A20764:297
The plea of the poor. Or A treatise of beneficence and alms-deeds teaching how…The plea of the poore. Or A treatise of benificence and almes-deeds teaching how…
The plea of the poor. Or A treatise of beneficence and alms-deeds teaching how these Christian duties are rightly to be performed, and persuading to the frequent doing of them. Necessary for these times, wherein the works of mercy are so much neglected, or so undiscreetly practiced. Published by John Downame Bachelor in Divinity.The plea of the poore. Or A treatise of benificence and almes-deeds teaching how these Christian duties are rightly to be performed, and perswading to the frequent doing of them. Necessary for these times, wherein the workes of mercy are so much neglected, or so vndiscreetly practized. Published by Iohn Downame Bachelour in Diuinitie.
London: printed by Edward Griffin for Ralph Mabbe, 1616
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
Sect. 6. In the second place we must regard our selves, & then our wives.
Sect. 6. In the second place we must regard our selues, & then our wiues.
In the next place our care must extend to provide necessaries for the relieving of our own 1wants, for charity and mercy begin at home, and to whom can he be pitiful and compassionate, that is cruel to his own bowels? and then unto our second selves, our wives; for whereas the school-men in cases of extreme necessity, would have our parents preferred before our wives, I take it to be erroneous and unjust; for in the institution of marriage, man is to leave father and mother and to adhere to his wife, so that they are no more two, but one flesh. And the Apostle saith, that a man ought to love his wife as him. ⟨p. 131⟩2self, and therefore better then his parents. For where as they except that the Apostle saith, a man must love his wife as his own body, and that because we ought to love our neighbours better then our bodies, and our parents best of all our neighbours, and therefore also better then our wives: it is most frivolous, for by the same reason a man should love his other neighbours also better then his wife (which I confess to be the popish charity) but the Apostle by an usual Synecdoche there putteth the body for the whole man, as he plainly explicateth himself, vers. 33. where he saith, that every man must love his wife even as himself, and therefore the reason grounded on this place standeth strong.