THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE RESTOR'D TO THE GOOD OF BOTH SEXES From the bondage of Canon Law and other mistakes to Christian freedom guided by the Rule of Charity Wherein also many places of Scripture have recover'd their long-lost meaning Seasonable to be now thought on in the Reformation intended MATTH. 13. 52. Every Scribe instructed to the Kingdome of Heav'n is like the Maister of a house which bringeth out of his treasurie things old and new LONDON Printed by T. P. and M. S. In Goldsmiths Alley 1643. THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE RESTOR'D TO THE GOOD OF BOTH SEXES MAny men whether it be their fate or fond opinion easily perswade themselves if GOD would but be pleas'd a while to withdraw his just punishments from us and to restraine what power either the devill or any earthly enemy hath to worke us woe that then mans nature would find immediate rest and releasement from all evils But verily they who think so if they be such as have a minde large â—nough to take into their thoughts a generall survey of humane things would soone prove themselves in that opinion farre deceiv'd For though it were granted us by divine indulgence to be exempt from all that can be harmfull to us from without yet the perversnesse of our folly is so bent that we should never lin hammering out of our owne hearts as it were out of a flint the seeds and sparkles of new miseries to our selves till all were in a blaze againe And no marvell if out of our own hearts for they are evill but ev'n out of those things which God meant us either for a principall good or a pure contentment we are still hatching and contriving upon our selves matter of continuall sorrow and perplexitie What greater good to man then that revealed rule whereby God vouchsafes to shew us how he would be worshipt and yet that not rightly understood became the cause that once a famous man in Israel could not but oblige his conscience to be the sacrificer or if not the jayler of his innocent and onely daughter And was the cause oft-times that Armies of valiant men have given up their throats to a heathenish enemy on the Sabbath day fondly thinking their defensive resistance to be as then a work unlawfull What thing more instituted to the solace and delight of man then marriage and yet the mis-interpreting of some Scripture directed mainly against the abusers of the Law for divorce giv'n them by Moses hath chang'd the blessing of matrimony not seldome into a familiar and co-inhabiting mischiefe at least into a drooping and disconsolate houshold captivitie without refuge or redemption So ungovern'd and so wild a race doth superstition run us from one extreme of abused libertie into the other of unmercifull restraint For although God in the first ordaining of marriage taught us to what end he did it in words expresly implying the apt and cheerfull conversation of man with woman to comfort and refresh him against the evill of solitary life not mentioning the purpose of generation till afterwards as being but a secondary end in dignity though not in necessitie yet now if any two be but once handed in the Church and have tasted in any sort of the nuptiall bed let them finde themselves never so mistak'n in their dispositions through any error concealment or misadventure that through their different tempers thoughts and constitutions they can neither be to one another a remedy against lonelines nor live in any union or contentment all their dayes yet they shall so they be but found suitably weapon'd to the lest possibilitie of sensuall enjoyment bemade spight of antipathy to fadge together and combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisomnes despaire of all sociable delight in the ordinance which God establisht to that very end What a calamitie is this and as the Wise-man if he were alive would sigh out in his own phrase what a sore evill is this under the Sunne All which we can referre justly to no other author then the Canon Law and her adherents not consulting with charitie the interpreter and guide of our faith but resting in the meere element of the Text doubtles by the policy of the devill to make that gracious ordinance become unsupportable that what with men not daring to venture upon wedlock and what with men wearied out of it all inordinate licence might abound It was for many ages that mariage lay in disgrace with most of the ancient Doctors as a work of the flesh almost a defilement wholly deny'd to Priests and the second time disswaded to all as he that reads Tertullian or Ierom may see at large Afterwards it was thought so Sacramentall that no adultery could dissolve it yet there remains a burden on it as heavy as the other two were disgracefull or superstitious and of as much iniquirie crossing a Law not onely writt'n by Moses but character'd in us by nature of more antiquitie and deeper ground then mariage it selfe which Law is to force nothing against the faultles proprieties of nature yet that this may be colourably done our Saviours words touching divorce are as it were congeal'd into a stony rigor inconsistent both with his doctrine and his office and that which he preacht onely to the conscience is by canonicall tyranny snatcht into the compulsive censure of a judiciall Court where Laws are impos'd even against the venerable secret power of natures impression to love what ever cause be found to loath Which is a hainous barbarisme both against the honour of mariage the dignitie of man and his soule the goodnes of Christianitie and all the humane respects of civilitie Notwithstanding that some the wisest and gravest among the Christian Emperours who had about them to consult with those of the fathers then living who for their learning holines of life are still with us in great renown have made their statutes edicts concerning this debate far more easie and relenting in many necessary cases wherein the Canon is inflexible And Hugo Grotius a man of these times one of the best learned seems not obscurely to adhere in his perswasion to the equitie of those imperiall decrees in his notes upon the Evangelists much allaying the outward roughnesse of the Text which hath for the most part been too immoderately expounded and excites the diligence of others to enquire further into this question as containing many points which have not yet been explain'd By which and by mine owne apprehension of what publick duty each man owes I conceive my selfe exhorted among the rest to communicate such thoughts as I have and offer them now in this generall labour of reformation to the candid view both of Church and Magistrate especially because I see it the hope of good men that those irregular and unspirituall Courts have spun their utmost date in this Land and some better course must now be constituted He therefore that by adventuring
the law were unjust giving grace of pardon without the Gospel or if it give allowance without pardon it would be dissolute and deceitfull saying in general do this and live and yet deceaving and damning with obscure and hollow permissions Wee find also by experience that the Spirit of God in the Gospel hath been alwaies more effectual in the illumination of our minds to the gift of faith then in the moving of our wills to any excellence of vertue either above the Iews or the Heathen Hence those indulgences in the Gospel All cannot receive this saying Every man hath his proper gift with strict charges not to lay on yokes which our Fathers could not bear But this that Moses suffer'd for the hardnes of thir hearts he suffer'd not by that enacted dispensation farre be it but by a meer accidental sufferance of undiscover'd hypocrites who made ill use of that Law for that God should enact a dispensation for hard hearts to do that wherby they must live in priviledg'd adultery however it go for the receav'd opinion I shall ever disswade my self from so much hardihood as to beleeve Certainly this is not the manner of God whose pure eyes cannot behold much lesse his perfect Laws dispence with such impurity and if we consider well we shall finde that all dispensations are either to avoid wors inconveniences or to support infirm consciences for a time but that a dispensatioÌ„ should be as long liv'd as a Law to tolerate adultery for hardnes of heart both sins perhaps of like degree and yet this obdurate disease cannot be conceav'd how it is the more amended by this unclean remedy is a notion of that extravagance from the sage principles of piety that who considers throughly cannot but admire how this hath been digested all this while What may we doe then to salve this seeming inconsistence I must not dissemble that I am confident it can be don no other way then this Moses Deut. 24 1. establisht a grave and prudent Law full of moral equity full of due consideration towards nature that cannot be resisted a Law consenting with the Laws of wisest men and civilest nations That when a man hath maried a wife if it come to passe he cannot love her by reason of some displeasing natural quality or unfitnes in her let him write her a bill of divorce The intent of which Law undoubtedly was this that if any good and peaceable man should discover some helples disagreement or dislike either of mind or body wherby he could not cherfully perform the duty of a husband without the perpetual dissembling of offence and disturbance to his spirit rather then to live uncomfortably and unhappily both to himself and to his wife rather then to continue undertaking a duty which he could not possibly discharge he might dismisse her whom he could not tolerably and so not conscionably retain And this Law the Spirit of God by the mouth of Salomon Pro. 30. 21. 23. testifies to be a good and a necessary Law by granting it that to dwell with a hated woman for hated the hebrew word signifies is a thing that nature cannot endure What follows then but that Law must remedy what nature cannot undergoe Now that many licentious and hard hearted men took hold of this Law to cloak thir bad purposes is nothing strange to beleeve And these were they not for whom Moses made the Law God forbid but whose hardnes of heart taking ill advantage by this Law he held it better to suffer as by accident where it could not be detected rather then good men should loose their just and lawfull privilege of remedy Christ therfore having to answer these tempting Pharises according as his custom was not meaning to inform their proud ignorance what Moses did in the true intent of the Law which they had ill cited suppressing the true cause for which Moses gave it and extending it to every slight matter tells them thir own what Moses was forc't to suffer by their abuse of his Law Which is yet more plain if wee mark that our Saviour in the fiâ—th of Matth. cites not the Law of Moses but the Pharisaical tradition falsly grounded upon that law And in those other places Chap. 19. Mark 10. the Pharises cite the Law but conceale the wise and human reason there exprest which our Saviour corrects not in them whose pride deserv'd not his instruction only returns them what is proper to them Moses for the hardnes of your hearts sufferd you that is such as you to put away your wives and to you he wrote this precept for that cause which to you must be read with an impression and understood limitedly of such as cover'd ill purposes under that Law for it was seasonable that they should hear their own unbounded licence rebuk't but not seasonable for them to hear a good mans requisit liberty explain'd And to amaze them the more because the Pharises thought it no hard matter to fulfill the Law he draws them up to that unseparable institution which God ordaind in the beginning before the fall when man and woman were both perfect and could have no cause to separate just as in the same Chap. he stands not to contend with the arrogant young man who boasted his observance of the whole Law whether he had indeed kept it or not but skrues him up higher to a task of that perfection which no man is bound to imitate And in like manner that pattern of the first institution he set before the opinionative Pharises to dazle them and not to bind us For this is a solid rule that every command giv'n with a reason binds our obedience no otherwise then that reason holds Of this sort was that command in Eden Therfore shall a man cleave to his wife and they shall be one flesh which we see is no absolute command but with an inference Therfore the reason then must be first consider'd that our obedience be not mis-obedience The first is for it is not single because the wife is to the husband flesh of his flesh as in the verse going before But this reason cannot be sufficient of it self for why then should he for his wife leave his father and mother with whom he is farre more flesh of flesh and bone of bone as being made of their substance And besides it can be but a sorry and ignoble society of life whose unseparable injunction depends meerly upon flesh bones Therfore we must look higher since Christ himself recalls us to the beginning and we shall finde that the primitive reason of never divorcing was that sacred and not vain promise of God to remedy mans lonelines by making him a help meet for him though not now in perfection as at first yet still in proportion as things now are And this is repeated ver. 20. when all other creatures were fitly associated brought to Adam as if the divine power had bin in some care and deep
therupon the Christian Magistrate permits usury and open stews heer with us adultery to be so slightly punisht which was punisht by death to these hard-hearted Iews why wee should strain thus at the matter of divorce which may stand so much with charity to permit and make no scruple to allow usury esteem'd to be so much against charity But this it is to embroile our selves against the righteous and all wise judgements and statutes of God which are not variable and contrarious as wee would make them one while permitting and another while forbidding but are most constant and most harmonious each to other For how can the uncorrupt and majestick law of God bearing in her hand the wages of life and death harbour such a repugnance within her self as to require an unexempted and impartial obedience to all her decrees either from us or from our Mediator and yet debase her self to faulter so many ages with circumcis'd adulteries by unclean and slubbeâ—ing permissions Yet Beza's opinion is that a politick law but what politick law I know not unlesse one of Matchiavel's may regulate sin may bear indeed I grant with imperfection for a time as those Canons of the Apostles did in ceremonial things but as for sin the essence of it cannot consist with rule and if the law fall to regulate sin and not to take it utterly away it necessarily confirms and establishes sin To make a regularity of sin by law either the law must straiten sin into no sin or sin must crook the law into no law The judicial law can serve to no other end then to be the protector and champion of Religion and honest civility as is set down plainly Rom. 13. and is but the arme of moral law which can no more be separate from Justice then Justice from vertue their office also in a different manner steares the same cours the one teaches what is good by precept the other unteaches what is bad by punishment But if we give way to politick dispensations of lewd uncleannesse the first good consequence of such a relaxe will be the justifying of papal stews joyn'd with a toleration of epidemick whordom Justice must revolt from the end of her authority and become the patron of that wherof she was created the punisher The example of usury which is commonly alleg'd makes against the allegation which it brings as I touch'd before Besides that usury so much as is permitted by the Magistrate and demanded with common equity is neither against the word of God nor the rule of charity as hath been often discus't by men of eminent learning and judgement There must be therfore some other example found out to shew us wherin civil policy may with warrant from God settle wickednes by law make that lawfull which is lawlesse Although I doubt not but upon deeper consideration that which is true in Physick will be found as true in polity that as of bad pulses those that beat most in order are much wors then those that keep the most inordinate circuit so of popular vices those that may be committed legally will be more pernicious then those which are left to their own cours at peril not under a stinted priviledge to sin orderly and regularly which is an implicit contradiction but under due and fearles execution of punishment The political law since it cannot regulate vice is to restraine it by using all means to root it out but if it suffer the weed to grow up to any pleasurable or contented higth upon what pretext soever it fastens the root it prunes and dresses vice as if it were a good plant Lastly if divorce were granted as he sayes not for men but to release afflicted wives certainly it is not only a dispensation but a most mercifull Law and why it should not yet be in force beeing wholly as needfull I know not what can be in cause but senslesse cruelty Esteeming therfore to have asserted thus an injur'd law of Moses from the unwarranted and guilty name of a dispensation to be again a most equall and requisite law wee have the word of Christ himself that he came not to alter the least tittle of it and signifies no small displeasure against him that shall teach to doe so On which relying I shall not much waver to affirm that those words which are made to intimate as if they forbad all divorce but for adultery though Moses have constituted otherwise those words tak'n circumscriptly without regard to any precedent law of Moses or attestation of Christ himself or without care to preserve those his fundamental and superior laws of nature and charitie to which all other ordinances give up their seals are as much against plain equity and the mercy of religion as those words of Take eat this is my body elementally understood are against nature and scuse And surely the restoring of this degraded law hath well recompenc't the diligence was us'd by enlightning us further to finde out wherfore Christ took off the Pharises from alleging the law and referr'd them to the first institution not condemning altering or abolishing this precept of divorce which is plainly moral for that were against his truth his promise and his prophetick office but knowing how fallaciously they had cited and conceal'd the particular and natural reason of the law that they might justifie any froward reason of their own he lets goe that sophistry unconvinc't for that had bin to teach them els which his purpose was not And since they had tak'n a liberty which the law gave not he amuses repells their tempting pride with a perfection of paradise which the law requir'd not not therby to oblige our performance to that wherto the law never enjoyn'd the fal'n estate of man for if the first institution must make wedlock whatever happen inseparable to us it must make it also as perfect as meetly helpfull and as comfortable as God promis'd it should be at least in some degree otherwise it is not equal or proportionable to the strength of man that he should be reduc't into such indissoluble bonds to his assured misery if all the other conditions of that covnant be manifestly alter'd Next he saith they must be one flesh which when all conjecturing is don wil be found to import no more but only to make legitimate and good the carnal act which els might seem to have somthing of pollution in it And inferrs thus much over that the fit union of their souls be such as may even incorporate them to love and amity but that can never be where no correspondence is of the minde nay instead of beeing one flesh they will be rather two carkasses chain'd unnaturally together or as it may happ'n a living soule bound to a dead corps a punishment too like that inflicted by the tyrant Mezentius so little worthy to be receav'd as that remedy of lonelines which God meant us Since wee know it is not the joyning of