Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	day_n	good_a	lord_n	2,726	5	3.8026	3	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A65795	The middle state of souls from the hour of death to the day of judgment by Thomas White ...	White, Thomas, 1593-1676.	1659 (1659)	Wing W1836; ESTC R10159	87,827	292

as little need we be sollicitous Let prayers let good works from henceforth cease Why so Because all things are accomplished by vertue of their being so decreed This they confess but they will not have us pray for those things which we are certain will come to pass We are still where we were For how ignorant soever we are whether what we ask be predestinated or no yet are we satisfi'd that unless it be predestinated we shall not obtain it We know then that only which is predestinated shall come to pass and consequently it alone is worth our asking So that the Apostle doth not vainly exhort us to endeavour by good works to render our Vocation and election certain that is to take care to put it in execution The errour then of the Argument or Arguer consisted herein that he so look'd upon the effect as predestinated that he saw not its cause● or the means by which it should come to pass were also predestinated So that pure Inadvertency begat this objection And from hence we may have an easie step to the other part of the Argument For when they urge that nothing ensues upon the account of their prayers for the Dead we reply all depends upon them For if their delivery from their pains whensoever it happens be a requital of their supplications and that delivery be nothing else then the communication of glory and celestial joyes all this is in the day of Judgment granted to their Prayers What then shall they have any thing more then what their pious conversation in this life promerited Not at all Behold the Riddle A great Lord saith to his servant behave thy self faithfully in my house seven years and at the marriage of my son I will make thee steward of his family The servant dischargeth his duty is he therefore Comptroler of his young Lord's house No unless his Master be first married He then that shall procure a Match for the young Gallant shall do a good office for the old servant and deserve great thanks at his hands So he that is chastised in Purgatory did in his life deserve to receive a reward at the coming of Christ but that Christ should come he did not deserve For that as it is an universal good so is it due to the merits and supplications of all and not of any one Particular For this reason it was answered to the souls of the slain resting under the Altar and crying out to have that day hasten'd that it depended upon the rest who had not yet suffered but were to compleat the number Whosoever then desires and loves the coming of our Lord either for his own sake or any others as every one does who prayes for the retribution of the dead accelerates that day And thus you see that the time which was said to be predestinated will notwithstanding never arrive till the number of the elect be perfected From whence it follows that whatsoever is predestinated so obtains the stability of it 's immutable arrest the liberty and contingency of second causes by which it is brought about not impeding that if any one of them should fail that very thing which we term predestinated could not come to pass And applying this assertion to our present purpose if Prayer should not be made for the Dead they would never be deliver'd notwithstanding the irresistible force of predestination through the imbecillity of causes by which their delivery is promoted He that prayes then supplies what was wanting to the sufferings of the departed without which supplement they could not be saved They reply this supposed it is all one to this particular friend departed whether fewer or more prayers are said for him since the last day will break assoon to one as to another It is answered they cannot deny but at least he who is the occasion that more prayers are offered to that intent hath as it were a greater right to that day then he for whom fewer are offered Whence to him it will arrive more grateful and honourable then to the other who less contributed to its advance But besides these pious offices and affections of others towards him being known by the person departed whom they concern beget a disposition in his soul by which when time shall serve his love to God and consequently his Beatitude shall be encreased Moreover by way of impetration they become occasions to the Divine Providence of so disposing many things which otherwise would be differently ordered that in the day of Harvest they may inlarge his either essential or accidental happiness If any thing of this happens through the good deeds of the person himself departed it is to be accounted amongst his merits or the rewards due to his merits but if such prayers spring not from any root which he himself did whilst living plant but purely from the charity of some propitious persons they are an effect of God's Providence whose mercies are numberless One objection only remains unanswer'd That this is not the thing which those who pray and are solicitous for their dead do look for But neither ought we regard what they expect but what they ought to expect The Apostle only admonishes us not to be afflicted as those who have no hopes but to retain and cherish an expectation of re-enjoying their society and that in the resurrection Yet if the metaphorical explications of fire and other pains be found more proper to excite affections then the truth metaphisically deliver'd use them if you please so you keep your self within the bounds which the Councels and Fathers have set viz. that souls are punished and by prayers relieved but for the time when this takes effect leave it as they do undetermin'd Are you still unsatisfi'd and urge an immediate releasment I am contented let it be the very next moment after your prayer For whatsoever time intervenes betwixt it and the restauration of the world is to them but as one moment If you still repine and fret I may with juster indignation protest you are not only ignorant but envious of their sublime state and condition which exalts them above the reach of time In fine if I be thought the occasion of restraining the profuse abundance of Alms in this particular I shall withall have the satisfaction to have check'd the daily increasing swarms of unworthy Priests who qualified neither with knowledg nor good manners live like droans upon this stock to the disgrace and contempt of their function to the abuse of souls and the common scandal both of those who live in and out of the Church Catholick Faith shall from henceforth be no longer the subject of the derision of externs whilst her children vainly labour to defend against Hereticks those things which have neither ground nor proof but are introduced from the customary expressions of Law-Courts and exchanges not from the Language of Nature or Christian Tenets But of this enough The three and

the spirit of our Brother that the mercy of our Lord may place him in the bosome of Abram Isaac and Jacob that when the day of Judgment shall come he may resuscitate him on the right hand among his Saints and Elect. Again We pray thee to command the soul of thy servant N to be carryed by the hands of thy Angels into the bosome of thy Friend Abraham the Patriarch to be resuscitated in the last day of Judgment that whatsoever vices by the deceipt of the Devil he hath contracted thou pious and merciful maist blot out by indulgence In the office of the dead in like manner in the Roman Breviary Lord when thou shall come to judg the Earth where shall I hide my self from the countenance of thy anger When thou comest to judg do not conde●n me Again be merciful unto me when thou shalt come to judg in the last day Again Remember not my sins O Lord when thou shalt come to judg the world by fire Lastly free me O Lord from eternal Death in that dreadful day when the Heavens and Earth shall be shaken when thou comest to judg the World by fire I tremble and fear whilest that discussion and future anger comes that day of anger that day of misery and calamity c. To this you may add the publick Litanies instituted as it is thought by Gregory the Great himself or at least by him recommended where you find In the day of Judgment deliver us O Lord And in the commendation of the soul departed In the day of Judgment deliver him O Lord Finally if we have yet any judgment left us and are not wholly transported and fascinated with the opposite opinion let us consider with our selves what a strange blindness and absurdity it had been in the composers of our sacred Liturgy if they intend to pray in the Mass and Offices for the delivery of souls before the day of Judgment not to express it in one clear sentence throughout so many and large prayers but perpetually to fix the Readers thoughts and expectations upon the last judgment What shall I say of so many who have not only used but corrected them yet never durst take the boldness to violate the ancient and received style Since then in Ecclesiastical Ceremonies the significations of the actions depends on the expressions and the expressions are so clear for purgation in the day of Judgment it is beyond dispute evident that this is the practise and intention of the Holy Church in all publick Prayers and Masses that is in all that are hers The four and Twentietth Accompt That the Practise of the Church as it is visible in action makes likewise for the same truth FRom what we have said the temerity and precipitation of those appears who from the denial of a sudden and capricious delivery of souls ●ye immediately to the refusal of supplicating any longer for them whereas on the contrary they ought more assiduously yea perpetually and without end to pray both because their torments are more durable because our own goods are so strictly conjoyned with theirs Our method therefore instructs us never to abandon never to remit or slacken the charity which we profess towards our friends lately departed and consequently by this new temporary motive fastens our souls upon the love and contemplation of the future world whereas the contrary opinion begets a short memory and long oblivion And here behold we are naturally put in mind of surveying the other branch of Practise which no less attests ours to be the Church's sense and perfectly conformable to her practise I mean the procurement of prayers for the souls of the Dead Let us reflect herein on the consequences which are apt to follow from either opinion If it be true that souls are from Purgatory conveigh'd to Beatitude before the day of Judgment though we know not how long the time may be of their durance yet this is certain that every one hath a limited time let us suppose ten years as a Divine famous enough hath opined the Church ought in reason to prescribe a cessation from thenceforward of duties for that soul that others may be benefited by what to it is now superfluous You reply that it is not done because the Church is uncertain how long the time may be Very well but how long I beseech you shall she continue uncertain till the day of Judgment And this of every one that is of all where then lies our quarrel I may perhaps affirm it to be certain that they are not dismiss'd before the day of Judgment and consequently that we ought alwayes to pray for them you affirm it to be uncertain whether they are sooner freed or no and consequently conclude the same thing to wit that we ought alwayes to pray for them The practise then of praying alwayes for them is common to us both More strongly indeed on our side from motives both of reason and antiquity which ever prayed for all without exception You reply it is so uncertain of every one in particular that notwithstanding it is indefinitely certain of some Let it be so because you are resolute what is that to the practise that remains common to both sides Can you from practise possibly convince that some indeterminately are exempted when you pray for every one as though he were detained Practise is an action and action is of Individuals that is of particular Agents about particular Patients But to proceed Imagine with your self some practise which may infer that some are freed ought there not to be a change in the Tenor of prayer and a thanksgiving succeed to supplication rather then that the self-same supplication should still continue Shew any such custome and you have won the day But if you cannot and on the contrary I can and do produce men pious and prudent who with their last breaths pray for their Grand-fathers and Great-Grand-fathers and when themselves come to dye build Churches Hospitals and the like eternal institutes with obligation to have themselves and their ancestors for ever pray'd for two things I shall esteem my self to have clearly prov'd first That Ecclesiastical Practise stands with us secondly that our Adversaries cannot bring the least shadow of proof from thence They quit not yet their station but threaten us with sorks now that their arrowes are spent Practise say they consists not only in the external action but in it with the intention opinion and hope conjoyn'd therewithall But it is evident that the opinion and hope with which men now adayes pray for the departed is that of a speedy delivery therefore the Church-practise concludes it In which first we deny the Major For when some action is handed down to us from our fore-fathers in the Church it doth not follow their intention must necessarily be derived to us by the same succession for though we know not in particular what they intended yet do we