Selected quad for the lemma: duty_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
duty_n	bind_v	law_n	obey_v	1,316	5	7.9228	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A41792	Truth and peace, or, The last and most friendly debate concerning infant-baptism being a brief answer to a late book intituled, The case of infant-baptism (written by a doctor of the Church of England) ... whereunto is annexed a brief discourse of the sign of the cross in baptism, and of the use of the ring, and bowing at the altar, in the solemnization of marriage / by Thomas Grantham.	Grantham, Thomas, 1634-1692.	1689 (1689)	Wing G1550; ESTC R41720	89,378	100

Adam and Eve. Ergo The Father or those who have right to dispose of the Parties to be married may lawfully celebrate the Marriage and pray for a special Benediction see 1 Cor. 7. 38. And for this we have some light from the Word of God in other places as has been shewed but that God's Ministers were either in the time of the Law or of the Gospel concern'd as God's Ministers to celebrate Marriages does not appear from any hint in the Word of God. And certainly had the Apostle been of this Bishop's mind he would have given us Direction either by his own Practice or some other way touching this matter but that any of the Apostles ever married any body will never be proved And though Jesus was at a Wedding and wrought a Miracle there John 2. yet neither he nor any of his Disciples did celebrate the Marriage and then why may we not in reason think Marriage may be lawfully celebrated without a Priest We may be sure that those who called Christ and his Disciples to this Marriage were such as had a love to him and being in Galilee the place where he had been conversant and where also his manner was to perform publick Ministerial Acts Luke 4. 14 16. the Persons to be married or their Relations would as soon have desired his Assistance in the Celebration of their Marriage as any other Minister but the Truth is neither he nor any of the Priests were imploied in that matter that we read of And hence we may well conclude there can be no necessity to have Marriage celebrated with a Priest and then it may lawfully be done without them And though we grant a Minister may be as fit and perhaps more fit than another Christian to give good Counsel to and pray for the new-married Couple yet it is apparent the Text which the Bishop seems to alledg to that purpose intends no such thing at all as the place being read will fully demonstrate 1 Cor. 7. 39. The Wife is bound by the Law as long as her Husband liveth but if her Husband be dead she is at Liberty to be married to whom she will only in the Lord. Now the Bishop infers thus If all our Marriages must be according to the Apostle's charge made in the Lord who so meet to pronounce God's Ratification of our Marriages as he who is the profest Herald of the Almighty But the Apostle does not at all speak of the Person that must celebrate Marriage but of the Person with whom a Christian may lawfully marry as Diodate and others do fitly expound the place And though we yield willingly that a Man of God is a fit Person to declare God's Will and Authority in the Ratification of our Marriages yet it follows not at all that none but a Man of God may be fit to do this or that none may lawfully do it but a Herald of the Almighty But what needs many words The Bishop answers the Question where he tells us that though the Papists make it absolutely necessary to have a Minister's hand in the act of Marriage yet the Protestants set it a Key lower and confesses that it admits of too much question whether we need to stand upon the terms of a Minister's Agency in the Performance of that solemn Action So then this solemn Action of Marriage may be done without a Minister's Agency therefore there may be lawful Marriages without God's Ministers this being granted we acknowledg it very commendable to have them present if they may be obtained But now it would be considered whether the Persons to be married may not lawfully be satisfied that the Person whom they imploy in the Celebration of their Marriage is in their Judgment a lawful Minister or Man of God supposing it necessary to have such a Man to do the Business This seems rational and if so I doubt there will be a great difficulty in the case And to be plain though we could admit very willingly of the Prayer of a sober and pious Minister of the Church of England in the Business of our Nuptials Yet when we are required to kneel before one whom we know to be a wicked drunken Person c. how should we act Faith in his Prayer when God himself tells us The Prayers of the Wicked are an Abomination to him We may not safely conform to such things though the Laws of Men do require it And indeed the Bishop seems to favour us in such a strait as this for he saith The Laws of Men do not ought not cannot bind your Consciences as of themselves but if they be just they bind you in Conscience to Obedience Now to this we do most heartily subscribe only desiring we may have leave to consider what is just or unjust in this case and then we doubt not of our Duty to obey actively what the Law justly requires or else to suffer patiently what it imposes Now though we can find no ground to believe that to celebrate Marriage is a ministerial act though a Minister may do it yet we do not refuse the Ministers of the Church of England because such but because they will not ratify our Contracts unless we conform to such things as seem to us to be sinful as we shall shew in the next Section And if it were a work peculiar to God's Ministers our Straits in coming to the Priests would be greater than they are because we know God does not allow wicked Men to take his Word into their Mouths specially when they hate to be reformed Psal 50. 16. And besides we believe and know we have of those that more fully agree with us in matters of Religion that are Ministers of Christ And therefore were Marriage in the Celebration of it a Ministerial Work we should not fail to have it rightly done by them but this is not our Perswasion though we think as reverently of this Ordinance as any yet we believe it most fit to be testified before those who are appointed by the Laws of the Land and therefore do what with a good Conscience we can to have it so but being rejected as we have shewed we know our Marriages are not therefore null because we have all that is essential to lawful Marriage both in the Eye of the Law of God and the Law of the Land also For the first this Learned Prelate does not deny whilst he makes not a Minister absolutely necessary to the Celebration of Marriage And the Learned Judg Hale grants the second that our Marriages ought to have their Effects in Law. And Durand a Man well skill'd in the Roman Constitutions tells us There is no holy Sign nor no Minister necessary in Matrimony c. as we have shewed And besides this it is fully shewed by this learned Bishop that many Christians in all Ages have done and may lawfully do some things tho they be Lay-men which are most fitly to be done by such as have a