3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats, which God hath created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth.



Ver. 3. Forbidding to marry] Papists forbid some to marry at any time, as the clergy; all, at some times, and that not as a precept of convenience, but necessity and holiness. In Anselm’s time, cursed sodomitry and adultery passed free without punishment, where godly matrimony could find no mercy. The cardinal of Cremona, after his stout replying in the Council of London against the married estate of priests, was shamefully taken the night following with a notable harlot. They hold that it is far better for a priest to keep many whores than to have a wife. This, say they, is the heresy of the Nicolaitans.



To abstain from meats] As the Papists superstitiously do upon certain days, when to eat an egg is punished with imprisonment. (Schol. in Epist. ad Episc. Basil.) Qui autem totam diem Dominicam vacat temulentiae, scortis, et aleae, audit bellus homo, saith Erasmus: But he that spends the whole Lord’s day in drinking, dicing, and drabbing, is let go for a good fellow.



Which God hath created] He made the grass before he made the beasts, and the beasts before man, that all might have food convenient for them.