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
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
unactive to all public service dead to the Common-wealth wherin they are by one mishapp and no willing trespas of theirs outlaw'd from all the benefits and comforts of married life and posterity It conferrs as little to the honour and inviolable keeping of Matrimony but sooner stirrs up temptations and occasions to secret adulteries and unchast roaving But it maintaines public honesty Public folly rather who shall judge of public honesty the Law of God and of ancientest Christians and all Civil Nations or the illegitimat Law of Monks and Canonists the most malevolent most unexperienc't and incompetent judges of Matrimony These reasons and many more that might bee alleg'd afford us plainly to perceav both what good cause this Law had to doe for good men in mischances and what necessity it had to suffer accidentally the hard heartednes of bad men which it could not certainly discover or discovering could not subdue no nor indeavour to restrain without multiplying sorrow to them for whom all was indeavour'd The guiltles therfore were not depriv'd thir needful redresses and the hard hearts of others unchastisable in those judicial Courts were so remitted there as bound over to the higher Session of Conscience Notwithstanding all this ther is a loud exception against this Law of God nor can the holy Author save his Law from this exception that it opens a dore to all licence and confusion But this is the rudest I was almost saying the most graceles objection and with the least reverence to God and Moses that could bee devis'd This is to cite God before mans Tribunal to arrogate a wisdom and holines above him Did not God then foresee what event of licence or confusion could follow did not hee know how to ponder these abuses with more prevailing respects in the most eevn ballance of his justice and purenes till these correctors cameup to shew him better The Law is if it stirre up sin any way to stirre it up by forbidding as one contrary excites another Rom. 7. but if it once come to provoke sin by granting licence to sin according to Laws that have no other honest end but only to permit the fulfilling of obstinat lust how is God not made the contradicter of himself No man denies that best things may bee abus'd but it is a rule resulting from many pregnant experiences that what doth most harm in the abusing us'd rightly doth most good And such a good to take a way from honest men for beeing abus'd by such as abuse all things is the greatest abuse of all That the whole Law is no furder usefull then as a man uses it lawfully St. Paul teaches 1 Tim. 1. And that Christian liberty may bee us'd for an occasion to the flesh the same Apostle confesses Galat. 5. yet thinks not of removing it for that but bidds us rather Stand fast in the liberty wherwith Christ hath freed us and not bee held again in the yoke of bondage The very permission which Christ gave to divorce for adultery may bee fouly abus'd by any whose hardnes of heart can either fain adultery or dares committ that hee may divorce And for this cause the Pope and hitherto the Church of England forbid all divorce from the bond of mariage though for openest adultery If then it bee righteous to hinder for the fear of abuse that which Gods Law notwithstanding that caution hath warranted to bee don doth not our righteousnes come short of Antichrist or doe we not rather heerin conform our selvs to his unrighteousnes in this undue and unwise fear For God regards more to releev by this Law the just complaints of good men then to curb the licence of wicked men to the crushing withall and the overwhelming of his afflicted servants He loves more that his Law should look with pitty upon the difficulties of his own then with rigor upon the boundlesse riots of them who serv another Maister and hinder'd heer by strictnes will break another way to wors enormities If this Law therfore have many good reasons for which God gave it and no intention of giving scope to leudnes but as abuse by accident comes in with every good Law and every good thing it cannot be wisdom in us while we can content us with Gods wisdom nor can be purity if his purity will suffice us to except against this Law as if it foster'd licence But if they affirm this Law had no other end but to permitt obdurat lust because it would bee obdurat making the Law of God intentionally to proclame and enact sin lawful as if the will of God were becom sinfull or sin stronger then his direct and Law-giving will the men would bee admonisht to look well to it that while they are so eager to shut the dore against licence they doe not open a wors dore to blasphemy And yet they shall bee heer furder shewn thir iniquity what more foul and common sin among us then drnnkennes and who can bee ignorant that if the importation of Wine and the use of all strong drink were forbid it would both clean ridde the possibility of committing that odious vice and men might afterwards live happily and healthfully without the use of those intoxicating licors Yet who is ther the severest of them all that ever propounded to loos his Sack his Ale toward the certain abolishing of so great a sin who is ther of them the holiest that less loves his rich Canary at meals though it bee fetcht from places that hazard the Religion of them who fetch it and though it make his neighbour drunk out of the same Tunne While they forbid not therfore the use of that liquid Marchandise which forbidd'n would utterly remove a most loathsom sin and not impair either the health or the refreshment of mankind suppli'd many other wayes why doe they forbid a Law of God the forbidding wherof brings into an excessive bondage oft times the best of men and betters not the wors Hee to remove a Nationall vice will not pardon his cupps nor think it concerns him to forbear the quaffing of that outlandish Grape in his unnecessary fullnes though other men abuse it never so much nor is hee so abstemious as to intercede with the Magistrate that all matter of drunkennes be banisht the Common-wealth and yet for the fear of a less inconvenience unpardnably requires of his brethren in thir extreme necessity to debarre themselves the use of Gods permissive Law though it might bee thir saving and no mans indangering the more Thus this peremptory strictnes we may discern of what sort it is how unequal and how unjust But it will breed confusion What confusion it would breed God himself took the care to prevent in the fourth verse of this Chapter that the divorc't beeing maried to another might not return to her former Husband And Justinians law counsels the same in his Title of Nuptials And what confusion els can ther bee in separation to separat upon extrem
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
the whole law of nations as only sufferd for the same cause it being shewn us by Saint Paul 1 Cor. 6. that the very seeking of a mans right by law and at the hands of a worldly magistrat is not without the hardnesse of our hearts For why doe ye not rather take wrong saith he why suffer ye not rather your selves to be defrauded If nothing now must be suffer'd for hardnes of heart I say the very prosecution of our right by way of civil justice can no more bee suffer'd among Christians for the hardnes of heart wherwith most men persue it And that would next remove all our judiciall lawes and this restraint of divorce also in the number which would more then halfe end the controversy But if it be plaine that the whole juridical law and civil power is only suffer'd under the Gospel for the hardnes of our hearts then wherefore should not that which Moses suffer'd be suffer'd still by the same reason In a second signification hardnes of heart is tak'n for a stubborne resolution to doe evil And that God ever makes any law purposely to such I deny for he voutsafes not to enter gov'nant with them but as they fortune to be mixt with good men and passe undiscover'd much lesse that he should decree an unlawfull thing only to serve their licentiousnes But that God suffers this reprobate hardnes of heart I affirm not only in this law of divorce but throughout all his best and purest commandements He commands all to worship in singlenes of heart according to all his Ordinances and yet suffers the wicked man to performe all the rites of religion hypocritically and in the hardnes of his heart He gives us generall statutes privileges in all civil matters just good of themselves yet suffers unworthiest men to use them by themt o prosecute their own right or any colour of right though for the most part maliciously covetously nigorously revengefully He allow'd by law the discreet father and husband to forbidd if he thought fit the religious vows of his wife or daughter Num. 30. and in the same law suffer'd the hard heartednes of impious and covetous fathers or husbands abusing this law to forbidd their wives or daughters in their offrings and devotions of greatest zeal If then God suffer hardnes of heart equally in the best laws as in this of divorce there can be no reason that for this cause this law should be abolisht But other lawes they object may be well us'd this never How often shall I answer both from the institution of mariage and from other general rules in Scripture that this law of divorce hath many wise and charitable ends besides the being suffer'd for hardnes of heart which is indeed no end but an accident happning through the whole law which gives to good men right and to bad men who abuse right under false pretences gives only sufferance Now although Christ express no other reasons here but only what was suffer'd it nothing followes that this law had no other reason to be permitted but for hardnes of heart The Scripture seldome or never in one place sets down all the reasons of what it grants or commands especially when it talks to enemies and tempters St Paul permitting mariage 1 Cor. 7 seems to permit even that also for hardnes of heart only lest we should run into fornication yet no intelligent man thence concludes mariage allow'd in the Gospel only to avoid an evill because no other end is there exprest Thus Moses of necessity suffer'd many to put away their wives for hardnesse of heart but enacted the law of divorce doubtles for other good causes not for this only sufferance He permitted not divorce by law as an evil for that was impossible to divine law but permitted by accident the evil of them who divorc't against the lawes intention undiscoverably This also may be thought not improbably that Christ stirr'd up in his spirit against these tempting Pharises answer'd them in a certain forme of indignation usual among good authors wherby the question or the truth is not directly answer'd but som thing which is fitter for them who aske to heare So in the ecclesiastical stories one demanding how God imploy'd himself before the world was made had āswer that he was making hel for curious questioners Another and Libanius the Sophist as I remember asking in derision som Christian what the Carpenter meaning our Saviour was doing now that Julian so prevail'd had it return'd him that the Carpenter was making a coffin for the Apostat So Christ being demanded maliciously why Moses made the law of divorce answers them in a vehement scheme not telling them the cause why he made it but what was fittest to be told them that for the hardnes of their hearts he suffer'd them to abuse it And all beit Mark say not he suffer'd you but to you he wrote this precept Mark may be warrantably expounded by Mathew the larger And whether he suffer'd or gave precept being all one as was heard it changes not the trope of indignation fittest account for such askers Next for the hardnes of your hearts to you he wrote this precept inferrs not therfore for this cause only he wrote it as was parallell'd by other Scriptures Lastly It may be worththe observing that Christ speaking to the Pharises does not say in general that for hardnes of heart he gave this precept but you he suffer'd to you he gave this precept for your hardnes of heart It cannot be easily thought that Christ heer included all the children of Israel under the person of these tempting Pharises but that he conceals wherefore he gave the better sort of them this law and expresses by saying emphatically To you how he gave it to the worser such as the Pharises best represented that is to say for the hardnes of your hearts as indeed to wicked men and hardn'd hearts he gives the whole law and the Gospel also to hard'n them the more Thus many waies it may orthod oxally be understood how God or Moses suffer'd such as the demanders were to divorce for hardnes of heart Whereas the vulgar expositer beset with contradictions and absurdities round and resolving at any peril to make an exposition of it as there is nothing more violent and boistrous then a reverend ignorance in fear to be convicted rushes brutely and impetuously against all the principles both of nature piety and moral goodnes and in the sury of his literal expounding overturns them all But from the the beginning it was not so Not how from the beginning doe they suppose that men might not divorce at all not necessarily not deliberatly except for adultery but that som law like canon law presently attacht them both before and after the flood till stricter Moses came and with law brought licence into the world that were a fancy indeed to smile at Undoubtedly as to point of judiciall law divorce was more
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
any one grossly erroneous or profane may be referr'd hither For St. Paul seaves us heer the solution not of this case only which little concernes us but of such like cases which may occurr to us For where the reasons directly square who can forbid why the verdit should not be the same But this the common writers allow us not And yet from this text which in plaine words gives liberty to none unlesse deserted by an infidel they collect the same freedom though the desertion bee not for religion which as I conceive they neede not doe but may without straining reduce it to the cause of fornication For first they confesse that desertion is seldome without a just suspition of adultery next it is a breach of mariage in the same kind and in some sort worse for adultery though it give to another yet it bereaves not al but the deserter wholly denies all right and makes one flesh twain which is counted the absolutest breach of matrimony and causes the other as much as in him lies to commit sin by being so left Neverthelesse those reasons which they bring of establishing by this place the like liberty from any desertion are faire and solid and if the thing be lawfull and can be prov'd so more waies then one so much the safer Their arguments I shall heer recite and that they may not com idle shall use them to make good the like freedome to divorce for other causes and that we are no more under bondage to any hainous default against the main ends of matrimony then to a desertion First they allege that to Tim. 1. 5. 8. If any provide not for those of his own house hee hath deny'd the faith and is worse then an Infidel But a deserter say they can have no care of them who are most his owne therefore the deserted party is not lesse to bee righted against such a one then against an infidel With the same evidence I argue that man or wife who hates in wedloc is perpetually unsociable unpeacefull or unduteous either not being able or not willing to performe what the maine ends of mariage demand in helpe and solace cannot bee said to care for who shou'd bee dearest in the house therefore is worse then an infidel in both regards either in undertaking a duty which he cannot performe to the undeserved and unspeakable injury of the other party so defrauded and betrai'd or not performing what he hath undertaken whenas he may or might have to the perjury of himselfe more irreligious then heathenisme The blamelesse person therefore hath as good a plea to sue out his delivery from this bondage as from the desertion of an infidel Since most writers cannot but grant that desertion is not only a local absence but an intolerable society or if they grant it not the reasons of Saint Paul grant it with all as much leave as they grant to enlarge a particular freedom from paganisme into a general freedom from any desertion Secondly they reafon from the likenes of either fact the same losse redounds to the deserted by a christian as by an infidel the same peril of temptation And I in like manner affirme that if honest and free persons may be allow'd to know what is most to their owne losse the same losse and discontent but worse disquiet with continuall misery and temptation resides in the company or better call'd the persecution of an unfit or an unpeaceable consort then by his desertion For then the deserted may enjoy himselfe at least And he who deserts is more favourable to the party whom his presence afflicts then that importunat thing which is and will be ever conversant before the eyes a loyal and individual vexation As for those who still rudely urge it no loss to mariage no desertion so long as the flesh is present and offers a benevolence that hates or is justly hated I am not of that vulgar and low perswasion to thinke such forc'd embracements as these worth the honour or the humanity of mariage but farre beneath the soul of a rational and freeborne man Thirdly they say it is not the infidelity of the deserter but the desertion of the infidel from which the Apostle gives this freedom and I joyne that the Apostle could as little require our subjection to an unfit and injurious bondage present as to an infidel absent To free us from that which is an evil by being distant and not from that which is an inmate and in the bosome evil argues an improvident and careles deliverer And thus all occasions which way so ever they turn are not unofficious to administer somthing which may conduce to explain or to defend the assertion of this book touching divorce I complain of nothing but that it is indeed too copious to be the matter of a dispute or a defence rather to be yeelded as in the best ages a thing of common reason not of controversie What have I left to say I fear to be more elaborat in such a perspicuity as this lest I should seem not to teach but to upbraid the dulnes of an age not to commun with reason in men but to deplore the loss of reason from among men this only and not the want of more to say is the limit of my discours Who among the sathers have interpreted the words of Christ concerning divorce as is heer interpreted and what the civil law of Christian Emperors in the primitive Church determi'nd Although testimony be in Logic an argument rightly call'd inartificial doth not solidly fetch the truth by multiplicity of Authors nor argue a thing false by the few that hold so yet seeing most men from their youth so accustom as not to scanne reason nor cleerly to apprehend it but to trust for that the names and numbers of such as have got and many times undeservedly the reputation among them to know much and because there is a vulgar also of teachers who are as blindly by whom they fancy led as they lead the people it will not be amiss for them who had rather list themselves under this weaker sort and follow authorities to take notice that this opinion which I bring hath bin favour'd and by som of those affirm'd who in their time were able to carry what they taught had they urg'd it through all Christendom or to have left it such a credit with all good men as they who could not bouldly use the opinion would have fear'd to censure it But since by his appointment on whom the times and seasons wait every point of doctrin is not fatall to be throughly sifted out in every age it will be anough for me to find that the thoughts of wisest heads heertofore and hearts no less reverenc't for devotion have tended this way and contributed their lot in some good measure towards this which hath bin heer attain'd Others of them and modern especially have bin as full in the assertion though not so full in