Selected quad for the lemma: opinion_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
opinion_n	world_n	writer_n	year_n	133	4	4.6829	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

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