Selected quad for the lemma: book_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
book_n	call_v	find_v	write_v	2,962	5	5.1225	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A30726	The true case of John Butler, B.D., a minister of the true Church of England in answer to the libel of Martha his sometimes wife : treating of a marriage dissolved and made null by desertion and of a lawful concubinage in a case of necessity, wherein lawful marriage conveniently or possibly cannot be obtained.	J. B. (John Butler)	1697 (1697)	Wing B6276; ESTC R20976	33,278	45

in sickness and in health to love and to cherish till death us do part according to God's holy Ordinance and thereto I plight thee my troth Which passage thus utterly omitted and at that time not to be amended Somthing was said of making us Man and Wife without it And considering the rudeness of those times and the difficulty of Marriage to be rightly obtained as the case stood This Respondnt observing that the place was thin of witnesses and those who were present not so sufficicatly read as to apprehend the deficiency past over the matter with silence and did cohabit with the said Martha as his lawful wife whence followed a common repute That the said Martha was his wife lawfully married to him and he had carnal copulation with her as with a wife and did heartily love her and owned her as his wife for many years notwithstanding the defects in the solemnity of his marriage And did humbly conceive as those times were managed That he was as well married by taking a woman into his bed without other ceremony as if he had been married by the Directory then in use or by the Justices Forms of marriage utterly illegal tho' countenanced by the Rebellion And since by the Act of Indemnity in the Reign of King Charles the II this Respondent humbly conceives his defficient marriage is become as legal and good in law as if it had been most truly solemnised And he doth heartily consent hereby that she was his lawful wife and that this Respondent had never denied her had not she cast off him 2ly As to the Marriage entered in the Register-book kept for Marriages at Weedon aforesaid as is alleged This Respondent doth farther say That he hath seen such a pretended marriage entered in the said book but withall he utterly denies that it was lawfully and orderly Registred either by the Minister that pretended to celebrate the Marriage or by the Minister of that Church or by the Clerk of the Parish but was put in by some stealth or hired to be done many years after For that about five or six years after the pretended time of marriage at what time the strange Minister that essayed to marry us was dead this Respondent did purposely call for the said register-Register-Book and did plainly see and find that no such Entrance was made but afterwards upon a new search he plainly found that there was such a marriage set down but then it was so as that it was plainly interlined and written with a strange hand diverse from all the rest that were recorded therein 3ly As to the Children which were had of the body of the said Martha the Complainant this Respondent doth farther say That out of his aboundant love to the said Martha his pretended wife he never doubted to own at all times the children by her brought forth as his own natural and well begotten children and doubts not but that all or most of them which are dead were lawfully and well born and likwise that the two surviving daughters were so And altho' there have bin suspicious carriages sufficient to provoke Jealousies and giving just cause to recriminate the Libellatrice and something thereof is mentioned in this Respondent's Alligation put into Court Yet in this publick Discourse this Respondent is willingly silent Only as to the two Sons in the Libel mentioned called Simon and Alban Butler such has been their undutiful disobedient most abominably malicious and Diabolically rebellious carriage towards a pretended Father that no rational man can imagine that truly natural and lawfully born children can possibly degenerate so far as to be guilty of such monstrous language and Infernal actions as these pretended sons have been guilty off against this Respondent All neighbours can testify that this Respondent hath done his utmost duty by them as a tender Father to spare for no cost to his utmost ability in contributing to their health and learning and all holy nurture in the Lord. The youngest has enjoy'd a fair portion under him and might have been setled as heir of all that this Respondent is like to leave behind him had he not burst out into inhuman rebellions and base ingratitude The eldest had several years in his hands the management of this Respondent's whole estate and did get or might have gotten a sufficient portion under him until first running into intollerable debaucheries and at last becoming a profest Roman-Catholick he caused himself to be discarded The younger owes this Respondent at this Day 150 l. upon Account and yet pretends by a kind of a cheat that he owes nothing Both of them have used violence against this their pretended aged Father have thrown him down by violence in his own house and rifled him have cheated him robbed him slandered reproached reviled and upbraided him at a strange rare in presence of the Complainant Martha their Mother who in many things was their Abettor They have threatned him with sword in hand swaggering over him in strange presumptuous postures They have used all possible means to impoverish him to ruin him and to starve him by abetting enemies to overthrow him and have occasioned his imprisonment And at this day by compliance with an horrid Extortioner that has a mortgage upon his inheritance these sons together with the Complainant their Mother are very unjustly in possession of the inheritance of this Respondent who is constrained to sue in Equity to gain his bread out of their rapacious teeth while they use all possible means in these hard times playing upon his wants to rob him of all he has in order by Law to disable him from using a just defence These humble complaints this poor Respondent hath uttered in the bitterness of his soul upon the Words of a Priest and of such a Priest as has kept his Oaths and Promises to his hurt and God knows who knows the secrets of all hearts that he hath uttered no lie And all who know him do know and he presumes will restify to the integrity of his reputation It is written Deut. 27. 16. Cursed be he that setteth light by his Father or Mother It is God Almighty hath said it and all the world are bound to say Amen to it Is this Respondent Father to these Brats If so How much good would their repentance avail him beyond their ruin But he leaves them as to that matter to God the avenger who knows all things The same great God has determined it Chap. 21. 21. That such wretches are to be Ston'd to death with stones that all Israel may hear and fear and that no more such Presumption may be done again And the Father a lone in this Case is to be the Witness But alas as times go rude villains find more friends then innocent parents God save all according to his just vengence Amen But what shall be said Are these children ill born Bastards God knows And if so the fault is elsewhere rather