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
our choisest home-blessings and coin them into crosses for want wherby to hold commerce with patience If any therfore who shall hap to read this discours hath bin through misadventure ill ingag'd in this contracted evill heer complain'd of and finds the fits and workings of a high impatience frequently upon him of all those wild words which men in misery think to ease themselves by uttering let him not op'n his lips against the providence of heav'n or tax the waies of God and his divine Truth for they are equal easy and not burdensome nor do they ever crosse the just and reasonable desires of men nor involve this our portion of mortall life into a necessity of sadnes and malecontent by Laws commanding over the unreducible antipathies of nature sooner or later found but allow us to remedy and shake off those evills into which human error hath led us through the middest of our best intentions and to support our incident extremities by that authentick precept of sovran charity whose grand Commission is to doe and to dispose over all the ordinances of God to man that love truth may advance each other to everlasting While we literally superstitious through customary faintnes of heart not venturing to peirce with our free thoughts into the full latitude of nature and religion abandon our selvs to serv under the tyranny of usurpt opinions suffering those ordinances which were allotted to our solace and reviving to trample over us and hale us into a multitude of sorrows which God never meant us And where he set us in a fair allowance of way with honest liberty and prudence to our guard wee never leave subtilizing and casuisting till wee have straitn'd and par'd that liberal path into a razors edge to walk on between a precipice of unnecessary mischief on either side and starting at every fals alarum wee doe not know which way to set a foot forward with manly confidence and Christian resolution through the confused ringing in our ears of panick scruples and amazements Another act of papal encroachment it was to pluck the power arbitrement of divorce from the master of family into whose hands God the law of all Nations had put it Christ so left it preaching only to the conscience and not authorizing a judiciall Court to tosse about and divulge the unaccountable and secret reasons of disaffection between man wife as a thing most improperly answerable to any such kind of trial But the Popes of Rome perceaving the great revenu and high autority it would give them ev'n over Princes to have the judging and deciding of such a main consequence in the life of man as was divorce wrought so upon the superstition of those ages as to devest them of that right which God from the beginning had entrusted to the husband by which means they subjected that ancient and naturally domestick prerogative to an external unbefitting judicature For although differences in divorce about dowries jointures and the like besides the punishing of adultery ought not to passe without referring if need be to the Magistrate yet for him to interpose his jurisdictive power upon the inward and irremediable disposition of man to command love and sympathy to forbid dislike against the guiltles instinct of nature is not within the province of any law to reach were indeed an uncommodious rudenes not a just power For if natures resistles sway in love or hate be once compell'd it grows careles of it self vitious useles to friend unserviceable and spiritles to the Common-wealth Wch Moses rightly foresaw and all wise Lawgivers that ever knew man what kind of creature he was The Parliament also and Clergy of England were not ignorant of this when they consented that Harry the 8th might put away his Q. Anne of Cleve whom he could not like after he had bin wedded half a year unles it were that contrary to the Proverb they made a necessity of that which might have bin a vertu in them to do For ev'n the freedom and eminence of mans creation gives him to be a Law in this matter to himself beeing the head of the other sex which was made for him whom therfore though he ought not to injure yet neither should he be forc't to retain in society to his own overthrow nor to hear any judge therin above himself It being also an unseemly affront to the sequester'd vail'd modesty of that sex to have her unpleasingnes and other concealements bandied up and down and aggravated in open Court by those hir'd maisters of tongue-fence Such uncomely exigences it befell no lesse a Majesty then Henry th 8th to be reduc't to who finding just reason in his conscience to forgoe his brothers wife after many indignities of beeing deluded and made a boy of by those his two cardinal Judges was constrain'd at last for want of other prooff that shee had bin carnally known by Prince Arthur ev'n to uncover the nakednes of that vertuous Lady to recite openly the obscene evidence of his brothers chāberlain Yet it pleas'd God to make him see all the tyranny of Rome by discovering this which they exercis'd over divorce and to make him the beginner of a reformation to this whole Kingdom by first asserting into his familiary power the right of just divorce T is true an adultres cannot be sham'd anough by any publick proceeding but that woman whose honour is not appeach't is lesse injur'd by a silent dismission being otherwise not illiberally dealth with then to endure a clamouring debate of utterles things in a busines of that civil secrecy and difficult discerning as not to be over-much question'd by neerest friends Which drew that answer from the greatest and worthiest Roman of his time Paulus Emilius beeing demanded why he would put away his wife for no visible reason This Shoo saith he and held it out on his foot is a neat shoo a new shoo and yet none of yee know where it wrings me much lesse by the unfamiliar cognisance of a fee'd gamester can such a private difference be examin'd neither ought it Lastly All law is for some good that may be frequently attain'd without the admixture of a wors inconvenience but the Law forbidding divorce never attains to any good end of such prohibition but rather multiplies evil If it aim at the establishment of matrimony wee know that cannot thrive under a loathed and forc't yoke but is daily violated if it seek to prevent the sin of divorcing that lies not in the law to prevent for he that would divorce and marry again but for the law hath in the sight of God don it already Civil or political sin it never was neither to Jew nor Gentile nor by any judicial intendment of Christ only culpable as it transgresses the allowance of Moses in the inward man which not any law but conscience only can evince The law can only look whether it be an injury to the divorc't which
shall be so happy as with successe to ease set free the minds of ingenuous and apprehensive men from this needlesse thraldome he that can prove it lawfull and just to claime the performance of a fit and matchable conversation no lesse essentiall to the prime scope of marriage then the gift of bodily conjunction or els to have an equall plea of divorce as well as for that corporall deficiency he that can but lend us the clue that windes out this labyrinth of servitude to such a reasonable and expedient liberty as this deserves to be reck n'd among the publick benefactors of civill and humane life above the inventors of wine and oyle for this is a far dearer far nobler and more desirable cherishing to mans life unworthily expos'd to sadnes and mistake which he shall vindicate Not that licence and levity and unconsented breach of faith should herein be countenanc't but that some conscionable and tender pitty might be had of those who have unwarily in a thing they never practiz'd before made themselves the bondmen of a luckles and helples matrimony In which Argument he whose courage can serve him to give the first onset must look for two severall oppositions the one from those who having sworn themselves to long custom and the letter of the Text will not out of the road the other from those whose grosse and vulgar apprehensions conceit but low of matrimoniall purposes and in the work of male and female think they have all Neverthelesse it shall be here sought by due wayes to be made appeare that those words of God in the institution promising a meet help against lonelines and those words of Christ That his yoke is easie and his burden light were not spoken in vaine for if the knot of marriage may in no case be dissolv'd but for adultery all the burd'ns and services of the Law are not so intolerable This onely is desir'd of them who are minded to judge hardly of thus maintaining that they would be still and heare all out nor think it equall to answer deliberate reason with sudden heat and noise remembring this that many truths now of reverend esteem and credit had their birth and beginning once from singular and private thoughts while the most of men were otherwise possest and had the fate at first to be generally exploded and exclaim'd on by many violent opposers yet I may erre perhaps in soothing my selfe that this present truth reviv'd will deserve to be not ungently receiv'd on all hands in that it undertakes the cure of an inveterate disease crept into the best part of humane societie and to doe this with no smarting corrosive but with a smooth and pleasing lesson which receiv'd hath the vertue to soften and dispell rooted and knotty sorrowes and without enchantment or spel us'd hath regard at once both to serious pitty and upright honesty that tends to the redeeming and restoring of none but such as are the object of compassion having in an ill houre hamper'd themselves to the utter dispatch of all their most beloved comforts repose for this lives term But if wee shall obstinately dislike this new overture of unexpected ease and recovery what remains but to deplore the frowardnes of our hopeles condition which neither can endure the estate we are in nor admit of remedy either sharp or sweet Sharp we our selves distast and sweet under whose hands we are is scrupl'd and suspected as too lushious In such a posture Christ found the Iews who were neither won with the austerity of Iohn the Baptist and thought it too much licence to follow freely the charming pipe of him who sounded and proclaim'd liberty and reliefe to all distresses yet Truth in some age or other will find her witnes and shall be justify'd at last by her own children To remove therefore if it be possible this great and sad oppression which through the strictnes of a literall interpreting hath invaded and disturb'd the dearest and most peaceable estate of houshold society to the over-burdning if not the over-whelming of many Christians better worth then to be so deserted of the Churches considerate care this position shall be laid down first proving then answering what may be objected either from Scripture or light of reason That indisposition unfitnes or contrariety of mind arising from a cause in nature unchangable hindring and ever likely to hinder the main benefits of conjugall society which are solace and peace is a greater reason of divorce then naturall frigidity especially if there be no children and that there be mutuall consent For all sense and reason and equity reclaimes that any Law or Cov'nant how solemn or strait soever either between God and man or man and man though of Gods joyning should bind against a prime and principall scope of its own institution and of both or either party cov'nanting neither can it be of force to ingage a blameles creature to his own perpetuall sorrow mistak'n for his expected solace without suffering charity to step in and doe a confest good work of parting those whom nothing holds together but this of Gods joyning falsly suppos'd against the expresse end of his own ordinance And what his chiefe end was of creating woman to be joynd with man his own instituting words declare and are infallible to informe us what is mariage and what is no mariage unlesse we can think them set there to no purpose It is not good saith he that man should be alone I will make him a help meet for him From which words so plain lesse cannot be concluded nor is by any learned Interpreter then that in Gods intention a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and the noblest end of mariage for we find here no expression so necessarily implying carnall knowledg as this prevention of lonelinesse to the mind and spirit of man And indeed it is a greater blessing from God more worthy so excellent a creatrue as man is and a higher end to honour and sanctifie the league of mariage whenas the solace and satisfaction of the minde is regarded and provided for before the sensitive pleasing of the body And with all generous persons maried thus it is that where the minde and person pleases aptly there some unaccomplishment of the bodies delight may be better born with then when the minde hangs off in an unclosing disproportion though the body be as it ought for there all corporall delight will soon become unsavoury and contemptible And the solitarines of man which God had namely and principally orderd to prevent by mariage hath no remedy but lies under a worse condition then the loneliest single life for in single life the absence and remotenes of a helper might inure him to expect his own comforts out of himselfe or to seek with hope but here the continuall sight of his deluded thoughts without cure must needs be to him if especially his complexion incline him to melancholy a daily trouble and