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ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A44074	A treatise of marriage with a defence of the 32th article of religion of the Church of England : viz. bishops, priests and deacons are not commanded by God's law either to vow the state of single life, or to abstain from marriage : therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.	Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.	1673 (1673)	Wing H2324; ESTC R28670	53,897	120

not said that a Bishop must be such a one as hath been the husband of one wife in time past but he useth the present time both in Timothy and Titus The High Priest himself under the Law might have a wife after his first wife if she was dead if he married a maid which was a figure of Christs Spouse the Church which was to be presented holy and as a chaste Virgin to Christ By the same reason that they may drive Ministers from their wives they may also deprive them of all use of wine and they may deprive Ministers of all use of meat and command them to fast always that they may be fit to pray always as well as alway to abstain from their wives We never read that the Levites that taught in the Synagogues into the place of which our Churches succeed were barred from the company of their wives And consider it may be as necessary to marry the second time as the first and sometime and in some cases perhaps more necessary says Dr. Hamond The wife may dye presently after Marriage and without Children and the second Marriage in that case tending as much to the ends of Matrimony Comfort of life Propagation remedy of Lust as the former can be supposed to do it would then be strange to debar a Bishop or Presbyter in such a condition Chrysostome and Theodoret with divers others plainly and clearly teach this place to be understood as we do that a Bishop should not have two wives at once Erasmus upon the place disliked the then practice of the Church of Rome in forbidding Marriage to Bishops and Priests Admittitur saith he incestus admittitur homicida admittitur pirata admittitur Sodomita sacrilegus parricida denique quis non solus digamus excluditur ab hoc honore qui solus nihil admisit And further considering the times and the ill consequence of the single life amongst their Clergy and Monks he inclines to think they had better much to allow Matrimony to these persons Nunc caelibes habet Mundus quamplurimos castos perpaucos Grotius saith I confess that amongst all Nations second Marriages were less honoured and amongst some these were restrained by punishments And that Tertullian is fierce against second Marriages condemning them as unlawful and interprets this of the Apostle against a Bishops being twice married Notwithstanding which Authorities let the Scripture and right Reason be heard and what hath been premised on this Argument considered and you will have good ground and cause not to call good evil I meann not to condem second Marriages whether in Lay-men or Clergy And if a Bishop may without sin marry a second wife after he has buried his former surely then he may lawfully marry at first If he cannot contain let him marry he sinneth not only let him marry in the Lord an honest grave sober person that may adorn and not blemish his holy Function The Romanists say there are three special Crowns reserved in Heaven one for Martyrs a second for Virgins and a third for Doctors The Virgins overcome the flesh the Martyrs overcome the World and the Doctors overcome the Devil They have no such Crown for married persons but although they have none for them God hath laid up for them a Crown of Righteousness even the like Crown of Righteousness for every one that loves the appearing of Christ the Judge of quick and dead as that Virgin Apostle as most say the Doctor of the Gentiles and eminent Martyr St. Paul 2 Tim. 4.7 8. Virginity saith one is not a Virtue in it self and no more acceptable to God than Marriage is and this he proves Because all Virtues by Repentance may be restored But Virginity cannot be restored and therefore it is not a Virtue Again Because all Virtues in time and place are commanded But Virginity is left free and only Paul gives his advice to it 1 Cor. 7. therefore it is not a Virtue The same Author saith That Virginity is not good in it self but good for another end when a man having the gift of Continency lives a single life that he may be more fit or free to serve God The Papists glossing on the Parable of the Sower say That Virginity bringeth forth an hundred-fold Widowhood seventy fold and Marriage but thirty-fold Great is the difference 'twixt the Ancient Church of God amongst the Jews and the present Church of Rome in this matter there in Psalm 78.63 The Virgins were not given in Marriage or were not praised so the Hebrew signifies But in this Church the Virgins which are not married are most praised Celibacy is made here a state of Perfection or Supererogation and Meritorious but if but one half be true which we find in our Chronicles it had been happy for our Votaries very many of them at least that they had never known their Cells and Cloysters they might have gone as near a way to Heaven out of the World as out of their Monasteries Bale in his Book of the Acts of the Roman Bishops saith That when the Kings Visitors in England in the year 1538. visited the Abbies they found in some of their Styes rather than Religious Houses five in some ten in some twenty Sodomites and Adulterers of which some kept five some seven some twenty Harlots And a later Historian tells us That Barkley Nuns were all with child at once and how Sir Henry Colt caused a Buckstal to be set in the narrowest place of the Marsh from Cheshnut Nunnery to Waltham Abby and therein took the Monks of Waltham as they passed homewards in the night and the next morning he brought and presented them to the King namely to King Hen. 8. who had often seen sweeter but never fatter Venison D.F.H. 6 b. p. 317. And 't is reported that Dr. Smith who disputed at Oxford against Peter Martyr and who had written a Book for the Celibacy of Priests was taken himself at Oxford in the manner or in the very act This is enough to prove That 't is much easier to make an Eloquent Speech or write a Learned Book in Commendation of Single-life and of Chastity in that condition than to live so If you Object the practice and praise of the Monks of Antient times I answer That the Monks of old times and our present Votaries of the Church of Rome are very different 1. They lived single without any Vow of Continency these are Votaries 2. They had Callings and got their bread in the sweat of their brows these live idle most of them and like Drones consume the honey which others have gathered 3. They did not look upon that condition as a state of greater perfection and in it self Meritorious these do 4. Some of them as I take it had wives and these not but esteem it more lawful to have a Concubine than a Wife Those Monks were none of the Popes licensing or founding these are We read of 12000 Monks of Bangor that were destroyed by

yet may they see God notwithstanding the opinion of the Father that Duras Infantum Pater and not withstanding the hard-heartedness of the pretended Mother-Church of Rome in this a Step-Mother rather than a true Mother to her Children The Hebrew Children that dyed before the eighth day and consequently before they were circumcised and those Bethlemitish Children that were baptized in their own blood and that child that being born was also baptized and buried in the flames being thrown into the fire again the arms of that Midwife that delivered the Martyred Mother of a live child doubtless were not excluded Heaven for want of a Sacrament which they did in no wise neglect or contemn but could not have these being comprehended in the Covenant made and sealed to and with their Parents had a right and title to the heavenly inheritance were of with God and co-heirs with Christ Again consider That God may have taken away your Children from the evil to come on the place where they lived When Storms Tempests and Troubles are abroad you Parents call home your Children and so doth God God saith by his Providence in these cases to his Children though your Children also Come my Children enter into your Chambers and shut the door till all these calamities be overpast 'T is a common saying Quem diligit Dous moritur Juvenis he whom God loves dyes young and sometime and in some cases God calls the sins of Parents to remembrance and slays their Children If so it be this is a Lamentation and ought to be for a lamentation But upon your Repentance God may give other Children in room of them he hath taken from you or himself be better than ten Sons than all Sons and Daughters could be unto you Learn of Aaron the Priest of the Lord who when he had lost Nadab and Abihu both in one day and after an extraordinary manner did not say If it be so why is it thus but saith the Text And Aaron held his peace Levit. 10.3 he was dumb and opened not his mouth because God had done it Jonah was angry because God had smitten and withered the Goard that came up in a night and perished in a night but Aaron acquiesced in Gods handy-work though he slew his two Sons by fire in an extraordinary manner in all this Aaron sinned not nor charged God foolishly Behold he taketh away who can hinder him Who will say unto him what dost thou If thou art either barren or by the death of thy child childless thou mayest do well to educate others Children you may adopt some Kinsman or Friend or Neighbours Child and cultivate them and sow the seeds of Virtue and Learning in them and make such your heirs else make the Church or Poor your heirs and do not prodigally therefore waste your Estates or live idly and wastefully Again If you have no Child be humbled under the want of this blessing for Children are so and then encrease and abound more in your Devotions towards God the less you are to care for the things of the world the more reason you have and the more care you should have how to serve and please God 1 Cor. 7. CHAP. VII Of Parents that have bad Children IF Parents have Children and they prove crosses to them how great is that cross If blessings prove curses if comforts turn to sorrows and your light be darkned in the Heavens thereof how great is that darkness And yet this may be the case of a good man or woman for Parents are Parents as men and women and not as Christians and Grace and Virtue is not Ex traducè is not propagated A righteous Noah had a prophane Cham a good David a rebellious Son Absolom Of some Children we may say Blessed is the womb that bare them and the paps that gave them suck of others It had been good for them and for their Parents too if such children had never been born 'T is more tolerable to have none than wicked Children It is the Speech and Protestation of King James in his Preface to his Book to the Prince I protest before that great God I had rather not be a Father and Childless than be a Father of wicked Children I charge you saith he as ever you think to deserve my fatherly blessing to follow and put in practise so far as lieth in you the Precepts hereafter following And if ye follow the contrary course I take the great God to record that this Book shall one day be a witness betwixt me and you and shall procure to be ratified in Heaven the Curse that in that case here I give unto you And I find in the life of Reverend Mr. Robert Bolton that he had told his Children so much both in the time of his sickness and before he verily believed that none of them durst think to meet him at that great Tribunal in an unregenerate estate I confess 't is a sad Meditation for a Parent to think of the life or death of a wicked Child David that was presently comforted for the death of the young Child he had by Bathsheba refused to be comforted for the death of Absolom sorely lamenting Oh Absosom my Son my Son I would to God I had dyed for thee Oh Absolom my Son my Son 2 Sam. 18.33 It is thought it was for the manner of his death the ill condition he dyed in and for his Soul that he pierced his heart so deeply and that he wept so sorely Let good Parents that have bad Children give them good counsel and good example and pray daily with all earnestness for the return of their Prodigals St. Austins Mother Monica her Prayers for her Son when a Manichee were heard at last and he was converted and became one of the greatest and best Lights of the Church since the Apostles times 'T is thought one cause why Hezekiah wept so sore at the tidings of death was because he was then Childless but could the Prophet have told him that he should have such a Son as Manasseth that should commit such abominations how needs must such tidings have made his ears to tingle and pierce his heart thorough with many sorrows Yet this may somewhat alleviate Parents grief that have bad Children Manasseth when he was in Chains sought the Lord and was found of him at the last and that out of his loyns by his Son Amon came the Mirror of Kings King Josiah And if thou hast matter of sorrow from thy own immediate Child thou mayest have abundant cause of rejoycing from thy Grandchild thy Childrens Children may praise the Lord and this may be part of thy happiness thus to see thy Childrens Children and peace upon Israel And sith so it is that sometimes godly Parents have ungodly Children this should moderate your desire of Children and your grief for the want of them Let none be so impatient or passionate as Rachel saying to God or their own Husbands Give me Children or