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	faith_n	life_n	1,074	5	4.4282	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A27058	The true history of councils enlarged and defended against the deceits of a pretended vindicator of the primitive church, but indeed of the tympanite & tyranny of some prelates many hundred years after Christ, with a detection of the false history of Edward Lord Bishop of Corke and Rosse in Ireland ... and a preface abbreviating much of Ludolphus's History of Habassta : written to shew their dangerous errour, who think that a general council, or colledge of bishops, is a supream governour of all the Christian world ... / by Richard Baxter ... ; to which is added by another hand, a defence of a book, entituled, No evidence for diocesan churches ...	Baxter, Richard, 1615-1691.	1682 (1682)	Wing B1438; ESTC R39511	217,503	278

new Historians would make us believe that the Reformed Church of England before Bishop Lauds time were of their mind that now call themselves Bishops and Doctors of the Church of England in holding as they do that there is an Universal humane Soveraignty with Legislative and Judicial power over all the Churches on earth and that this is in Councils or an Universal Colledge of Bishops of which the Pope may be allowed to be president and Principium Unitatis c. and that he must be obeyed as Patriarch of the West and so we must be under a forreign Jurisdiction Whereas it is notoriousy known that before Bishop Lauds time the doctrine of this Church was quite Contrary as may be seen at large in the Apology the Articles of Religion the writings of the Bishops and Doctors Yea they writ copiously to prove that the Pope is Antichrist and put it into their Liturgy And Dr. Heylin tells us that the Reason why Bishop Laud got it out was that it might not offend the Papists and hinder our reconciliation with them And the Oath of Supremacy sweareth us against all forreign Jurisdiction XV. The same Historians would make us believe that these mens doctrine is now the doctrine of the Church of England or agreeable to it Whereas the Oath of Allegiance is still in force and so are the Homilies and the Articles of Religion and the Laws and Canons for the Kings Supremacy against all forreign Jurisdiction And there is no change made which alloweth of their doctrine And the Church doctrine must be known by its publick writings and not by the opinions of new risen men XVI The new Historians make the Nonconforming Ministers to be men grosly ignorant preachingfalse doctrine of wicked principles and lives and not fit to be suffered out of Gaols And yet these 19. or 20. years how few of them have been convict of any false doctrine And I have not heard of four in England that have ever been convict since they were cast out of being once drunk or fornicating cheating swearing or any immorality unless preaching and not swearing Subscribing c. be such nor for false doctrine XVII The new Historians have made thousands believe that the doctrine or opinions of the Nonconformists is for sedition and rebellion And that it is for this that they refuse to renounce the obligation of the Covenant as to all men besides themselves and that they refuse to subscribe that it is not lawful on any pretence whatsoever to take Arms against any Commissioned by the King Whereas we have at large in a second Plea for peace opened our judgments about Loyalty and obedience and none of them will tell us what they would have more nor where our profession is too short or faulty Nor have they convict any of my acquaintance of preaching any disloyal doctrine XVIII Yea they have by writing preaching and talking made multitudes believe that the Nonconformists or Presbyterians have been long hatching a rebellion against the King and have a Plot to take down Monarchy under pretence of opposing Poperty And how far these Historians are to be believed true Protestants by this time partly understand XIX Yea these Historians have made multitudes believe that the Parliaments that have been disolved here of late years have been designing to change the Government of Church and state under pretence of opposing Popery As if that Parliament that did that for them and against us which is done and made all the Acts which are for the Renunciation of the Covenant and for all the Declarations Subscriptions and Practices Imposed and for Fining us 20 l. and 40 l. a Sermon and laying us in Gaols had been for Nonconformists and against Episcopacy and they that made the Militia Act and such other had been against the King or his Prerogative Or the other following had not been of the same Religion XX. But the boldest part of their History is their description of the two sorts of the People in England those that are for the present Nonconformists and those that are against them Those that are against them they account the most Religious Temperate Chast Loyal Credible and in a word the best people through the Land for of our Rulers I am not speaking And those that are for the Nonconforming Ministers they defame as the most proud hypocritical treacherous disloyal covetous false and in a word the worst people in the Land or as Fowlis saith the worst of all mankind and unfit to live in humane Society How long will it be ere the sober people of this Land believe this Character One would think that the quality of the common Inhabitants of the Land should not be a Controversie or unknown thing All that I will say to this History is to tell the Reader the utmost of my observation and experience from my Youth up concerning these two sorts of men Where I was bred before 1640. which was in divers places I knew not one Presbyterian Clergy man nor Lay and but three or four Nonconforming Ministers Nay till Mr. Ball wrote for the Liturgy and against Can and Allen c. and till Mr. Burton Published his Protestation protested I never thought what Presbytery or Independency were nor ever spake with a man that seemed to know it And that was in 1641. when the War was brewing In the place where I first lived and the Country about the People were of two sorts The generality seemed to mind nothing seriously but the body and the world They went to Church and would answer the Parson in Responds and thence go to dinner and then to play They never prayed in their families but some of them going to bed would say over the Creed and the Lord's Prayer some of them the Hail Mary All the year long not a serious word of holy things or the Life to come that I could hear of proceeded from them They read not the Scripture nor any good Book or Catechism Few of them could read or had a Bible They were of two ranks the greater part were good Husbands as they called them and savoured of nothing but their business or Interest in the World the rest were Drunkards Most were Swearers but not equally Both sorts seemed utter strangers to any more of Religion than I have named and loved not to hear any serious talk of God or Duty or Sin or the Gospel or Judgment or the Life to come But some more hated it than others The other sort were such as had their Consciences awakened to some regard of God and their Everlasting State and according to the various measures of their understanding did speak and live as serious in the Christian Faith and would much enquire what was Duty and what was Sin and how to please God and to make sure of Salvation and made this their Business and Interest as the rest did the world They read the Scripture and such Books as The Practice of Piety and Deut

by the Laws or Canons on Ministers and People here II. Whether it was well done by the Bishops and other Clergy-Men to do what they did to cause those Laws which silenced the whole Ministry of England unless they would conform to all things so imposed in the Act of Uniformity and actually silenced about 2000 and made those other Laws against their Preaching to more than Four and against coming within Five Miles of Corporations and such others as adjudge Nonconformists to Gaols and Ruine and whether the Clergy do well still to urge the Execution of those Laws and are guiltless of the doleful Divisions of this Land and danger of its Relapse to Popery III. Whether it be unpeaceable for a Nonconformist after 17 years silent suffering to tell his Superiors why he dare not conform when he is by them importuned to it And to write a Confutation of a multitude of Volumns of false Accusations brought to justifie the Executions § 4. If you think you have proved all those Impositions sinless which I have mentioned in my first Plea for Peace I think you might as well have shortly said We Bishops are of so much Wisdom and Authority that you must hold them lawful because we say so And must all be ruined that would not be so convinced But if any of those Impositions prove to be sin and so great sin as we cannot chuse but think they are is it a greater fault to name them when importuned than to impose them And a greater fault to feel and say we feel than to strike or wound men If we had taken it to be our Duty to have called those Clergy-Men to Repentance which we think are ignorantly undoing themselves and the Land how should we do it without naming their Sin Yea and the greatness of it And if we think it our Duty to deprecate our Destruction and beg of you to spare our Lives or Consciences how can we do it without telling what we suffer If it be well done of you and be no persecution but your Duty for the Churches good as no doubt the Executioners think the History is your praise and you need not extenuate the Fact Valiant Souldiers glory in the multitudes they kill Had you silenced the other 7000 that conformed when you silenced but 2000 your Victory had been the more famous Some think those that are here against your ways are not half the Land were it murdering of one man that another is judged for it were not unpeaceableness to say that he deserveth to be hanged But the judge deserveth praise if he condemn an hundred such But when those men who should be the tenderest Peace-makers and skilfullest therein shall be the men that bring such a Land as this into the Case that we are in and will not be intreated nor by any Experience be persuaded to consent to its Relief I know not how to shew mercy to the Land or them but by persuading them to repent And if all sin were made a matter of Controversie and many learned men were for it this would not alter the Case with me If I may compare great things with small who sinned more The Irish for murdering 200000 or Sir John Temple Dr. Henry Jones the E. of Orery for recording and reporting what they did Was it the sin of the Savoyards and others to kill and ruine the Protestants in Piedmont Or of Perrin and Sir Sam. Mooreland to write the story Did Thuanus Davilah c. sin in recording the French Massacre Or the French in doing it Is it the French Protestants now that are criminal for describing and complaining of their Sufferings Was John Foxe the Malefactor for writing the Sufferings of the Protestants under a lawful Queen This day came out Mar. 10. a Narrative from Bristol how they are crowded in the Gaol on the cold ground c. Is the Report the Crime Do you find a Justification in humane nature of such terms as these You shall suffer whatever we will inflict on you but shall not tell any that you are hurt or who did it or why § 5. I have told the World so often over and over that it is not all the Conformists no nor all the Bishops that I impute our Sufferings to that I must suppose you to understand it specially when the Prefatory Epistle of the Book which you fall upon tells it you of many Bishops by name Therefore when p. 68. you say I apply to you more than once 1 Thes 2. 15. They please not God c. and add I believe in my Conscience he is mistaken Either by to us you mean all the Conformists or Bishops and that is not true as the words tell you Or you mean Us that procured or own and execute the aforesaid silencing afflicting Acts which your words seem to mean And then I do but say Oh! What may temptation bring even good mens Judgment to Is the silencing of 2000 the afflicting of many times more of the Laity the Jealousies Distractions and Dangers of this Land so small a matter or so good that God is not displeased with it And can you in your Conscience own what the Bishops did towards it No wonder then if Ceremonies be called things Indifferent Certainly this cannot be Indifferent It is a most meritorious or excellent work or else a heinous Crime It is either such a Cure as the cutting off a Cancerous Breast or else if it be a sin it must be as great as contributing to the endangering of as many score Thousand Souls as 2000 Ministers were likely to have helpt to save and to the corrupting of the Church and the Introduction of Popery And few Christians think that Nathan sinned by unpeaceableness more than David by Murder and Adultery though but once or Samuel more than Saul or the Prophet that reproved him more than Jeroboam or Christ Matth. 23. more than the Pharisees yea or than Peter Mat. 16. when he said Get behind me Satan thou savourest not the things that be of God or Paul more than Peter Gal 2. or than the Jewish Teachers whom he called the Concision Dogs or John than Diotrephes c. Guilt is tender and they that think God is of their Mind when he is silent Psal 50. 21. will think men should be so too And man dare not bid defiance to God and openly proclaim a War against him and therefore hath no way to sin in peace but by a conceited bringing the Mind and Law of God to his What sin is there that Learned Men father not on God And then they must be praised and not reproved and then it 's worse than unpeaceable to aggravate that which they say God owneth such men as I would think it scarce credible that the Spanish Inquisition the French Massacre the Powder-Plot the Murder of 200000 in Ireland the Perjuring of a Nation the silencing of Thousands of faithful Ministers should have one word of Justification ever spoken for