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
A70253	A sermon preached before the honourable judges of assize, at the cathedral in Lincoln, July 21. 1673 Sir William Humble Baronet, being high sheriff of the county. By Richard Hollingworth, minister of God's Word at West-ham near London.	Hollingworth, Richard, 1639?-1701.	1673 (1673)	Wing H2504A; ESTC R38793	13,623	37

practise or forbearance look into Scripture impartially and compare one Text with another and weight the scope and design of the Pen-men in those several places and be not resolved to bend and draw them to the Service of any Party or Opinion whatsoever For this in all Ages hath done much wrong to Truth and opened the very Floodgates of Disobedience and contempt of humane Laws For instance if a man in order to keep you out of the loving and pleasant arms of Truth and to fix you in a pernicious Principle or Opinion say as the Apostle once said Come out from among them and be you separate and touch no unclean thing 2 Cor. 6.17 Or as the same Apostle in another place Touch not taste not handle not why your business is to weigh and judiciously and deeply to consider upon what score these words were spoken and what it was the Apostle designed to preserve the people to whom he wrote from the pollution of and upon search you will find that when the Apostle cries Come out from among them he means from the Idolatry of the Heathens and then you must be sure that the Church from which you are tempted is as truly Idolatrous as that was out of which the Apostle invited the Corinthians or else that Scripture will not be a sufficient warrant for your departure and separation from it And when the Apostle Colos 2.20 21. advises them neither to touch nor taste nor handle you will find they were certain Impositions as abstaining from Marriage and some sorts of Meats as utterly unlawful which though they might be abstained from yet when they were forbidden as things detestable and unlawful in their own nature the Apostle tells them That it is giving away the liberty Christ had purchased for them and this Text therefore as many other which are quoted to very bad and pernicious purposes will be found to strike indeed at the Romish Church who as I said before imposes upon the minds of men things as absolutely necessary which have no such necessity neither in their own nature nor by vertue of any Command from God but it reaches not at all any legal Injunction recommended as indifferent and declared not to change its nature but that it may be altered and removed out of the way when the Governor sees it good so to do And truly if Scripture was but thus weighed we should soon come to an end of most of our unhappy Differences that are now too much alive among us and then Love and Unity Amity and Friendship Peace and Good Will would have a greater room in the World then now they have But then 3. There is one thing more that I would recommend to every persons consideration and that is when he enquires into the nature of the things commanded in order to his satisfaction and more especially if he enquire after the lawfulness or unlawfulness of those three Ceremonies which are the great stones of offence at which so many persons in this Kingdom stumble I desire him to consider how doubtful and unsatisfied how wavering and unresolved many of those persons are who are the Ring-leaders of Dissention from our Church and most ready to form men into Bodies and Parties against our setled Discipline which to me is a consideration of no small strength and force For notwithstanding many indiscreet men with a very great and raised zeal vent both in Pulpits and other popular Discourses their Spleen and Anger against these Institutions fixing such names upon them as they know will stir the choler of the more rude and ignorant sort of people such whereby God in anger represents his indignation against the Heathen Idols yet if you come to examine their judgments of these things by some other actions you will find they are not so rationally satisfied of the unlawfulness of these things as by these furious Belches they would make the World believe He that considers how many of these angry men studiously and advisedly educate their Children in order to the advantages and improvements of an University-life where when they come they are assured they must swear to obey their Governors and be observant of the Statutes where they know they must wear a Surplice and daily attend upon those Prayers which they load with so many vile Reproaches why he must needs conclude them either men of no Conscience that will advisedly send their Children to places where they must certainly swear to and live in the practice of such things as in their own Opinion work in God the greatest Displeasure and Indignation which I thank God the honour I have for several Dissenters will give me no liberty to credit them or else which indeed any man may more safely incline to that they are not so fully satisfied in the Evil of these things as in their transports and heats among popular Auditories they would make the World believe And farther he that looks back upon a very few weeks since and considers how many persons thoroughout this Nation who were before professed Enemies to our Church have in compliance with a late seasonable Law joyned with us in our Publick Worship and devoutly used that Ceremony of kneeling at the Sacrament which hath been so notoriously branded by many of their Masters that Ceremony I say which is the onely one in which the Laity is concerned he must needs say that these are Demonstrations that neither they nor their Teachers are so well convinced of the Evil of these things as they would I will not judge for what ends force upon the belief of other men For if these things were so concluded men of Principles and Conscience would rather loose their Estates and Lives all that is near and dear to them then comply but being nor so concluded we find what little things serve to bring them back to our Communion and since they are returned I pray God keep them there for I am assured they stand obliged so to do for no man can withdraw from Obedience but he that believes the things evil in their own nature that are commanded and he that can once in a year with a satisfied Conscience obey Authority in any one thing commanded he stands bound to do it every day in the year that he is called to express that Obedience And whosoever does otherwise he is false and perfidious and Government hath no security from a man of such Principles at all For to come to the legally setled places of Worship one day and the next to follow the Camps of Separation and so alternately is an argument that not sense of Duty but Humour and Fancy Passion and Interest governs and rules the man from which government we may all well say Good Lord deliver us Now let me intreat thee whosoever thou art when thou takest these things into thy thoughts in order to thy satisfaction let these actions of men be weighed and I do not doubt but then thou wilt equally be inclined