Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	hear_v	heart_n	pray_v	1,932	5	5.7672	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A48315	A monitor of mortality, the second sermon Occasioned by the death of Mrs. Harpur, a grave and godly matron (wife to Mr. Henry Harpur of the city of Chester) and of the death of their religious daughter Phœbe Harpur, a child of about 12. yeares of age. By Iohn Ley minister of Great Budworth in Cheshiere.; Monitor of mortalitie.	Ley, John, 1583-1662.	1643 (1643)	Wing L1884A; ESTC R216672	26,028	38

may haply conceive meerely or chiefely to gratifie her friends but principally to edifie the hearers in generall by such observations of the course of her life and manner of her death as may redound to the benefit of all by a serious consideration and imitation of her vertues For God sets forth such examples for patternes that those who are not so pliable to the practise of prescribed rules as they should be may be led on by examples and certainely if they be not the better for them it shall goe the worse with them for if the Queene of the South shall rise up in judgement and condemne the generation which never saw her Mat. 12.42 how much more shall so many holy and worthy examples condemne the wicked who see or may see their holy behaviour and take no heed nor care to conforme unto them But it may be they doe not beleeve the reports of their piety and why doe they not because sometimes men even Preachers lash out in excessive commendation of them farre above their deserving If it be so the more is their sinne and the greater one day will be their shame but certainely there are many that are farre more holy then the wicked of the world will easily believe and one maine cause of their diffidence and distrust is because of their own guilt and unacquaintance in the wayes of godlinesse They will not believe that illiterate unlearned Lay-men are able in prayer to powre forth their soules with patheticall and plentifull expressions they have not been eare-witnesses of any such gift of Gods Spirit and therefore they will give no credit to those that report it but doubtlesse there are such men and women too and there are such gifts manifested by their exercise of them and I have heard it from the mouth of a very † Mr S G. faithfull witnesse that a man of as eminent place in the Church and of as eminent parts and proficiency in all kind of knowledge especially in Divinity as any is to be found in all his Majesties Dominions hath acknowledged That he hath heard a Lay-man in a Leatherne Jacket pray by heart without Art or Booke and with such an evidence and demonstration of the Spirit as hath made him much ashamed of his own defects and disabilities to performe that duty of devotion in such a manner and measure as he did But they that have not had some experimentall proofe of this kind entertaine such reports many times as not only untrue but as impossible when they should thinke all things easie and possible with God Mat. 19.26 and they may find if they would marke it somewhat in experience betwixt the divell and themselves which might induce them to believe a strange and strong operation of Gods Spirit in his children For doth not that powerfull impostor sometimes so prevaile with their corrupt nature as by his suggestions to sway them against the evident direction of Gods Word the light of their own reason the bent of their own resolutions the checks of their convinced consciences the example of all good men though they can expect none other end of that way wherein the Devill drives them then the ruine of their soules And shall not the Father of lights the Authour of every good and perfect gift who could make the dumbe Asse to speake more wisely then his rider though a Prophet endow those whom by peculiar favour he hath chosen to be his with what portion of spirit of illumination and sanctification pleaseth himselfe and guide both their minds and tongues and all their faculties to such effects as he thinks fit for his own glory and the good of his people Doubtlesse though all have not the Spirit that pretend to have it nor the gift of prayer who take upon them to pray by the Spirit there are divers that have it and give proofe of it in such sort as cannot be gaine-said and more in this age then in any other since the Primitive Doctors who had a constant and infallible guidance of the Spirit were advanced from earth to Heaven And their examples are as considerable in their ordinary practise of Religious precepts as in the exercise of their extraordinary gifts Yet I propose none though a Patriarch a Prophet an Apostle or Martyr much lesse any one below them to imitation without the limitation of S. Paul Be ye followers of me even as I am of Christ 1 Cor. 11 1. For example though Jacob and Rachel were very good people yet be not like unto him in his immoderate affection to Benjamin nor unto her in such a wilfull bewailing of her Orbity as would not admit any consolation because she was childlesse Let us rather consider what may be said to quiet and becalme our passions that they grow not too head-strong for Religion and reason to rule them Be our losse what it may be we should beare it without repining or impatience and that for reasons of weight taken both from God and man From God concerning whom we must take notice First of his Authority over us Secondly of his intention 1. towards us and 2. towards ours For the first It is God that killeth and maketh alive Isa 45.7 and this he doth not only de Facto but de Jure he hath not only a power to doe so but a right also for we are all of us unto him as the clay in the hands of the Potter not only to make us vessells of honour or dishonour as he pleaseth but when we are made to dash us in pieces if we please him not and shall we then be displeased with him when as the owner of the Vineyard demanded of the murmuring labourer Mat. 23.15 he doth but what he will with his owne Indeed we use to speake of what we possesse with a tearme of propriety my Wife my Husband my Child my Friend but our Title to them is not originall but derivative from him and by way of subordination under him for we and they are his made by him and for him they to us are but lent and so lent without any certaine time or date that we cannot in right say he calls backe or takes away too soone if it were the same day of our first possession of them and if we have enjoyed them long the lesse time in reason there remaineth for the future and so we should the sooner prepare for a parting And when it cometh to that we should consider what intents God may have in taking away from us that which is deare unto us First it may be as the Widow of Sarepta said when her Sonne was dead to call our sinnes to our rememberance 1 King 17. ver 18. a child or friend of ours is dead that we may not dye in sins and trespasses without repentance Secondly it may be with our other sinnes we may be guilty of some kind and degree of Idolatry by setting that delight upon the creature which of right belongs to