God's ordinances and men's lawes: and therefore Cyprian Epist. 8. boldly denounceth, impium est; adulterum est, sacrilegum est, quodcunque humano furore statuitur, ut dispositio divina violetur, it is abominable, impious, adulterous, and sacrilegious, what men make and ordaine after their own furies to cross God's lawes. * Georgius Wicelius one of their owne arch Divines (Inspect. eccles. pag. 18.) exclaimes against it, and all such rash monasticall vowes, and would have such persons seriously to consider what they do, whom they admit, ne in posterum querantur de inanibus stupris, lest they repent it at last. For either, as he follows it †, you must allow them Concubines or suffer them to marry, for scarce shall you finde three Priests of three thousand, qui per ætatem non ament, that are not troubled with burning lust. Wherefore I conclude, It is an unnatural and impious thing to bar men of this Christian liberty, too severe and inhumane an edict. • The silly Wren, the Titmouse also, But man alone, alas the hard stond, Many Laymen repine still at Priests' marriages above the rest, and not at Cleargy men only, but of all the meaner sort and condition, they would have none marry but such as are rich and able to maintain wives, because their parish belike shall be pestered with Orphanes, and the world full of beggers: but Pthese are hard-hearted, unnatural, monsters of men, shallow polititians, they do not consider that a great part of the world is not yet inhabited as it ought, how many Colonies into Ame * Epist. 30. +Vide vitam ejus edit. 1693. by D. T. James. • Lid, gate in Chaucer's flower of cur esie. 'Tis not mult tude but idlenesse which causeth beggery. 4 Or to set them awork, and bring them up in some honest trades. rica, Terra Australis incognita, Africa, may be sent? Let them consult with Sir William Alexander's book of Colonies, Orpheus Junior's Golden fleece, Captaine Whitburne, Mr. Hagthorp, &c. and they shall surely be otherwise enformed. Those politique Romans were of another minde, they thought their City and Country could never be too populous. 'Adrian the Emperour said he had rather have men then money, malle se hominum adjectione ampliare imperium, quam pecuniá; Augustus Cæsar made an oration in Rome ad cælibes, to per swade them to mary, some countries compelled them to marry of old, as Jews, Turks, Indians, Chinese, amongst the rest in these daies, who much wonder at our discipline to suffer so many idle persons to live in Monasteries and often marvel how they can live honest. In the Isle of Maragnan, the Governor and petty King there did wonder at the Frenchmen, and admire how so many Friers, and the rest of their company could live without wives, they thought it a thing unpossible, and would not believe it. If these men should but survey our multitudes of religious houses, observe our numbers of Monasteries all over Europe, 18. Nunneries in Padua, in Venice 34 Cloisters of Monkes, 28. of Nunnes, &c. ex ungue leonem, 'tis to this proportion, in all other Provinces and Cities, what would they think, do they live honest? Let them dissemble as they will, I am of Tertullian's minde, that few can continue but by compulsion. "O chastity (saith he) thou art a rare Goddess in the world, not so easily got, seldom continuate: Thou maist now and then be compeld either for defect of nature, or if discipline perswade, decrees enforce :" or for some such byrespects, sullennesse, discontent, they have lost their first loves, may not have whom they will themselves, want of meanes, rash vowes, &c. But can he willingly containe? I thinke not. Therefore either out of commiseration of humane imbecillity, in policy, or to prevent a far worse inconvenience, for they hold some of them as necessary as meat and drink, and because vigour of youth, the state and temper of most men's. bodies do so furiously desire it, they have heretofore in some nations liberally admitted polygamy and stewes, an hundred thousand Curtisans in grand Cairo in Egypt, as + Radzivilus observes, are tolerated, besides boys: how many at Fessa, Rome, Naples, Florence, Venice, &c. and still in many other Provinces and Cities of Europe they do as much, because they think young men, Churchmen, and servants amongst the rest, can Dion. Cassius lib. 56. Sardus. Buxtorphius. Claude Albaville in his hist. of the Frenchmen to the Isle of Maragnan, An. 1614. * Rara quidem dea tu es O chastitas in his terris, nec facile perfecta, rarius perpetua, cogi nonnunquam potest, ob naturæ defectum, vel si disciplina pervaserit, censura compresserit. Peregrin. Hierosol. hardly hardly live honest. The consideration of this belike made Vibius the Spaniard, when his friend *Crassus, that rich Roman gallant, lay hid in the Cave, ut voluptatis quam retas illa desiderat copiam faceret, to gratify him the more, send two + lusty lasses to accompany him all that while he was there imprisoned. And Surenus the Parthian general, when he warred against the Romans, to carry about with him 200 Concubines, as the Swisse Souldiers do now commonly their wives. But because this course is not generally approved, but rather contradicted as unlawful and abhorred, in most countries they do much encourage them to marriage, give great rewards to such as have many children, and mulct those that will not marry, Jus trium liberorum, and in Agellius lib. 2. cap. 15. Elian. lib. 6. cap. 5. Valerius lib. 1. cap. 9. * We read that three children freed the father from painful offices, and five from all contribution. "A woman shall be saved by bearing children." Epictetus would have all marry, and as y Plato will, 6 de legibus, he that marrieth not before 35 years of his age, must be compelled and punished, and the mony consecrated to ‡ Juno's Temple, or applied to publique uses. They account him in some countries unfortunate that dies without a wife, a inost unhappy man as § Boetius inferres, and if at all happy, yet infortunio felix, unhappy in his supposed happiness. They They commonly deplore his estate, and much lament him for it: my sweet son, &c. See Lucian, de Luctu, Sands fol. 83, &c. X Yet notwithstanding many with us are of the opposite part, they are married themselves, and for others let them burne, fire and flame, they care not, so they be not troubled with them. Some are too curious, and some too covetous, they may marry when they will both for ability and meanes, but so nice, that except as Theophilus the Emperour was presented by his mother Euprosune, with all the rarest beauties of the Empire in the great Chamber of his Palace at once, and bid to give a golden apple to her he liked best. If they might so take and choose whom they list out of all the fair maids their nation affords, they could happily condescend to marry: otherwise, &c. why should a man marry, saith another Epicurean rout, what's matrimony but a matter of money? why should free nature be entrenched on, confined or obliged, to this or that man or woman, with these manicles of body and goods? &c. There are those too, that dearly love, admire & follow women, all their lives long, sponsi Penelopes, never well but in their * Plutarch. vita ejus, adolescentiæ medio constitutus. egregia forma & ætatis flore. "Alex. ab. Alex. 1. 4. c. 8. trem ab excubiis, quinq; ab omnibus officiis liberabanto. cogatur nubere aut mulctetur & pecunia templo Junonis fiat. + Consol. 3. pros. 7. Nic, Hill. Epic. philos. +Ancillas duas * Tres fili pay Præcepto primo, dedicetur & publica companies, companies, wistly gazing on their beauties, observing close, hanging after them, dallying still with them, & yet dare not, will not marry. Many poor people, & of the meaner sort are too distrustful of God's providence, "they will not, dare not for such worldly respects," fear of want, woes, miseries, or that they shall light, as "Lemnius saith, on a scold, a slut, or a bad wife." And therefore * Tristem Juventam venere desertá colunt, they are resolved to live single, as + Epaminodas did, Nil ait esse prius, melius nil cœlibe vitâ," and ready with Hippolitus to abjure all women, § Detestor omnes, horreo, fugio, execror, &c. But, Hippolite nescis quod fugis vitæ bonum, alas poor Hippolitus, thou knowest not what thou saiest, 'tis otherwise Hippolitus. Some make a doubt, an uxor literato sit ducenda, whether a Scholar should marry, if she be fair she will bring him back from his grammer to his horne book, or else with kissing and dalliance she will hinder his study; if foule with scolding, he cannot well intend to both, as Philippus Beroaldus that great Bononian Doctor once writ, impediri enim studia literarum, &c. but he recanted at last, and in a solemn sort with true conceived words he did ask the world and all women forgiveness: But you shall have the story as he relates himself, in his Commentaries on the sixt of Apuleius: For a long time I lived a single life, & ab uxore ducenda semper abhorrui, nec quicquam libero lecto censui jucundius. I could not abide marriage, but as a rambler, erraticus ac volaticus amator (to use his own words) per multiplices amores discurrebam, I took a snatch where I could get it, nay more, I railed at marriage down right, and in a publike auditory when I did interpret that sixt Satyre of Juvenal, out of Plutarch, and Seneca, I did heap up all the dicteries I could against women; but now recant with Stesichorus, Palinodiam cano, nec pœnitet censeri in ordine maritorum, I approve of marriage, I am glad I am a ¶ married man, I am heartily glad I have a wife, so sweet a wife, so noble a wife, so young, so chast a wife, so loving a wife, and I do wish and desire all Qui se capistro-matrimonii alligari non patiuntur, Lemn. lib. 4. 13. de occult. nat. Abhorrent multi à matrimonio, ne morosam, querulam, acerbam, amaram pxorem perferre cogantur. * Senec. Hippol. Cælebs enim vixerat nec ad uxorem ducendam unquam induci poruit. ‡ Senec. Hip. Hor. Eneas Sylvius de dictis Sigismundi. Hensius. Primicro, Habeo uxorem ex animi sententia Camiliam Paleotti Jurisconsulti filiam. ether other men to marry; and especially Scholars, that as of old Martia did by Hortensius, Terentia by Tullius, Calphurnia to Plinius, Pudentilla to Apuleius, hold the candle whilst their husbands did meditate and write, so their's may do them, and as my dear Camilla doth to me. Let other men be averse; raile then and scoffe at women, and say what they can to the contary, vir sine urore malorum expers est, &c. a single man is an happy man, &c. but this is a toy. "Nec dulces amores sperne puer, neque tu choreas ;” these men are too distrustful and much to blame, to use such speeches, "Parcite paucorum diffundere crimen in omnes," They must not condemne all for some. As there be As there be many bad, there be some good wives; as some be vitious, some be vertuous: read what Salomon hath said in their praises, Prov. 13. and Syracides cap. 26. &. 30. " blessed is the man that hath a vertuous wife, for the number of his days shall be double. A vertuous woman rejoyceth her husband, and she shall fulfil the years of his life in peace. A good wife is a good portion, (& 36. 24.) an help, a pillar of rest,” columina quietis, "Qui capit uxorem, fratrem capit atque sororem." Et. 30. "he that hath no wife wandereth to and fro mourning.' Minuuntur atræ conjuge curæ, women are the sole, only joy, and comfort of a man's life, borne ad usum & lusum hominum, Firmamenta familiæ, b Delitiæ humani generis, solatia vitæ, Blanditiæ noctis, placidi issima cura diei, Vota virum, juvenum spes," &c. "A wife is a young man's Mistress, a middle age's companion, an old man's nurse:" Particeps lætorum & tristium, A prop, an help, &c. § Optima viri possessio est uxor benevola, Mitigans iram & avertens animam ejus a tristitiâ," Man's best possession is a loving wife, She tempers anger and diverts all strife. There's no joy, no comfort, no sweetness, no pleasure in the world like to that of a good wife, "Quàm cùm chara domi conjux, fidusque maritus Legentibus & meditant bus Candelas & Candelabrum tenuerunt. • Ovid. Aphranius. Locheus. < Bacon's Essayes. + Hor. § Euripides. |