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
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

him nor left in bondage to him but hath recours to the wing of charity and protection of the Church unless there be a hope on either side yet such a hope must be meant as may be a rationall hope and not an endles servitude Of which hereafter But usually it is objected that if it be thus then there can be no true mariage between misbeleevers and irreligious persons I might answer let them see to that who are such the Church hath no commission to judge those without 1 Cor. 5. But this they will say perhaps is but penuriously to resolv a doubt I answer therefore that where they are both irreligious the mariage may be yet true anough to them in a civill relation For there are left som remains of Gods image in man as he is meerly man which reason God gives against the shedding of mans bloud Gen. 9. as being made in Gods image without expression whether he were a good man or a bad to exempt the slayer from punishment So that in those mariages where the parties are alike void of Religion the wife owes a civill homage and subjection the husband owes a civill loyalty But where the yoke is mis-yok't heretick with faithfull godly with ungodly to the grievance and manifest endangering of a brother or sister reasons of a higher strain then matrimoniall bear sway unlesse the Gospel instead of freeing us debase it self to make us bondmen and suffer evill to controule good Male and female created he them This contains another end of matching man and woman being the right and lawfulnes of the marige bed though much inferior to the former end of her being his image and helpo in religious society And who of weakest insight may not see that this creating of them male and female cannot in any order of reason or Christianity be of such moment against the better and higher purposes of their creation as to enthrall husband or wife to duties or to sufferings unworthy and unbeseeming the image of God in them Now when as not only men but good men doe stand upon their right their estimation their dignity in all other actions and deportments with warrant anough and good conscience as having the image of God in them it will not be difficult to determin what is unworthy and unseemly for a man to do or suffer in wedlock and the like proportionally may be found for woman if we love not to stand disputing below the principles of humanity He that said Male and female created he them immediatly before that said also in the same verse In the Image of God created he him and redoubl'd it that our thoughts might not be so full of dregs as to urge this poor consideration of male and female without remembring the noblenes of that former repetition lest when God sends a wise eye to examin our triviall glosses they be found extremly to creep upon the ground especially since they confesse that what here concerns mariage is but a brief touch only preparative to the institution which follows more expressely in the next Chapter and that Christ so took it as desiring to be briefest with them who came to tempt him account shall be given in due place V. 28. And Godblessed them and God said unto them be fruitfull and multiply and replenish the earth c. This declares another end of Matrimony the propagation of mankind and is again repeated to Noah and his sons Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary nor unworth the noting but I undertook not a generall Comment Hence therefore we see the desire of children is honest and pious if we be not lesse zealous in our Christianity then Plato was in his heathenism who in the sixt of his laws counts off-spring therefore desirable that we may leav in our stead sons of our sons continuall servants of God a religious and prudent desire if people knew as well what were requir'd to breeding as to begetting which desire perhaps was a cause why the Jews hardly could endure a barren wedlock and Philo in his book of speciall laws esteems him only worth pardon that sends not barrennes away Carvilius the first recorded in Rome to have sought divorce had it granted him for the barrennes of his wife upon his oath that he maried to the end he might have children as Dionysius and Gellius are authors But to dismisse a wife only for barrennes is hard and yet in som the desire of children is so great and so just yea somtime so necessary that to condemn such a one to a childles age the fault apparently not being in him might seem perhaps more strict then needed Somtimes inheritances crowns and dignities are so interested and annext in their common peace and good to such or such lineall descent that it may prove a great moment both in the affairs of men and of religion to consider throughly what might be don heerin notwithstanding the way wardnes of our School Doctors Gen. 2. 18. And the Lord said It is not good that man should be alone I will make him a help meet for him V. 23. And Adam said c. V. 24. Therefore shall a man leave c. THis second Chapter is granted to be a Commentary on the first and these verses granted to be an exposition of that former verse Male and female created he them and yet when this male and female is by the explicite words of God himselfe heer declar'd to be not meant other then a fit help and meet society som who would ingrosse to themselves the whole trade of interpreting will not suffer the cleer text of God to doe the office of explaining it self And the Lord God said it is not good A man would think that the consideration of who spake should raise up the attention of our minds to enquire better and obey the purpos of so great a Speaker for as we order the busines of Mariage that which he heer speaks is all made vain and in the decision of matrimony or not matrimony nothing at all regarded Our presumption hath utterly chang'd the state and condition of this ordinance God ordain'd it in love and helpfulnes to be indissoluble and we in outward act and formality to be a forc't bondage so that being subject to a thousand errors in the best men if it prove a blessing to any it is of meer accident as mans law hath handl'd it and not of institution It is not good for man to be alone Hitherto all things that have bin nam'd were approv'd of God to be very good lonelines is the first thing which Gods eye nam'd not good whether it be a thing or the want of somthing I labour not let it be their tendance who have the art to be industriously idle And heer alone is meant alone without woman otherwise Adam had the company of God himself and Angels to convers with all creatures to delight him seriously or to make him sport God

could have created him out of the same mould a thousand friends and brother Adams to have bin his consorts yet for all this till Eve was giv'n him God reckn'd him to be alone It is not good God heer presents himself like to a man deliberating both to shew us that the matter is of high consequence and that he intended to found it according to naturall reason not impulsive command but that the duty should arise from the reason of it not the reason be swallow'd up in a reasonlesse duty Not good was as much to Adam before his fall as not pleasing not expedient but since the comming of sin into the world to him who hath not receiv'd the continence it is not only not expedient to be alone but plainly sinfull And therefore he who wilfully abstains from mariage not being supernaturally gifted and he who by making the yoke of mariage unjust and intolerable causes men to abhorr it are both in a diabolicall sin equall to that of Antichrist who forbids to marry For what difference at all whether he abstain men from marying or restrain them in a mariage hapning totally discommodious distastfull dishonest and pernicious to him without the appearance of his fault For God does not heer precisely say I make a female to this male as he did briefly before but expounding himselfe heer on purpos he saith because it is not good for man to be alone I make him therefore a meet help God supplies the privation of not good with the perfect gift of a reall and positive good it is mans pervers cooking who hath turn'd this bounty of God into a Scorpion either by weak and shallow constructions or by proud arrogance and cruelty to them who neither in their purposes nor in their actions have offended against the due honour of wedlock Now whereas the Apostle speaking in the Spirit 1 Cor. 7. pronounces quite contrary to this word of God It is good for a man not to touch a woman and God cannot contradict himself it instructs us that his commands and words especially such as bear the manifest title of som good to man are not to be so strictly wrung as to command without regard to the most naturall and miserable necessities of mankind Therefore the Apostle adds a limitation in the 26 v. of that chap. for the present necessity it is good which he gives us doubtlesse as a pattern how to reconcile other places by the generall rule of charity For man to be alone Som would have the sense heerof to be in respect of procreation only and Austin contests that manly friendship in all other regards had bin a more becomming solace for Adam then to spend so many secret years in an empty world with one woman But our Writers deservedly reject this crabbed opinion and defend that there is a peculiar comfort in the maried state besides the genial bed which no other society affords No mortall nature can endure either in the actions of Religion or study of wisdome without somtime slackning the cords of intense thought and labour which lest we should think faulty God himself conceals us not his own recreations before the world was built I was saith the eternall wisdome dayly his delight playing alwayes before him And to him indeed wisdom is as a high towr of pleasure but to us a steep hill and we toyling ever about the bottom he executes with ease the exploits of his omnipotence as easie as with us it is to will but no worthy enterprise can be don by us without continuall plodding and wearisomnes to our faint and sensitive abilities We cannot therefore alwayes be contemplative or pragmaticall abroad but have need of som delightfull intermissions wherin the enlarg'd soul may leav off a while her severe schooling and like a glad youth in wandring vacancy may keep her hollidaies to joy and harmles pastime which as she cannot well doe without company so in no company so well as where the different sexe in most resembling unlikenes and most unlike resemblance cannot but please best and be pleas'd in the aptitude of that variety Wherof lest we should be too timorous in the aw that our flat sages would form us and dresse us wisest Salomon among his gravest Proverbs countenances a kinde of ravishment and erring fondnes in the entertainment of wedded leisures and in the Song of Songs which is generally beleev'd even in the jolliest expressions to figure the spousals of the Church with Christ sings of a thousand raptures between those two lovely ones farre on the hither side of carnall enjoyment By these instances and more which might be brought we may imagine how indulgently God provided against mans lonelines that he approv'd it not as by himself declar'd not good that he approv'd the remedy therof as of his own ordaining consequently good and as he ordain'd it so doubtles proportionably to our fal n estate he gives it els were his ordinance at least in vain and we for all his gift still empty handed Nay such an unbounteous giver we should make him as in the fables Jupiter was to Ixion giving him a cloud instead of Juno giving him a monstrous issue by her the breed of Centaures a neglected and unlov'd race the fruits of a delufive mariage and lastly giving him her with a damnation to that wheele in hell from a life thrown into the midst of temptations and disorders But God is no deceitfull giver to bestow that on us for a remedy of lonelines which if it bring not a sociable minde as well as a conjunctive body leavs us no lesse alone then before and if it bring a minde perpetually avers and disagreeable betraies us to a wors condition then the most deserted lonelines God cannot in the justice of his own promise and institution so unexpectedly mock us by forcing that upon us as the remedy of solitude which wraps us in a misery worse then any wildernes as the Spirit of God himself judges Prov. 19. especially knowing that the best and wisest men amidst the sincere and most cordiall designes of their heart doe dayly erre in choosing We may conclude therfore seeing orthodoxall Expositers confesse to our hands that by lonelines is not only meant the want of copulation and that man is not lesse alone by turning in a body to him unlesse there be within it a minde answerable that it is a work more worthy the care and consultation of God to provide for the worthiest part of man which is his minde and not unnaturally to set it beneath the formalities and respects of the body to make it a servant of its owne vassal I say we may conclude that such a mariage wherin the minde is so disgrac't and vilify'd below the bodies interest and can have no just or tolerable contentment is not of Gods institution and therfore no mariage Nay in concluding this I say we conclude no more then what the common Expositers themselves give us both in that

any one grossly erroneous or profane may be referr'd hither For St. Paul seaves us heer the solution not of this case only which little concernes us but of such like cases which may occurr to us For where the reasons directly square who can forbid why the verdit should not be the same But this the common writers allow us not And yet from this text which in plaine words gives liberty to none unlesse deserted by an infidel they collect the same freedom though the desertion bee not for religion which as I conceive they neede not doe but may without straining reduce it to the cause of fornication For first they confesse that desertion is seldome without a just suspition of adultery next it is a breach of mariage in the same kind and in some sort worse for adultery though it give to another yet it bereaves not al but the deserter wholly denies all right and makes one flesh twain which is counted the absolutest breach of matrimony and causes the other as much as in him lies to commit sin by being so left Neverthelesse those reasons which they bring of establishing by this place the like liberty from any desertion are faire and solid and if the thing be lawfull and can be prov'd so more waies then one so much the safer Their arguments I shall heer recite and that they may not com idle shall use them to make good the like freedome to divorce for other causes and that we are no more under bondage to any hainous default against the main ends of matrimony then to a desertion First they allege that to Tim. 1. 5. 8. If any provide not for those of his own house hee hath deny'd the faith and is worse then an Infidel But a deserter say they can have no care of them who are most his owne therefore the deserted party is not lesse to bee righted against such a one then against an infidel With the same evidence I argue that man or wife who hates in wedloc is perpetually unsociable unpeacefull or unduteous either not being able or not willing to performe what the maine ends of mariage demand in helpe and solace cannot bee said to care for who shou'd bee dearest in the house therefore is worse then an infidel in both regards either in undertaking a duty which he cannot performe to the undeserved and unspeakable injury of the other party so defrauded and betrai'd or not performing what he hath undertaken whenas he may or might have to the perjury of himselfe more irreligious then heathenisme The blamelesse person therefore hath as good a plea to sue out his delivery from this bondage as from the desertion of an infidel Since most writers cannot but grant that desertion is not only a local absence but an intolerable society or if they grant it not the reasons of Saint Paul grant it with all as much leave as they grant to enlarge a particular freedom from paganisme into a general freedom from any desertion Secondly they reafon from the likenes of either fact the same losse redounds to the deserted by a christian as by an infidel the same peril of temptation And I in like manner affirme that if honest and free persons may be allow'd to know what is most to their owne losse the same losse and discontent but worse disquiet with continuall misery and temptation resides in the company or better call'd the persecution of an unfit or an unpeaceable consort then by his desertion For then the deserted may enjoy himselfe at least And he who deserts is more favourable to the party whom his presence afflicts then that importunat thing which is and will be ever conversant before the eyes a loyal and individual vexation As for those who still rudely urge it no loss to mariage no desertion so long as the flesh is present and offers a benevolence that hates or is justly hated I am not of that vulgar and low perswasion to thinke such forc'd embracements as these worth the honour or the humanity of mariage but farre beneath the soul of a rational and freeborne man Thirdly they say it is not the infidelity of the deserter but the desertion of the infidel from which the Apostle gives this freedom and I joyne that the Apostle could as little require our subjection to an unfit and injurious bondage present as to an infidel absent To free us from that which is an evil by being distant and not from that which is an inmate and in the bosome evil argues an improvident and careles deliverer And thus all occasions which way so ever they turn are not unofficious to administer somthing which may conduce to explain or to defend the assertion of this book touching divorce I complain of nothing but that it is indeed too copious to be the matter of a dispute or a defence rather to be yeelded as in the best ages a thing of common reason not of controversie What have I left to say I fear to be more elaborat in such a perspicuity as this lest I should seem not to teach but to upbraid the dulnes of an age not to commun with reason in men but to deplore the loss of reason from among men this only and not the want of more to say is the limit of my discours Who among the sathers have interpreted the words of Christ concerning divorce as is heer interpreted and what the civil law of Christian Emperors in the primitive Church determi'nd Although testimony be in Logic an argument rightly call'd inartificial doth not solidly fetch the truth by multiplicity of Authors nor argue a thing false by the few that hold so yet seeing most men from their youth so accustom as not to scanne reason nor cleerly to apprehend it but to trust for that the names and numbers of such as have got and many times undeservedly the reputation among them to know much and because there is a vulgar also of teachers who are as blindly by whom they fancy led as they lead the people it will not be amiss for them who had rather list themselves under this weaker sort and follow authorities to take notice that this opinion which I bring hath bin favour'd and by som of those affirm'd who in their time were able to carry what they taught had they urg'd it through all Christendom or to have left it such a credit with all good men as they who could not bouldly use the opinion would have fear'd to censure it But since by his appointment on whom the times and seasons wait every point of doctrin is not fatall to be throughly sifted out in every age it will be anough for me to find that the thoughts of wisest heads heertofore and hearts no less reverenc't for devotion have tended this way and contributed their lot in some good measure towards this which hath bin heer attain'd Others of them and modern especially have bin as full in the assertion though not so full in