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	teach_v	word_n	1,052	5	4.3526	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A50133	Humiliations follow'd with deliverances a brief discourse on the matter and method of that humiliation which would be an hopeful symptom of our deliverance from calamity accompanied and accommodated with a narrative of a notable deliverance lately received by some English captives from the hands of cruel Indians and some improvement of that narrative : whereunto is added A narrative of Hannah Swarton, containing a great many wonderful passages, relating to her captivity and deliverance.	Mather, Cotton, 1663-1728.; Swarton, Hannah.	1697 (1697)	Wing M1116; ESTC R19464	26,849	74

'l be favourable to us Thus Let us present our selves before the Eternal King of Heaven on our Fast with His Only Begotten His Dearly Beloved Son in the Arms of our Faith and plead Oh! for the Sake of this thy Son do Good unto us But then Secondly There is the External Humiliation of our Fast when we Humble our selves in a Fast we are to Abstain from all our Secular Pleasures and Affayrs that we may the better go thorough our Duties Like Silly Children we know not when to Feed and when to Forbear Feeding But our Good God in His Word has taught us We are Taught that we must sometimes have a Day for Fasting which must be a Day of Restraint upon us and this Restraint must Extend unto the Dimensions of a Sabbath Of a Fast it is prescribed in Lev. 23.32 It shall be unto you a Sabbath of Rest and ye shall Afflict your Souls from Evening unto Evening shall ye Celebrate your Sabbath The Design of the Abstinence thus to be used on a Fast is not only that we may be more free for the several Spiritual Employments which are then incumbent on us our Lord like a wife Falconer will by keeping of us a little Sharp fit us for the Highest Flights in our Prayers but also to Show and Speak the Humiliation of our Souls in those Employments T is a Ceremony of Gods Appointment a Symbolical Ceremony which God Himself hath appointed and a part of Worship whereby we are to Signify That we 〈◊〉 our selves utterly unworthy of all those Blessings which we now Deny unto our selves and therefore of all other Blessings whatsoeever And the First Sin of man which Lay in Eating is to be considered as very particularly herein referred unto Now First A Fast is to be kept with an Abstinence from the Pleasures of this Life Our usual Diet must on a Fast be Abstained from It was therefore said in Esth 4.16 Fast and neither Eat nor Drink The very Term of a Fast implies thus much and it hath been of old said They that will not so Fast with the Children of God must Eat and Drink of the Furious Wrath of God with the Wicked There are indeed Cases of Necessity wherein our merciful God call for Mercy rather than Sacrifice and in those Cases doubtless the Abstinence may be somewhat Abated and Relaxed Some cannot Encounter a severe and a total Abstinence it would utterly Disable them for the Service of the Day the Severity may then be mitigated Yet our Abstinence must be such as to produce our Affliction Of a Fast it is said in Isa 58.5 It is a Day for a man to Afflict his Soul and it is said in Lev. 23.29 Whatsoever Soul it be that shall not be Afflicted in that same Day he shall be cut off from among his people We may not Eat or Drink so much nor may we Eat or Drink so well on such a Day as at another Time In the Fast of a Daniel we have this Abstinence observed ch 10.3 late no pleasant Bread neither came Flesh nor Wine into my mouth neither did I anoint my self at all And in Tertullians Time they had their Xerophagiae a Dry sort of Repast for such as found that a Rigid Fast was too hard for them But by consequence all other Delights of the Senses are then also to be avoided If you read Joel 2.16 and 〈◊〉 Cor. 7.5 You 'l find a particular prohibition of this Importance Hence likewise our Sleep is then to be Retrenched If we are inclinable to Sleep so long on a Fast as we do on another Day we are to Awake● our selves with such a Call from God as that What meanest thou O Sleeper Arise and Ca●l upon thy God! And it is not improper here to be noted That our Alms are to be one Concomitant of our Fasts It was said in Isa 58 7. Is 〈◊〉 this the Fast that I have Chosen Is it 〈◊〉 to deal thy Bread to the Hungry When we come to seek Mercy of God we should in Thankfulness for our Hope to find what we seek show Mercy to men In our Fasting we Deny to our selves our usual Nourishments and we should then Bestow on others at least as much as we Deny to our serves in Token of our Sense That we are more Undeserving of the Divine Bounty than any that we know in our Neighbourhood Our Alms are to go up with our Prayers as a Memorial we Remember who 's did so before God But there is yet one thing more to be added Fine Cloathes must in a Fast be Abstained from If there were no Scripture for this why might not meer Nature teach it unto us as well as unto the Ninivites But we have Scripture for it in Exod 33.4 The people mourned and no man did put on him his Ornaments I have see● a Fault in this place and My Neighbours 'T is utterly a Fault among you That on a Fast many people will come to the Worship of God in as Gay Cloaths as if they were going to a Feast Methinks I hear the Holy Angels of God thus uttering their Indignation against such Offenders What will those vain people never have any sign of an Abased and an Afflicted Soul up●n them Truly to be arrayed in Gorgeous Apparrel on a Fast is very offensive unto God Rags are fitter than Robes for the Children of men therein to appear as Malefactors before God the Judge of all They that come to the Assembly in a splendid and flanting Attire on such a Day do but Affront the God whom they profess to Humble themselves before Would you Speed in a Fast Then be able to say if not with him in Psal 35.13 My Cloathing was Sackcloth when I Humbled my Soul with Fasting yet My Cloathing is Sober Modest Proper and very Humble And Secondly A Fast is to be kept with an Abstinence from the Affayrs of this Life The Works of our particular Vocations are to be laid aside when a Fast is Indicted and All Servile Labour on the said Day is Inhibited A Fast is to be kept with the strictness of a Sabbath It is Enjoined in Lev. 23.28 30 32. Ye shall do no work in that same Day for it is a Day of Atonement Whatsoever Soul it be that doth any work in that same Day the same Soul will I destroy from among his people It shall be unto you a Sabbath of Rest from Evening to Evening shall ye Celebrate it When the Services of the Congregation are over we are not presently at Liberty to do what we will Those persons do but help to Debauch the Land who take such a Liberty The Edicts of Heaven run so in Joel 2 14. Sanctify a Fast The whole Day of the Fast is to be Sanctified or set apart for Communion with God When we keep a Day we must keep it unto the Lord. The Expectation of our God is intimated unto us in Isa 58.13 Turn away thy Foot from

Express it Then came to mind the History of the Transfiguring of Christ and Peters saying Math. 17.4 Lord It is Good for us to be here I thought it was Good for me to be here and I was so full of Comfort and Joy I even Wished I could be so alwayes and never sleep or else Dy in that Rapture of Joy and never Live to Sin any more against the Lord. Now I thought God was my God and my Sins were pardoned in Christ and now I thought I could Suffer for Christ yea Dye for Christ or do any thing for Him My Sins had been a Burden to me I desired to see all my Sins and to Repent of them all with all my Heart and of that Sin which had been especially a Burden to me namely That I Left the Publick Worship and Ordinances of God to go to Live in a Remote Place without the Publick Ministry depriving our selves our Children of so great a Benefit for our Souls and all this for Worldly advantages I found an Heart to Repent of them all and to lay hold of the Blood of Christ to cleanse me from them all I found much Comfort while I was among the French by the Opportunities I had sometimes to Read the Scriptures and other Good Books and Pray to the Lord in Secret and the Conference that some of us Captives had together about things of God and Prayer together sometimes especially with one that was in the same House with me Margaret Stilson Then was the Word of God precious to us and they that feared the LORD spake one to another of it as we had Opportunity And Coloned Tyng and Mr. Alden as they were permitted did speak to us to Conf●●m and Strengthen us in the wayes of the Lord. At length the French debatr'd our coming together for Religious Conference or other Duties And Word was sent us by Mr. Alden That this was one kind of Persecution that we must suffer for Christ These are some of the Scriptures which have been my Support and Comfort in the Affliction of my Captivity among the Papists That in Ezek. 16.6 8. I applyed unto my self and I desired to Enter into Covenant with God and to be His And I Prayed to the Lord and Hoped the Lord would Return me to my Country again That I might Enter into Covenant with Him among His People and Enjoy Communion with Him in His Churches and Publick Ordinances Which Prayers the Lord hath now heard and graciously Answered Praised be His Name The Lord Enable me to Live suitably unto His Mercy and to those Publick and Precious Priviledges which I now Enjoy So That in Ezek 11.16 17. was a Great Comfort unto me in my Captivity Although I have cast them far off among the Heathen yet will I be a little Sanctuary to them I will gather you from the People where you have been Scattered I found that God was a Little Sanctuary to me there and hoped that the Lord would bring me to the Country from whence I had been Scattered And the Lord hath heard the Prayer of the Destitute and not despised my Prayer but granted me the Desire of my Soul in bringing me to His House and my Relations again I often thought on the History of the man Born Blind of whom Christ when His Disciples asked Whether this man had Sinned or his Parents answered Neither this man nor his Parents but this was that the works of God might be made manifest in him So tho' I had deserved all this yet I knew not but one Reason of Gods bringing all these Afflictions and Miseries upon me and then Enabling me to bear them was That the Works of God might be made manifest And in my Great Distress I was Revived by that in Psal 118.17 18. I shall not Dy but Live and Declare the works of the Lord The Lord hath chasten'd 〈◊〉 sore but He hath not given me over to Death I had very often a secret perswasion That I should Live to Declare the Works of the Lord. And 2 Chron. 6.36 37 38 39. was a precious Scripture to me in the Day of Evil. We have Read over and Pray'd over this Scripture together and Talk'd together of this Scripture Margaret and I How the Lord hath Promised Though they were Scattered for their Sins yet there should be a Return if they did Bethink themselves and Turn and Pray So we did Bethink our selves in the Land where we were Garried Captive did Turn did Pray and Endeavour to Return to God with all our Hearts And as they were to Pray towards the Temple I took it that I should Pray towards Christ and accordingly did so and hoped the Lord would Hear and He hath Heard from Heaven His Dwelling Place my Prayer and Supplication and mentained my Cause and not Rejected me but Returned me And Oh! how affectionate was my Reading of the Eighty Fourth Psalm in this Condition The means of my Deliverance were by reason of Letters that had pass●d between the Governments of New-England and of Canada Mr. Cary was sent with a Vessel to fetch Captives from Quebeck and when he came I among others with my youngest Son had our Liberty to come away And by Gods Blessing upon us we Arrived in Safety at Boston in November 1695. our Desired Haven And I desire to Praise the Lord for His Goodness and for His Wonderful Works to me Yet still I have left behind Two Children a Daughter of Twenty Years old at Mont Royal whom I had not seen in Two years before I came away and a Son of Nineteen years old whom I never saw since we parted the next morning after we were taken I earnestly Request the Prayers of my Christian Friends that the Lord will deliver them What shall I render to the Lord for all His Benefits FINIS