formerly insisted on For though his words on the mount were in a way of doctrinall assertion yet afterwards the same words were used by him in way of a satisfactory answer to the Pharises question concerning causes of divorce professedly resolving that there could be no allowable ground of such separation except fornication What words can be more plain It is but a shift to say as the Cardinall doth that our Saviour here meant only to expresse the proper cause of the separation of married persons which is the breach of marriage faith as having no occasion to speak of those generall grounds which reach to the just sundring of all humane societies such as Heresie and Infidelitie which are enough to unglew all naturall and civill relations betwixt father and son master and servant husband and wife For it is clear that neither question nor answer were bounded with any particularities The Pharisee asks Whether for every cause Our Saviour answers For no cause but fornication And it is spoken beside the book that child or servant should or may forsake parent or master in case of heresie or infidelity S. Paul teacheth other Doctrine Let as many servants as are under the yoke of bondage count their infidell masters worthy of all honor 1 Tim. 6. 5. not worthy therefore of desertion and disclamation And if the servants may not shake off the bonds of duty much lesse may the son brake or file off the bonds of nature and as for the matrimoniall knot how too sure it is to be loosed by infidelity it self let the Apostle speak If any brother hath a wife that beleeveth not and she be pleased to dwell with him let him not put her away 1 Cor. 7. 12. And the woman which hath an husband that beleeveth not and if he be pleased to dwell with her let her not leave him ver 13. And if even Infidelity have not power to dis-oblige the wife or husband much less Heresie In this pretended case therefore to separate from board and bed is no better then a presumptuous insolence It is the peremptory charge of Christ What God hath joyned together let not man put asunder Mat. 19. 6. In all lawfull marriages it is God that joyns the hands and hearts of the Married How dare man then undoe the work of God upon devises of his own Had the Lord ever said If thy wife be a wilfull mis-beleever rid thy hands of her this separation were just but now that his charge is clean contrary what an impious sauciness is it to dis-joyn those whom God hath united As therefore it is not in the power of any third person upon any whatsoever pretence violently to break the sacred bond of Marriage so neither may the husband or wife enthral each other by a wilfull desertion whether upon pretext of religion or any secular occasion In which cause what is to be don must come under a further disquisition Certainly it was never the intention of the holy and wise God by vertue of that which was ordained for mans comfort and remedy of sin to binde him to a remedilesse misery which must necessarily fall out if upon the departure of an unbeleeving or hereticall yoke-fellow the relict party must be tyed up to a perpetuall necessity of either containing if he can or if he can not of burning The wise Doctor of the Gentiles well fore-saw the dangerous inconvenience that must needs hereupon ensue and hath given order for prevention accordingly But if the unbeleeving depart let him depart A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases but God hath called us to peace 1 Cor. 7. 15. Not that it is free for a man or woman so forsaken to carve him or her self of redresse what an infinite confusion would follow upon such licentiousness but that after long and patient expectation and all probable means used for the reduction of the party deserting recourse be had as to the last refuge to publique ecclesiastical authority which is the fittest to manage these matrimoniall affairs in whose power it may be either by grave admonitions and just censures to bring back the offendor to his duty or upon his continuing contempt to set a day for the publication of the just freedom of the forsaken wherein they shall doe no other then execute that Apostolike sentence for exemption from an unjust bondage and providing for a just peace CASE III. Whether after a lawfull Divorce for Adultery the innocent party may marry again ALthough Matrimony be not according to the Romish tenet one of those Sacraments which imprint an indeleble Character in the receiver yet it hath as they hold such a secret influence upon the soul as that it leaves a perpetuall bond behind it never to be dissolved till death So as those offenders which by just censure are separated from the board and the bed cannot yet be freed from the bond of marriage upon this ground it is that they bar the innocent party from the benefit of a second marriage as supposing the obligation of the former still in force In the ordinary Bills of the Jewish divorce the repudiated wife had full-scope given her of a second choice as the words ran She was to be free and to have power over her own soul to goe away to be married to any man whom she would They were not more liberall then our Romish divorcers are niggardly The Jewish divorce being upon unwarrantable cause made their liberality so much more sinfull as their divorce was more unjust for the divorced woman was still in right the lawfull wife of that unrighteous husband that dismissed her the Romish doctrine makes their strait-handednesse so much more injurious as the cause of separation is more just Even this question also is expresly determined by our Saviour in his answer to the Pharisee Whosoever shall put away his wife except it be for fornication and marrieth another committeth adultery Mat. 19. Lo then he that for so just a cause as fornication putteth away his wife and marrieth another committeth not adultery the exception manifestly implies so much both in reason and common use neither indeed are the words capable of any other probable sense That which Bellarmine would fasten upon it referring the exception to the former clause of dismission only so as it might be lawfull to divorce only for fornication but not to marry after divorce cannot stand without a supply of words of his own which God never alow'd him to intersert and besides utterly destroies the sense casting such a doctrine upon our Saviour as he would hate to own for except that restraint be refered to the marrying again the sense would run thus whosoever puts away his wife commits adultery which stands not with truth or reason sith it is not the dismission that is adulterous but the marryage of another It is therefore the plain drift of our Saviour to teach the Pharisee that the marriage of a second wife
of the father which may be prejudicial to the government of the family paternal pow'r which is sufficient for my purpose in the question in hand And although those Casuists doe sufficiently doat upon their Monkery and the vows thereunto appertayning yet they ascribe so much to the bond of filial duty as that they teach That a sonne which his parents being in extreme need and wanting his help enters into a religious order or comes not out of it though professed when hee might be likely by his coming forth to bee aidfull to his said Parents is guilty of a sin against the fift Commandement so as even with them the respect to a parent ought to overweigh a vow of religion although consummate by a solemn profession But that you may not object to me the age of the law as therefore abrogated because Mosaicall heare what the chosen vessell saies under the new law of the Gospel If any man thinke that he behaveth himselfe uncomely towards his virgin if shee passe the floure of her age and need so require let him doe what hee will hee sinneth not let her marry 1 Cor. 7. 36. Neverthelesse he that standeth stedfast in his heart having no necessity but hath power over his owne will and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin doth well c. ver 37. Loe the Apostle supposeth it in the parents power either to keep his daughter a virgin or to dispose of her in marriage she is not her owne either to hold or give but must be altogether ordered by the superior will of a parent Not that any force is allowed either way to be used towards the daughter whether to continue her in a constrained virginity or to call her against her minde upon a dis-affected match No that God who disposeth all things sweetly would have us doe so too hee allowes parents to be rulers of their children but not tyrants what they doe therefore in this kinde must be more by councel then command and with more sway of love then authority thus consulting wisely with the state of times and the childs disposition and abilities of contayning must the parent either keep his virgin or labour for the provision of a meete consortship Thus did the two great Patriarchs of Gods ancient Church Abraham and Isaac provide fit matches for their holy seed whiles the unholy provided unfit matches for themselves Thus did their godly issue in all generations take their parents along with them in the choice of meet yoke-fellowes whiles the godless whether out of impetuous lust or stubborn disobedience affect with Esau Gen. 28. 6 7 8. to be their owne purveyors to the great regret and heart-breaking of their parents Lastly the latitude that S. Paul gives of the liberty of marriage to al Christians is Tantum in Domino onely in the Lord 1 Cor. 7. 39. Now how can that marriage bee in the Lord which is against him and how can that bee other then against the Lord which is against the Lords commandement And what commandment can be more express then Honor thy father and thy mother Gal. 6. 1. And Children obey your parents ver 2. And what can bee more contrary to the honour and obedience due to Parents then to neglect them in the main business that concernes our lives And what businesse can concern our life so much as the choice of a meet partner with whom we may comfortably weare out all the dayes of our pilgrimage on earth Doubtlesse then we may in a generality safely conclude that it is altogether unlawfull for a childe to sleight his Parents consent in the choice of his marriage There may be some particular cases incident wherein perhaps this may without sinne or blame be forborn as when the child either by general permission or former elocation shall be out of the Parents disposing or where the parent is defective in his intellectuals or where the child lives in remotis out of the compasse of intelligence or where the Parent being averse from the true Religion denies his consent to match with any but those of his own straine or shall upon other by-occasions wilfully stand upon so unreasonable terms that neither friends nor authority can over-rule him But where these or the like preponderating exceptions doe not intervene the child cannot without sin balk the Parents consent to his choice in marriage But though such marriages without or against consent bee not lawfully made yet being once made they are valid The civill law out of the grounds of policy goes herein too far which sentenceth those marriages void which are made without the consent of Parents of Guardians but as Matrimony hath somthing in it of Nature something of Civility something of Divinity as instituted by God and by him to be regulated so sure this last interest ought to over-sway the other two The marriage therefore thus made being though faulty yet true is doubtlesse after consummation indissoluble The parties repentance and the parents sorrow may have leisure to afflict them no power to relieve them CASE II. Whether Marriage lawfully made may admit of any cause of divorce save only for the violation of the marriage bed by Fornication or Adulterie OUr Saviour hath so punctually decided the case in his Divine Sermon upon the mount that I cannot but wonder at the boldnesse of any man who calls himself a Christian that dares raise a question after so full and clear a determination from the mouth of truth it self Whosoever saith he shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery Mat. 5. 32. Yet I find this so evident an assertion checked by two sorts of adversaries The one certain wild Novellists who admit of very sleight causes of separation the other Romish Doctors who plead for some other main and important additions to this liberty of divorce I have heard too much of once saw a licentious Pamphlet thrown abroad in these lawlesse times in the defence and encouragement of Divorces not to be sued out that solemnity needed not but to be arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to his displeasing and unquiet wife upon this ground principally that Marriage was instituted for the help and comfort of man where therefore the match proves such as that the wife doth but pull downe a side and by her innate peevishnesse and either sullen or pettish and froward disposition brings rather discomfort to her husband the end of Marriage being hereby frustrate why should it not saith he be in the Husbands power after some unprevailing means of reclamation attempted to procure his own peace by casting off this clog and to provide for his own peace and contentment in a fitter Match Woe is me To what a passe is the world come that a Christian pretending to Reformation should dare to tender so loose a project to
the publique I must seriously profess when I first did cast my eye upon the front of the book I supposed some great wit meant to try his skill in the maintenance of this so wild and improbable a paradox but ere I could have run over som of those too wel-penned pages I found the Author was in earnest and meant seriously to contribute this peece of good councel in way of Reformation to the wise and seasonable care of superiors I cannot but blush for our age wherein so bold a motion hath been amongst others admitted to the light what will all the Christian Churches through the world to whose notice those lines shall come think of our wofull degeneration in these deplored times that so uncouth a designe should be set on foot amongst us Or how can they construe it other then a direct contradiction to our Saviours sentence in maintaining that practise which hee expresly professeth to oppose for what was the Jewish guise here checked by our Saviour but a voluntary repudiation of a lawfull wife upon the terms of dislike other then fornication Their mis-interpretation of the law alluded unto argues no lesse The Law alluded unto is that of Deutronomy where God sayes When a man hath takâ—n a wife and hath been her husband and it shall be that she finde not grace in his eyes because he hath found in her matter of nakednesse he shall write her a bill of divorcement and send her away Deut. 24. 1. whereupon he infers with an Ego dico I say unto you Whosoever shall put away his wife saving for fornication causeth her to commit adultery the matter of nakednesse therefore for which the Jews were then wont to divorce their wives and offended in so divorcing them was any other displeasing qualitie besides the breach of wedlock through bodily uncleannesse for which only had they dismissed their wives our Saviour had neither faulted their Glosse nor their Practise so as herein Christ the giver of the Law decides one of those great controversies which were agitated between the emulous schools of Sammai and Hillel determining on Sammai's side that for no other nakedness but that of adultery it was lawfull to divorce a wife and flatly condemning by the like answer that 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Mat. 19. 3. every cause of repudiation then ordinarily received as it was by the Pharisee purposely propounded unto him Answerable whereunto is that of the Prophet Malachi who in our just reading hath so fully decided the cause as if it had been expresly referred to his umpirage The Lord saith he hath been witnesse between thee and the wife of thy youth against whom thou hast dealt treacherously Yet is she thy companion and the wife of thy covenant Mal. 2. 14 15 16. Loe the wife of thy covenant therefore too sure setled to bee turn'd off upon every sleight occasion what was thy covenant to take her for thy wife till thou shouldst dislike her what were this but to mock God and the world thy covenant implies no less then firmitude and perpetuity Therefore take heed to your spirit and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth For the Lord the God of Israel saith that he hateth putting away For one covereth violence with his garment saith the Lord of hosts Therefore take heed to your spirit that you deal not treacherously What is this treachery which the Prophet cries out against thus vehemently thrice over with a breath but pretended and unjust suggestions against a lawfull wife for her undue divorce and what is that violence but the injurious execution of those suggestions upon which unsufficient grounds the Lord professes to hate putting away Yea how apparently contrary is this practise to the very originall institution of marriage it self He that made it in Paradise ordained thus Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they two shall be one flesh Gen. 2. 24. Loe before ever there was father or mother or son in the world God hath appointed that the bonds betwixt husband and wife shall be more strait and indissoluble then betwixt the parent and child and can any man be so unreasonable as to defend it lawfull upon some unkinde usages or thwartness of disposition for a parent to abandon and forsake his child or the son to cast off his parent much lesse therefore may it be thus betwixt an husband wife They two are one flesh Behold here an union of Gods making A mans body is not more his own then his wives body is his And will a man be content to part easily with a peece of himselfe Or can we thinke that God will indure an union made by himself to be sleightly dissolved Or how is this bodily matrimony a lively image of the spirituall marriage betwixt Christ and his Church who hath said I will betroth thee unto me for ever Yea I will betroth thee unto me in righteousnesse and in judgement and in loving kindenesse and in mercies Hos. 2. 19. if upon small occasions it may be subject to utter dissolution Yea what speak I of Divinity Even modest Heathens would hisse this Libertinisme off the Stage Amongst the rest what a fool was Socrates The Oracle belike called him the wisest man of his time but what a fool was he to indure the unquiet clack of his Xantippe with such cool patience if he might have quit himself of the trouble with a sodain act of her dismission Or what use was there of those Delegates of Athens and the Harmosyni of Lacedaemon for the peecing up of these domestique breaches betwixt husband and wife if the imperious husband had power to right himself by turning the scold out of doors Lastly What silly counsail was that which the Jewish Rabbi gave to his client matcht with a shrew The bone that is falne to thy lot that doe thou gnaw upon if it were altogether free for him to leave that bone and take another But I have dwelt too long on so grosse a subject There may yet seem some better colour for the plea of the Romish doctors which admit infidelity and hereâ—ie into the rank of those causes which may warrant a divorce But herein the ambiguity of the word if heed be not taken may deceive you The Hebrew text to which our Saviour alludes uses a word which signifies excision or cutting off The Greek a departing away or putting off The Latine Divortium in his true sense is not so hainous as either of the other signifying rather a turning aside but in our ordinary acception amounts to no less then both But what unjust difference they make betwixt finall separation and dissolution we shall finde in our next discourse Onwards that such separation may not be made of man and wife lawfully joyned together for heresie or misbelief we need no other conviction then that peremptory and clear determination of our Saviour which we have
as that without which so great a blessing cannot bee had As the wise Woman said to Joab 2 Sam. 20. 18. they should first treat with the men of Abel ere they smite upon the charge of the Lord of hosts Deut. 20. 10. conditions must first be tendered even to heathen enemies before any acts of hostility shall be exercised where this which is the worst of all remedies proves needfull if you ask how farre it is lawfull to ingage I must aske you ere I can returne answer first of the justice of the quarrell for surely where the warre is knowne to be unjust the willing abettors of it cannot wash their hands from blood To make a warre just as our Casuists rightly there must bee a lawfull authority to raise it a just ground whereon to raise it due formes and conditions in the raising managing and cessation of it That no authority lesse than supreame can wage a warre it is cleare in nature for that none other besides it can have power of life and death which both must lye at the publique stake in warre That none but a just and weighty cause can be the ground of a warre every mans reason apprehends for how precious a blessing had that need to bee that is held worth the purchasing with the price of so much bloud and how heavy a curse must that needes bee which can onely be remedied or prevented by so grievous a judgement as war That due termes and conditions are requisite to bee offered ere warre be undertaken and observed in the managing and ceasing of it humanity it self teacheth us without which men should run upon one another with no lesse fury and disorder than beasts not staying for any capitulation but the first advantage nor terminating their discord in any thing but utter destruction Where all or any of these are wanting the warre cannot be just and where it is known not to be such woe be to those hands that are willingly active in prosecuting it Now the care of all these three maine requisites must lie chiefly upon that Power which is entrusted by the Almighty with the over-ruling of publique affaires For the Subject as he is bound to an implicite reliance upon the command of the supreame power so unlesse it be in a case notoriously apparent to be unjust must yeild a blind-fold obedience to authority going whither he is led and doing what he is bidden But if the case be such as that his heart is fully convinced of the injustice of the enterprise and that he clearly finds that he is charged to smite Innocence and to him against God I cannot blame fight if with Sauls footmen when they were commanded to fall upon the Priests of the Lord he withhold his hand and craving pardon shew lesse readinesse to act than to suffer In the second place I must aske you with what intentions you addresse your selfe to the field if it be out of the conscience of maintaining a just cause if out of a loyall obedience to lawfull authority I shall bid you go on and prosper but if either malice to the parties opposed and therein desire of revenge or a base covetousnesse of pay or hope and desire of plunder have put you into armes repent and withdraw For what can be more sordid or cruell than to be hired for dayes-wages to shed innocent blood Or what can bee more horribly mischievous for a Man than to kill that hee may steale Upon your answer to these questions it will be easie for mee to returne mine In a just quarrell being thereto lawfully called you may fight warrantable authority hath put the sword into your hand you may use it But take heed that you use it with that moderation and with those affections that are meet Even an authorized hand may offend in striking Magistrates themselves if there be revenge in their executions doe no other than murder Far be it from you to take pleasure in bloud and to enjoy another mans destruction If especially in those warres that are intestine you shall mingle your teares with the blood which you are forced to spill it may well become Christian fortitude Shortly doe you enter into your armes imprest or voluntary If the former you have nothing but your owne heart to looke unto for a fit disposition That Power whom you justly obey must answer for the cause If the latter you have reason diligently to examine all the necessary points of the power of the cause of your intentions as well considering that in a warre it is no lesse impossible that both sides should be in the right than that in a contradiction both parts should be true Here therefore your will makes it selfe the Judg of all three and if any of them faile leaves you answerable for all miscarriages so as you had need to be carefully inquisitive in this case upon what grounds you goe that so whatsoever may befall a good conscience may beare you out in the greatest difficulties and saddest events that are wont to attend upon warre CASE X. Whether and how farre a man may act towards his own Death DIrectly to intend or endeavour that which may worke his owne death is abominably wicked and no lesse than the worst murder For if a man may not kill another much lesse himselfe by how much he is nearer to himselfe than to another and certainely if we must regulate our love to another by that to our selves it must follow that love to our selves must take up the first roome in our hearts and that love cannot but be accompanied with a detestation of any thing that may bee harmefull to our selves Doubtlesse many that can be cruell to another are favourable enough to themselves but never man that could be cruell to himself would be sparing to another's blood To will or attempt this is highly injurious to that God whose we onely are who hath committed our life as a most precious thing to our trust for his use more than our owne and will require from us an account of our managing of it and our parting from it It is a foule misprision in those men that make account of themselves as their owne and therefore that they are the absolute Lords of their life Did they give themselves their owne being had they nothing but meere nature in them can they but acknowledge an higher hand in their formation and animating What a wrong were it therefore to the great Lord and giver of life to steale out of the world without his leave that placed us there But much more if Christians they know themselves besides dearly paid for and therefore not in their own disposing but in his that bought them Secondly most desperately injurious to our selves as incurring thereby a certaine damnation for ought appeares to lookers on for ever of those soules which have wilfully broken Gods more easie and temporary prison to put themselves upon the direfull prison of Satan to all eternity Nature
after dismission of a former upon any other cause except for fornication is no less then adultery thereby enforcing that upon a just dismission for fornication a second marriage cannot be branded with adultery Neither will it serve his turne which he would borrow from St. Augustine that upon this negative of our Saviours we may not look to build an affirmative of our own for though it be granted that he who putting away his wife not for fornication marrieth another sinneth yet it followes not that he who having dismissed his wife for fornication marrieth another sinneth not at all A sin it may be though not an adultery For surely if it be a sinne it must be against a commandement and if against any commandement it must be against the seventh and what is the seventh cōmandement but Thou shalt not commit Adultery Besides the Pharisees question Is it lawfull for a man to put away his wife for every cause was not without a plaine implication of liberty to marry another which our Saviour well knowing gives a full answer as well to what he meant as what hee said which had not been perfectly satisfactory if he had only determined that one part concerning dismission and not the other concerning marriage which clause if two other Evangelists expresse not yet it must bee fetcht necessarily from the third since it is a sure irrefragable rule That all four Evangelists make up one perfect Gospell It is therefore a very tottering and unsure ground which our Rhemists build upon as if the Apostle meant to crosse his Lord and master when hee saith The woman which hath an husband is bound by the Law to her husband so long as hee liveth Rom. 7. 2. therfore only death can dissolve the bond of marriage not divorce not adultery not divorce for adultery For how plainly doe the words carry their answer in themselves The woman saith the Apostle that hath an husband but the woman legally divorced for fornication hath no husband S. Paul speakes of a true wife not a divorced harlot hee had no occasion here to look aside at matter of divorce but takes marriage as in its intire right rather desiring to urge for cleering the case of our obligation to the law that the husband being once dead the wife is free to marry again then to intimate the case of her incapacity to marry till he be dead As for that bond therfore which is so much stood upon if it be taken without all relations to the duties of bed and board it is meerly Chimericall nothing but fantasie There are or should bee Bonds of affectation Bonds of mutual respects and reciprocall duties betwixt man and wife and these must hold firme notwithstanding any locall separation neither time nor place may so much as slacken much lesse loose them but where a just divorce intervenes these bonds are chopt in peeces and no more are then if they had never beene And if all relations cease in death as they doe in whatsoever kind surely divorce being as it is no other then a legall death doth utterly cut off as the hebrew term imports all former obligations and respects betwixt the partys so finaly separated The adulterous wife therfore duly divorced being thus dead in law as to her husband the husband stands now as free as if he had never married so as I know not why the Apostle should not as well speake to him as to any other when he saith Neverthelesse to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife 1 Cor. 7. 2. Neither is it otherwise in the case of a chaste wife after her separation from an adulterous husband Mar. 10. 12. In these rights God makes no difference of sexes both may lawfully claim the same immunities which certainly should they be denied to either must needs draw on very great inconveniences For in how hard a condition should the innocent party be hereupon left Either the husband or wife must bee forced to live with an adultrous consort or be tyed to a perpetuall necessity of either doing that which perhaps they cannot do containing or of suffering that which they ought not to endure burning What remedy now can bee expected of so great a mischief Our Romish doctors propose two Reconciliation or Continence Both good where they may be had Reconciliation in case of a seasonable submisse repentance That which is the Apostles charge in case of desertion holds here also 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 let her be reconciled the more hainous the wrong is the more commendable is the remission Continence after such separation in case of ability so granted for surely this holy disposition is a gift and therefore is not had where it is not bestowed those that place it in our power derogate from the thanks of the giver yea he that gives it tels us all cannot receive it Mar. 19. 11. hee must not only give it but give us power to take it But where the offending party is obstinately vicious the innocent after all endeavors unable to contain without a supply of marriage the case is remedilesse and we know Gods mercy such as that he leaves no man for matter of resolution utterly perplexed Shortly then I doubt not but I may notwithstanding great authorities to the contrary safely resolve that in the case of divorce it is lawful for the innocent person to marry But for that I finde the Church of England hitherto somwhat tender in the point and this practice where it rarely falls generally held though not sinfull yet of ill report and abnoxious to various censures I should therfore earnestly advise and exhort those whom it may concerne carefully and effectually to apply themselves to the fore-mentioned remedies Reconciliation if it be possible to prevent a divorce Holy endeavors of a continued continence if it may be obtain'd to prevent a second marriage after divorce But if these prevail not I dare not lay a load upon any mans conscience which God hath not burdened I dare not ensnare those whom God will have free CASE IV. Whether the authoritie of a Father may reach so farre as to command or compell the Child to dispose of himself in Marriage where hee shall appoint THe extent of a paternal power as we have partly shewed already hath been wont to be very large reaching in som cases by the Civill law to the life of the Child and by the Jewish law to his liberty so as it might seem much more over-ruling in case of Marriage which also seemes to be intimated by the Apostle in that he supposes and gives a power to the parent either to give or keep his virgin And how apt parents are to make use of this awfull authority in matching their children for their own worldly advantage contrary to their affections and disposition we have too lamentable experience every day neither is it easy to set forth the mischievous effects that have followed upon those compelled
of a discovery of whatsoever impediment might justly hinder the intended matrimony The frequent but unfit use of these espousall-Contracts in the Roman Church betwixt their children in minority allowing seven yeers in eyther parry for a meete age to this purpose must needs breed both much question and inconvenience but in those which are of a mature age and therefore able to judge of what may bee most expedient for themselves this institution cannot be but singularly usefull beneficiall For neither is it meet that so great a work and so highly importing us as matrimony should bee rashly and suddainly undertaken neither doth it a little conduce to our safety that since marriage once passed is irreversible we may have som breathing-time betwixt our promise and accomplishment to inform our selves throughly before it bee too late what we must trust to for ever For we may take notice that though marriage is indissoluble yet these espousals or contracts of a future marriage are not so many things may intervene betwixt this engagement by promise and that a full and compleat solemnization which may break off the match The Casuists determine of seventeen severall cases at the least which may sort to this effect som whereof have a proper relation to the Romish religion others are common to what ever contracts of this kind I shall not grudge you the mention of them all An espousall-Contract therefore may according to their judgement be broken off By the willing remission of both parts although it had been seconded by an oath By the entrance of the one party into some order of religion By a contract with some other in words of the present By the travaile of one of the parties into remote counâ—ries and not returning up on a lawfull summuns at a time prefixed by the Judge By an affinity supervening upon the sinfull copulation of one of the parties with the near kinswoman of the other By the absolution of the Judg upon suit of one of the parties repenting and pleading minority By lapse of the time set for the accomplishment of the marriage by the disease of one of the parties being fallen into Palsie leprosie the Neopolitan sickness or any other contagious distemper or notable deformity By the fornication of one of the parties committed since the contract By a vow of chastity preceding the contract By som capitall enmity intervening betwixt the families and persons of the contracted by the omission of performing the promised conditions as when the dowry agreed upon is retracted or held off By the fame of a Canonicall impediment By susception of Orders after conrract By the supervention of a legall kindred inexpected By the harshnesse and asperity of disposition in either party And which may comprise many other particularities by the falling out and discovery of any such accident or event as if it had beene sooner knowne would have prevented the making of such a contract All these say they may bar a marriage after espousalls but yet so as that the parties may not be their own arbiters to break off their contracts at pleasure but must have recourse to the Judge Ecclesiasticall and submit themselves to the over-ruling sentence of the Church If you balk those which are proper to the Romish superstition yet you shall finde many just and allowable causes which may after a contract of espousall interrupt a purposed matrimony so as if there were neither rule nor example of any such preceding engagement yet surely it were very fit for our own security and our confident and comfortable entrance into that estate which we shall never put off to observe carefully this previous betrothing of our selves ere wee knit the knot that can never be loosed CASE VII Whether there ought to bee a prohibition and forbearance of marriages and marriage duties for some appointed times IT is one thing what is lawful another thing what is fit and expedient as S. Paul hath taught us to distinguish marriage being of Gods own institution and that in the perfection of Paradise there can be no time wherein it may be unlawful to celebrate it yet there may be times wherein it is unfit There is the like reason of times and places both of them are circumstances alike The debt of the marriage-bed not onely may but must bee paid by them whom God hath called to that estate yet there are places wherein it were barbarous and piacular to defray it even besides those places which are destin'd to an holy use the Jewes of old held this act done in the field or under a tree worthy of scourging Doubtlesse there are times so wholly consecrated to devotion as that therein it would be utterly unseasonable to let our thoughts loose to the most lawful pleasures Hence is that charge of the Apostle Defraud not one the other except it be with consent for the time that ye may give your selves to fasting and prayer 1 Cor. 7. 5. So then as Solomon himselfe can say There is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embraceing Ecclus. 3. 5. But what the limitation of this time may be no small question hath been raised in the Church of God neyther doe there want extremities on both sides The Church of Rome hath heretofore been excessively large in her prohibitions forbiding the solemnization of marriage upon pretence of the holiness of the great feasts to be observed for the whole third part of the yeere neither doth the account fall lesse if we reckon from the Advent to the Epiphany from Septuagesima Sunday to the Octaves of Easter and from three dayes before the Ascension to the Octaves of Pentecost all which had wont to be strictly kept besides the feast of S. John Baptist added by some and the foure Ember weekes by others but now of late upon second thoughts their Councell of Trent have found it meet to shorten the restraint and somewhat to enlarge the liberty of the seasons for marriage having exempted the two only solemn feasts of Easter and the Nativitie and abridged some previous weekes of the former and for us how observant our Consistories had wont to bee of those inhibitions for their own gain every Almanack can witnesse Some worthy Divines in our Church did not stick to professe their great dislike of our conforming herein to the Church of Rome to the scandal of the Reformed Concerning both which I must say that if either wee or they doe put any holinesse in the time exempted or any unholiness in the act inhibited we caÌ„not be excused from superstition Can any time be more holy then Gods owne day yet on that day wee doe commonly both publish marriages and celebrate them But if as in some solemne fasts indicted by the Church for some publique humiliation we both doe and injoyne to abstaine from all conjugall society so in a desire the more dovoutly to celebrate the memory of Gods infinite mercy to man kinde in sending a Saviour