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	husband_n	wife_n	2,839	5	7.4256	4	true

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