Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	apostle_n	church_n	holy_a	989	5	4.8664	4	false

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A28570	A just and seasonable reprehension of naked breasts and shoulders written by a grave and learned papist ; translated by Edward Cooke, Esquire ; with a preface by Mr. Richard Baxter.; De l'abus des nudités de gorge. English	Boileau, Jacques, 1635-1716.; Cooke, Edward, fl. 1678.	1678 (1678)	Wing B3463A; ESTC R18399	51,556	182

irritated God's wrath And who knows if God at last being wearied with seeing for so long a time the Christian Maids and Women who are a shame and scandal to their Religion by their nakedness and who do labour to renew a piece of Idolatry in geting to themselves Adorets and in shewing themselves in the Temples and places of worship adorn'd and naked just as Idols who knows I say if God being weary with all these disorders will not convert his patience into fury and if after he hath pardoned even to this present time those who have committed them he will not sacrifice to his Justice those who go on to commit them further XI WELL then once more I say it is in vain that those Maids and Women who make a profession of Christianity alledge as an excuse for their nakedness the Example and Custom of many Ages If they think the Authority of Custom can justify them they must then confess in spight of all resistance that the Authority of Custom can condemn them and upon this foundation it is easie to confound them and to convince them of Errour They alledge a criminal custom there is opposite to it a holy custom They alledge a custom which is repugnant to the Maximes of our faith the opposite to it is a Custom conformable to the precepts of Jesus Christ They alledge a Custom which the worldly and licentious Women have practis'd according to the Examples of Idolaters The opposite to it is a Custom which the true Christians have always follow'd to distinguish them from Idolaters Since that they will regulate themselves upon Custom they must of necessity choose one of the two and by their Choice they range themselves either on the side of Heathen Women and those that are past all sense of shame and modesty who have approved of the use of naked Necks and Shoulders or else on the side of Christian and modest women who have allways had a horror to appear half naked Alas will not they be asham'd to let all the world know that they have no respect for a Custom but when it is an ingagement to a Crime and that they do disapprove it when it does set us at a distance from vice and leads us on to piety XII The second Excuse THEY say for a second Excuse that it is not expressly forbid in Scripture to uncover ones neck and therefore they don't think they do amiss in going so We must confess that lust is very industrious as ignorant and as blind as it is Sometimes it hinders us from knowing vertue in darkening to us the illuminations of reason and faith Sometimes it persuades us that vice is unknown to us although we have a perfect knowledge of it and making an equal use of those darknesses to conceal from us the good that we ought to do and the evil which we have done It makes us fall into Sin either by a gross ignorance or by an ignorance that is voluntary And to which of these two ignorances shall we impute or rather to which of them shall we not impute those Maids and Women who say that they do not believe they have done amiss in shewing their naked Necks so as they have done XIII ARE not they guilty of a gross and criminal ignorance if after all that the Ministers do continually preach in their Pulpits after all that the learned Doctors do teach in their books after all that the Confessors say in their tribunals after what they have promised in their baptism after what Jesus Christ and the Apostles have commanded them and after what the Church hath prescribed them they do not know that it is their duty to be and appear chast and to justify the Innocence of their manners by an Exteriour modesty are not they guilty of an affected ignorance which is without doubt the fatallest of all ignorances if to the prejudice of the promise they have made to God in their Baptism and knowing that Jesus Christ the Apostles the Church the Ministers the Confessors the Doctors and generally all persons of Piety do condemn this nakedness they imagine themselves to be able without a crime to approve of them by their deportments and by their conduct XIV WHEN the holy Scripture teaches them that the first Woman as Criminal as she was was asham'd to see her self naked does not she teach them that they cannot be innocent and take a pride in making themselves to appear in such a naked and indecent posture when the Scripture proposes to us a worldly Woman who goes with uncovered breasts as the model of Sinners does not she reproach them for the sin they commit in showing their snowy and mountainous hills to all spectators when the Scripture commands Maids and Women to cover their heads and faces with a veil does it not then by an argument à fortiori command them to hide their Necks and their Shoulders In a word when the Scripture exhorts them to be modest and adorned with shame rather than with gold and pearl and pretious stones does it not point out to them that they ought no less to avoid immodesty than impurity and by consequence that they ought carefully to avoid going with naked Necks and Shoulders which is no less an effect of impurity than of immodesty how can they then without abusing themselves and putting a vile cheat upon their reason and their senses excuse the abuse of nakedness under pretence that it is not expressly forbid by the holy Scripture XV. BUT also how can they say without belying themselves that they do not believe they do ill in discovering one part of their bodies since that the attractions of Grace which they resent the rules of their faith which they know the Maximes of their Religion which they are not ignorant of and the movements of nature it self the secret impressions of which they are sensible of in spight of themselves do reproach them for their doing ill They have enough to do to indeavour to stifle the voice of their Conscience it will continually tell them that modesty and bashfulness are the natural appavage and portion of Women that they betray the interests and the glory of their sex when they suffer themselves to be seen with their bodies half naked that all Women are as to this regard naturally Christians and that they ought to do some violence to the instinct and inclination to hide their breasts which nature inspires them with to follow the irregularity of the mode which sollicites and stirrs them up to uncover them XVI THE world it self to which they would be conformed contributes to convince them of their evil faith and to make them see that they do know the evil which they commit for it is certain that the cajoling complaisance and gallantry wherein consists the most innocent Air and Spirit of that which they call the world and the age it is certain I say that the most innocent cajoling complaisance and

Womens apparel THE Vicars General of the Arch-Bishoprick of Tholouse the See being vacant to all those whom these presents shall come greeting Among all the irregularities and abuses whereby the evil Spirit hath indeavoured in the first Ages of the Church to corrupt the purity of the customs of the faithful there hath been none against which the holy Fathers have exercised their Eloquence and spoken with so much heat and vigour as against the vain Ornaments and indecent dresses of Maids and Women Those very same irregularities have descended to us and as if the succession had purchased them a right and priviledge to shew themselves they appear with an Audaciousness as is only belonging to ancient crimes We still behold Christian Maids and Women who forgetting the Renuntiation they have made in their Baptism before the face of the Church of all the pomps and vanities of Satan and violating all the Laws of Modesty do employ their whole address and time to bedeck their heads with borrowed hair and sollicitously to be laying snares by the nakedness of their Arms and Necks to catch and ruin those Souls which Jesus Christ hath redeemed by his blood We see them with an excess of Luxury and with an immodesty we would condemn even in Heathens to appear in publick after so scandalous and shameless a manner that to Judge of their Intentions by the Liberty of their wanton and languishing Regards by the form and dress of their habits and by all those other vain and bewitching braveries we cannot refrain but we must judge them criminal since that according to the opinion of one of the Fathers of the Church they are as so many fatal swords that give a spiritual death to the Souls of Libertines who are smitten and wounded by their Eyes and who become the miserable victimes of defilement and uncleanness As this Spirit accompanies them every where they are not contented according to the Language of a Prophet to lift up the Ensign of their prostitutions in the streets in the walks and in other publick places but they likewise come by an insupportable temerity and blindness to brave even Jesus Christ at the feet of his Altars and to violate as it were the immunity of Churches darting by the nakedness of their Arms and Necks the fire of an impure Love into the hearts of the faithful who are retired there as into a Sanctuary consecrated to prayer and holiness THOSE very Tribunals of penance which ought to be wet with their tears and the holy Table where the food of Angels ought not to be distributed but to those that are cloathed with the nuptial Robes of Innocence and Humility are shamelessly profaned by those pompous gayeties of the Devil And by the world's Liveries which they make to triumph over Christian modesty ALL these disorders which are but too publick joyned to the voice of Ministers whose complaints are great and loud to us not suffering us any longer to remain in silence we have judg'd it fit and to be our Duty to stop an evil which every day grows and gets new ground among us FOR these causes therefore and to keep from this Diocess the punishments with which the Justice of God does commonly chastise publick Scandals and the propharation of holy things we injoyn all Secular and Regular Confessors upon pain of suspension to deny the Sacraments to those who come thither with their naked Necks and Arms and Shoulders and whose nakedness shall not be modestly conceal'd by such scarfes or other dresses that are not to be seen through of which nakedness of arms or neck or shoulders as of a publick Sin and Scandal we reserve to our particular selves the Absolution as to those who after this Order shall continue in so damnable a custom as that is WE forbid likewise both maids and women of all conditions upon pain of Excommunication to come into the Churches and to present themselves at the Sacraments in that immodest and indecent habit to cause their gowns to be held up there and to place themselves among the Priests And because the Laws of Holy Church are so little observed and oftentimes prove ineffectual by reason of the stubbornness of her children most of whom are less touched with the motives of their duty than with the fear of temporal punishments we exhort and conjure by the mercy of God those to whom his Providence hath committed the soveraign Authority of Justice for exteriour Discipline to renew the force and efficacy of those Decrees which their zeal and piety have oftentimes caused them to make upon the like occasions for the better observance of the Orders of the Church that so not only the material Temples may not be prophaned by those indications of Luxury and Vanity but also that the living Temples of the Holy-Ghost may be edified in every place by the example of a truly Christian modesty and humility WE further Order all the Curates and Ecclesiastical superiours of the Secular and Regular houses of the City and Diocess to be strict in their Churches and careful to put in execution this our present Order by such ways and means as they shall judge most convenient AND lastly we enjoyn the Procurer Fiscal to publish this our present Order at all the Parish-Churches of our Town and Diocess during the three Sundays preceeding the Feast of Easter and to make a speedy distribution of Copies to the Superiours of the Secular and Regular Houses of the Diocess Given at Tholouse the 13 day of March 1670. Sign'd CIRON vicar General DU FOUR Vicar General DE LA FONT Vicar General DESTOPINYA Vicar General By the Command of the said Vicar Generals BAUVESTRE Secretary FINIS ERRATA PAg. 3. l. 6. ses r. houses p. 30. l. 9. immodesty r. modesty p. 33. l. 15. their r. the. p. 40. l. 20. not too much p. 58. l. 5. she r. she not p. 81. l. 11. Appavage r. Appanage p. 83. l. 4. were r. where p. 84. l. 4. rather r. rather to p. 85. l. 3. happens r. happen p. 92. l. 15. more r. the more p. 105. l. 9. them r. themselves p. 117. l. 10. been too much p. 144. l. 15. fecility r. facility Ecclesiasticus 26. 15. Gratia super gratiam mulier sancta pudorata 1 Tim. 2. 9. Similiter mulieres in habitu ornato cum verecundia sobrietate ornantes se non in tortis crinibus aut auro aut margaritis vel veste pretiosa sed quod decet mulieres promittentes pietatem per opera bona Chrysos in cap. 2. 1. ad tim Ezek. 16. 33. Omnibus meretricibus dantur mercedes tu autem dedisti mercedes cunctis amatoribus tuis c. Psalm 68. Zelus domus tuae comedit me Jerem. 9. 21. Ascendit mors per fenestras nostras thr 3. Oculus meus depraedatus est animam meam Job 31. 1. Pepigi foedus cum oculis meis ut ne cogitarem qui dem de virgine quam enim