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
A67237	The pretensions of the triple crown examined in thrice three familiar letters ... / written some years ago by Sir Christopher Wyvill ...	Wyvill, Christopher, Sir, 1614-1672?	1672 (1672)	Wing W3787; ESTC R34104	91,353	203

compelled the most for the sense of danger is more pungent ordinarily in temporal than in spiritual Concerns to suspend the care of Religion and lay it out more sedulously about their outward Condition It pleased the most High to permit those Infidels to prevail to such a degree as the World was in a manner turn'd up-side down And amongst those violent Agitations Theology was forced to seek Corners a thing that might happen to the greater part since we know 't was so here in this Island upon the Invasions of Danes and Saxons so as it was not easie to retain either Principles or Practices right It 's beyond exception certain That by those Perturbations Barbarism got so much the upper hand in the Common-wealth of Learning that what we have in writing from that time till Erasmus is the most of it very litte above Pedantry and it 's probably true That the marrow of Religion was so far consumed amidst these broils as the drie Bones thereof were much without life From the days of St. Augustine downward a kind of Lethargick Temper as to the more Spiritual part did strangely by little and little insinuate it self till at last the total of the Credenda was summed up in the Romish High Priest's supposed Infallibility And very agreable thereto the Agenda consisted in Pilgrimages made Meritorious by his Institution in Offerings paid to Saints of his Canonization in Prayers to relieve Souls out of a Purgatory of his Erection in seeking after Pardons for Sin and Indulgences of his Invention It was not hard to rivet these perswasions into the minds of a People the main body of whom was either lately converted or lamentably perverted Neither yet do I believe that every particular Bishop of Rome or every singular great Man who cooperated towards the Introduction of these things did act absolutely contrary to their Consciences or merely by Rules of Policy though the course of story informs us sufficiently that many of them were of such Frame but one may without violence I hope offered to Reason Truth or Charity entertain a Conjecture That after their hold of right Notions was lost their very Judgment might suffer depravation and lead them to build with Hay and Stubble instead of more precious and durable Materials However it came to pass letting the contract with wicked Phocas the Forgery of Decrees and Donations alone till the review of the last day we find the Pontifical See in the 9th and 10th Century arrived at this height to tread upon the Necks of Princes to suffer them to hold his Stirrop to dispense with Oaths of Allegiance to arm not only their Subjects but their Sons against them and by an unheard of Example to kick off or trample on their Crowns and Scepters whilest the Parish Priests stuff'd their Auditors with wonderful relations of Visions Apparitions Revelations which solitary Monks or voluntary Hermites those first Enthusiasts obtruded on the World all tending either to advance the Reputation or inhance the Revenues of the Clergy For who would not lie at the feet of such men as as they conceived did ever and anon bring them News from Heaven Or who would not lie out their worldly Substance in such ways as those men taught them were available to the Redemption out of a firie Lake of their own and all their Friends Souls Nay who would stick at a liberal distribution of his Coyn even here for such large Indulgences as then went a begging During the disorders brought upon Christendom touched before the Writings of the Primitive Fathers were lock'd up in the privatest retirements of Monasteries rarely seen by the Sun where they suffered a greater Corruption than of Moths and were taught in several things to speak the Language of Ashdod after the Tone and in the Tune of the Superstitions growing more and more Epidemical A great Instance whereof I have now by me an Episte pretended to be St. Augustin's bound up with the 3d. part of St. Hierom's but without any thing that savours either of his Style Spirit or Doctrine One word by way of Return to several Discourses I have met with OF all the Rules that ever were given to judge of Religions by you offer me the most fallacious The Examples of Professors For if the Austerity and strictness of Discipline be it we must look after the Bonzi amongst the Chinoyse carry it away from all I read of If we must go to preciseness of Conversation or demure carriage our present Quaker might lay before us a great temptation But to speak seriously Holiness of life being the great Duty of every Christian is doubtless too a grand Glory to any Church and that Religion the Principles whereof do most effectually lead to sincerity therein does deserve to bear away the Bell. Yet to constitute the sanctity of any man the outside whereof only is to us descernible the main Guide in Religious Elections cannot be other than a most unsafe course 'T is the Roman Examples of Life not the Controvertists you would have me to Contemplate Well! But here you must not be allowed to appropriate in gross to your side a Conceit I have always observed you apt to take up at adventure the Fathers of the Primitive Church who had served their Generations before you put your Tenents those I mean wherein we do not nor dare go along you as a Law upon the World No! You may find them in a matter of Twelve or Thirteen Points wherein we think you Innovators more Ours than so I suppose then the best way to apply your Directions to our purpose will be by examining the Lives of Popes to discover whether they have been universally endued with Cardinal Vertues Inform your self I pray by your own Historians for such words from my pen might look like Calumnies what pretious men your Church was headed with in the Persons of John the Thirteenth Julius the Third Boniface the Eighth John the Twenty third Sixtus the Fourth Alexander the Sixth Leo the Tenth What great Scholars the late Innocent the Tenth and before him many others of them were Is there any Credit to be given Platiná who acquaints us freely That all the Popes from Sylvester the Second to Gregory the Seventh in number about eighteen were What heark in your Ear and I 'le tell you Magicians Can we stop our Ears against the out-cries of all Germany about the Hundred Grievances some of them thwackers We cannot hood-wink our selves so much as not to discover a little how things have gone seeing we find Cardinal Julian telling Eugenius the Fourth That all Councils since that of Chalcedon have been instituted Not for the Investigation of Truth but for the defence or increase of Power to Clergy-men Will you suffer us to put any weight upon a known Saying of St. Basil's where in his Tenth Epistle he tells Nazianzen thus If the Wrath of God continue what help shall we have from those Westerlings so he terms them of