Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	church_n	good_a	holy_a	1,129	5	4.2899	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A42518	A short history of monastical orders in which the primitive institution of monks, their tempers, habits, rules, and the condition they are in at present, are treated of / by Gabriel d'Emillianne.	Gavin, Antonio, fl. 1726.	1693 (1693)	Wing G394; ESTC R8086	141,685	356

pestiferous Dragons were by him vanquished and supplanted This is the Notion which this Author gives us of that Order which manifestly shews to what Merit and Honour these deluded People think they arrive by the Persecution which they raise against the true defenders of the Gospel Time will come saith Christ when those who Persecute you shall think they do great Service to God As for the Secular Orders of Knights having not Treated of them in this Book it would be superfluous to give here the Character of them I only say that most of these Orders being Instituted to establish a true Submission of the Subjects to their Princes or a perfect Friendship amongst equals or lastly to serve for Badges of Nobility and honour to distinguish Illustrious and brave Men they cannot but produce very good effects in those Kingdoms where they are established and Crowned Heads will always do well to make them Glorious by becoming themselves the Heads of them A CONCLUSION OF THE Whole WORK NO Body will deny but it is very advantagious to retire now and then into Solitude far from the noise and dissturbances of the World there to examine more at leisure and with a composed mind the State of his own Conscience and the Ways of Salvation to the end that one may dispose himself to discharge better afterwards his great Duties towards God and to order more charitably his Employments and Conversation amongst men A Retirement made for such good Ends and Purposes cannot but be very good and commendable and in this sense ought to be understood all the Elogies which the Holy Doctors and First Fathers of the Church have given to Solitude Christ himself hath commended the same by his own Example when he retired into desert places upon the Mountains with his Disciples where he taught them to pray and instructed them in all the duties of the Gospel He gave them in the Solitude those Precepts which they were to practise in the Cities insomuch that all these Retirements were only ordered for to converse better afterwards in the World The Romanists who commonly take things very materially without well examining what goes before and what after were not wanting to pronounce that because Christ did practise Retirement this same Retirement considered absolutely in it self without reference to the end for which it was chiefly intended was to be looked upon as the most perfect State in which a Christian may live not observing that it was only to be considered as an excellent means for better ordering civil Life Upon this mistaken Principle are grounded all the the Monastical Orders of the Church of Rome and the Monks are called by a very improper Emphasis Religious Men which is as much as to say perfect Christians Would to God they were so indeed or at least that they did come something near to the simplicity and honesty of Life of the most part of the first Monks who inhabited in the Third and Fourth Ages in the Deserts of Palestina and Thebaide they in this case should be only guilty of a little too much Superstition which the uprighness of their Hearts might render excusable both before God and before Man But the Monks of our times have brought things to such a point of Abomination by their Hypocrisies Cheats perfidious and infamous Practices that happy a thousand times those Kingdoms and People are who see themselves freed from such a Brood of Vipers who tear in pieces the very Bowels of those who cherish them in their Bosoms Nevertheless I know very well that these wretched persons well stocked with impudence are very eager in taxing the Protestants with being declared Enemies to those very Christian Virtues Poverty Chastity and Obedience endeavouring by that means to render them more odious to those of their own Party But in this they are very unjust because there is never a good Protestant but will acknowledge that voluntary Poverty for the love of God is a great Treasure to a Christian who knows how to make a good use of it that Chastity is a Virtue beloved both of God and of Angels and that Obedience to lawful Superiours Spiritual and Temporal is a necessary Virtue to maintain that good order of things which God hath established here on Earth All the disference between a Papist and a Protestant in this Point is that the first believeth that he can make bold with God's Gifts dispose of them after his own Will and make a Vow before-hand to observe what is not in his own power to perform unless it be given him from above exposing himself thereby to an evident danger of becoming perjured and Sacrilegious in not performing his solemn Oath and Promises The other on the contrary hath a just and respectful sentiment of Gods Grace and his Holy Gifts which being meerly free are above our natural reach and therefore must be fervently prayed for and when given humbly received but not disposed of before-hand as being not sure if God will be pleased to bestow them upon us It is then the Vow that is found fault with as Bold and Rash and not the Virtues which are Heavenly and Holy This Declaration I hope will be enough fore the present to defeat all these odious Calumnies laid so unjustly by Popish Monks and Priests at the Protestants doors viz. that they hate Retirement Christian Poverty Chastity and Obedience Having done with this I come to another Observation concerning the beginning of Monastical Orders In the first page of this History where I say that it is generally agreed that Monastical Institutions did begin towards the middle of the third Age I dicourse only to those who have truly unpartially and with unprejudiced mind inquired into these matters I know very well that some Popish Writers blinded by a false Zeal for Monkery have been so hot in pushing it up as to make Monks of almost all the Ancient Fathers and the Primitive Christians of the Holy Apostles and the Blessed Jesus him St. John the Baptist Elias and the Sons of the Prophets Noah in the Ark and a long time before him Enos Nay they go back beyond the World and say that God before the Creation of the Universe was a Monk 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 alone As for this last I make no disficulty to call it a down right Impiety and Profaneness to raise such ridiculous comparison between their filthy Monks and Almighty God And for Enos the Son of Seth the only ground they have to assert that he was a Monk is because it s said in Scripture that he begun to call upon the name of the Lord. If to begin to call in a special manner upon the name of the Lord is as they would have it to be a Monk to be sure our first Reformers who departing from Idolatrous Popery called in an undefiled manner upon the name of the Lord must have also their Lot amongst the Monks Noah they say and all those who entred the Ark