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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

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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