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	true_a	1,044	5	4.3446	3	false

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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89672	A conference with a theist. Part II. Shewing the defects of natural religion; the necessity of divine inspiration; the rationale of the mosaical laws, and defence of his miracles : together with an account of the deluge, the origin of sacrifices, and the reasonableness of Christ's mediatorship. / By William Nicholls ...	Nicholls, William, 1664-1712.	1699 (1699)	Wing N1094A; ESTC R181001	142,863	328

Revelation which was given by Adam and Noah to all Mankind and upon which as was shewn before what is generally called Natural Religion is grounded upon For though Melchisedeck was no Jew as not descending from Abraham yet he was not properly a Gentile especially such a one as is usually understood by the word viz. one that has degenerated from the ancient and true Religion into an idolatrous superstition For Melchisedeck was a true and Orthodox Member of the ancient Noachical Church and no ways tinctured with the prevailing Idolatrous Vice of those Ages but in the midst of the mighty defection to false Gods and Idols was a Priest of the most high God So that 't is a great mistake to say That God had a Priesthood among the Gentiles from the Instance of Melchisedeck because I say Melchisedeck was no Gentile but a constant Perseverer in God's Church from which the Gentiles had even at that time made a defection he kept up to the Noachical Precepts which the Gentiles round him had neglected But if in strict speaking you will have him a Gentile because he was not circumcised it does not from hence follow that God had an instituted Church among other Nations distinctly instituted as the Jewish was For the Scripture does not give us a particular account who this Melchisedeck was the Jews will have him to be Shem the Eldest Son of Noah because perhaps they would allow no body else to be greater than their Father Abraham to bless him but though this does well enough agree with the Age of Shem who lived till after Abraham's time yet it is not probable that Shem dwelt in the Land of Canaan which was the Seat of Cham's Posterity But be he Shem or any one else and though he were a Worshipper of the true God yet he was so only upon the Principles of the old Revelation made to Noah which was common to all the World with him he had not any particular Revelations afforded him as Moses to found a new Church upon neither he nor his People had any such Favour vouchsafed them as to have the Oracles of God committed to them as the Jews had Rom. 3.2 He was a Priest as he was the Elder of a Family in the old Patriarchal way and not by any positive Institution among the Gentiles and so blessed Abraham who communicated with him in the Divine worship whilst he did officiate as he might have done with Abraham in such an Eucharistical or any other Sacrifice 4. As for that Text of Malachi where it is said that God's name shall be great among the Gentiles though Spinosa translates it is great among the Gentiles when the Verb is wanting in the Hebrew which is wrong for the Book is prophetick and speaks of futures and therefore must be rendered shall be this does by no means set the Gentiles at that time on a Level with the Jews but is a remarkable Prophecy of the Kingdom of the Messias when the Partition-Wall should be taken away and God should have one Church made up both of Jews and Gentiles 5. As to those places of the Psalmist that God's tender mercies are over all his works and that God is nigh unto all them that call upon him It is the design of the Psalmist to shew forth God's superlative goodness in this Psalm and therefore among the rest of God's Attributes does praise him for his merciful Providence over his Creatures his tender mercies are over all his works And so his being nigh unto all them that call upon him does not in the least denote any particular divine Institution like the Jewish Revelation among the Heathen but is only in general an Assertion of God's Universal Love to Mankind and his willingness to assist them which no reasonable Man can deny 6. As for your Instance in Job that he was a good Man and acceptable to God why so were all the good Patriarchs before the Law or the Circumcision nay though we should grant that God spake by Revelation to this good Man as it may appear from Chap. 38.1 yet it does not follow that all the Idolatrous Heathen afterwards received the same favour For before the Law and in other Nations where the Law was not received Morality together with the easy Noachical precepts were the Rule of their Duty and therefore until they had forfeited this communication of the divine favour by the enormity of their Lives and their deviation from the True worship they had as good a Title to the Inspiration of God whenever he should please to afford it them as the Jews had after their Church was instituted 7. But as for what you alledge that Jonah was only an Ethnick Prophet I think by your favour that is a great mistake For Jonah was principally a Prophet to the Jews and prophesied under Jeroboam the second the King of Israel as is plain from the 14. Chap. of the 2 Kings where it is said that Jeroboam restored the coast of Israel from the entering in of Hameth unto the Sea of the Plain according unto the word of the Lord God of Israel which he spake by the hand of his servant Jonah the Son of Amittai the Prophet which was of Gath-hepher Whether or no that Prophecy which is there referred to were ever written or no or whether it was only verbal we cannot now determine there being nothing like it in our Canon of Scripture but it is from hence very evident that Jonas was a Prophet originally to the Jews That he was afterwards sent to the Gentiles was a great favour indeed to that Heathen City of Niniveh but then he had first Prophesied to the Israelites and when they had profited little or nothing by it he like Christ and his Apostles turned to the Gentiles 8. As for your exceptions from Enoch Noah c. they lived before the general corruption by Idolatry and therefore it is but reasonable to suppose that they living up to the old true Patriarchal Religion might partake of the divine Revelation as well as the Jews And the Prophet Ezechiel's Prophecy is wholly taken up in shewing God's judgments upon the Jews and endeavouring to bring them to a true sense of their Sins only a Chapter or two are interposed to foretel God's Vengeance likewise upon their Enemies whose wickedness God's All-wise Providence had made use of to be a scourge for the Sins of his People And so for the Prophets Isaiah and Jeremy their bemoaning the Calamities of the Heathens of Jazer and Edom that is not a prophecy on their behalf but only is a lively Hypotyposis or Poetical Description of the sad Miseries which those People should undergo to hearten up the Jews in their afflictions when they should understand that God would lay such heavy burdens upon their Enemies and to shew them that they had no reason to forsake the true Religion when they should see that the Heathens underwent as severe judgment as they 9. And so

incurr the danger of being hanged or losing their reputation Adultery indeed may be a little against the Pact we enter'd into when we retired from a State of Nature but moderate Whoring is as innocent as Eating Drinking or Sleeping And now what a noble Idea of natural Religion is this for Men thus to Philosophize themselves into Beasts and to call that pure Nature which is the worst sort of Brutality It cannot be denied but that we have some disorderly affections within which are apt to prompt us to such Actions but we have before shewn that these Appetites have received an original depravation which has been the Opinion of all wise Men and besides in the midst of this Tumult of unruly Passions we still find a right reason within us disallowing of these irregular Tendencies and a Conscience checking us for the submiting to them And now let any one judge which has the justest claim to the Title of natural Religion and the unblameable practice of Mankind those wise dictates of reason which restrain these desires or the mad Passions themselves And yet when all comes to all your Infidel Sparks after all their cry for natural Religion and pure uncorrupted nature mean no more by it than uncontrouled sensuality Which is so vile an end for a Man to propose to himself that it reflects a disgrace upon our common Reason and at last let him gain as much of it as he can he will never arrive that way to the happiness of an ordinary Beast For a Boar or a Monkey can enjoy more of this sort of satisfaction than e'er a Libertine of 'em all Epicuri de grege Porci Phil. I beseech you Credentius not so severe All we Infidels are not such Hogs as you would make us for some of us are better principled than this comes to Such Men as you describe are our Hereticks as I may call them though they pretend to natural Religion they have highly corrupted it and almost destroy'd it But we Orthodox Unbelievers have our Tenets fixed upon a sounder Bottom and take nothing up for natural Religion which is not the Result of right reasoning and grounded upon the clear principles of natural Light For this is the sole Rule which God has given us to walk by not that Men like these Libertines should mistake the cravings of their Irregular Appetites for the Law of nature but to govern them by it For I suppose God to have given us these Appetites not to be Law to our actions but as a subject to exercise our obedience to this Law of God or Nature upon so that then we are said to act according to the Law of Nature when we follow those dictates which every ones unbyassed reason affords him even in opposition to these irregular Tendencies of our vitiated Appetites This is that noble Rule which alone if followed will make a Man Wise and Vertuous and Happy Under the influence of this Law alone till the Priests began their Reign Primitive Mankind liv'd golden Ages and went to Heaven at last without Sacrifices and Revelations Hâc arte Pollux hâc vagus Hercules Innixus arces attigit igneas Cred. I find you are continually harping upon the Priests being the Authors of all the ceremonious parts of Religion and particularly Sacrifice and that the World was a considerable time without either Priests or Sacrifice under the conduct of pure natural Religion and that the Priesthood was but of late date and crept into the World by imposing upon the People pompous Ceremonies Now to set you right in this mistake will you please to attend to these following particulars 1. There was always in the World a Rank of Men who had the Office of the Priesthood annexed to them Priests in all places of the World and all Ages whose office it was to put up Prayers to the Deity for the People to offer Sacrifices and the like That this office was entailed upon Primogeniture as some maintain from Numb 18.16 Vid. Grot in Luk. 2. I think is not so certain but that it belonged and was constantly practised by the Heads of Families and Princes of Nations in the earliest times is unquestionable So Noah after the Deluge Sacrified for himself and Family Gen. 8.20 The like is recorded of Abraham and Jacob and Job And so among the Gentiles in the highest Ages the Crown and Priesthood went together of which the History of Melchizedek King of Salem is a remarkable Instance in Scripture And amongst Prophane Authors Virgil tells us the like of Anius King of Delus Rex Anius Rex idem hominum Phoebique sacerdos Virg. Aen. 3. Upon which Verse Servius has this note Sane majorum haec erat consuetudo ut Rex esset etiam sacerdos vel Pontifex Vnde hodieque Imperatores Pontifices dicimus This was the custom of the Ancients that the King must be also Priest or Pontifex And from thence at this day we stile the Emperours Pontifices And so likewise in his notes on the 10. of the Aeneads he says Aeneas was likewise sacrorum Rex or Pontifex And before him Priamus the Trojan King offers the Sacrifice which is described by Homer Iliad 3. And so not only Iulus Aeneas his Son succeeded his Father in the Priesthood but the Priesthood continued for many Ages afterwards at Rome in the Gens Julia which descended from him Numa instituted those sacra called Regia which were to be performed by the Kings only ordaining likewise some subordinate Priests who should supply their places when they were engaged in the Wars So Julius Caesar in right of his Family was High-Priest and after him Augustus and at last the Emperours were Pontifices Max. on course So that you see the Priesthood Philologus is not such a modern Incroachment as you Deists would pretend Phil. Let the Invention be early or late it matters not much for 't is so very and useless one that Mankind would not be a farthing the worse for if it was quite laide aside for it cost us I am sure a great deal of Money and no body that I know is the better for it For People may live honestly and say their Prayers as often as they think fit without the help of Parsons or if they must have Guides such an honest old Author as Tully or Seneca or the good Advice of some sober wise Gentlemen will conduct them in the Rules of Morality without taking Tithes for it Cred. The World is very bad as it is The Advantage of a Ministry but I believe it would be ten times worse if there was not an order of Men that did continually put People in mind of their duty and though they be very negligent of Instruction yet by hearing their Duty so continually inculcated something sticks at last even in the worst Minds and keeps them from being so profligately wicked as they would otherways be 'T is true indeed 't is possible some Men may live good lives without a