Selected quad for the lemma: lord_n
Text snippets containing the quad
|
ID |
Title |
Author |
Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication) |
STC |
Words |
Pages |
|
A44074
|
A treatise of marriage with a defence of the 32th article of religion of the Church of England : viz. bishops, priests and deacons are not commanded by God's law either to vow the state of single life, or to abstain from marriage : therefore it is lawful for them, as for all other men, to marry at their own discretion, as they shall judge the same to serve better to godliness.
|
Hodges, Thomas, d. 1688.
|
1673
(1673)
|
Wing H2324; ESTC R28670
|
53,897
|
120
|
which every Christian whether married or single is bound to offer up unto God daily As for holiness Matrimony is not inconsistent with holiness witness Abraham Isaac and Jacob Aaron the servant of the Lord and Enoch that walked with God and yet did not forsake his wife and children and 't is observable that the Bosom of Abraham although a married person is used to set out Heaven by in the Scripture If Heaven had been set out by the Bosom of any Saint in Heaven that had always led a single life on earth what triumphs would Rome have made on that occasion And whereas 't is said Rev. 14.4 Those that follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth these are they which are not defiled with women for they are Virgins Certainly Christ is followed whithersoever he goeth not only by the blessed Saints that have led a single life but also by married persons as Patriarchs Apostles Martyrs and innumerable others as the Scripture speaketh 2 Cor. 5.6 1 Thess 4.17 And the Apostle speaks of all kind of true Believers 2 Cor. 11.2 These are bought from among men to be first-fruits unto God and the Lamb these are dedicated as first-fruits used to be unto God They are called 't is thought Virgins because they adhered to Christ when the Whore of Babylon had made all the Kings and Nations of the earth drunk with the cup of her fornication It is conceived this place may have reference to those Israelites that were inticed to Idolatry by the Midianitish women and 't is frequent in Scripture to call or compare Idolatry to Adultery or Fornication because God's people are betrothed and married unto him he is their Husband and they his Spouse and when they go after Idols they are said to give God a Bill of divorce and to go a whoring after other gods Or as Dr. Hamond on the place These are they which had kept pure from all the heretical Gnostick corruptions of uncleanness Where there is neither spiritual nor carnal Fornication or Adultery there is no defiling with women for the marriage-bed in Scripture-Dialect is the bed undefiled and to the pure all things are pure The unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband and therefore are their children holy If marriage was filthiness or uncleanness or a vice or that married persons could not please God doubtless the H. Ghost would never have said Marriage is honorable amongst all and therefore amongst Clergy men nor would our blessed Saviour have been born of a Mother though a Virgin yet espoused and married to a husband namely to Joseph Marriage one saith fills earth and Virginity heaven but if there were no Saints in earth how should there be any in heaven if earth were empty how could heaven be full of Saints He did not commend his Sex that said a woman was a necessary evil for how evil then must man be deemed for whom such an evil is necessary and I take him to be a fool as well as mad that being asked whether he was married he answered He was never so mad yet for I dare say there are more made sober than mad by marriage I presume that Hypochondriacal Melancholy a species of madness doth more seise and distract single than married married persons And confident I am as one saith that the Patriarchs did converse with many wives more chastely than many do now adays with one so that many live now more holily and chastely in Wedlock than others in their Cloysters and Cells And if when a voyce from heaven calls to single persons whether man or woman whether Ecclesiastical or Temporal persons Let every man have his own wife c. Let them not say or reply I do not meddle with any state that is common or unclean If they should I reply to them again What God hath cleansed or rather always accounted a pure holy and undefiled estate that call not thou common or unclean CHAP. III. Qualifications requisite in them that marry AS for the Qualifications of a Husband or Wife I would advise all to look at true Religion in the first place that those that marry may be said to marry in the Lord. If I mistake not this was that King James advised Prince Henry unto v. B.Δ. 2 b.p. 72. c. When Solomon married the Daughters of a strange god then he fell to tolerate if not to worship their Idols Next to Religion I should commend a Suitable Disposition and a Conformity in Manners that man and wife may delight in the society and converse one of another And as I would not have a man or woman marry meerly o◠chiefly by their eyes or fancies so neither would I advise a marriage betwixt those that have an aversness or antipathy at first sight each to other I would have a natural free and unenforced affection before marriage When there is no other affection 'twixt parties than what is the fruit of Ratiocination or Syllogisms I would never perswade a marriage Syllogistical love such as is raised thus Every man must love his wife But this woman is my wife Therefore I ought to love her And so on the part of the woman in reference to her husband Every woman must love her own husband This man is my husband Therefore I must love him I say this love goes so far about that it is like to be long before it bring home affections Nature is always at hand and natural affections are up at first view but Reason Religion and Grace too are sometimes to seek or held off at distance by Passion 'T is true notwithstanding that those that match meerly by the eye many times meet with their match an eye-sore or a very thorn in their eye and that beauty which was a Loadstone to attract their love proves a snare to others and a torment to themselves whilst it draws others eyes to the same object and occasions jealousie And if neither of these happen as oftentimes both do yet a disease a sickness or at least old age changes the beautiful 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 into a Chaos and the most lovely countenance into an object in which thou wilt say I have no pleasure Next let me advise you not to marry by the ear not for honor or great parentage and noble Titles for these without virtue and money are of small value an empty sound a tinkling cymbal yea more discord than harmony for the most part in such matches and hence ordinarily is the worst sort of marriage-musick Imparity in birth and parentage makes odds where all should be even the one oft lords it in this case and the other is but a servant and a servant to to their fellow yoke-fellow a servant underling to all their high kindred and often despised by their own servants 'T is in such families oft as 't is in the Family of Hawks the males are the underlings and the females have the respect the glory
yet may they see God notwithstanding the opinion of the Father that Duras Infantum Pater and not withstanding the hard-heartedness of the pretended Mother-Church of Rome in this a Step-Mother rather than a true Mother to her Children The Hebrew Children that dyed before the eighth day and consequently before they were circumcised and those Bethlemitish Children that were baptized in their own blood and that child that being born was also baptized and buried in the flames being thrown into the fire again the arms of that Midwife that delivered the Martyred Mother of a live child doubtless were not excluded Heaven for want of a Sacrament which they did in no wise neglect or contemn but could not have these being comprehended in the Covenant made and sealed to and with their Parents had a right and title to the heavenly inheritance were of with God and co-heirs with Christ Again consider That God may have taken away your Children from the evil to come on the place where they lived When Storms Tempests and Troubles are abroad you Parents call home your Children and so doth God God saith by his Providence in these cases to his Children though your Children also Come my Children enter into your Chambers and shut the door till all these calamities be overpast 'T is a common saying Quem diligit Dous moritur Juvenis he whom God loves dyes young and sometime and in some cases God calls the sins of Parents to remembrance and slays their Children If so it be this is a Lamentation and ought to be for a lamentation But upon your Repentance God may give other Children in room of them he hath taken from you or himself be better than ten Sons than all Sons and Daughters could be unto you Learn of Aaron the Priest of the Lord who when he had lost Nadab and Abihu both in one day and after an extraordinary manner did not say If it be so why is it thus but saith the Text And Aaron held his peace Levit. 10.3 he was dumb and opened not his mouth because God had done it Jonah was angry because God had smitten and withered the Goard that came up in a night and perished in a night but Aaron acquiesced in Gods handy-work though he slew his two Sons by fire in an extraordinary manner in all this Aaron sinned not nor charged God foolishly Behold he taketh away who can hinder him Who will say unto him what dost thou If thou art either barren or by the death of thy child childless thou mayest do well to educate others Children you may adopt some Kinsman or Friend or Neighbours Child and cultivate them and sow the seeds of Virtue and Learning in them and make such your heirs else make the Church or Poor your heirs and do not prodigally therefore waste your Estates or live idly and wastefully Again If you have no Child be humbled under the want of this blessing for Children are so and then encrease and abound more in your Devotions towards God the less you are to care for the things of the world the more reason you have and the more care you should have how to serve and please God 1 Cor. 7. CHAP. VII Of Parents that have bad Children IF Parents have Children and they prove crosses to them how great is that cross If blessings prove curses if comforts turn to sorrows and your light be darkned in the Heavens thereof how great is that darkness And yet this may be the case of a good man or woman for Parents are Parents as men and women and not as Christians and Grace and Virtue is not Ex traducè is not propagated A righteous Noah had a prophane Cham a good David a rebellious Son Absolom Of some Children we may say Blessed is the womb that bare them and the paps that gave them suck of others It had been good for them and for their Parents too if such children had never been born 'T is more tolerable to have none than wicked Children It is the Speech and Protestation of King James in his Preface to his Book to the Prince I protest before that great God I had rather not be a Father and Childless than be a Father of wicked Children I charge you saith he as ever you think to deserve my fatherly blessing to follow and put in practise so far as lieth in you the Precepts hereafter following And if ye follow the contrary course I take the great God to record that this Book shall one day be a witness betwixt me and you and shall procure to be ratified in Heaven the Curse that in that case here I give unto you And I find in the life of Reverend Mr. Robert Bolton that he had told his Children so much both in the time of his sickness and before he verily believed that none of them durst think to meet him at that great Tribunal in an unregenerate estate I confess 't is a sad Meditation for a Parent to think of the life or death of a wicked Child David that was presently comforted for the death of the young Child he had by Bathsheba refused to be comforted for the death of Absolom sorely lamenting Oh Absosom my Son my Son I would to God I had dyed for thee Oh Absolom my Son my Son 2 Sam. 18.33 It is thought it was for the manner of his death the ill condition he dyed in and for his Soul that he pierced his heart so deeply and that he wept so sorely Let good Parents that have bad Children give them good counsel and good example and pray daily with all earnestness for the return of their Prodigals St. Austins Mother Monica her Prayers for her Son when a Manichee were heard at last and he was converted and became one of the greatest and best Lights of the Church since the Apostles times 'T is thought one cause why Hezekiah wept so sore at the tidings of death was because he was then Childless but could the Prophet have told him that he should have such a Son as Manasseth that should commit such abominations how needs must such tidings have made his ears to tingle and pierce his heart thorough with many sorrows Yet this may somewhat alleviate Parents grief that have bad Children Manasseth when he was in Chains sought the Lord and was found of him at the last and that out of his loyns by his Son Amon came the Mirror of Kings King Josiah And if thou hast matter of sorrow from thy own immediate Child thou mayest have abundant cause of rejoycing from thy Grandchild thy Childrens Children may praise the Lord and this may be part of thy happiness thus to see thy Childrens Children and peace upon Israel And sith so it is that sometimes godly Parents have ungodly Children this should moderate your desire of Children and your grief for the want of them Let none be so impatient or passionate as Rachel saying to God or their own Husbands Give me Children or