Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	action_n	conscience_n	good_a	1,039	5	4.0253	3	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A29443	A Briefe discourse declaring and approving the necessary and inviolable maintenance of the laudable customes of London namely, of that one, whereby a reasonable partition of the goods of husbands among their wives and children is provided : with an answer to such objections and pretenced reasons, as are by persons unadvised or evill perswaded, used against the same.		1652 (1652)	Wing B4579; ESTC R36620	17,189	31

those holy duties and good observances that are commended and commanded in holy Scripture Read the Epistle to the Ephes ca. 5. If then these customes bear sway in sundry places and are publickly approved by judiciall sentences what Citizen will be so senselesse what Londoner so loose what Merchant or other free man so inconsiderate and unregardfull of his own good estate and so ready to defile his own nest as once to attempt or practise the violation or breach of so good a custome What is he who seeing the Estate of London is preferred before other Cities of the Land by the benefit and means of their most profitable customes that will give a dangerous example to abrogate the same and to call their usages in question A custome if it have been once notoriously discontinued or interrupted loseth the title and appellation of a custome and by instance given of the time when it was disused lacketh a great part of his authority Then unnaturall or at least wise unadvised is that Citizen which to serve his private humour bringeth a generall custome either into question by his fraud See before in the case of Robbery how carefull the City was to avoid this danger and to preserve their custome and and in the case of the attaint before 7 H. 6 c. or by his example into contempt Pernicious also is the president of one custome called in question to the ruine of the rest Namely when as the City by their Counfell in her Majesties Courts of Westminster claiming the benefit of their customes may be encountred and confronted with a counter plea given by themselves that such of their own Aldermen and commons have by their deeds and devises either disaffirmed or disanulled the same A practise as of great condemnation in them that do it so no doubt of great oversight and incircumspection in them that suffer it But somewhat to satisfie the idle cavils pretended to the contrary saith some one is not the generall Law of England sufficient to manage the government of London as well as of all other Subjects but that Londoners must have private customes and usages of their own This objection made by the enviers or enemies of the wealth of London howsoever they make shew to the contrary rather deserveth a hisse then a reply and is sufficiently confuted in the former discourse But it is further urged by some hard husbands My wife is froward and undutifull and hath not deserved it Shee is a fool and cannot rule it She will marry again and enrich some other with the fruit of my travaile Wherefore I think it necessary to abridge her of that liberality which the custome doth extend Also my children be evill enclined disobedient or untractable or some of them be Wherefore I may with reason deprive them of the benefit of this custome First to answer the undutifulness I wish thee whosoever thou art to summon and convent thy selfe to the tribunall seat of thy inward minde as Saint Augustine saith Aug. in lib. confess and to make conscience thy Judge thy cogitations the Witnesses thy actions the accusers thy memory the register or record to give in evidence and let it be discussed in all due circumstances whether thou didst not likewise forget the offices of a good husband and defraud her of her duties as Saint Paul saith or provoke her to impatience which the same Apostle forbiddeth in these words 1 Corinth ca. 7. Col. ca. 3. You husbands be loving to your wives and no way be bitter unto them Peter Epist 1. ca. 1. Which also S. Peter remembreth in advising husbands to dwell with their wives sincerely and according to knowledge in doing honour unto them as to the weaker Vessell Let it I say be examined in the consistory of thy conscience whether thou either by thy fault wittingly or negligently by thy default or by thy unkindness unduly hast caused her being the weaker vessell to bee the more intolerable If thou find thy selfe condemned by thy conscience let remorse be thy executioner and amendment with kindness towards thy wife be thy penance but if thou finde thy selfe guilty of no want of affection love or good carriage of thy selfe towards her so that her undutifulness proceeded of her selfe yet I pray thee remember the benefits which God hath given thee by her means whether they be gifts of fortune in bettering of thy estate or eschewing of sin by her lawfull and comfortable company or the blessing of children a soveraign good in this world thy children being the monuments of thy life and being upon earth and the repayrers of thy decay And let these favours and graces enjoyed by her company cover and countervaile her other imperfections whatsoever Follow therein the example of the wise Socrates who being demanded how he could endure the continuall scolding and vexation of his wife Xantippe likewise asked of the other why he suffered the cackling and unpleasant noise of Hens and Turkeyes in his house Because said the other they lay Egges and breed Chickens for me and so said Socrates Xantippe beareth me Children which good turn alone covereth and dispenseth with infinite defects Callicratides the Athenian being demanded why hee a man so nobly descended but having matched with a base Thessalian woman yet by his last Will bequeathed unto her all his substance leaving his other friends and kinsfolkes unregarded because said he she is my wife meaning that shee who was by his judgement and choice made worthy to be his wife should bee unworthy of nothing that was his Which may also satisfie that second point of supposed folly in the wife want of discretion to marshal so great a proportion of wealth as the custome will give her Wherefore wouldest thou mary with a fool if thou thoughtest her unworthy of the rights of mariage then seeing thy choice hath estopped thy Testimony of her folly thy duty towards thy wife shall binde thee to favour and conceale her weakeness and to perform that which the custome pronounceth to be convenient It cannot be evill bestowed upon her whose right by custome demandeth it and whose estate and imperfections have need of it whereas if the husband may be permitted by this colour to defeat his wife many inconveniences and disorders might ensue First a generall custome Leges se accommodant ad ea quae frequentius non quae raro accidunt Bartolus which is as also a generall Law never provided for such rare accidents as seldome fall in experience but for things that ordinarily and commonly happen should be broken to the generall scandale and offensive example of all through the inhability of one which were a thing unreasonable Likewise then might husbands if that were admitted for a just allegation easily devise and publish that or some other imperfection to be in their wives and thereby bereave them of their right No more then it is a just counterplea or barre to a womans dower

to alleage that she is a fool no more is the imputation of such simplicity honest and sufficient to exclude her from her Portion No it is well said and maintained for a Maxime in the Common Law Better it is to suffer a mischiefe then an inconvenience Lesse harmfull and hatefull it is for a man to swallow twenty of these light offences and to digest sundry of these pretensed scruples then by violating of a custome no lesse common then commendable to leave to posterity an odious memory and obloquie of his name The last objection against wives is no lesse ridiculous then Tyrannicall grounded upon an unjust desire to restrain them from mariage Mariage is an honourable Ordinance of God fit and necessary for all persons disposed thereunto to the avoiding of sinne and maintenance of a comfortable and sociable Christian life To restrain or prohibit the same either in maides or widows as Saint Paul saith is the doctrine of divells Tim. ep 1. ca. 4. 43 E. 3.6 And to indent or condition with any that he or she shall not mary is a condition limited against Law and by the same pronounced unlawfull and unreasonable Make it thine own case admit thou didest match with a wealthy wife whose furniture and riches hath increased thy Estate if God should call for her wouldest thou in a kinde memoriall of the benefits attained by her meanes make thy selfe a votary to live unmaried Do those which mary great Heires being women and after their wives deaths enjoy their whole inheritance by the curtesie of England making their wives heires to expect during their lives take it for any matter of conscience or scruple to mary again Unlesse it be in some place where the force of the custome and the benefit of the living joyned together work a contrary resolution in some husbands which custome annexed to Gavelkinde Lands in Kent and other places is of this quality 16 E. 3. aid 129. 19 E. 3. aid 144. that the husband shall after the decease of his wife be Tenant by the curtesie of her land as long as he remaineth unmaried whether he have issue by her or not but upon his next mariage shall utterly forgo all his interest therein A custome therefore the lesse unreasonable because the restraint of mariage of the one side is countervailed by the beneficiall favour of the other side to have the land by the curtesie without issue and also for that hee is to deprive the next Heire of his wife who perchance hath been maried with him but few moneths or dayes of the profit and commodity of the whole Land during his life But chiefely because it is a custom grounded and grown in continuance to such religious observation and regard that it seemeth an offence of conscience to infringe it But in our case sithence there is neither custome nor conscience to warrant thy will why shouldest thou then seem to quarrell with the lawfull liberty of thy wife if she survive thee she being weak by kinde and education and thereby lesse able to direct her occasions and govern her estate without a companion and coadjutor no on Gods name referre her to her own choice and conscience therein and make it no pretense and colour to abridge her of her right because shee seemeth inclinable unto that which God hath ordained and all men and women do embrace As to the fear and suspicion pretended that another in matching with thy wife should be enriched by thy travaile what should move thee to make that superstitious account of thy goods when thou art gone Were they any longer thine then while thou hadst life and licence to employ them Thou must needs know and acknowledge besides thy daily experience by the very Etymologie and signification of the word the true nature and quality of the thing These worldly goods are called temporall because they serve one but for a time they are termed transitory for that their property is fleeting from one owner unto an other they are named moveable or current because all their grace and credite is in running and removing into divers hands according to that rude and old but yet true Latine rime Omnia mundana per vices sunt aliena Nunc mea nunc hujus post mortem sunt alterius This worldly wealth each day doth change Their owners as we see Now mine now his and after death An others goods they be Then sithence thy wealth hath waited upon thee all thy life long wouldest thou require the same to rest at thy devotion after thy death If that seem impertinent and unprofitable unto thee then relinquish this care and suffer the goods of this world to have their naturall course and condition which is to be still in exchange passage and posting from hand to hand serving all men ut peregrinationis viaticum Hieronymus in Epist That is A Pilgrims charge or defrayment in his journey as Saint Hicrome termeth it And address thy minde to the desire of such goods as are neitheir temporal transitory current nor moveable but perpetuall permanent constant and not onely immutable but inestimable But finally to satisfie the last objection against thy children I wish thee to look back unto that I have said that thou mayest not for a private injury or displeasure seem as much as lyeth in thee to supplant and abrogate a publick custome to the no lesse prejudice then offence of a great number that have interest therein In enriching thy Son thou dost discharge the duty of a naturall father towards him which if hee prodigally or wickedly mispend or abuse he carryeth his own condemnation and proveth a wilfull enemy to himselfe Luke 2.25 The good father mentioned in the Gospell who at the suite of his undutifull and disobedient Son that would needs abandon the service and attendance on his father to run the course of an extravagant Libertine with lewd company gave him a great portion of his wealth is not any way blamed by our Saviour for that indulgence but rather recommended to all posterity as a true Pattern of a kind father Saint Paul commandeth the father to be well affected to his children and no way to discourage them Col. c. 3. What may breed greater discouragement or discontentment in any childe then to see himselfe by the place of his birth and the good fortune of the City intitled to the commodity of a good custome and yet injuriously by his own father whose affection should be alwayes occupied and earnest in procuring the good of his children disappointed of his hope defrauded of his right And as well as some having just cause of displeasure against their Sonne and childe may in this unlawfull and disorderly sort practise their revenge so may some other inconsiderate and wilfull father upon a conceipt taken against a good Sonne and of singular desert for that he concurreth not with him in some humour or disposition most wrongfully distresse and undo him by such