Selected quad for the lemma: christian_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
christian_n	church_n	scripture_n	tradition_n	1,856	5	9.2936	5	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A89158	Tetrachordon: expositions upon the foure chief places in scripture, which treat of mariage, or nullities in mariage. On Gen.I.27.28. compar'd and explain'd by Gen.2.18.23.24. Deut.24.1.2. Matth.5.31.32. with Matth.19. from the 3d.v. to the 11th. I Cor.7. from the 10th to the 16th. Wherein the doctrine and discipline of divorce, as was lately publish'd, is confirm'd by explanation of scripture, by testimony of ancient fathers, of civill lawes in the primitive church, of famousest reformed divines, and lastly, by an intended act of the Parlament and Church of England in the last eyare of Edvvard the sixth. / By the former author J.M.	Milton, John, 1608-1674.	1645 (1645)	Wing M2184; Thomason E271_12; ESTC R212199	97,577	109

urgency the Religious from the irreligious the fit from the unfit the willing from the wilfull the abus'd from the abuser such a separation is quite contrary to confusion But to binde and mixe together holy with Atheist hevnly with hellish fitnes with unfitnes light with darknes antipathy with antipathy the injur'd with the injurer and force them into the most inward neernes of a detested union this doubtles is the most horrid the most unnatural mixture the greatest confusion that can be confus'd Thus by this plain and Christian Talmud vindicating the Law of God from irreverent and unwary expositions I trust wher it shall meet with intelligible perufers som stay at least of mens thoughts will bee obtain'd to consider these many prudent and righteous ends of this divorcing permission That it may have for the great Authors sake heerafter som competent allowance to bee counted a little purer then the prerogative of a legal and public ribaldry granted to that holy seed So that from hence wee shall hope to finde the way still more open to the reconciling of those places which treat this matter in the Gospel And thether now without interruption the cours of method brings us TETRACHORDON MATT. 5. 31 32. 31 It hath beene said whosoever shall put away his wife let him give her a writing of divorcement 32 But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife c. MATT. 19. 3 4. c. 3 And the Pharises also came unto him tempting him c. IT hath beene said What hitherto hath beene spoke upon the law of God touching Matrimony or divorce hee who will deny to have bin argu'd according to reason and all equity of Scripture I cannot edifie how or by what rule of proportion that mans vertue calculates what his elements are not what his analytics Confidently to those who have read good bookes and to those whose reason is not an illiterate booke to themselves I appeale whether they would not confesse all this to bee the commentary of truth and justice were it not for these recited words of our Saviour And if they take not backe that which they thus grant nothing sooner might perswade them that Christ heer teaches no new precept and nothing sooner might direct them to finde his meaning then to compare and measure it by the rules of nature and eternall righteousnes which no writt'n law extinguishes and the Gospel least of all For what can be more opposite and disparaging to the cov'nant of love of freedom of our manhood in grace then to bee made the yoaking pedagogue of new severities the scribe of syllables and rigid letters not only greevous to the best of men but different and strange from the light of reason in them save only as they are fain to stretch distort their apprehensions for feare of displeasing the verbal straightnesse of a text which our owne servil feare gives us not the leisure to understand aright If the law of Christ shall be writt'n in our hearts as was promis'd to the Gospel Jer. 31 how can this in the vulgar and superficiall sense be a law of Christ so farre from beeing writt'n in our hearts that it injures and dissallowes not onely the free dictates of nature and morall law but of charity also and religion in our hearts Our Saviours doctrine is that the end and the fulfilling of every command is charity no faith without it no truth without it no worship no workes pleasing to God but as they partake of charity He himselfe sets us an example breaking the solemnest and the strictest ordinance of religious rest and justify'd the breaking not to cure a dying man but such whose cure might without danger have beene deserr'd And wherefore needes must the sick mans bed be carried home on that day by his appointment and why were the Disciples who could not forbeare on that day to pluck the corne so industriously desended but to shew us that if he preferr'd the slightest occasions of mans good before the observing of highest and severest ordinances hee gave us much more easie leave to breake the intolerable yoake of a never well joyn'd wedlocke for the removing of our heaviest afflictions Therefore it is that the most of evangelick precepts are given us in proverbiall formes to drive us from the letter though we love ever to be sticking there For no other cause did Christ assure us that whatsoever things wee binde or slacken on earth are so in heaven but to signifie that the christian arbitrement of charity is supreme decider of all controversie and supreme resolver of all Scripture not as the Pope determines for his owne tyrany but as the Church ought to determine for its owne true liberty Hence Eusebius not far from beginning his History compares the state of Christians to that of Noah and the Patriarkes before the Law And this indeede was the reason why Apostolick tradition in the antient Church was counted nigh equall to the writt'n word though it carried them at length awry for want of considering that tradition was not left to bee impos'd as law but to be a patterne of that Christian prudence and liberty which holy men by right assum'd of old which truth was so evident that it found entrance even into the Councell of Trent when the point of tradition came to be discusst And Marinaro a learned Carmelite for approaching too neere the true cause that gave esteeme to tradition that is to say the difference betweene the Old and New Testament the one punctually prescribing writt'n Law the other guiding by the inward spirit was reprehended by Cardinall Poole as one that had spoken more worthy a German Collequie then a generall councell I omit many instances many proofes and arguments of this kind which alone would compile a just volume and shall content me heer to have shew'n breifly that the great and almost only commandment of the Gospel is to command nothing against the good of man and much more no civil command against his civil good If we understand not this we are but crackt cimbals we do but tinckle we know nothing we doe nothing all the sweat of our toilsomest obedience will but mock us And what wee suffer superstitiously returnes us no thankes Thus med'cining our eyes wee neede not doubt to see more into the meaning of these our Saviours words then many who have gone before us It hath beene said whosoever shall put away his wife Our Saviour was by the doctors of his time suspected of intending to dissolve the law In this chapter he wipes off this aspersion upon his accusers and shewes how they were the law brea kers In every common wealth when it decayes corruption makes two maine steps first when men cease to doe according to the inward and uncompell'd actions of vertue caring only to live by the outward constraint of law and turne the Simplicity of reall good into the craft of seeming so by law To this

words of Christ comprehend many other causes of divorce under the name of fornication Bucer whom our famous Dr Rainolds was wont to preferr before Calvin in his comment on Matthew and in his second booke of the Kingdome of Christ treats of divorce at large to the same effect as is written in the doctrine and discipline of divorce lately publisht and the translation is extant whom lest I should be thought to have wrested to mine own purpose take somthing more out of his 49. Chap. which I then for brevity omitted It will be the duty of pious princes and all who govern Church or common wealth if any whether husband or wife shall affirme their want of such who either will or can tolerably performe the necessary duties of maried life to grant that they may seeke them such and marry them if they make it appeare that such they have not This book he wrote heer in England where he liv'd the greatest admir'd man and this hee dedicated to Edward the sixth Fagius rankt among the famous divines of Germany whom Frederic at that time the Palatine sent for to be the reformer of his Dominion and whom afterwards England sought to and obtain'd of him to come and teach her differs not in this opinion from Bucer as his notes on the Chaldey paraphrast well testify The whole Church of Strasburgh in her most flourishing time when Zellius Hedio Capito and other great Divines taught there and those two renouned magistrates Farrerus and Sturmius govern'd that common wealth and Academy to the admiration of all Germany hath thus in the 21. Article We teach that if according to the word of God yea or against it divorces happen to doe according to Gods word Devt 24. 1. Mat. 19. 1 Cor. 7. and the observation of the primitive Church and the Christian constitution of pious Caesars Peter Martyr seems in word our easy adversary but is in deed for us toward which though it be somthing when he saith of this opinion that it is not wicked and can hardly be refuted this which followes is much more I speake not heer saith he Of natural impediments which may so happ'n that the matrimony can no longer hold but adding that he often wonder'd how the antient and most christian Emperors establisht those lawes of divorce and neither Ambrose who had such influence upon the lawes of Theodosius nor any of those holy fathers found fault nor any of the Churches why the Magistrats of this day should be so loth to constitute the same Perhaps they feare an inundation of divorces which is not likely whenas we reade not either among the Ebrews Greeks or Romans that they were much frequent where they were most permitted If they judge christian men worse then Jewes or Pagans they both injure that name and by this reason will bee constrain'd to grant divorces the rather because it was permitted as a remedy of evil for who would remove the medcin while the disease is yet so rife This being read both in his common places on the first to the Corinthians with what we shall relate more of him yet ere the end sets him absolutely on this side Not to insist that in both these other places of his commentaries hee grants divorce not onely for desertion but for the seducement and scandalous demeanour of a heretical consort Musculus a divine of no obscure fame distinguishes betweene the religious and the civil determination of divorce and leaving the civil wholly to the lawyers pronounces a conscionable divorce for importence not only natural but accidental if it be durable His equity it seems can enlarge the words of Christ to one cause more then adultery why may not the reason of another man as wise enlarge them to another cause Gualter of Zuric a well known judicious commentator in his Homilies on Matthew allows divorce for Leprosie or any other cause which renders unfit for wedloc and calls this rather a nullity of mariage then a divorce and who that is not himselfe a meer body can restrain all the unfitnes of mariage only to a corporal defect Hemingius an Author highly esteem'd and his works printed at Geneva writing of divorce confesses that lerned men vary in this question some granting three causes thereof some five others many more he himselfe gives us sixe adultery desertion inability error evill usage and impiety using argument that Christ under one special containes the whole kind under the name example of fornication he includes other causes equipollent This discours he wrote at the request of many who had the judging of these causes in Denmark and Norway who by all likely hood follow'd his advice Hunnius a Doctor of Wittenberg well known both in Divinity other arts on the 19. of Matt. affirmes that the exception of fornicationexprest by our Saviour excludes not other causes equalling adultery or destructive to the substantials of matrimony but was oppos'd to the custom of the Jewes who made divorce for every light cause Felix Bidenbachius an eminent Divine in the Dutchy of Wirtemberg affirmes that the obstinat refusal of conjugal due is a lawful cause of divorce and gives an instance that the consistory of that state sojudg'd Gerard cites Harbardus an author not unknown and Arnisaeus cites Wigandus both yeelding divorce in case of cruel usage and another author who testifies to have seen in a dukedom of Germany mariages disjoynd for some implacable enmities arising Beza one of the strictest against divorce denies it not for danger of life from a Heretic or importunat solicitation to doe ought against religion and counts it all one whether the heretic desert or would stay upon intolerable conditions But this decision well examin'd will be found of no solidity For Beza would be askt why if God so strictly exact our stay in any kind of wedloc wee had not better stay and hazard a murdering for Religion at the hand of a wife or husband as he and others enjoyn us to stay and venture it for all other causes but that and why a mans life is not as well and warrantably sav'd by divorcing from an orthodox murderer as a heretical Againe if desertion be confest by him to consist not only in the forsaking but in the unsufferable conditions of staying a man may as well deduce the lawfulnesse of divorcing from any intolerable conditions if his grant bee good that wee may divorce thereupon from a heretic as he can deduce it lawfull to divorce from any deserter by finding it lawful to divorce from a deserting infidel For this is plaine if Saint Pauls permission to divorce an infidel deserter inferre it lawfull for any malicious desertion then doth Beza's definition of a deserter transferr it selfe with like facility from the cause of religion to the cause of malice and proves it as good to divorce from him who intolerably stayes as from him who purposely departs and leaves it as lawfull to depart from him