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

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A52433	Reflections upon the conduct of human life with reference to the study of learning and knowledge : in a letter to the excellent lady, the Lady Masham / by John Norris ... ; to which is annex'd a visitation sermon, by the same author.	Norris, John, 1657-1711.; Masham, Damaris, Lady, 1658-1708.; Norris, John, 1657-1711. Sermon preach'd in the Abby Church of Bath ... July 30, 1689.	1690 (1690)	Wing N1267; Wing N1270_PARTIAL; ESTC R15880	61,350	204

Knowledge without Love But he that Loves altho he wants Sciences humanely acquired yet he will know more than Human Wisdom can teach him because he has that Master within who teaches Man Knowledge Purity of Heart and Life being one of the Methods of Consulting the Ideal World as was shewn in the Second Part. And now Madam I cannot well presage how your Ladyship will relish this Renunciation of all studies Meerly Curious from one whom you apprehended perhaps upon too just grounds to have been so naturally disposed to them and so deeply ingaged in them Perhaps you 'll say I am already Countrify'd since I left the Vniversity How far that Metamorphosis may seize upon me I can't yet tell if Solitude and Retirement be enough to bring it I am I confess in great Danger being now got into a little Corner of the World where I must be more Company to my self than I have been ever yet But the best on 't is I have not been so great a stranger to my own Company all along as to fear any great alteration by it now Nor do I think the Management of the Present undertaking a sign of any such change Whether I should have had the same Thoughts in the Vniversity or no I can't say I rather believe they are owing to my Country-Retirement as I hinted in the Beginning but however that be sure I am they were entertain'd upon the deepest and severest Consideration and I believe are so well grounded that the more your Ladyship considers the more you will be convinc'd both of the Truth of what I have Discours'd and of the Reasonableness of what I design which is to devote my self wholly to the accomplishment of my Moral part and of my Intellectual only so far as is Subservient to the other And now Madam having bid farewel to all unconcerning Studies all the dry and unsavoury parts of Learning 't is high time to take my leave of your Ladyship too which I do with this Hope that one great ground of your Trouble for the Misfortune of your Eyes is by the foregoing Considerations removed And with this Assurance that if these Discourses be too Weak to bring you over to my present Opinion they will however prove Strong enough to work you into a Better which is to believe that I still continue in all Reality Your Ladyships Most Faithful Friend and Servant Iohn Norris Newton St. Loe Sept. 2. 1689. A SERMON Preach'd in the ABBY CHURCH OF BATH Before the Right Reverend Father in GOD THOMAS Lord Bishop of BATH and WELLS At his VISITATION held there Iuly 30. 1689. By Iohn Norris M. A. Rector of Newton St. Loe near Bath and late Fellow of All-Souls College in Oxford London Printed in the Year 1690. John 21. v. 15. So when they had Dined Iesus saith to Simon Peter Simon Son of Ionas Lovest thou me more than these He saith unto him yea Lord Thou knowest that I Love thee He saith unto him Feed my Lambs THE Words consist of Three considerable parts First of a Question put by our Lord to St. Peter Secondly of St. Peter's Answer Thirdly of a Command by way of inference from it The Question was whether St. Peter Loved him beyond the rest of his Disciples then present This Demand of our Lord was not so high as were St. Peter's former Professions and Pretensions This warm and Zealous Apostle had always profess'd a more than ordinary Adhesion to his Lord and Master and pretended to as great a Supremacy of Love as his Successours do of Knowledge and Iurisdiction He seem'd to be among the Apostles what the Seraphim are among the Angels to out-shine and out-burn not this or that vulgar Disciple only but the whole Apostolical Order in Zeal Courage and Flames of Divine Love For no less can that Eminent Profession of his import Tho all Men should be offended because of thee yet will I never be offended But not having made good his high Pretensions our Lord now puts the Question to him in terms more moderate than those wherein he had before voluntarily boasted of his own Fidelity and whereas he had before made shew of a Superlative Love beyond All the Disciples our Lord only asks him this Modest Question Lovest thou me more than these The good Apostle having now partly from the late experiment of his own frailty and partly from the manner of our Lords Question learnt more Humility and Modesty returns such an Answer as was short not only of his former Professions but even of the Question too He does not reply Lord thou knowest that I love thee more than these No he dares not venture any more so much as to determine any thing concerning the Measure of his Love but is contented barely to aver the Truth and Sincerity of it And for this he fears not to appeal at last to the Divine Omniscience Lord thou knowest all things thou knowest that I love thee Our Lord takes the Answer and does not at all question the Truth and Sincerity of it only he gives him a Test whereby it might be tried and justified both before God himself and the World by subjoining this Illative Command feed my Lambs as it is in the Text or as in the two following verses feed my sheep This whole intercourse between our Lord and St. Peter may I conceive as to the full stress and scope of it fitly be reduced to this short Hypothetical sceme of speech If thou lovest me feed my sheep Like that of our Saviour upon another occasion to his Disciples in common If ye love me keep my Commandments This under a shorter view takes in the full force of the words and I shall accordingly discourse upon them as if they had stood in this Posture Hence then I shall take occasion to consider these three things as naturally arising from the words and as no less pertinent to our present Concern First the great Love of our Lord Christ to his Church which he here calls his Lambs and his Sheep which he here commands St. Peter as he loved him to feed and which lastly he would not absolutely and finally commit to his Charge till after three distinct Inquiries whether he truly loved him Secondly I shall consider the Command here given and shew the great obligation that lies upon all spiritual Pastors and Guides of Souls to feed this flock of Christ which is so dearly beloved by him Thirdly I shall consider the Connexion and Dependence that is between the Practice of this command and the Love of Christ. If thou Lovst me feed my sheep Lastly I shall close all with an earnest exhortation to the Conscientious Practice of the Duty enjoyned The first thing I shall consider is the great Love of Christ to his Church And certainly if there be any Secret in Religion fit for Angels to Contemplate and too high for them to comprehend if there be any Love that has Breadth and Length and Depth

to feed this flock of Christ which is so nearly beloved by him Feed my sheep says our Lord to St. Peter and in him to all the Pastors of the Christian Church who are equally concerned both in the Command and in the Duty And that they are so is already sufficiently concluded from what has been discoursed concerning the great Love of Christ to his Church To make you therefore more sensible of this Duty I need only propose to your Meditation how affectionately our Lord loves his Church and how dear her Interests are to him that out of this his abundant Love he has set apart a distinct Order of men on this very purpose to promote and further her in the way of Salvation that he has intrusted the care of her in their hands and has made them his Vicegerents and Trustees that 't is a Charge worthy their greatest care for which there needs no other Argument than that 't is committed to them by him who knows the worth of Souls that he strictly commands them as they have any Love or Regard for him to feed his Sheep that 't was the very last Command that he gave them when he was just leaving the world and upon the very confines of Glorification and that lastly as this is the greatest Trust that was ever by God reposed in Men so there will be the severest account taken of it at the last day at the Great Visitation of the Bishop of Souls This is enough if duely weighed to shew the Obligation of this command and to conclude this part were it not necessary to add something concerning the manner of discharging it Feed my Sheep is the Command given by Christ to the Pastors of his Church and we have seen the obligation of it But how are they to Feed them I answer First by Prayer for their respective charges both in Public and in Private This is the First thing belonging to the Pastoral Office and accordingly with this St. Paul begins his Admonition to his Son Timothy I exhort therefore that first of all Supplications Prayers Intercessions and giving Thanks be made for all Men. Secondly by Preaching with Private Instruction and Admonition as occasion shall serve and require And here their first care should be to Preach nothing but what is True Secondly to confine their Discourses to Vseful Truths such as tend to the promotion of good Life that which the Apostle calls the Truth which is after Godliness Thirdly to deliver only Plain Truths For there are many Truths which are highly useful and have a very Practical aspect when they are once understood which are not so easie and obvious to be so These therefore ought as much to be waved as those which are not useful because tho useful simply speaking yet respectively they are not And upon these two latter accounts we should not trouble our Unlearned Auditories either with Thorny Questions and Knotty Controversies which in themselves have no Practical use or with more refined Theories and School Niceties which to them are as useless and unpractical as the other To Feed them with the Former would be to give them Stones instead of Bread And to Feed them with the Latter would be like placing a Man in the Region of pure Ether why he can't breath in it and will starve by reason of the over-fineness of his Diet. Nor is it enough that the Truths we Preach be Vseful and Plain unless in the Fourth place they be deliver'd in a Plain and Intelligible Manner For what signifies it that the things are in themselves Plain if we make them obscure in our expressing them we are all ready enough to laugh at the Poor Frier for going about to Preach the Gospel to Beasts and Trees and are not they alike ridiculous that order Discourses so as not to be understood by those that hear them Don't these also Preach to Beasts and Trees We ought therefore to consult the Capacity of our Hearers and consider to whom as well as what we speak And to this Plainness of Expression we would do well to join some degrees of Warmth and Concernedness And this I rather recommend because there are some that affect a Cold Dead careless and heartless way of Delivery But certainly this has as little Decorum in it as it has of Devotion For since the things we speak are supposed not only to be Truths but Concerning and Important Truths what can be more absurd than to see a Man deliver a Sermon as drily and indifferently as one would Read a Mathematical Lecture 'T is said of Iohn the Baptist that he was a Burning as well as a Shining Light And truly we have need of such in this Cold Frozen Age. Plain Sermons Preach'd with Warmth and Affection do more than the Best Coldly deliver'd You know the Story in Eusebius of the Heathen Philosopher coming into the Council of Nice who was baffled into Christianity by the meer Warmth and Heartiness wherewith the good Old Man address'd him He could have resisted his Arguments but not the Spirit and Zeal wherewith he spake And this is all I shall think proper to remark to you upon the Preaching part The next way whereby the Pastors of the Church are to Feed the Sheep of Christ is by duely Administring to them the Holy Sacrament which is their true Spiritual Food the Manna that must sustain them in this Wilderness This is the most proper way of Feeding them for the Body of Christ is Meat indeed and his Blood is Drink indeed There remains yet one way more of Feeding the Flock of Christ without which the rest will signifie but little and that is by a good Example Among the other Properties of a good Shepherd our Saviour reckons this as one that he goes before his Sheep and leads them by his Steps as well as with his Voice There ought to be a Connexion between Hear and Do but much more between Preach and Do. And he that is not careful of this as he cannot expect to do much good to others so he will certainly Condemn himself To be short for I hope I need not inlarge speaking to Wise Men a good Preacher who is an ill Liver is such a Monster as cannot be Match'd in all Affrica And for his State hereafter I may leave it to be consider'd how great a Condemnation awaits him whom not only the Book of God and of Conscience but even his own Sermons shall Judge at the last Day These are the several ways of discharging this Precept Feed my Sheep to which however I think it necessary to add one thing more and that is that we Feed them our selves and not by Proxy or Deputation For out Lord does not say to St. Peter do thou get some body to Feed my Sheep but do thou Feed them thy self For however St. Peter's Shadow might do Cures upon the Body it must be his Person that must do good upon the Souls of

his Charge To speak out plainly what I intend Non-residency is one of the greatest scandals of the Reform'd yea of the Christian Religion contrary to all Reason and Justice as well as Primitive Practice And whoever are guilty of it plainly shew that they are Lovers of Ease Honour or Profit more than Lovers of Christ. For certainly he that Loves Christ as he ought will not think himself too good to Feed his Sheep Which leads me in the Third and Last place to consider the Connexion and Dependance that is between the Practice of this Command and the Love of Christ. Now this I briefly make out upon a double ground The First Ground is because the Love of Christ will naturally ingage us to Love whatever he Loves and consequently since his Church is so exceeding dear to him 't will ingage us to Love his Church and if to Love it then consequently to be diligent in Feeding it that being the most proper instance of shewing our Love to it The Second Ground is because the Person of Jesus Christ consisting of a Double Nature God and Man the Love of him must include the Love of his Humanity as well as of his Divinity If therefore we Love Christ we Love the Human Nature as well as the Divine and if so then we Love Man as Man consequently all Men and if we Love all Men we shall desire and endeavour their Salvation and accordingly take care to Feed them with the Bread of Life Upon these two Grounds it plainly appears that there is a strong Connexion between the Loving of Christ and the Feeding of his Sheep and that such Pastors as do not well discharge the Latter have no right of pretending to the Former This is the Test whereby both St. Peter's and every Spiritual Pastor's affection to our Lord must be tried If you Love me Feed my Sheep Let me therefore exhort you all as you Love our Lord Jesus Christ and as you desire to be Loved and approv'd of by him to a sincere and Conscientious Discharge of your Pastoral Duty to take heed unto your selves and to all the Flock over which the Holy Ghost has made you Overseers to Feed the Church of God which he has purchased with his own Blood Let me beseech you to consider what you are and what you should be What you are by your Character and Profession and what you should be in the Exercise of it and therefore to take heed to your selves to your Doctrine and above all to your Publick Life and Conversation For certainly it cannot be an Ordinary Measure of Religion that will serve our turn who are concern'd not only to be Good but Exemplary and must Live well for others as well as for our selves what therefore is Perfection in others will be but strict Duty in us The Devotion of our Ordinary days ought to exceed that of their Festivals and we should Live in as much Warmth of Religion as they Dye 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 In all things shewing thy self a Pattern of good Works That 's our Rule we ought to be Patterns and Examples of a Holy and refined Conversation Let your Lamps therefore be always trimm'd and your Lights always Burning and that with such Brightness as to shame those that will not be allured by the Glory of the Flame And that you may the better do all this let me desire you all frequently and seriously to Meditate upon the Excellent Example of the great and good Shepherd Christ Jesus whose Life was wholly imploy'd and at last laid down for the good of his Sheep I pray you My Reverend Brethren consider this and all that has been said that so when this great Shepherd shall return to visit his Flock you may all give up the same Account to him that he did to his Father Those that thou gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost Amen FINIS Books Printed for Sam. Manship at the Black-Bull in Cornhil ODes Satyrs and Epistles of Horace done into English the second Edition Lives of the most Famous English Poets or the honour of Parnassus in a brief Essay of the Works and Writings of above two hundred of them from the time of K. William the Conqueror to the Reign of the late K. Iames the second in Octav. Reason and Religion or the Grounds and Measures of Devotion Considered from the Nature of God and the Nature of Man in several Contemplations with Exercises of Devotion applied to every Contemplation by Iohn Norris M. A. and Fellow of All-Souls-College in Oxford Octavo price 2 s. The Theory and Regulation of Love a Moral Essay in two Parts to which is added Letters Philosophical and Moral between the Author and Doctor More by I. Noris M. A. and Fellow of All-Souls-College in Oxford 2 s. A Cap of Gray-Hairs for a Green Head or the Fathers Counsel to his Son an Apprentice in London Containing wholesome Instructions for the Managements of a Man's whole Life The Fourth Edition in Twelves 1 s. The Injured Lovers or the Ambitious Father a Tragedy Acted by their Majesties Servants at the Theatre Royal by W. Mountfort A Comedy The Comical Revenge or Love in a Tub as it is now Acted at their Majesties Theatre by Sir Geo. Ethenege The Gallant Hermaphrodite an Amorous Novel Translated from the French of the Sieur de Chouigny price 1 s. The Marrow of Divinity or the Chief Grounds of Protestant Religion briefly Explained in a Form of Catechising by way of Question and Answer by William Ames D. D. price 3. d. FINIS Eccles. 11.7 Exod. 17.6 Vid. Reason and Religion Pag. 82. Vid. the same Treatise Pag. 203. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 p. 3. Cogitationes Rationales de Deo p. 296. De la Recherche de la verite p. 208. 1 Cor. 13.8 Vide Reason and Religion Joh. 1.5 P. 144. P. 146. P. 148 Reason and Religion Colos. 2.3 Prov. 8.34 C. 9.4 Joh. 8.12 Tauler Sermon 3. Pasch. P. 412. Joh. 7.17 1 Cor. ● 14 1 Wisd. 4. Dan. 12.10 Psal. 119. Joh. 8.12 1 Cor. 13.12 Dan. 1.15 Joh. 14.2 V. 23. Psal. 25.13 Dan. 1.17 Pag. 5. Jam. 1.5 1 King 3.9 Eccl. 43. Nat. Hist. p. 13. Job 38. Eccles. 1.18 Colos. 3.10 Cogitat Ration de Deo p. 62● Eccles. 12.13 V. 12. V. 13. V. 14. V. 21. V. 22. V. 23. V. 28. 1 Cor. 2. Deut. 32.29 Confess Lib. c. 1.16 Via compendii ad Deum p. 172. Mat. 26.33 Ephes. 3.19 Ephes. 5.27 Ephes. 4.7 Ephes. 5.25 Ver. 29. Luke 22.44 Jo. 17. 1 Tim. 2.1 1 Titus John 5.35 John 10.4 Act. 20.28 Tit. 2.7 John 17.12