke-gursey in Somersetshire.; Correct copy of some letters written to J.M. a nonconformist teacher, concerning the gift and forms of prayer. Part 2.	Hole, Matthew, 1639 or 40-1730.	1699 (1699)	Wing H2410; ESTC R215281	96,332	185

Principles take away the Ecclesiastical Power as Spleen to the Bishops whom you would likewise deprive of it You cannot tell where the Power lies because you have no mind to obey it else you might easily know that tho' the Bishops and Priests have an Episcopal and Pastoral Office which they derive from Christ yet they order and establish nothing about the publick Exercise of it without the Consent and Authority of the King whom they own Supream in Ecclesiastical as well as Civil Matters so that this Objection proceeds not from a real but affected Ignorance and let the Power be where it will if it meddle with the Conventicle your Judgment of Discretion well manag'd can take it out of the hands of both Thus you lodge all decisive Judgment about these things in the Hands and Breasts of the People and so they may at their Discretion sit in Judgment upon their Sovereign and from cutting off his Power may proceed to cut off his Head too of which our unhappy Age hath afforded a Doleful and Tragical Instance so that Princes had need to look well to this Judgment of Discretion if they mean to secure either their Laws or their Lives Now to remedy these Evils and to learn our Duty in these Matters let us have Recourse to the Holy Scriptures and there we are bid to submit to the King as Supream and to Governors as those that are sent by him 1 Pet. ii 13 14. where the Supremacy of the King and the Subordination of inferior Governors to him is plainly asserted which Supremacy makes the King the Fountain and Springhead of all Power in his Dominions from whence all others derive it and consequently the final Determination of publick Affairs must be thereby lodged in him And therefore in the same place we are bid to submit to every Ordinance of Man that is not contrary to any Ordinance of God The Apostle's directions to know them that are over us in the Lord wills us so to know them as to look upon them as Gods Anointed and Vicegerents upon Earth to reverence their Persions and obey their Laws being both stamp'd with a Divine Authority and this will dispose us to pay a due Deference to their Judgments and to yield a just Respect to their greater Wisdom This Lesson Christian Modesty it self teaches for that wills us to have low and mean Thoughts of our selves and to think others better and wiser than our selves especially our Governors who have far greater Advantages and Opportunities of knowing more than we can and being so much above us in Place and Power may be reasonably supposed to see farther into things than our lower Station will admit of And therefore 't will become us to think soberly of our selves to suspect our own Judgment when it crosses theirs and submit our private to the publick Wisdom But will not these say you make us turn Papists and reduce us to a blind Obedience No far from it For the Church of Rome suffers not its Followers to examine their Doctrins or enquire into their Injunctions but exacts an implicit Faith to the one and a blind Obedience to the other It stiles Ignorance the Mother of Devotion and seeks by all means to keep People in it locking up the Scriptures in an unknown Tongue and keeping from them the Key of Knowledge In a word it makes them pin their Faith on the Priests Sleeves and to put out their own Eyes that they may see the better with his whereas the Church of England not only allows but wills all Men to try the foundness of its Doctrin and the lawfulness of its Commands by the Touchstone of God's Word To that end the Holy Scriptures are daily read and unfolded unto them we care not how much Knowledge and Understanding our People have so they be but Modest and Humble with it willing to learn and to pay a due regard and deference to their Teachers that they do not oppose and disturb Government by a too obstinate adhereing to their own Judgment but submit to the Wisdom and Authority of Superiors being content that they should know more and to be directed by them without this no Government can stand nor any Peace and Order be maintained Neither is it so absurd as some imagine for the Common People in a great measure to trust their lawful Pastors and Masters in things wherein they are not so compleat Judges of themselves But they say you may justly challenge a Right to judge what is Sin that are like to be condemned for it if they do sin This Sir will give all People a Right to make and judge of Laws because they are to be punished for breaking them But I think 't is a much safer course for them to rely on the Wisdom of Superiors than to trust too much to their own weaker Judgment in these Matters for they are many times too ignorant to judge what is fit to be done or not done as we may see in the case of Schism or breach of Communion which too many live in without any Sense of the Fault or Remorse for it and so are in danger of being condemned for a Sin which they will not judge to be so But Governors say you are not infallible and general Counsels may err Very true But are not the Common People more liable and likely to err than they Hath not that been ever thought most credible and fittest to be hearkened to which is approved by the best and wisest part of Mankind And is it not most fit That their Judgment should determine and over-rule the rest Does not Solomon tell us That he that leans to his own Understanding or which is all one he that will trust to his own judgment of Discretion is a Fool And certainly he must be extreamly wise in his own Conceit that will set up his own Judgment above all that are above him and think himself wiser than all the Wisdom of a Nation But you add That Superiors if the Determination of these Matters lodges in them will never be in the wrong And will the People think you if they have the Power be always in the right Are not these much more prone to Errors and Mistakes than the others And is it not far more safe to trust the Judgment of wise knowing and able Persons than to follow the rude heady and illiterate Vulgar Upon the whole then 't is evidently the Duty of Subjects and Inferiors not to lean too much to their own Judgment much less to set it up against well establish'd Laws to evade Obedience to them A Parent you know or Master will not suffer his Children or Servants to be govern'd by their own Discretion but his and when he commands any thing to be done or left undone will not allow him to dispute his Commands or oppose their own Sense or Judgment as a Reason for their Disobedience Now 't is but to pay the same Duty and Respect to your