matter of finding it self so much less satisfy'd then before in the continuance of an unhappy yoke wherein there can be no representation either of Christ or of his Church Thus having enquir'd the institution how it was in the beginning both from the 1 Chap. of Gen where it was only mention'd in part and from the second where it was plainly and evidently instituted and having attended each clause and word necessary with a diligence not drousy wee shall now fix with som advantage and by a short view backward gather up the ground wee have gon and summ up the strength wee have into one argumentative head with that organic force that logic proffers us All arts acknowledge that then only we know certainly when we can define for definition is that which refines the pure essence of things from the circumstance If therfore we can attain in this our Controversy to define exactly what mariage is wee shall soon lern when there is a nullity thereof and when a divorce The part therfore of this Chapter which hath bin heer treated doth orderly and readily resolv it self into a definition of mariage and a consectary from thence To the definition these words cheifly contribute It is not good c. I will make c. Where the consectary begins this connexion Therfore informs us Therfore shall a man c. Definition is decreed by Logicians to consist only of causes constituting the essence of a thing What is not therfore among the causes constituting mariage must not stay in the definition Those causes are concluded to be matter and as the Artist calls it Form But inasmuch as the same thing may be a cause more waies then one and that in relations and institutions which have no corporal subsistence but only a respective beeing the Form by which the thing is what it is is oft so slender and undistinguishable that it would soon confuse were it not sustain'd by the efficient and final causes which concurre to make up the form invalid otherwise of it self it will bee needfull to take in all the fowr causes into the definition First therfore the material cause of matrimony is man and woman the Author and efficient God and their consent the internal Form and soul of this relation is conjugal love arising from a mutual fitnes to the final causes of wedlock help and society in Religious Civil and Domestic conversation which includes as an inferior end the fulfilling of natural desire and specifical increase these are the final causes both moving the efficient and perfeting the form And although copulation be consider'd among the ends of mariage yet the act therof in a right esteem can no longer be matrimonial then it is an effect of conjugal love When love findes it self utterly unmatcht and justly vanishes nay rather cannot but vanish the fleshly act indeed may continue but not holy not pure not beseeming the sacred bond of mariage beeing at best but an animal excretion but more truly wors and more ignoble then that mute kindlyness among the heards and flocks in that proceeding as it ought from intellective principles it participates of nothing rational but that which the feild and the fould equalls For in human actions the soule is the agent the body in a manner passive If then the body doe out of sensitive force what the soul complies not with how can man and not rather somthing beneath man be thought the doer But to proceed in the persute of an accurat definition it will a vail us somthing and whet our thoughts to examin what fabric heerof others have already reard Paraeus on Gen. defines Mariage to be an indissoluble conjunction of one man and one woman to an individual and intimat conversation and mutual benevolence c. Wherin is to be markt his placing of intimat conversation before bodily benevolence for bodily is meant though indeed benevolence rather sounds will then body Why then shall divorce be granted for want of bodily performance and not for want of fitnes to intimat conversation when as corporal benevolence cannot in any human fashion bee without this Thus his definition places the ends of Mariage in one order and esteems them in another His Tautology also of indissoluble and individual is not to be imitated especially since neither indissoluble nor individual hath ought to doe in the exact definition beeing but a consectary flowing from thence as appears by plain Scripture Therfore shall a man leav c. For Mariage is not true mariage by beeing individual but therfore individual if it be true Mariage No argument but causes enter the definition a Consectary is but the effect of those causes Besides that Mariage is indissoluble is not Catholickly true wee know it dissoluble for Adultery and for desertion by the verdit of all Reformed Churches Dr. Ames defines it an individual conjunction of one man and one woman to communion of body and mutual society of life But this perverts the order of God who in the institution places meet help and society of life before communion of body And vulgar estimation undervalues beyond comparison all society of life and communion of minde beneath the communion of body granting no divorce but to the want or miscommunicating of that Hemingius an approved Author Melanchtons Scholler and who next to Bucer and Erasmus writes of divorce most like a Divine thus comprises Mariage is a conjunction of one man and one woman lawfully consenting into one flesh for mutual helps sake ordain'd of God And in his explanation stands punctually upon the conditions of consent that it be not in any main matter deluded as beeing the life of wedloc and no true marriage without a true consent Into one flesh he expounds into one minde as well as one body and makes it the formal cause Heerin only missing while he puts the effect into his definition instead of the cause which the Text affords him For one flesh is not the formal essence of wedloc but one end or one effect of a meet help The end oft times beeing the effect and fruit of the form as Logic teaches Els many aged and holy matrimonies and more eminently that of Joseph and Mary would bee no true mariage And that maxim generally receiv'd would be fals that consent alone though copulation never follow makes the mariage Therefore to consent lawfully into one flesh is not the formal cause of Matrimony but only one of the effects The Civil Lawyers and first Justinian or Tribonian defines Matrimony a conjunction of man and woman containing individual accustom of life Wherin first individual is not so bad as indissoluble put in by others And although much cavil might be made in the distinguishing between indivisible and individual yet the one tak'n for possible the other for actuall neither the one nor the other can belong to the essence of mariage especially when a Civilian defines by which Law mariage is actually divorc't for many causes and with
second knower of his unlawfull act though the Baptist were beheaded last that his Disciples and all good men might learne to expound him in this place as in all other his precepts not by the written letter but by that unerring paraphrase of Christian love and Charity which is the summe of all commands and the perfection Vers 10. His Disciples say unto him if the case of the man be so with his wife it is not good to marry This verse I adde to leave no objection behind unanswer'd for some may thinke if this our Saviours sentence be so faire as not commanding ought that patience or nature cannot brook why then did the Disciples murmur and say it is not good to marry I answer that the Disciples had bin longer bred up under the Pharisaean doctrin then under that of Christ and so no marvel though they yet retain'd the infection of loving old licentious customs no marvel though they thought it hard they might not for any offence that throughly anger'd them divorce a wife as well as put away a servant since it was but giving her a bill as they were taught Secondly it was no unwonted thing with them not to understand our Saviour in matters farre easier So that bee it granted their conceit of this text was the same which is now commonly conceiv'd according to the usuall rate of their capacity then it will not hurt a better interpretation But why did not Christ seeing their error informe them for good cause it was his profest method not to teach them all things at all times but each thing in due place and season Christ said Luke 22. that hee who had no sword should sell his garment and buy one the Disciples tooke it in a manifest wrong sense yet our Saviour did not there informe them better He told them it was easier for a Camell to go through a needles eye then a rich man in at heav'n gate They were amaz'd exceedingly he explain'd himselfe to meane of those who trust in riches Mark 10. They were amaz'd then out of measure for so Marke relates it as if his explaining had increas'd their amazement in such a plaine case and which concern'd so neerely their calling to be inform'd in Good reason therefore if Christ at that time did not stand amplifying to the thick prejudice and tradition where in they were this question of more difficulty and lesse concernment to any perhaps of them in particular Yet did he not omitt to sow within them the seeds of a sufficient determining agen the time that his promis'd spirit should bring all things to their memory Hee had declar'd in their hearing not long before how distant hee was from abolishing the law it selfe of divorce hee had referr'd them to the institution and after all this gives them a set answer from which they might collect what was cleer anough that all men cannot receive all sayings verse 11. If such regard bee had to each mans receiving of mariage or single life what can arise that the same christian regard should not bee had in most necessary divorce All which instructed both them and us that it beseem'd his Disciples to learne the deciding of this question which hath nothing new in it first by the institution then by the generall grounds of religion not by a particular saying here or there temper'd and level'd only to an incident occasion the riddance of a tempting assault For what can this bee but weake and shallow apprehension to forsake the standard principles of institution faith charity then to be blanke various at every occurrence in Scripture and in a cold Spasm of scruple to reare peculiar doctrines upon the place that shall bid the gray autority of most unchangeable and sovran rules to stand by be contradicted Thus to this Evangelic precept of famous difficulty which for these many ages weakly understood and violently put in practice hath made a shambles rather then an ordinance of matrimony I am firme a truer exposition cannot be given If this or that argument heer us'd please not every one there is no scarsity of arguments any halfe of them will suffice Or should they all faile as Truth it selfe can faile as soon I should content me with the institution alone to wage this controversie and not distrust to evince If any need it not the happier yet Christians ought to study earnestly what may be anothers need But if as mortall mischances are som hap to need it let them be sure they abuse not and give God his thanks who hath reviv'd this remedy not too late for them and scowr'd off an inveterat misexposition from the Gospel a work not to perish by the vaine breath or doome of this age Our next industry shall bee under the same guidance to try with what fidelity that remaining passage in the Epistles touching this matter hath bin commented 1 COR. 7. 10 c. 10. And unto the maried I command c. 11. And let not the husband put away his wife THis intimates but what our Saviour taught before that divorce is no rashly to be made but reconcilement to be persuaded and endevo'rd as oft as the cause can have to doe with reconcilement is not under the dominion of blameles nature which may have reason to depart though seldomest and last from charitable love yet somtimes from friendly and familiar and somthing oftner from conjugal love which requires not only moral but natural causes to the making and maintayning and may be warrantably excus'd to retire from the deception of what it justly seeks and the ill requitals which unjustly it finds For Nature hath her Zodiac also keepes her great annual circuit over human things as truly as the Sun and Planers in the firmament hath her anomalies hath her obliquities in ascensions and declinations accesses and recesses as blamelesly as they in heaven And sitting in her planetary Orb with two rains in each hand one strait the other loos tempers the cours of minds as well as bodies to several conjunctions and oppositions freindly or unfriendly aspects consenting oftest with reason but never contrary This in the effect no man of meanest reach but daily sees and though to every one it appeare not in the cause yet to a cleare capacity well nurtur'd with good reading and observation it cannot but be plaine and visible Other exposition therefore then hath bin given to former places that give light to these two summary verses will not be needfull save onely that these precepts are meant to those maried who differ not in religion But to the rest speake I not the Lord if any brother hath a wife that beleeveth not and she be pleased to dwell with him let him not put her away Now followes what is to be done if the persons wedded be of a different faith The common beleef is that a christian is heer commanded not to divorce if the infidel please to stay though it be but
who urgently requires a wicked thing though professing the same religion as from him who urges a heathenish or superstitious compliance in a different faith For if there be such necessity of our abiding wee ought rather to abide the utmost for religion then for any other cause seeing both the cause of our stay is pretended our religion to mariage and the cause of our suffering is suppos'd our constant mariage to religion Beza therfore by his owne definition of a deserter justifies a divorce from any wicked or intolerable conditions rather in the same religion then in a different Aretius a famous Divine of Bern approves many causes of divorce in his Problemes and adds that the lawes and consistories of Swizzerland approve them also As first adultery and that not actual only but intentional all eging Matthew the fifth Whosoever looketh to lust hath committed adultery already in his heart Wher by saith he our Saviour shewes that the breach of matrimony may be not only by outward act but by the heart and desire when that hath once possest it renders the conversation intolerable and commonly the fact followes Other causes to the number of 9. or 10. consenting in most with the imperial lawes may bee read in the author himselfe who averrs them to be grave and weighty All these are men of name in Divinity and to these if need were might be added more Nor have the Civilians bin all so blinded by the Canon as not to avouch the justice of those old permissions touching divorce Alciat of Millain a man of extraordinary wisedome and learning in the sixt book of his Parerga defends those imperial lawes not repugnant to the Gospel as the Church then interpreted For saith hee the antients understood him separat by man whom passions and corrupt affections divorc't not if the provincial Bishops first heard the matter and judg'd as the councel of Agatha declares and on some part of the Code hee names Isidorus Hispalensis the first computer of Canons to be in the same minde And in the former place gives his opinion that diuorce might be more lawfully permitted then usury Corasius recorded by Helvicus among the famous Lawyers hath been already cited of the same judgement Wesembechius a much nam'd Civilian in his comment on this law defends it and afficms that our Sauiour excluded not other faults equall to adultery and that the word fornication signifies larger among the Hebrewes then with us comprehending every fault which alienates from him to whom obedience is due and that the primitive Church interpreted so Grotius yet living and of prime note among learned men retires plainly from the Canon to the antient civility yea to the Mosaic law as being most just and undecevable On the fifth of Matt. he saith that Christ made no civil lawes but taught us how to use law that the law sent not a husband to the Judge about this matter of divorce but left him to his owne conscience that Christ therfore cannot be thought to send him that adultery may be judg'd by a vehement suspition that the exception of adultery seems an example of other like offences proves it from the manner of speech the maxims of law the reason of charity and common equity These authorities without long search I had to produce all excellent men som of them such as many ages had brought forth none greater almost the meanest of them might deserve to obtain credit in a singularity what might not then all of them joyn'd in an opinion so consonant to reason For although som speak of this cause others of that why divorce may be yet all agreeing in the necessary enlargement of that textual straitnes leave the matter to equity not to literal bondage and so the opinion closes Nor could I have wanted more testimonies had the cause needed a more sollicitous enquiry But herein the satisfaction of others hath bin studied not the gaining of more assurance to mine own perswasion although authorities contributing reason withall bee a good confirmation and a welcom But God I solemnly attest him with held from my knowledge the consenting judgement of these men so late untill they could not bee my instructers but only my unexpected witnesses to partial men that in this work I had not given the worst experiment of an industry joyn'd with integrity and the free utterance though of an unpopular truth Which yet to the people of England may if God so please prove a memorable informing certainly a benefit which was intended them long since by men of highest repute for wisedome piety Bucer Erasmus Only this one autority more whether in place or out of place I am not to omitt which if any can think a small one I must bee patitient it is no smaller then the whole assembl'd autority of England both Church and State and in those times which are on record for the purest and sincerest that ever shon yet on the reformation of this Iland the time of Edward the 6th That worthy Prince having utterly abolisht the Canon Law out of his Dominions as his Father did before him appointed by full vote of Parlament a Committy of two and thirty chosen men Divines and Lawyers of whom Cranmer the Archbishop Peter Martyr and Walter Haddon not without the assistance of Sir John Cheeke the Kings Tutor a man at that time counted the learnedest of Englishmen for piety not inferior were the cheif to frame anew som Ecclesiastical Laws that might be in stead of what was abrogated The work with great diligence was finisht and with as great approbation of that reforming age was receav'd and had bin doubtlesse as the learned Preface thereof testifies establisht by Act of Parlament had not the good Kings death so soon ensuing arrested the furder growth of Religion also from that season to this Those laws thus founded on the memorable wisedome and piety of that religious Parlament and Synod allow divorce and second mariage not only for adultery or desertion but for any capital cnmity or plot laid against the others life and likewise for evil and fierce usage nay the 12. Chap. of that title by plaine consequence declares that lesser contentions if they be perpetual may obtaine divorce which is all one really with the position by me held in the former treatise publisht on this argument herein only differing that there the cause of perpetual strife was put for example in the unchangeable discord of som natures but in these lawes intended us by the best of our ancestors the effect of continual strife is determin'd no unjust plea of divorce whether the cause be naturall or wilfull Wherby the warinesse and deliberation from which that discourse proceeded will appeare that God hath aided us to make no bad conclusion of this point seeing the opinion which of late hath undergon ill censures among the vulgar hath now prov'd to have don no violence to Scripture unlesse all these famous Authors alleg'd have done the like nor hath affirm'd ought more then what indeed the most nominated Fathers of the Church both ancient and modern are unexpectedly found affirming the lawes of Gods peculiar people of primitive Christendom found to have practis'd reformed Churches and states to have imitated and especially the most pious Church-times of this Kingdom to have fram'd and publisht and but for sad hindrances in the sudden change of religion had enacted by Parlament Hence forth let them who condemn the assertion of this book for new and licentious be sorry lest while they think to be of the graver sort and take on them to be teachers they expose themselves rather to be pledg'd up and down by men who intimatly know them to the discovery and contempt of their ignorance and presumption The End Errata Pag. 57. lin 16. and by them to prosecute no comma between Pag. 88. lin 3. Basilius Macedo no comma between
be more then ordnary as if wisdome had now forsak'n the thirstie and laborious inquirer to dwell against her nature with the arrogant and shallow babler to what purpose all those pains and that continual searching requir'd of us by Solomon to the attainment of understanding why are men bred up with such care and expence to a life of perpetual studies why do your selves with such endeavour seek to wipe off the imputation of intending to discourage the progresse and advance of learning He therfore whose heart can bear him to the high pitch of your noble enterprises may easily assure himself that the prudence and farre-judging circumspectnesse of so grave a Magistracy sitting in Parlament who have before them the prepar'd and purpos'd Act of their most religious predecessors to imitate in this question cannot reject the cleernesse of these reasons and these allegations both here and formerly offer'd them nor can over-look the necessity of ordaining more wholsomly and more humanly in the casualties of Divorce then our Laws have yet establisht if the most urgent and excessive grievances hapning in domestick life be worth the laying to heart which unlesse charity be farre from us cannot be neglected And that these things both in the right constitution and in the right reformation of a Common-wealth call for speediest redresse and ought to be the first consider'd anough was urg'd in what was prefac'd to that monument of Bucer which I brought to your remembrance and the other time before Hence forth except new cause be giv'n I shall say lesse and lesse For if the Law make not timely provision let the Law as reason is bear the censure of those consequences which her own default now more evidently produces And if men want manlinesse to expostulate the right of their due ransom and to second their own occasions they may sit hereafter and bemoan themselves to have neglected through faintnesse the onely remedy of their sufferings which a seasonable and well grounded speaking might have purchas'd them And perhaps in time to come others will know how to esteem what is not every day put into their hands when they have markt events and better weigh'd how hurtfull and unwise it is to hide a secret and pernicious rupture under the ill counsell of a bashfull silence But who would distrust ought or not be ample in his hopes of your wise and Christian determinations who have the prudence to consider and should have the goodnesse like gods as ye are call'd to find out readily and by just Law to administer those redresses which have of old not without God ordaining bin granted to the adversities of mankind ere they who needed were put to ask Certainly if any other have enlarg'd his thoughts to expect from this government so justly undertak'n and by frequent assistances from heaven so apparently upheld glorious changes and renovations both in Church and State he among the formost might be nam'd who prayes that the fate of England may tarry for no other Deliverers JOHN MILTON TETRACHORDON Expositions upon the foure chiefe places in Scripture which treat of Mariage or nullities in Mariage Gen. 1. 27. So God created man in his owne image in the image of God created he him male and female created he them 28. And God blessed them and God said unto them be fruitfull c. Gen. 2. 18. And the Lord God said It is not good that man should be alone I will make him a helpe meet for him 23. And Adam said This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh Gen. 1. 27. SO God created man in his owne image To be inform'd aright in the whole History of Mariage that we may know for certain not by a forc't yoke but by an impartial definition what Mariage is and what is not Mariage it will undoubtedly be lafest fairest and most with our obedience to enquire as our Saviours direction is how it was in the beginning And that we begin so high as man created after Gods owne Image there want not earnest causes For nothing now adayes is more degenerately forgott'n then the true dignity of man almost in every respect but especially in this prime institution of Matrimony wherein his native pre-eminence ought most to shine Although if we consider that just and naturall privileges men neither can rightly seek nor dare fully claime unlesse they be ally'd to inward goodnesse and stedfast knowledge and that the want of this quells them to a servile sense of their own conscious unworthinesse it may save the wondring why in this age many are so opposite both to human and to Christian liberty either while they understand not or envy others that do contenting or rather priding themselves in a specious humility and strictnesse bred out of low ignorance that never yet conceiv'd the freedome of the Gospel and is therefore by the Apostle to the Colossians rankt with no better company then Will-worship and the meer shew of wisdome And how injurious herein they are if not to themselves yet to their neighbours and not to them only but to the all-wise and bounteous grace offer'd us in our redemption will orderly appear In the Image of God created he him It is anough determin'd that this Image of God wherin man was created is meant Wisdom Purity Justice and rule over all creatures All which being lost in Adam was recover'd with gain by the merits of Christ For albeit our first parent had lordship over sea and land and aire yet there was a law without him as a guard set over him But Christ having cancell'd the hand writing of ordinances which was against us Coloss 2. 14. and interpreted the fulfilling of all through charity hath in that respect set us overlaw in the free custody of his love and left us victorious under the guidance of his living Spirit not under the dead letter to follow that which most edifies most aides and furders a religious life makes us holiest and likest to his immortall Image not that which makes us most conformable and captive to civill and subordinat precepts whereof the strictest observance may oftimes prove the destruction not only of many innocent persons and families but of whole Nations Although indeed no ordinance human or from heav'n can binde against the good of man so that to keep them strictly against that end is all one with to breake them Men of most renowned vertu have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law and wisest Magistrates have permitted and dispenc't it while they lookt not peevishly at the letter but with a greater spirit at the good of mankinde if alwayes not writt'n in the characters of law yet engrav'n in the heart of man by a divine impression This Heathens could see as the well-read in
good leav by mutual consent Therfore where conjunction is said they who comment the Institutes agree that conjunction of minde is by the Law meant not necessarily conjunction of body That Law then had good reason attending to its own definition that divorce should be granted for the breaking of that conjunction which it holds necessary sooner then for the want of that conjunction which it holds not necessary And wheras Tuningus a famous Lawyer excuses individual as the purpos of Mariage not always the success it suffices not Purpos is not able to constitute the essence of a thing Nature her self the universal Mother intends nothing but her own perfection and preservation yet is not the more indissoluble for that The Pandects out of Modestinus though not define yet well describe Mariage the conjunction of male and female the society of all life the communion of divine and human right which Bucer also imitates on the fifth to the Ephesians But it seems rather to comprehend the several ends of Mariage then to contain the more constituting cause that makes it what it is That I therefore among others for who sings not Hylas may give as well as take matter to be judg'd on it will be lookt I should produce another definition then these which have not stood the tryal Thus then I suppose that Mariage by the natural and plain order of Gods institution in the Text may be more demonstratively and essentially defin'd Mariage is a divine institution joyning man and woman in a love fitly dispos'd to the helps and comforts of domestic life A divine institution This contains the prime efficient cause of Mariage as for consent of Parents and Guardians it seems rather a concurrence then a cause for as many that marry are in thir own power as not and where they are not thir own yet are they not subjected beyond reason Now though efficient causes are not requisite in a definition yet divine institution hath such influence upon the Form and is so a conserving cause of it that without it the Form is not sufficient to distinguish matrimony from other conjunctions of male and female which are not to be counted mariage Joyning man and woman in a love c. This brings in the parties consent until which be the mariage hath no true beeing When I say consent I mean not error for error is not properly consent And why should not consent be heer understood with equity and good to either part as in all other freindly covnants and not be strain'd and cruelly urg'd to the mischeif and destruction of both Neither doe I mean that singular act of consent which made the contract for that may remain and yet the mariage not true nor lawful and that may cease and yet the mariage both true and lawful to their sin that break it So that either as no efficient at all or but a transitory it comes not into the definition That consent I mean which is a love fitly dispos'd to mutual help and comfort of life this is that happy Form of mariage naturally arising from the very heart of divine institution in the Text in all the former definitions either obscurely and under mistak'n terms exprest or not at all This gives mariage all her due all her benefits all her beeing all her distinct and proper beeing This makes a mariage not a bondage a blessing not a curse a gift of God not a snare Unless ther be a love and that love born of fitnes how can it last unless it last how can the best and sweetest purposes of mariage be attain'd and they not attain'd which are the cheif ends and with a lawful love constitute the formal cause it self of mariage how can the essence thereof subsist how can it bee indeed what it goes for Conclude therfore by all the power of reason that where this essence of mariage is not there can bee no true mariage and the parties either one of them or both are free and without fault rather by a nullity then by a divorce may betake them to a second choys if thir present condition be not tolerable to them If any shall ask why domestic in the definition I answer that because both in the Scriptures and in the gravest Poets and Philosophers I finde the properties and excellencies of a wife set out only from domestic vertues if they extend furder it diffuses them into the notion of som more common duty then matrimonial Thus farre of the definition the Consectary which flows from thence and altogether depends theron is manifestly brought in by this connexive particle Therfore and branches it self into a double consequence First individual Society therfore shall a man leav father and mother Secondly conjugal benevolence and they shall bee one flesh Which as was shewn is not without cause heer mention'd to prevent and to abolish the suspect of pollution in that natural and undefiled act These consequences therfore cannot either in Religion Law or Reason bee bound and posted upon mankind to his sorrow and misery but receiv what force they have from the meetnes of help and solace which is the formal cause and end of that definition that sustains them And although it be not for the Majesty of Scripture to humble her self in artificial theorems and definitions and Corollaries like a professor in the Schools but looks to be analys'd and interpreted by the logical industry of her Disciples and followers and to bee reduc't by them as oft as need is into those Sciential rules which are the implements of instruction yet Moses as if foreseeing the miserable work that mans ignorance and pusillanimity would make in this matrimonious busines and endevouring his utmost to prevent it condescends in this place to such a methodical and School-like way of defining and consequencing as in no place of the whole Law more Thus wee have seen and if wee be not contentious may know what was Mariage in the beginning to which in the Gospel wee are referr'd and what from hence to judge of nullity or divorce Heer I esteem the work don in this field the controversie decided but because other places of Scripture seem to look aversly upon this our decision although indeed they keep all harmony with it and because it is a better work to reconcile the seeming diversities of Scripture then the reall dissentions of neerest friends I shall assay in three following Discourses to perform that Office Deut. 24. 1 2. 1. When a man hath taken a Wife and married her and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes because he hath found som uncleannes in her then let him write her a bill of divercement and give it in her hand and send her out of his house 2 And when she is departed out of his house she may goe and be another mans wife THat which is the only discommodity of speaking in a cleer matter the abundance of argument that presses to bee utter'd
judgements eevn as the Lord my God commanded mee keep therfore and doe them For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of Nations that shall hear all these Statutes and say surely this great Nation is a wise and understanding people For what Nation is ther so great who hath God so nigh to them and what Nation that hath Statutes and Judgements so righteons as all this Law which I set before you this day Thus whether wee look at the purity and justice of God himself the jealousy of his honour among other Nations the holines and moral perfection which hee intended by his Law to teach this people wee cannot possibly think how he could indure to let them slugg grow inveteratly wicked under base allowances whole adulterous lives by dispensation They might not eat they might not touch an unclean thing to what hypocrisy then were they train'd up if by prescription of the same Law they might be unjust they might be adulterous for term of life forbid to soile thir garments with a coy imaginary pollution but not forbid but countnanc't and animated by Law to soile thir soules with deepest defilements What more unlike to God what more like that God should hate then that his Law should bee so curious to wash vestures and so careles to leav unwasht unregarded so foul a scab of Egypt in thir Soules what would wee more the Statutes of the Lord are all pure and just and if all then this of Divorce Because hee hath found som uncleannes in her That wee may not esteem this law to bee a meer authorizing of licence as the Pharises took it Moses adds the reason for som uncleannes found Som heertofore have bin so ignorant as to have thought that this uncleannes means adultery But Erasmus who for having writ an excellent Treatise of Divorce was wrote against by som burly standard Divine perhaps of Cullen or of Lovain who calls himself Phimostomus shews learnedly out of the Fathers with other Testimonies and Reasons that uncleannes is not heer so understood defends his former work though new to that age and perhaps counted licentious and fears not to ingage all his fame on the Argument Afterward when Expositers began to understand the Hebrew Text which they had not done of many ages before they translated word for word not uncleannes but the nakednes of any thing and considering that nakednes is usually referr'd in Scripture to the minde as well as to the body they constantly expound it any defect annoyance or ill quality in nature which to bee joyn'd with makes life tedious and such company wors then solitude So that heer will be no cause to vary from the generall consent of exposition which gives us freely that God permitted divorce for whatever was unalterably distastful whether in body or mind But with this admonishment that if the Roman law especially in contracts and dowries left many things to equity with these cautions exfide bonâ quod aequius melius erit ut inter bonos bene agier wee will not grudge to think that God intended not licence heer to every humor but to such remediles greevances as might move a good and honest and faithfull man then to divorce when it can no more bee peace or comfort to either of them continuing thus joyn'd And although it could not be avoided bat that men of hard hearts would abuse this liberty yet doubtles it was intended as all other privileges in Law are to good men principally to bad only by accident So that the sin was not in the permission nor simply in the action of divorce for then the permitting also had bin sin but only in the abuse But that this Law should as it were bee wrung from God and Moses only to serve the hard heartednes and the lust of injurious men how remote it is from all sense and law and honesty and therfore surely from the meaning of Christ shall abundantly be manifest in due order Now although Moses needed not to adde other reason of this law then that one there exprest yet to these ages wherin Canons and Scotisms and Lumbard Laws have dull'd and almost obliterated the lively Sculpture of ancient reason and humanity it will be requisit to heap reason upon reason and all little enough to vindicat the whitenes and the innocence of this divine Law from the calumny it findes at this day of beeing a dore to licence and confusion When as indeed there is not a judicial point in all Moses consisting of more true equity high wisdom and God-like pitty then this Law not derogating but preserving the honour and peace of Mariage and exactly agreeing with the sense and mind of that institution in Genesis For first if Mariage be but an ordain'd relation as it seems not more it cannot take place above the prime dictats of nature and if it bee of natural right yet it must yeeld to that which is more natural and before it by eldership and precedence in nature Now it is not natural that Hugh marries Beatrice or Thomas Rebecca beeing only a civill contract and full of many chances but that these men seek them meet helps that only is natural and that they espouse them such that only is mariage But if they find them neither fit helps nor tolerable society what thing more natural more original and first in nature then to depart from that which is irksom greevous actively hateful and injurious eevn to hostility especially in a conjugal respect wherin antipathies are invincible and wher the forc't abiding of the one can bee no true good no real comfort to the other For if hee find no contentment from the other how can he return it from himself or no acceptance how can hee mutually accept what more equal more pious then to untie a civil knot for a natural enmity held by violence from parting to dissolv an accidental conjunction of this or that man woman for the most natural and most necessary disagreement of meet from unmeet guilty from guiltles contrary from contrary It beeing certain that the mystical and blessed unity of mariage can bee no way more unhallow'd and profan'd then by the forcible uniting of such disunions and separations Which if wee see oft times they cannot joyn or peece up to a common friendship or to a willing conversation in the same house how should they possibly agree to the most familiar and united amity of wedlock Abraham and Lot though dear friends and brethren in a strange Country chose rather to part asunder then to infect thir friendship with the strife of thir servants Paul and Barnabas joyn'd together by the Holy Ghost to a Spiritual work thought it better to separate when once they grew at variance If these great Saints joynd by nature friendship religion high providence and revelation could not so govern a casual difference a sudden passion but must in wisdom divide from the outward duties of a
hypocritical honesty was Rome declin'd in that age wherein Horace liv'd and discover'd it to Quintius Whom doe we count a good man whom but he Who keepes the lawes and statutes of the Senate Who judges in great suits and controversies Whose witnesse and opinion winnes the cause But his owne house and the whole neighbourhood Sees his foule inside through his whited skin The next declining is when law becomes now too straight for the secular manners and those too loose for the cincture of law This brings in false and crooked interpretations to ecke out law and invents the suttle encroachment of obscure traditions hard to be disprov'd To both these descents the Pharises themselves were fall'n Our Saviour therefore shews them both where they broke the law in not marking the divine intent thereof but onely the letter and where they deprav'd the letter also with sophisticall expositions This law of divorse they had deprav'd both waies First by teaching that to give a bill of divorse was all the duty which that law requir'd what ever the cause were Next by running to divorse for any triviall accidentall cause whenas the law evidently stayes in the grave causes of naturall and immutable dislike It hath been said saith he Christ doth not put any contempt or disesteeme upon the law struct but if he discerne his willingnesse and candor made use of to intrapp him will suddainly draw in himselfe and laying aside the facil vein of perspicuity will know his time to utter clouds and riddles If he be not lesse wise then that noted Fish when as he should bee not unwiser then the Serpent Our Saviour at no time exprest any great desire to teach the obstinate and unteachable Pharises but when they came to tempt him then least of all As now about the liberty of divorce so another time about the punishment of adultery they came to sound him and what satisfaction got they from his answer either to themselves or to us that might direct a law under the Gospel new from that of Moses unlesse we draw his absolution of adultery into an edict So about the tribute who is there can picke out a full solution what and when we must give to Caesar by the answer which he gave the Pharises If we must give to Caesar that which is Caesars and all be Caesars which hath his image wee must either new stamp our Coine or we may goe new stamp our Foreheads with the superscription of slaves in stead of freemen Besides it is a generall precept not only of Christ but of all other Sages not to instruct the unworthy and the conceited who love tradition more then truth but to perplex and stumble them purposely with contriv'd obscurities No wonder then if they who would determine of divorce by this place have ever found it difficult and unfatisfying through all the ages of the Church as Austine himselfe and other great writers confesse Lastly it is manifest to be the principal scope of our Saviour both here and in the 5. of Mat. to convince the Pharises of what they being evill did licentiously not to explaine what others being good and blamelesse men might be permitted to doe in case of extremity Neither was it seasonable to talke of honest and conscientious liberty among them who had abused legall and civil liberty to uncivil licence We doe not say to a servant what we say to a sonne nor was it expedient to preach freedome to those who had transgrest in wantonnesse When we rebuke a Prodigal we admonish him of thrift not of magnificence or bounty And to school a proud man we labour to make him humble not magnanimous So Christ to retort these arrogant inquisitors their own tooke the course to lay their hautinesse under a severity which they deserv'd not to acquaint them or to make them judges either of the just mans right and privilege or of the afflicted mans necessity And if wee may have leave to conjecture there is a likelyhood offer'd us by Tertullian in his 4. against Marcion whereby it may seeme very probable that the Pharises had a private drifr of malice against our Saviours life in proposing this question and our Saviour had a peculiar aim in the rigor of his answer both to let them know the freedome of his spirit and the sharpenesse of his discerning This I must now shew saith Tertullian Whence our Lord deduc'd this sentence and which way he directed it whereby it will more fully appeare that he intended not to dissolve Moses And there upon tells us that the vehemence of this our Saviours speech was cheifly darted against Herod and Herodias The story is out of Josephus Herod had beene a long time married to the daughter of Aretas King of Petra til hapning on his jorney towards Rome to be entertain'd at his brother Philips house he cast his eye unlawfully and unguestlike upon Herodias there the wife of Philip but daughter to Aristobulus their common brother and durst make words of marrying her his Neece from his brothers bed She assented upon agreement he should expell his former wife All was accomplisht and by the Baptist rebuk't with the losse of his head Though doubtlesse that staid not the various discourses of men upon the fact which while the Herodian flatterers and not a few perhaps among the Pharises endevout'd to defend by wresting the law it might be a meanes to bring the question of divorce into a hot agitation among the people how farre Moses gave allowance The Pharises therefore knowing our Saviour to be a friend of Iohn the Baptist and no doubt but having heard much of his Sermon in the Mount wherein he spake rigidly against the licence of divorce they put him this question both in hope to find him a contradicter of Moses and a condemner of Herod so to insnare him within compasse of the same accusation which had ended his friend and our Saviour so orders his answer as that they might perceive Herod and his Adultresse only not nam'd so lively it concern'd them both what he spake No wonder then if the sentence of our Saviour sounded stricter then his custome was which his conscious attempters doubtlesse apprehended sooner then his other auditors Thus much we gaine from hence to informe us that what Christ intends to speake here of divorce will be rather the forbidding of of what we may not doe herein passionately and abusively as Herod and Herodias did then the discussing of what herein we may doe reasonably and necessarily Is it lawfull for a man to put away his wife It might be render'd more exactly from the Greeke to loosen or to set free which though it seeme to have a milder fignification then the two Hebrew words commonly us'd for divorce yet Interpreters have noted that the Greeke also is read in the Septuagint for an act which is not without constraint As when Achish drove from his presence David counterfeting madnesse Psal 34. the Greeke word
to a rectitude and mediocrity stands not in the middle way of duty but in the other extreme Which art of powerfull reclaiming wisest men have also taught in their ethical precepts and gnomologies resembling it as when wee bend a crooked wand the contrary way not that it should stand so bent but that the overbending might reduce it to a straitnesse by its own reluctance And as the Physician cures him who hath tak'n down poyson not by the middling temper of nourishment but by the other extreme of antidote so Christ administers heer a sharpe corrosive sentence against a foul and putrid licence not to eate into the flesh but into the sore And knowing that our divines through all their comments make no scruple where they please to soften the high and vehem ent speeches of our Saviour which they call hyperbolics why in this one text should they be such crabbed masorites of the Letter as not to mollifie a transcendence of literal rigidity which they confesse to find often elsewhere in his manner of delivery but must make their exposition heer such an obdurat Cyclops to have but one eye for this text and that onely open to cruelty and enthralment such as no divine or human law before ever heard of No let the foppish canouist with his fardel of matrimonial cases goe and be vendible where men bee so unhappy as to cheap'n him the words of Christ shall be asserted from such elementall notaries and resolv'd by the now-only lawgiving mouth of charity which may be done undoubtedly by understanding them as followes Whosoever shall put away his wife That is to say shall so away as the propounders of this question the Pharisees were wont to doe and covertly defended Herod for so doing whom to rebuke our Saviour heer mainely intends and not to determine all the cases of divorce as appeares by Saint Paul Whosoever shall put away either violently without mutuall consent for urgent reasons or conspiringly by plot of lust or cunning malice shall put away for any sudden mood or contingency of disagreement which is not daily practice but may blow soone over and be reconcil'd except it bee fornication whosoever shall put away rashly as his choler prompts him without due time of deliberating and thinke his conscience discharg'd only by the bill of divorce giv'n and the outward law satisfi'd whosoever lastly shall put away his wife that is a wife indeede not in name only such a one who both can and is willing to bee a meet helpe toward the cheif ends of mariage both civil and sanctify'd except fornication be the cause that man or that pair committ adulcery Not he who puts away by mutuall consent with all the considerations and respects of humanity and gentlenesse without malicious or lustfull drift Not he who after sober and coole experience and long debate within himself puts away whom though he cannot love or suffer as a wife with that sincere affection that marriage requires yet loves at lest with that civility and goodnesse as not to keepe her under a neglected and unwelcom residence where nothing can be hearty and not beeing it must needs bee both unjoyous and injurious to any perceaving person so detain'd and more injurious then to be freely and upon good termes dismist Nor doth hee put away adulterously who complaines of causes rooted in immutable nature utter unfitnesse utter disconformity not concileable because not to be amended without a miracle Nor hee who puts away an unquenshable vexation from his bosom and flies an evil then which a greater cannot befall human society Nor hee who puts away with the the full suffrage and applause of his conscience not relying on the writt'n bill of law but claiming by faith and fulnes of perswasion the rights and promises of Gods institution of which hee finds himselfe in a mistak'n wedlock defrauded Doubtlesse this man hath baile anough to bee no adulterer giving divorc for these causes His Wife This word is not to be idle here a meere word without a sense much lesse a fallacious word signifying contrary to what it pretends but faithfully signifies a wife that is a comfortable helpe and society as God instituted does not signify deceitfully under this name an intolerable adversary not a helpelesse unaffectionate and sullen masse whose very company represents the visible and exactest figure of lonelines it selfe Such an associate he who puts away divorces not a wife but disjoyns a nullity which God never joyn'd if she be neither willing nor to her proper and requisite duties sufficient as the words of God institute her And this also is Bucers explicatâ—on of this place Except it bee for fornication or saving for the cause of fornication as Matt. 5th This declares what kind of causes our Saviour meant fornication being no natural and perpetual cause but onely accidental and temporary therefore shewes that head of causes from whence it is excepted to bee meant of the same sort For exceptions are not logically deduc't from a divers kind as to say who so puts away for any naturall cause except fornication the exception would want salt And if they understand it who so for any cause what ever they cast themselves granting divorce for frigidity a naturall cause of their own allowing though not heer exprest and for desertion without infidelity when as he who marries as they allow him for a desertion deserts as well as is deserted and finally puts away for another cause besides adultery It will with all due reason therefore be thus better understood who so puts away for any accidental and temporary causes except one of them which is fornication Thus this exception finds out the causes from whence it is excepted to be of the same kind that is casuall not continuall Saving for the cause of fornication The New Testament though it be said originally writt in Greeke yet hath nothing neer so many Atticisms as Hebraisms Syriacisms which was the Majesty of God not filing the tongue of Scripture to a Gentilish Idiom but in a princely manner offring to them as to Gentiles and Foreiners grace and mercy though not in forein words yet in a forein stile that might induce them to the fountaines and though their calling were high and happy yet still to acknowledge Gods ancient people their betters and that language the Metropolitan language He therefore who thinks to Scholiaze upon the Gospel though Greek according to his Greek Analogies and hath not bin Auditor to the oriental dialects shall want in the heat of his Analysis no accomodation to stumble In this place as the 5th of Matth reads it Saving for the cause of fornication the Greek such as it is sounds it except for the word report speech or proportion of fornication In which regard with other inducements many ancient and learned writers have understood this exception as comprehending any fault equivalent and proportional to fornication But truth is the Evangelist heer Hebraizes
words of Christ comprehend many other causes of divorce under the name of fornication Bucer whom our famous Dr Rainolds was wont to preferr before Calvin in his comment on Matthew and in his second booke of the Kingdome of Christ treats of divorce at large to the same effect as is written in the doctrine and discipline of divorce lately publisht and the translation is extant whom lest I should be thought to have wrested to mine own purpose take somthing more out of his 49. Chap. which I then for brevity omitted It will be the duty of pious princes and all who govern Church or common wealth if any whether husband or wife shall affirme their want of such who either will or can tolerably performe the necessary duties of maried life to grant that they may seeke them such and marry them if they make it appeare that such they have not This book he wrote heer in England where he liv'd the greatest admir'd man and this hee dedicated to Edward the sixth Fagius rankt among the famous divines of Germany whom Frederic at that time the Palatine sent for to be the reformer of his Dominion and whom afterwards England sought to and obtain'd of him to come and teach her differs not in this opinion from Bucer as his notes on the Chaldey paraphrast well testify The whole Church of Strasburgh in her most flourishing time when Zellius Hedio Capito and other great Divines taught there and those two renouned magistrates Farrerus and Sturmius govern'd that common wealth and Academy to the admiration of all Germany hath thus in the 21. Article We teach that if according to the word of God yea or against it divorces happen to doe according to Gods word Devt 24. 1. Mat. 19. 1 Cor. 7. and the observation of the primitive Church and the Christian constitution of pious Caesars Peter Martyr seems in word our easy adversary but is in deed for us toward which though it be somthing when he saith of this opinion that it is not wicked and can hardly be refuted this which followes is much more I speake not heer saith he Of natural impediments which may so happ'n that the matrimony can no longer hold but adding that he often wonder'd how the antient and most christian Emperors establisht those lawes of divorce and neither Ambrose who had such influence upon the lawes of Theodosius nor any of those holy fathers found fault nor any of the Churches why the Magistrats of this day should be so loth to constitute the same Perhaps they feare an inundation of divorces which is not likely whenas we reade not either among the Ebrews Greeks or Romans that they were much frequent where they were most permitted If they judge christian men worse then Jewes or Pagans they both injure that name and by this reason will bee constrain'd to grant divorces the rather because it was permitted as a remedy of evil for who would remove the medcin while the disease is yet so rife This being read both in his common places on the first to the Corinthians with what we shall relate more of him yet ere the end sets him absolutely on this side Not to insist that in both these other places of his commentaries hee grants divorce not onely for desertion but for the seducement and scandalous demeanour of a heretical consort Musculus a divine of no obscure fame distinguishes betweene the religious and the civil determination of divorce and leaving the civil wholly to the lawyers pronounces a conscionable divorce for importence not only natural but accidental if it be durable His equity it seems can enlarge the words of Christ to one cause more then adultery why may not the reason of another man as wise enlarge them to another cause Gualter of Zuric a well known judicious commentator in his Homilies on Matthew allows divorce for Leprosie or any other cause which renders unfit for wedloc and calls this rather a nullity of mariage then a divorce and who that is not himselfe a meer body can restrain all the unfitnes of mariage only to a corporal defect Hemingius an Author highly esteem'd and his works printed at Geneva writing of divorce confesses that lerned men vary in this question some granting three causes thereof some five others many more he himselfe gives us sixe adultery desertion inability error evill usage and impiety using argument that Christ under one special containes the whole kind under the name example of fornication he includes other causes equipollent This discours he wrote at the request of many who had the judging of these causes in Denmark and Norway who by all likely hood follow'd his advice Hunnius a Doctor of Wittenberg well known both in Divinity other arts on the 19. of Matt. affirmes that the exception of fornicationexprest by our Saviour excludes not other causes equalling adultery or destructive to the substantials of matrimony but was oppos'd to the custom of the Jewes who made divorce for every light cause Felix Bidenbachius an eminent Divine in the Dutchy of Wirtemberg affirmes that the obstinat refusal of conjugal due is a lawful cause of divorce and gives an instance that the consistory of that state sojudg'd Gerard cites Harbardus an author not unknown and Arnisaeus cites Wigandus both yeelding divorce in case of cruel usage and another author who testifies to have seen in a dukedom of Germany mariages disjoynd for some implacable enmities arising Beza one of the strictest against divorce denies it not for danger of life from a Heretic or importunat solicitation to doe ought against religion and counts it all one whether the heretic desert or would stay upon intolerable conditions But this decision well examin'd will be found of no solidity For Beza would be askt why if God so strictly exact our stay in any kind of wedloc wee had not better stay and hazard a murdering for Religion at the hand of a wife or husband as he and others enjoyn us to stay and venture it for all other causes but that and why a mans life is not as well and warrantably sav'd by divorcing from an orthodox murderer as a heretical Againe if desertion be confest by him to consist not only in the forsaking but in the unsufferable conditions of staying a man may as well deduce the lawfulnesse of divorcing from any intolerable conditions if his grant bee good that wee may divorce thereupon from a heretic as he can deduce it lawfull to divorce from any deserter by finding it lawful to divorce from a deserting infidel For this is plaine if Saint Pauls permission to divorce an infidel deserter inferre it lawfull for any malicious desertion then doth Beza's definition of a deserter transferr it selfe with like facility from the cause of religion to the cause of malice and proves it as good to divorce from him who intolerably stayes as from him who purposely departs and leaves it as lawfull to depart from him