Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n
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A26078
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A theological discourse of last vvills and testaments by William Assheton.
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Assheton, William, 1641-1711.
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1696
(1696)
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Wing A4046; ESTC R17297
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32,407
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122
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say unto them Depart in peace be you warmed and filled notwithstanding ye give them not those things which are needful to the body what doth it profit Even so faith if it hath not works is dead being alone Jam. 2. 14 15 16 17. As if he had said Unless according to your capacity you are ready to do good and relieve those that are in want all your pretences to Religion are vain and hypocritical And this most important Truth which the Rich men of this World are so unwilling to believe is further confirmed by St. John The design of whose Epistles is to exhort us to the love of God and our Brother The latter of which as he largely shews us is the surest Mark and Evidence of the former If a man say I love God and hateth his Brother he is a liar For he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen how can he love God whom he hath not seen 1 Joh. 4. 20. No man hath seen God at any time God is a Spirit and invisible and we do not converse with God as we do with one another How then can we pretend to this love of God or assure our selves that we have this Divine Grace Now St. John takes care to satisfy us in this matter v. 21. He who loveth God let him love his Brother also i. e. He who pretends to love God let him prove his love to God by the love of his Brother But how shall we evidence this love of God by our love to our Brother Of this the Apostle gives us a plain and convincing Proof cap. 3. v. 17. Whoso hath this Worlds good and seeth his Brother have need and shutteth up his Bowels of compassion from him how dwelleth the love of God in him i. e. He who relieveth not his poor Brother when it is in his power he neither loveth God nor his Brother And he that loveth not his Brother abideth in death v. 14. And because this may be censured as a very harsh and uncharitable Sentence the Apostle thus confirms it in the following verse v. 15. Whosoever hateth his brother is a Murderer and ye know that no Murderer hath eternal life abiding in him With such powerful Motives as these the Apostles of our Lord did recommend this most necessary Duty of Charity And as this was the Doctrine of the Apostles so also of our Blessed Lord himself Give Alms of such things as you have and behold all things are clean unto you Luk. 11. 41. Sell that ye have and give Alms provide your selves bags which wax not old a treasure in the heavens that faileth not where no thief approacheth neither moth corrupteth Luk. 12. 33. And I say unto you Make to your selves friends of the Mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations Luk. 16. 9. Love ye your Enemies and do good and lend hoping for nothing again and your reward shall be great and ye shall be the Children of the Highest for he is kind to the unthankful and to the evil Be ye therefore merciful as your Father also is merciful Luk. 6. 35 36. But in no part of the Gospel is this Duty of Charity so effectually recommended as in Matth. 25. v. 31. c. The words contain the Process of the Great and Final Judgment punctually described by our Saviour and our Judge They are of infinite concernment to us all And therefore I shall transcribe them at large And the rather because in its proper Place I shall make some Remarks and Observations upon them When the Son of man shall come in his Glory and all the holy Angels with him then shall he sit upon the throne of his Glory And before him shall be gathered all nations and he shall separate them one from another as a Shepherd divideth his Sheep from the Goats And he shall set the Sheep on his right hand but the Goats on the left Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand Come ye blessed of my Father inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world For I was an hungred and ye gave me meat I was thirsty and ye gave me drink I was a stranger and ye took me in Naked and ye cloathed me I was sick and ye visited me I was in prison and ye came unto me Then shall the righteous answer him saying Lord when saw we thee an hungred and fed thee or thirsty and gave thee drink When saw we thee a stranger and took thee in or naked and cloathed thee Or when saw we thee sick or in Prison and came unto thee And the King shall answer and say unto them Verily I say unto you In as much as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my Brethren ye have done it unto me Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand Depart from me ye cursed into everlasting fire prepared for the Devil and his Angels For I was an hungred and ye gave me no meat I was thirsty and ye gave me no drink I was a stranger and ye took me not in naked and ye cloathed me not sick and in prison and ye visited me not Then shall they also answer him saying Lord when saw we thee an hungred or athirst or a stranger or naked or sick or in Prison and did not Minister unto thee Then shall he answer them saying Verily I say unto you In as much as ye did it not to one of the least of these ye did it not to me And these shall go into everlasting Punishment But the Righteous into life eternal From these words of our B. Saviour 't is pertinent to observe That though as appears from other Places of Scripture we must be judged for what we have done in the Body i. e. for all the good or evil that we have done in this World yet our Saviour in describing the Process of the Last Judgment makes no mention of any thing but Acts of Charity From whence you may be admonished how necessary it is to do all the good you can whilst you live and to improve all those Talents with which you are intrusted particularly your wealth to the highest advantage And as a further Confirmation of this necessary Duty I must not omit to observe That Charity to the Poor is not only commanded in the Gospel but also in the Law and the Prophets If thy Brother be waxen poor and fallen in decay with thee then thou shalt relieve him yea though he be a stranger or a sojourner that he may live with thee Lev. 25. 35. If there be among you a poor man of one of thy Brethren within any of thy Gates in thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee thou shalt not harden thy heart nor shut thy hand from thy poor Brother Thou shalt surely give him and thine heart shall not be grieved when thou givest unto him because that for this thing
do not fancy that because your Estate is your own that therefore you have liberty to Bequeath it as you please for though it is thus far your own that there is no just Human Claim against you yet it is still the Property of Almighty God the Chief Sovereign of the World before whom you must shortly give an Account of your Stewardship and how you have Distributed and Bequeathed your Estate IV. Make a Just Will Before I can exhort the Testator to be Charitable of which in its proper Place I must first admonish him to be Just And when I advise him to be Just I do not so much denote the Justice and Equity of his Distribution for of this I have Discoursed under the former Topick as the Justice of his Title to those Possessions he is now going to Bequeath My plain meaning is this Before a man pretends by making his Will to Bequeath his Estate let him first be fully satisfied that he hath a Just Title to it and that what he Disposeth is his own We have a blunt Proverb concerning some Men Who Rob Peter to Pay Paul Who Will pinch with one hand to open and enlarge the other who are rapacious and Unjust in some instances that they may be kind and Charitable in others And this I doubt is too frequent a Practice But let such men know though they do not love to be told it there is a Duty called Restitution whereby all injurious Persons are not only obliged to make a reconciling Acknowledgment but also Reparation and Satisfaction for the wrongs they have done To enforce this though briefly I shall a little explain the nature of Restitution with the reason of it As our Duty is Twofold Our Duty towards God and our Duty towards our Neighbour so also Sins and Transgressions which are a breach and violation of that Duty are likewise Twofold viz. Sins against God and Sins against our Neighbour Both these kinds of Sins shall certainly be pardoned upon our true Repentance because God who is Faithful and Just hath expresly Promised Pardon upon that Condition But now 't is pertinent to remind you that more is requir'd to perfect our Repentance of Sins against our Neighbour than of Sins against God only Sins against God only are sufficiently attoned by Reformation and Amendment When we return to our Duty and own the Divine Authority by a sincere Obedience the Justice of God is then satisfied and he will again receive us into his Grace and Favour through the powerful Intercession of our Dear Redeemer But now as to those Sins which do not barely Offend God but are also Offensive and Injurious to our Neighbour the Case is different and there is more required to the Pardon of such Sins For Sins against our Neighbour do not only include an Offence against God who hath Commanded us to Love our Brother but also an affront and injury against men And therefore though upon our true Repentance God will forgive his share of the Sin and will remit it so far as it is an act of Disobedience against himself yet he will not forgive the Affront and Injury against Men till we have first sought a Reconciliation with those we have Affronted and have made Restitution to those we have wronged by giving Satisfaction for the Damage that hath been done them Of this Reconciliation the necessity of it and the manner how it is to be made I shall Discourse in its proper Place That which I am now pertinently to enforce is Restitution Which according to the true sense and meaning of the word doth denote A Restoring or giving back to any Person what was wrongfully taken and is still detained from him The which Restitution so far as we are able is a necessary Duty in the Judgment of all sorts of Casuists Protestant and Papist Lutheran and Calvinist do all of them subscribe to that well-known saying of St. Augustin Non remittetur Peccatum nisi restituatur ablatum Epist 54. ad Maced The Sin shall not be Pardoned except that which hath been Vnjustly gotten be Restored And the reason hereof is given by the same Father in the foregoing words Si res aliena propter quam peccatum est cum reddi possit non redditur non agitur paenitentiae sed fingitur If a man restore not ill-gotten Goods being able his Repentance is but counterfeit and not sincere From both which Sentences put together St. Augustine's Argument is this Without Repentance Sin shall not be Pardoned But whoever doth not make Restitution when it is in his Power doth not truly Repent his Repentance is but Counterfeit Therefore without Restitution no hopes of Pardon Suppose then that you have Injured another Man in his Estate either by Theft or Fraud or Oppression it will not be sufficient to Absolve you and to procure your Pardon that for the future you forbear Defrauding Forcing or Stealing from him any more but if it be in your Power you must make Restitution of all that you have wrongfully deprived him of And the Reason is this 'T is a known act of Justice Suum cuique tribuere To give every Man his own Now its certain that your wrongful Seizure or detaining of what is another Man's doth not alienate his Right to it So that he hath still the same Right to it whilst you keep it from him as he had at first when it was taken from him And consequently till you Restore it back to him again you still continue to wrong him of it And your detaining it is a continued repetition of that Fraud or Theft or Oppression by which it was at first wrongfully Seized And so long as you continue the Fraud the Theft or the Oppression 't is most Vain and Hypocritical to pretend to Repent you of it For certainly Repentance can never be true nor sincere whilst you continue in that Sin of which you seem to repent And without true Repentance no hopes of Pardon When therefore you design to Bequeath your Estate if upon a strict search or inquiry you observe that any part of your Estate hath been unjustly gotten be so just then to your Self and Family as to make a faithful Restitution of it If not to the Injured Person himself who perhaps is Deceased then to his Heirs or Relations But if to these by reason of Absence great Distance or some other Cause it cannot conveniently be made then give it to the Poor Who in such a Case are God's Receivers And if herein I shall seem too severe a Casuist since this Restitution if honestly made might be to the impoverishing of many Persons and Families I shall then desire them to consider 1. That it is much better if the case should so require to part with all their Estates here on Earth than to be excluded the Kingdom of Heaven As all injurious rapacious Persons are threatned to be 2. If the Concern is for their Relations they leave behind them since