Selected quad for the lemma: doctrine_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
doctrine_n	age_n	church_n	tradition_n	3,033	5	9.4226	5	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A47747	A letter of advice to a friend upon the modern argument of the lawfulness of simple fornication, half-adultery, and polygamy.	Leslie, Charles, 1650-1722.	1696 (1696)	Wing L1136; ESTC R41466	9,685	17

prevail and this true Knowledge of Heavenly Pleasure is obtained in Fasting and Retirement Then it is that God works with us when we are at Leasure to hear Him and shall we deny Him such opportunity All this may seem an Excursion and leaving of the Argument but it is not Their Arguments for this sin are easily answered and I have in few words answered them for more needed not but that which they most want is to be stirred up and shaken out of their Lethargy If once they come to Consider their Conversion is half Effected towards which I can only add my Prayers to what I have said in the small compass to which I confine my self And I will now go on to consider the other Point which you heard discoursed of that is Polygamy This is bottomed upon the same loose Principles as the other to give the Range to our Lusts and let them endure no Limits But it has more pretence than the other because God did Dispense with it as with Arbitrary Divorces in many Ages of the World But our Blessed Saviour reduces both back again to the Original Institution Matth. xix from verse 3. to the 10. From the beginning says he it was not so How was it then God at the Beginning made only One Male and One Female And for this cause a man shall leave Father and Mother and shall cleave to his Wife and they twain shall be one flesh They Twain here was but Two this was the Original Institution and this is applyed to the Mystical Marriage betwixt Christ and his Church even as to the Number Two and no more Eph. v. 31 32. They two shall be one Flesh This is a great Mystery but I speak concerning Christ and the Church This Parallel is made up by Two being joined in One but not in One being joined to Many it can hardly be said to be One with Many There is a Rivalship of the Many to that One and there is a Dispersion of the Love of the One among Many and they cannot All partake of the One alike This is no Perfect Union like the Union of One and One which is a full Perfect Union and a true Emblem of the Union betwixt Christ and the Church My Love my Undefiled is but One Cant. vi 9. The first who broke in upon the Original Constitution was Lamech of the Posterity of Cain who took Two Wives Gen. iv 19. But we find not that it prevail'd in the Posterity of Seth for at the Flood Noah and his three Sons had but each of them One Wife who made up the Eight Persons in the Ark. And even when Polygamy was most in use it was thought though in strictness lawful because then Dispensed with yet an Imperfect a Miserable and Inconvenient State Therefore Laban adjures Jacob thus Gen. xxxi 50. If thou shalt afflict my Daughters or if thou shalt take other Wives besides my Daughters God is witness c. And Lev. xviii 18. It is written Thou shalt not take a Wife to her Sister or as our Margent Reads it One Wife to another This was the more Perfect State though the other for the hardness of their hearts was Dispensed with till Christ came to Restore all things who gives a plain Rule Mark x. 11. against Polygamy when he made it Adultery to put away one Wife and Marry another For if Polygamy be Lawful how comes it to be Adultery to Marry another Wife whether he put away the First or not To put away a Wife unjustly is a Crime but it is not Adultery the Adultery is the Marrying of another while the first Wife is alive Let every Man have his own Wife and every Woman her own Husband 1 Cor. vii 2. and the Reason given for it ver 2 3 and 5. is only applicable to Monogamy If it be said that that was for the time to come but did it Dissolve the Polygamies before Contracted I suppose not so that if a Man who had several Wives were Converted to the Christian Religion it did not Divorce him from them all or from all of them but One but that he might keep those Wives which he had married before his Conversion yet such a Man should not be Preferred to any Office in the Ministerial Function and this I take to be no Improbable Construction of those Commands 1 Tim. iii. 2 and 12. that Bishops and Deacons must be the Husbands of one Wife that is tho Polygamy did not incapacitate a Man to become a Christian yet it did to be a Clergyman at least it was so thought Expedient by the Apostle And from the Apostles Times to this Day there is no one Doctrine of Christianity which has Descended by a more Universal consent and uninterrupted a Tradition than this of Monogamy Polygamy having never been allowed in any Christian Church or Nation And yet against the Doctrine of Christ as Understood and Practised by the Apostles and the Church of that Age and all the Ages since our thin Beaux would oppose their little Criticisms and cover themselves with Cobwebs who one Day if they Repent not will call to the Hills and Mountains to fall upon them and hide them from their Judge and their Guilt Who now being past feeling have given themselves over unto Lasciviousness to work all uncleanness with greediness But ye have not so learned of Christ Eph. iv 19. For Chap. v. 5. this ye know that no Whoremonger 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 it is not only 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adulterer nor unclean Person hath any Inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and of God Let no man deceive you with vain words for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the Children of Disobedience FINIS Books Printed for William Keblewhite at the Swan in St. Paul ●s Church-Yard BIshop King's Discourse of Inventions of Men in the Worship of God Octave His Admonition to the Dissenters of his Diocess Octavo Mr. Clutterbuck upon the Common-Prayer Explaining the Terms Order and Usefulness of it Octavo Mr. Bramston's Sermon of Repentance Quarto Dr. Cockburn's Jacob's Vow or Man's Felicity and Duty Oct. His enquiry into the Nature Necessity and Evidence of Christian Faith Octavo The Condemnation of Monsieur Du Pin's Ecclesiastical History by the Archbishop of Paris with his own Retractation Quarto Mr. Ray's Nomenclator Classicus for the use of Schools Octavo