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	great_a	part_n	1,456	5	4.2225	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A56702	A sermon preach'd before the Queen at Whitehall, March 1, 1688/9 by Symon Patrick ...	Patrick, Simon, 1626-1707.	1689 (1689)	Wing P848; ESTC R22949	15,746	40

and others This is the Apostle's meaning and thus the Holy Men of God understood him who were content to sacrifice any thing but the Christian Faith to Peace and Quietness Concerning which there is an excellent Discourse in the Ppistle of Clemens one of the Apostles immediate Successors to the Church of Corinth Where he shows that those Contentions which began in St. Paul's days and could not it seems be suppressed by the Apostolical Authority alone would have immediately been subdued and quasht by the Peace of God if it had been grafted and born Rule in their Hearts Who is there saith he that is of a generous Spirit among you Who is there that hath any Bowels of Compassion Who that is full of Charity Let him say If this Sedition be for my sake if this Contention these Schisms be upon my Account I am gone I depart whither you please There is nothing that shall be enjoin'd me but I will do it Only let the Flock of Christ be in Peace with the Elders that are set over it Thus they who live that Life which is never to be repented of have done and will do For we have known many who to be the Authors of Liberty to others have thrown themselves into Bonds and many have left their own Cities that there might be no Strife and Contention about them And what he saith Godly Men would do hereafter according as others had done before them for Peace-sake was fulfilled as we find in the Monuments of the Church Where there are Examples of such Self-denial as made them desire to use the words of one of them to be thrown into the Sea like Jonas rather than have the Tempests which was raised upon their account continue to disturb the Church Thus I could show some have done since in later Ages And if we had the same humble the same tender-hearted charitable and truly generous Spirit we should think it the greatest Glory to submit all our particular Concerns to the Government of Peace and not let them prevail to the making any publick Disturbance no nor private Quarrels with our Neighbours Unto which we are now so prone that we fall out even about a trifling Opinion wherein we differ one from another The reason is because we are too full of our selves and too void of Charity and the Peace of God Which if it did possess our Hearts we should not be so much wedded as we are to our own Opinions much less indulge our Passions but resign them all to be ruled and ordered by this Grace which teaches us to be of a yielding Spirit as far as Piety will permit Nay if our Passion and our Pride were kept under we should not be impatient to be contradicted nor think our selves bound to ingage in the Defence of every thing that we judg to be true nor to rise up against every thing that we judg to be false But endure without disturbance the contrary Opinions of others which may seem untrue to us if they do no great hurt to the World. Were we possessed with this desire alone to make others better we should not trouble our selves about every Error and Mistake if the Remedy will prove worse than the Disease that is breed Quarrels and break the Peace by endless Disputes and Jarrings about it Our blessed Saviour himself the Prince of Peace did not undertake to free Men from every Error whatsoever but those only which concerned the means of their Salvation And in such matters when we are constrained to declare our Dissent from others who are we apprehend in dangerous Errors the Peace of God teaches us to do it in such sweet and gentle manner that they may see we aim only at their good And they may not by our rough treating them take occasion of disgust not only unto us but to the Truth also which we defend For we oftentimes give distaste to others and make them irreconcilable not so much by our contrary Opinion as by a fierce insolent presumptious and disdainful way of proposing our own Opinion and opposing theirs But it is far worse when we come to terms of Contempt and Reproach which are commonly observed to make such Breaches as are never to be repaired The Peace of God teaches us quite another Lesson and constrains us to compassionate the Weaknesses of our Brethren to treat them with Tenderness as well as Humanity and when they are peevish and passionate and prone to quarel even then to bear with them and meekly reduce them to a better Temper For the Weaknesses of our Brethren make them Objects of our Pity not of our Anger And they are never more to be pitied than when they cannot be cured by our charitable Compassion and Forbearance of them Unto which we shall be the more inclin'd if we consider that we are Men also and may possibly fall into the same Error and commit the same Faults and then what we tolerate in them it will be their turn to bear withal in us But especially if we consider that we are Christians who lie under this Law Bear ye one anothers Bardens and so fulfil the Law of Christ Gal. vi 2. Which Lavv of Charity and Peace being not fulfilled is the cause of all the Vexatious Disturbances that are in the World. We do not mind this Christian Obligation to bear one anothers Burdens We have other Inclinations than to obey the Will of our blessed Lord. We seek our selves our ovvn Glory our ovvn Pleasure our ovvn Interest and Satisfaction in every thing and are not satisfied vvith this that God is glorified our Saviour honoured Piety promoted the Church edified by our Patience by our Peaceableness by our Forbearance one of another and by our studying the good of our Neighbours as the greatest Contentment to our selves Thus I have explain'd the first part of my Text the Duty vvhich I have pressed the more earnestly because Strife and Contention vvill spoil all the Fastings and Humilitations of this season nay utterly defeat our very Prayers and Supplications Which then vvill obtain of the God of all Mercy that perfect Remission and Forgiveness vvhich vve beg of him vvhen they dispose us to be merciful as our Heavenly Father is merciful to be kind one to another as the Apostle speaks Ephes v. 32. tender-hearted forgiving one another even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven us Come vve novv to the second part vvhich is the Reason vvhereby the Apostle urges this Duty II. And that is double as you heard First vve are called to it Secondly vve are called to it in one Body For the first of these it suggests to us three Obligations I. vvhereby vve are bound to be peaceable First by the preaching of the Gospel to us Secondly by the Special Favour vvhich God has done us therein Thirdly by the high Honour he hath also conferred upon us in making us partakers of his Heavenly Calling 1. First I say Calling is a vvord vvhich

and powerfully moves them to hold all together in love and peace as the only means of preserving and edifying the Body of Christ and also of perfecting it for the happy Rest of the other World. Thus I have given a brief account of the Reasons for this duty Which sufficiently commends it self to us in that it is the peace of God but the Apostle presses it from this consideration also that we are called to it in one body III. I proceed now to the last part of my Text the means or help as I understand it which the Apostle prescribes for the introducing and increasing the peace of God and giving it the rule over our hearts which is contained in these Words And be ye thankful We are very apt as you have heard to be disgusted at many things which are disagreeable to us from whence arises much disquiet discontent and sometimes quarrels with those who give us such distaste But if we would spend that time in recounting Gods mercies to us and giving him our solemn thanks for them which we spend in complaining in finding fault one with another and aggravating every thing which displeases us we should be perfectly cured of those distempers and ashamed to make such a bustle and stirr as we are wont to do about such small things as now disquiet us Thankfulness we all agree is a Christian Duty as much as any other And not only a Duty enjoyn'd us by God but to which we are inclined by Nature if our Hearts be touched with the least sense of his Divine Benefits And that it is very pleasant and delightful as all natural Motions are every one may feel who pleases to make a trial And no less profitable and beneficial we must needs acknowledge because he invites a new Benefit who most gratefully acknowledges the old And lastly to omit the rest we cannot but confess that nothing more becomes us than Thankfulness because we have nothing originally of our selves but all purely from God. Which makes it the most decent thing in the World to be paying him our perpetual acknowledgments Or if there should be any one so perverse as not to be sensible of this he cannot but yield that it is far more decent and becoming than perpetual complaints and discontents brawlings and scoldings one with another about every petty difference Far more agreeable I am sure to the Christian Spirit if we know what that is more beseeming those who lye under infinite Obligations to God our Saviour which challenge our highest and incessant Praises than it is to murmur and repine to find faults and pick quarrels to contend and strive which end too oft in fighting and destroying one another We may well be ashamed then and confounded at our folly and disingenuity if we do not live in a sincere practice of this Duty Which if we do will be an effectual means to suppress all such unseemly behaviour as that above-mentioned because it strikes at the very root of all Discontent and Wrath and Pride and such like evil Affections which give disturbance unto us and unto others We cannot easily be discontented about any thing when we set our selves seriously to consider how many Blessings both temporal and spiritual past present and to come we stand indebted for to the Divine Bounty and accordingly offer to him the Sacrifice of Praise continually giveing Thanks unto his Name We shall soon suppress Anger and Rage at those that offend us when we remember with due thankfulness as we ought to do perpetually how oft we have provoked God and have been mercifully forborn and forgiven by his patient and long-suffering goodness towards us The swellings of Pride will presently go down when Thankfulness puts us in mind that we are nothing nor have any thing of our own but depend wholly upon God Who can soon humble us and lay us low if we be forgetful of his bounty to us All harshness and severity will be abated by the thoughts of God's lenity compassion and kind dealing with us there will be no room for fretting Envy to trouble us or molest others but it will be immediately thrust out of doors when this Thought comes into our Mind and fills our Heart with devout Affections to God That we are in a far better condition than we deserve and if we be ungrateful may fear to be in a worse In short All those Graces from whence I observed in the beginning the Peace of God springs are manifestly maintained and nourished by continual thankfulness to God for all his Benefits In which if we exercise our selves it will give the Peace of God the government of us by making us humble and courteous mild and gentle kind and merciful meek and patient which are the natural qualities of a truly thankful Christian Let us make this then our constant employment and our delight and look upon a thankful Heart Hom. 1. ad Pop. Antioch as a great Treasure to use the words of St. Chrysostome inestimable Riches a Good of which none can rob us Armour of Defence against all Temptations I. And first as we are Men who live together in the same neighbourhood let us be thankful to God for all the good we receive one by another and then we shall the easier pass by any evil that is done us because it is small and inconsiderable in comparison with the good we do or may receive by our neighbourly living together in one Society Family Parish or City There is not the meanest Man among us who doth not some way or other serve the greatest God having so made this World that we should be helpful one to another in our several ranks and conditions nay that one sort of Men should not be able comfortably to subsist without the service of the rest Which if we did consider we should perceive so many and great benefits we reap thereby that it would make us confess we have great reason to be thankful to the Creator and wise Disposer of all things And that Thankfulness would moderate all the Disgusts we take one at another which disturb our private peace and quietness Nay the Benefits we receive by some Men are so very considerable that if we were not extremely ungrateful we could not be so apt as we are to find fault with every thing we do not like in them But for the sake of the greater good they do us should wink at or rather not mind the smaller faults we see or fancy in them With which we are wont to be so distasted as to forget all the Excellent Qualities they are indowed withal and the great service they do to all mankind II. But if we enlarged our thoughts beyond these bounds and considered our selves as Members of the same Kingdom we should find so many obligations to be thankful to God for the invaluable Blessings of Order and Government that it would mightily appease that Heat and Violence which is very troublesome to