Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	christian_a	church_n	religion_n	1,340	5	5.5492	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A45197	Mr. Hunt's postscript for rectifying some mistakes in some of the inferiour clergy, mischievous to our government and religion with two discourses about the succession, and Bill of exclusion, in answer to two books affirming the unalterable right of succession, and the unlawfulness of the Bill of exclusion.	Hunt, Thomas, 1627?-1688.	1682 (1682)	Wing H3758; ESTC R8903	117,850	282

themselves and some there are so false and unjust as to suggest That the Argument for the Bishops Right was written to set off the Postscipt with some advantage and that the Author design'd to gain from the Argument a more pardonable liberty of inveighing against the Church-men in the Postscript If this had been the conceit of men of the Popish Faction only and not also of many Gentlemen whom I principally designed to serve and in them the Church of England thereby I should not have thought it worthy my notice For every man understands it is their business and design to divide the Church-men from the Interest of the Church to set the Church against her self To rob the sheep of their shepherds and the pastors of their flocks They know and true it is that no good and useful Constitution can ever be destroyed but by it self i. e. by ceasing to be so And that the people will never part from any thing wherein they find their benefit and advantage except they can deprave our Church they can never hope to destroy her They have corrupted some of our Church-men with Principles that subvert our Government and betray the Rights of our People They have debauched the Manners of our Church-men and lessened their Authority and Esteem with the people The Order is enslav'd by Collation of Preferments upon less worthy men Qui beneficium accepit libertatem vendidit They have raised a bitter zeal against that Separation that they themselves have contriv'd fomented and promoted And it is brought to pass that those are accounted Church-Fanaticks though Conformists that cannot contentedly see and endure the near approaches of ruine both of Church and State These are their fear and their hate The Sons of Anak the Giants of the Land that they they imagine so insuperable that they are for making themselves a Captain and returning back into Egypt Against these they exercise the keenness of their Wit and to supply themselves with matter of Raillery against them they lick up the Vomit of the Popish Priests and whatever is malitiously said by them against the first Reformers is daily repeated by our young Clerks out of the Pulpit with advantages of immodesty and indiscretion for the disservice and dishonour of their Order with the impudent Lies that the Papists have forg'd against Luther Beza and Calvin and other renowned instruments in the Reformation they disparage the Reformation of great service this to the Church of England and the Protestant Religion These young men like Dotterels Apes and Parrots who have no more understanding than those Animals are perpetually repeating any thing though never so destructive to Church and State that is suggested by any Popish Mercenary Writer if he hath but the cunning to bestow an idle Complement upon the Church or calls Rogue and Villain seemingly or in pretence for their sake especially if he can furnish to their young invention any Topicks of Raillery against an imaginary Presbytery and against Parliaments an essential part of our Government and the security of our Liberty A very fair capacity and recommendation this as they imagine to Preferment These are the Men I confess for whose sake I writ the Postscript And if it can conduce any thing either to reform them from their Errors or else to make them of no regard with the People That they be not hereafter taken to speak the sense of the Church of England and we ty'd down to certain ruine by her pretended Authority And especially that she may not hereafter suffer under the scandal of such forward and precocious youths I say if I can obtain by my endeavours any of these effects in any degree I reckon I have performed an agreeable service to the King and Kingdom We have a sort of young men that have left nothing behind them in the University but the taint of a bad example and brought no more Learning with them thence than what serves to make them more assured and more remarkable Coxcombs who will undertake to discourse continually of the Interest of Religion of which they have no manner of sense and of the Constitution of our Government of which they are utterly ignorant These take our degenerate Gentlemen to be the great Supporters of our Religion and Government whose Loyalty consists principally in Rounds of Brimmers and Huzzahs who have not so much leisure from their repeated Excesses and Debauches as to consider that they are not the wiser for their Cups In these Loyal Debauches too many of the young Clergy do most scandalously assist for the service of the Church and for maintaining the honour of their Order This if the Superiour Clergy do not in time redress they will betray our Religion and ruine the Government both in Church and State These degenerate Levites are magnifying perpetually the Priviledges of their Tribe extolling their Order yet in terms that disgrace it but by their Lives they vilifie it The most degenerate off-springs of Noble Families are the greatest Braggadocio's of their Discent Those boast most of their Ancestors who dishonour them by their Relation The Jews did not boast more of their Temple the Templum Domini the Templum Domini at that time when they had filled up the measure of their iniquity and the destruction both of their Temple and Nation was at the door their Temple had not one stone left upon another and they carried into Captivity than these Gentlemen do of the Church of England when Popery is like to be let in upon her by their wicked follies and indiscretions Popery I say which by some Doctrines undermines the very foundation and by others unroofs the Edifice and defaces the Walls of Christian Faith and leaves nothing thereof but Altar-stones for their Idolatrous Sacrifices what ever the fates will be that they are pulling down upon the Nation The Apostolicalness of their Order will not secure it if they do not fill up the duty of their Office no more than the Templum Domini did priviledge the Jewish Church and Nation from destruction A Temple without a Numen and an Undedicated Church are things common and profane They may remember there are Churches of Christ that do make a shift without their Order and Religion need not perish though the Order fail but may subsist much easier than Nations under Change of Governments which yet generally last longer than any one form Nothing can subsist longer or at least to any good purpose than it answers the ends of its Institution and if it do not it is much better that it should not continue than that it should subsist Grotius in his Book De Jure Summarum Potestatum circa Sacra assigns these Reasons for the Discontinuance of Episcopacy in some Churches viz. Longa atque inveterata jam plane Officii Episcopalis depravatio Nomen Eminentia Episcopalis eorum culpâ quibus obtigerat omnem sui reverentiam perdiderat in odium venerat plebis Non debent saith he