friendship or a Collegueship in the same family or in the same journey lest it should grow to a wors division can any thing bee more absurd and barbarous then that they whom only error casualty art or plot hath joynd should be compell'd not against a sudden passion but against the permanent and radical discords of nature to the most intimat and incorporating duties of love and imbracement therin only rational and human as they are free and voluntary beeing els an abject and servile yoke scars not brutish And that there is in man such a peculiar sway of liking or disliking in the affairs of matrimony is evidently seen before mariage among those who can bee freindly can respect each other yet to marry each other would not for any perswasion If then this unfitnes and disparity bee not till after mariage discover'd through many causes and colours and concealements that may overshadow undoubtedly it will produce the same effects and perhaps with more vehemence that such a mistakn pair would give the world to be unmarried again And thir condition Solomon to the plain justification of divorce expresses Prov. 30. 21. 23. Where hee rells us of his own accord that a hated or a hatefull woman when shee is married is a thing for which the earth is disquieted and cannot bear it thus giving divine testimony to this divine Law which bids us nothing more then is the first and most innocent lesson of nature to turn away peaceably from what afflicts and hazards our destruction especially when our staying can doe no good and is expos'd to all evil Secondly It is unjust that any Ordinance ordain'd to the good and comfort of man where that end is missing without his fault should be forc't upon him to an unsufferable misery and discomfort if not commonly ruin All Ordinances are establisht in thir end the end of Law is the vertu is the righteousnes of Law And therfore him wee count an ill Expounder who urges Law against the intention therof The general end of every Ordinance of every severest every divinest eevn of Sabbath is the good of man yea his temporal good not excluded But marriage is one of the benignest ordinances of God to man wherof both the general and particular end is the peace and contentment of mans mind as the institution declares Contentment of body they grant which if it bee defrauded the plea of frigidity shall divorce But heer lies the fadomles absurdity that granting this for bodily defect they will not grant it for any defect of the mind any violation of religious or civil society When as if the argument of Christ bee firm against the ruler of the Synagogue Luk. 13. Thou hypocrite doth not each of you on the Sabbath day loos'n his Oxe or his Asse from the stall and lead him to watering and should not I unbind a daughter of Abraham from this bond of Satan it stands as good heer yee have regard in mariage to the greevance of body should you not regard more the greevances of the mind seeing the Soul as much excells the body as the outward man excells the Ass and more for that animal is yet a living creature perfet in it self but the body without the Soul is a meer senseles trunck No Ordinance therfore givn particularly to the good both spiritual and temporal of man can bee urg'd upon him to his mischief and if they yeeld this to the unworthier part the body wherabout are they in thir principles that they yeeld it not to the more worthy the mind of a good man Thirdly As no Ordinance so no Covnant no not between God and man much less between man and man beeing as all are intended to the good of both parties can hold to the deluding or making miserable of them both For equity is understood in every Covnant eevn between enemies though the terms bee not exprest If equity therfore made it extremity may dissolv it But Mariage they use to say is the Covnant of God Undoubted and so is any covnant frequently call'd in Scripture wherin God is call'd to witnes the covnant of freindship between David and Jonathan is call'd the Covnant of the Lord 1 Sam. 20. The covnant of Zedechiah with the King of Babel a Covnant to bee doubted whether lawfull or no yet in respect of God invok't thereto is call'd the Oath and the Covnant of God Ezech. 17. Mariage also is call'd the Covnant of God Prov. 2. 17. Why but as before because God is the witnes therof Malach. 2. 14. So that this denomination adds nothing to the Covnant of Mariage above any other civil and solemn contract nor is it more indissoluble for this reason then any other against the end of its own ordination nor is any vow or Oath to God exacted with such a rigor where superstition reignes not For look how much divine the Covnant is so much the more equal So much the more to bee expected that every article therof should bee fairly made good no fals dealing or unperforming should be thrust upon men without redress if the covnant bee so divine But faith they say must bee kept in Covnant though to our dammage I answer that only holds true where the other side performs which failing hee is no longer bound Again this is true when the keeping of faith can bee of any use or benefit to the other But in Mariage a league of love and willingnes if faith bee not willingly kept it scars is worth the keeping nor can bee any delight to a generous minde with whom it is forcibly kept and the question still supposes the one brought to an impossibility of keeping it as hee ought by the others default and to keep it formally not only with a thousand shifts and dissimulations but with open anguish perpetual sadnes and disturbance no willingnes no cheerfulnes no contentment cannot bee any good to a minde not basely poor and shallow with whom the contract of love is so kept A Covnant therfore brought to that passe is on the unfaulty side without injury dissolv'd Fourthly The Law is not to neglect men under greatest sufferances but to see Covnants of greatest moment faithfullest perform'd And what injury comparable to that sustain'd in a frustrat and fals dealing Mariage to loose for anothers fault against him the best portion of his temporal comforts and of his spiritual too as it may fall out It was the Law that for mans good and quiet reduc't things to propriety which were at first in common how much more Law-like were it to assist nature in disappropriating that evil which by continuing proper becomes destructive But hee might have bewar'd So hee might in any other covnant wherin the Law does not constrain error to so dear a forfeit And yet in these matters wherin the wisest are apt to erre all the warines that can bee oft times nothing avails But the Law can compell the offending party to bee more duteous Yes if
with the endurance of a whole life lost to all houshold comfort and society a punishment of too vast and huge dimension for an error and the more unreasonable for that the like objection may be oppos'd against the plea of divorcing for adultery hee might have lookt better before to her breeding under religious Parents why did hee not then more diligently inquire into her manners into what company she kept every glaunce of her eye every step of her gate would have propheci'd adultery if the quick sent of these discerners had bin took along they had the divination to have foretold you all this as they have now the divinity to punish an error inhumanly As good reason to be content and forc't to be content with your adultress if these objecters might be the judges of human frailtie But God more mild and good to man then man to his brother in all this liberty givn to divorcement mentions not a word of our past errors and mistakes if any were which these men objecting from their own inventions prosecute with all violence and iniquity For if the one bee to look so narrowly what hee takes at the peril of ever keeping why should not the other bee made as wary what is promis'd by the peril of loosing for without those promises the treaty of mariage had not proceeded Why should his own error bind him rather then the others fraud acquit him Let the buyer beware saith the old Law-beaten termer Belike then ther is no more honesty nor ingenuity in the bargain of a wedloc then in the buying of a colt Wee must it seems drive it on as craftily with those whose affinity wee seek as if they were a pack of sale men and complotters But the deceiver deceivs himself in the unprosperous mariage and therin is sufficiently punisht I answer that the most of those who deceiv are such as either understand not or value not the true purposes of mariage they have the prey they seek not the punishment yet say it prove to them som cross it is not equal that error and fraud should bee linkt in the same degree of forfeture but rather that error should be acquitted and fraud bereav'd his morsel if the mistake were not on both sides for then on both sides the acquitment will be reasonable if the bondage be intolerable which this Law graciously determins not unmindful of the wife as was granted willingly to the common Expositers though beyond the letter of this law yet not beyond the spirit of charity Tenthly Mariage is a solemn thing som say a holy the resemblance of Christ and his Church and so indeed it is where the persons are truly religious and wee know all Sacred things not perform'd sincerely as they ought are no way acceptable to God in thir outward formality And that wherin it differs from personal duties if they be not truly don the fault is in our selves but mariage to be a true and pious mariage is not in the single power of any person the essence whereof as of all other Covnants is in relation to another the making and maintaining causes thereof are all mutual and must be a communion of spiritual and temporal comforts If then either of them cannot or obstinatly will not be answerable in these duties so as that the other can have no peaceful living or enduring the want of what he justly seeks and sees no hope then strait from that dwelling love which is the soul of wedloc takes his flight leaving only som cold performances of civil and common respects but the true bond of mariage if there were ever any there is already burst like a rott'n thred Then follows dissimulation suspicion fals colours fals pretences and wors then these disturbance annoyance vexation sorrow temtation eevn in the faultles person weary of himself and of all action public or domestic then comes disorder neglect hatred and perpetual strife all these the enemies of holines and christianity and every one of these persisted in a remediles violation to matrimony Therfore God who hates all faining and formality wher there should bee all faith and sincerenes and abhorrs to see inevitable discord wher there should be greatest concord when through anothers default faith and concord cannot bee counts it neither just to punish the innocent with the transgressor nor holy nor honourable for the sanctity of mariage that should bee the unlon of peace and love to be made the commitment and close fight of enmity and hate And therfore doth in this Law what best agrees with his goodnes loosning a sacred thing to peace and charity rather then binding it to hatred and contention loosning only the outward and formal tie of that which is already inwardly and really brokn or els was really never joyn'd Eleventhly One of the cheif matrimonial ends is said to seek a holy seed but where an unfit mariage administers continual cause of hatred and distemper there as was heard before cannot choose but much unholines abide Nothing more unhallows a man more unprepares him to the service of God in any duty then a habit of wrath and perturbation arising from the importunity of troublous causes never absent And wher the houshold stands in this plight what love can ther bee to the unfortunat issue what care of thir breeding which is of main conducement to thir beeing holy God therfore knowing how unhappy it would bee for children to bee-born in such a family gives this Law either as a prevention that beeing an unhappy pair they should not adde to bee unhappy parents or els as a remedy that if ther be childern while they are fewest they may follow either parent as shall bee agreed or judg'd from the house of hatred and discord to a place of more holy and peaceable education Twelfthly All Law is available to som good end but the final prohibition of divorce a vails to no good end causing only the endles aggravation of evil and therfore this permission of divorce was givn to the Jews by the wisdom and fatherly providence of God who knew that Law cannot command love without which matrimony hath no true beeing no good no solace nothing of Gods instituting nothing but so sordid and so low as to bee disdain'd of any generous person Law cannot inable natural inability either of body or mind which gives the greevance it cannot make equal those inequalities it cannot make fit those unfitnesses and where there is malice more then defect of nature it cannot hinder ten thousand injuries and bitter actions of despight too suttle and too unapparent for Law to deal with And while it seeks to remedy more outward wrongs it exposes the injur'd person to other more inward and more cutting All these evils unavoidably will redound upon the children if any be and the whole family It degenerates and disorders the best spirits leavs them to unsettl'd imaginations and degraded hopes careles of themselvs their houshold and their freinds
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
the Lord in person would be but a chill trifling and his readers might catch an ague the while But if we shall supply the grammatical Ellipsis regularly and as we must in the sam tense all will be then cleer for we cannot supply it thus to the rest I speake the Lord spake not but I speake the Lord speaks not If then the Lord neither spake in person nor speakes it now the Apostle testifying both it follows duely that this can be no command Forsooth the fear is least this not being a command would prove an evangelic counsel so make way for supererogations As if the Apostle could not speak his mind in things indifferent as he doth in fowr or five several places of this chapter with the like preface of not commanding but that the doubted inconvenience of supererogating must needs rush in And how adds it to the word of the Lord for this also they object when as the Apostle by his christian prudence guids us in the liberty which God hath left us to without command could not the spirit of God instruct us by him what was free as well as what was not But what need I more when Cameron an ingenuous writer and in high esteem solidly confutes the surmise of a command heer and among other words hath these That when Paul speaks as an Apostle he uses this forme The Lord saith not I v 10. but as a privat man he saith I speak not the Lord. And thus also all the prime fathers Austin Jerom and the rest understood this place Fiftly The very stating of the question declares this to be no command If any brother hath an unbeleeuing wife and she be pleased to dwell with him let him not put her away For the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply only her being pleas'd to stay but his being pleas'd to let her stay it must be a consent of them both Nor can the force of this word be render'd less without either much negligence or iniquity of him that otherwise translates it And thus the Greek Church also and their Synods understood it who best knew what their own language meant as appeares by Matthaeus Monachus an author set forth by Leunclauius and of antiquity perhaps not inferior to Balsamon who writes upon the canons of the Apostles this Author in his chap. that mariage is not to be made with heretics thus recites the second canon of the 6. Synod As to the Corinthians Paul determins If the beleeving wife choos to live with the unbeleeving husband or the beleeving husband with the unbeleeving wife Mark saith he how the Apostle heer condescends if the beleever please to dwell with the unbeleever so that if he please not out of doubt the mariage is dissolv'd And I am perswaded it was so in the beginning and thus preach't And thereupon gives an example of one who though not deserted yet by the decree of Theodotus the Patriarch divorc't an unbeleeving wife What therefore depends in the plain state of this question on the consent and well liking of them both must not be a command Lay next the latter end of the 11. v to the twelf for wherefore els is Logic taught us in a discrete axiom as it can be no other by the phrase The Lord saith let not the husband put away his wife But I say let him not put away a misbeleeving wife this sounds as if by the judgement of Paul a man might put away any wife but the misbeleeving or els the parts are not discrete or dissentanie for both conclude not putting away and consequently in such a form the proposition is ridiculous Of necessity therfore the former part of this sentence must be conceav'd as understood and silently granted that although the Lord command to divorce an infidel yet I not the Lord command you No but give my judgement that for som evangelic reasons a christian may be permitted not to divorce her Thus while we reduce the brevity of St. Paul to a plainer sense by the needfull supply of that which was granted between him and the Corinthians the very logic of his speech extracts him confessing that the Lords command lay in a seeming contrariety to this his counsel and that he meant not to thrust out a command of the Lord by a new one of his own as one nail drives another but to release us from the rigor of it by the right of the Gospel so farre forth as a charitable cause leads us on in the hope of winning another soule without the peril of loosing our own For this is the glory of the Gospel to teach us that the end of the commandment is charity 1 Tim. 1. not the drudging out a poore and worthlesse duty forc't from us by the taxe and taile of so many letters This doctrine therefore can bee no command but it must contradict the moral law the Gospel and the Apostle himselfe both else where and heere also eevn in the act of speaking If then it be no command it must remain to be a permission and that not absolute for so it would be still contrary to the law but with such a caution as breaks not the law but as the manner of the Gospel is fulfills it through charity The law had two reasons the one was ceremonial the pollution that all Gentiles were to the Jewes this the vision of Peter had abolisht Acts 10. and clens'd all creatures to the use of a Christian The Corinthians understood not this but fear'd lest dwelling in matrimony with an unbeleever they were defil'd The Apostle discusses that scruple with an Evangelic reason shewing them that although God heretofore under the law not intending the conversion of the Gentiles except some special ones held them as polluted things to the Jew yet now purposing to call them in he hath purify'd them from that legal uncleannesse wherein they stood to use and to be us'd in a pure manner For saith he The unbeleeving husband is sanctifi'd by the wife and the unbeleeving wife is sanctifi'd by the husband else were your children uncleane but now they are holy That is they are sanctify'd to you from that legal impurity which you so feare and are brought into a neer capacity to be holy if they beleeve and to have free accesse to holy things In the mean time as being Gods creatures a christian hath power to use them according to their proper use in as much as now all things to the pure are become pure In this legal respect therefore ye need not doubt to continue in mariage with an unbeleever Thus others also expound this place and Cameron especially This reason warrants us onely what wee may doe without feare of pollution does not binde us that we must But the other reason of the law to divorce an infidel was moral the avoiding of enticement from the true faith This cannot shrink but remains in as full force as ever to save the actuall
the way that still as the Church corrupted as the Clergie grew more ignorant and yet more usurping on the Magistrate who also now declin'd so still divorce grew more restrain'd though certainly if better times permitted the thing that worse times restrain'd it would not weakly argue that the permission was better and the restraint worse This law therefore of Theodosius wiser in this then the most of his successors though not wiser then God and Moses reduc't the causes of divorce to a certain number which by the judiciall law of God and all recorded humanitie were left before to the brest of each husband provided that the dismisse was not without reasonable conditions to the wife But this was a restraint not yet come to extreames For besides adultery and that not only actual but suspected by many signes there set down any fault equally punishable with adultery or equally infamous might bee the cause of a divorce Which informes us how the wisest of those ages understood that place in the Gospel whereby not the pilfering of a benevolence was consider'd as the main and only breach of wedloc as is now thought but the breach of love and peace a more holy union then that of the flesh and the dignity of an honest person was regarded not to bee held in bondage with one whose ignominy was infectious To this purpose was constituted Cod. l. 5. tit 17. and Authent collat 4. tit 1. Novell 22. where Justinian added three causes more In the 117. Novell most of the same causes are allow'd but the liberty of divorcing by consent is repeal'd but by whom by Justinian not a wiser not a more religious emperor then either of the former but noted by judicious writers for his fickle head in making and unmaking lawes and how Procopius a good historian and a counselor of state then living deciphers him in his other actions I willingly omitt Nor was the Church then in better case but had the corruption of a 100. declining yeare swept on it when the statute of consent was call'd in which as I said gives us every way more reason to suspect this restraint more then that liberty which therfore in the reign of Justin the succeeding Emperor was recall'd Novel 140. establisht with a preface more wise christianly then for those times declaring the necessity to restore that Theodosian law if no other meanes of reconcilement could be found And by whom this law was abrogated or how long after I doe not finde but that those other causes remain'd in force as long as the Greek empire subsisted and were assented by that Church is to bee read in the Canons and edicts compar'd by Photius the Patriarch with the avertiments of Balsamon and Matthaeus Monachus thereon But long before those dayes Leo the son of Basilius Macedo reigning about the yeare 886. and for his excellent wisdome surnam'd the Philosopher constituted that in case of madnesse the husband might divorce after three yeares the wife after 5. Constitut Leon. 111. 112. this declares how hee expounded our Saviour and deriv'd his reasons from the institution which in his preface with great eloquence are set downe whereof a passage or two may give som proofe though better not divided from the rest There is not saith he a thing more necessary to preserve mankind then the helpe giv'n him from his own rib both God and nature so teaching us which being so it was requisite that the providence of law or if any other care be to the good of man should teach and ordaine those things which are to the helpe and comfort of maried persons and confirme the end of mariage purpos'd in the beginning not those things which afflict and bring perpetuall misery to them Then answers the objection that they are one flesh if Matrimony had held so as God ordain'd it he were wicked that would dissolve it But if we respect this in matrimony that it be contracted to the good of both how shall he who for some great evil feard perswades not to marry though contracted not perswade to unmarry if after marriage a calamity befall should we bid beware least any fall into an evil and leave him helplesse who by humane error is fall'n therein This were as if we should use remedies to prevent a disease but let the sick die without remedy The rest will be worth reading in the author And thus we have the judgement first of primitive fathers next of the imperial law not disallow'd by the universal Church in ages of her best authority and lastly of the whole Greeke Church and civil state incorporating their Canons and edicts together that divorce was lawfull for other causes equivalent to adultery contain'd under the word fornication So that the exposition of our saviours sentence heer alleg'd hath all these ancient and great asserters is therefore neither new nor licentious as some now would perswade the commonalty although it be neerer truth that nothing is more new then those teachers themselves nothing more licentious then some known to be whose hypocrisie yet shames not to take offence at this doctrine for licence when as indeed they feare it would remove licence and leave them but few companions That the Popes Canon law incroaching upon civil Magistracy abolisht all divorce eevn for adultery What the reformed Divines have recover'd and that the famousest of them have taught according to the assertion of this booke But in these western parts of the empire it will appeare almost unquestionable that the cited law of Theodosius and Valentinian stood in force untill the blindest and corruptest times of Popedom displac't it For that the volumes of Justinian never came into Italy or beyond Illiricum is the opinion of good Antiquaries And that only manuscript thereof found in Apulia by Lotharius the Saxon and giv'n to the state of Pisa for their aid at sea against the Normans of Sicily was receav'd as a rarity not to bee matcht And although the Gothes and after them the Lombards and Franks who over-run the most of Europ except this Island unlesse wee make our Saxons and Normans a limm of them brought in their owne customes yet that they follow'd the Roman laws in their contracts and mariages Agathias the historian is alleg'd And other testimonies relate that Alaricus Theodoric their Kings writ their statutes out of this Theodosian Code which hath the recited law of Divorce Neverthelesse while the Monarchs of Christendome were yet barbarous and but halfe Christian the Popes tooke this advantage of their weake superstition to raise a corpulent law out of the canons and decretals of audacious preists and presum'd also to set this in the front That the constitutions of princes are not above the constitutions of clergy but beneath them Using this very instance of divorce as the first prop of their tyranny by a false consequence drawn from a passage of Ambrose upon Luke where hee saith though Mans law grant it yet Gods law
Tetrachordon EXPOSITIONS UPON The foure chief places in Scripture which treat of Mariage or nullities in Mariage On Gen. 1. 27. 28. compar'd and explain'd by Gen. 2. 18. 23. 24. Deut. 24. 1. 2. Matth. 5. 31. 32. with Matth. 19. from the 3d. v. to the 11th 1 Cor. 7. from the 10th to the 16th Wherin the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce as was lately publish'd is confirm'd by explanation of Scripture by testimony of ancient Fathers of civill lawes in the Primitive Church of famousest Reformed Divines And lastly by an intended Act of the Parlament and Church of England in the last yeare of EDVVARD the sixth By the former Author J. M. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Euripid. Medea LONDON Printed in the yeare 1645. To the PARLAMENT THat which I knew to be the part of a good Magistrate aiming at true liberty through the right information of religious and civil life and that which I saw and was partaker of your Vows and solemne Cov'nants Parlament of England your actions also manifestly tending to exalt the truth and to depresse the tyranny of error and ill custome with more constancy and prowesse then ever yet any since that Parlament which put the first Scepter of this Kingdom into his hand whom God and extraordinary vertue made thir Monarch were the causes that mov'd me one else not placing much in the eminence of a dedication to present your high notice with a Discourse conscious to it self of nothing more then of diligence and firm affection to the publick good And tbat ye took it so as wise and impartial men obtaining so great power and dignitie are wont to accept in matters both doubtfull and important what they think offer'd them well meant and from a rational ability I had no lesse then to perswade me And on that perswaston am return'd as to a famous and free Port my self also bound by more then a maritime Law to expose as freely what fraughtage I conceave to bring of no trifles For although it be generally known how and by whom ye have been instigated to a hard censure of that former book entitl'd The Doctrine and Diseipline of Divorce an opinion held by some of the best among reformed Writers without scandal or confutement though now thought new and dangerous by some of our severe Gnostics whose little reading and lesse meditating holds ever with hardest obstinacy tbat which it took up with easiest credulity I do not find yet that ought for the furious ineitements which have been used hath issu'd by your appointment that might give the least interruption or disrepute either to the Author or to the Book Which he who will be better advis'd then to call your neglect or connivence at a thing imagin'd so perilous can attribute it to nothing more justly then to the deep and quiet streame of your direct and calme deliberations that gave not way either to the fervent rashnesse or the immaterial gravity of those who ceas'd not to exasperate without cause For which uprightnesse and incorrupt refusall of what ye were incens'd to Lords and Commons though it were don to justice not to me and was a peculiar demonstration how farre your waies are different from the rash vulgar besides tbose allegiances of oath and duty which are my publie debt to your public labours I have yet a store of gratitude laid up which cannot be exhausted and such thanks perhaps they may live to be as shall more then whisper to the next ages Yet that the Author may be known to ground himself upon his own innocence and the merit of his cause not upon the favour of a diversion or a delay to any just censure but wishes rather he might see those his detracters at any fair meeting as learned debatements are privileg'd with a due freedome under equall Moderators I shall here briefly single one of them because he hath oblig'd me to it who I perswade me having scarse read the book nor knowing him who writ it or at least faining the latter bath not forborn to scandalize him unconferr'd with unadmonisht undealt with by any Pastorly or brotherly convincement in the most open and invective manner and at the most bitter opportunity that drift or set designe could have invented And this when as the Canon Law though commonly most favouring the boldnesse of their Priests punishes the naming or traducing of any person in the Pulpit was by him made no scruple If I shall therfore take licence by the right of nature and that liberty wherin I was born to defend my self publicly against a printed Calumny and do willingly appeal to those Judges to whom I am accus'd it can be no immoderate or unallowable course of seeking so just and needfull reparations Which I had don long since had not these employments which are now visible deferr'd me It was preacht before ye Lords and Commons in August last upon a special day of humiliation that there was a wicked Book abroad and ye were taxt of sin that it was yet uncensur'd the book deserving to be burnt and impudence also was charg'd upon the Author who durst set his name to it and dedicate it to your selves First Lords and Commons I pray to that God before whom ye then were prostrate so to forgive ye those omissions and trespasses which ye desire most should find forgivness as I shall soon shew to the world how easily ye absolve your selves of that which this man calls your sin and is indeed your wisdome and your Noblenesse whereof to this day ye have don well not to repent He terms it a wicked book and why but for allowing other causes of Divorce then Christ and his Apostles mention and with the same censure condemns of wickednesse not onely Martin Bucer that elect Instrument of Reformation highly honour'd and had in reverence by Edward the sixth and his whole Parlament whom also I had publisht in English by a good providence about a week before this calumnious digression was preach'd so that if he knew not Bucer then as he ought to have known he might at least have known him some months after ere the Sermon came in print wherein notwithstanding he persists in his former sentence and condemnes again of wickednesse either ignorantly or wilfully not onely Martin Bucer and all the choisest and holiest of our Reformers but the whole Parlament and Church of England in those best and purest times of Edward the sixth All which I shall prove with good evidence at the end of these Explanations And then let it be judg'd and seriously consider'd with what hope the affairs of our Religion are committed to one among others who hath now onely left him which of the twain he will choose whether this shall be his palpable ignorance or the same wickednesse of his own book which he so lavishly imputes to the writings of other men and whether this of his
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
story can recount of Solon and Epaminondas whom Cicero in his first booke of invention nobly defends All law saith he we ought referr to the common good and interpret by that not by the scrowl of letters No man observes law for laws sake but for the good of them for whom it was made The rest might serv well to lecture these times deluded through belly-doctrines into a devout slavery The Scripture also affords us David in the shew-bread Hezechiah in the passeover sound and safe transgressors of the literall command which also dispenc'd not seldom with it self and taught us on what just occasions to doe so untill our Saviour for whom that great and God-like work was reserv'd redeem'd us to a state above prescriptions by dissolving the whole law into charity And have we not the soul to understand this and must we against this glory of Gods transcendent love towards us be still the servants of a literall indightment Created he him It might be doubted why he saith In the Image of God created he him not them as well as male and female them especially since that Image might be common to them both but male and female could not however the Jewes fable and please themselvs with the accidentall concurrence of Plato's wit as if man at first had bin created Hermaphrodite but then it must have bin male and female created he him So had the Image of God bin equally common to them both it had no doubt bin said In the image of God created he them But St. Paul ends the controversie by explaining that the woman is not primarily and immediatly the image of God but in reference to the man The head of the woman saith he 1 Cor. 11. is the man he the image and glory of God she the glory of the man he not for her but she for him Therefore his precept is Wives be subject to your husbands as is fit in the Lord Coloss 3. 18. In every thing Eph. 5. 24. Neverthelesse man is not to hold her as a servant but receives her into a part of that empire which God proclaims him to though not equally yet largely as his own image and glory for it is no small glory to him that a creature so like him should be made subject to him Not but that particular exceptions may have place if she exceed her husband in prudence and dexterity and he contentedly yeeld for then a superior and more naturall law comes in that the wiser should govern the lesse wise whether male or female But that which far more easily and obediently follows from this verse is that seeing woman was purposely made for man and he her head it cannot stand before the breath of this divine utterance that man the portraiture of God joyning to himself for his intended good and solace an inferiour sexe should so becom her thrall whose wilfulnes or inability to be a wife frustrates the occasionall end of her creation but that he may acquitt himself to freedom by his naturall birth-right and that indeleble character of priority which God crown'd him with If it be urg'd that sin hath lost him this the answer is not far to seek that from her the sin first proceeded which keeps her justly in the same proportion still beneath She is not to gain by being first in the transgression that man should furder loose to her because already he hath lost by her means Oft it happens that in this matter he is without fault so that his punishment herein is causeles and God hath the praise in our speeches of him to sort his punishment in the same kind with the offence Suppose he err'd it is not the intent of God or man to hunt an error so to the death with a revenge beyond all measure and proportion But if we argue thus this affliction is befaln him for his sin therefore he must bear it without seeking the only remedy first it will be false that all affliction comes for sin as in the case of Joh and of the man born blind Joh. 9. 3 was evident next by that reason all miseries comming for sin we must let them all lye upon us like the vermin of an Indian Catharist which his fond religion forbids him to molest Were it a particular punishment inflicted through the anger of God upon a person or upon a land no law hinders us in that regard no law but bidds us remove it if we can much more if it be a dangerous temptation withall much more yet if it be certainly a temptation and not certainly a punishment though a pain As for what they say we must bear with patience to bear with patience and to seek effectuall remedies implies no contradiction It may no lesse be for our disobedience our unfaithfulnes and other sins against God that wives becom adulterous to the bed and questionles we ought to take the affliction as patiently as christian prudence would wish yet hereby is not lost the right of divorcing for adultery No you say because our Saviour excepted that only But why if he were so bent to punish our sins and try our patience in binding on us a disastrous mariage why did he except adultery Certainly to have bin bound from divorce in that case also had bin as plentifull a punishment to our sins and not too little work for the patientest Nay perhaps they will say it was too great a sufferance And with as slight a reason for no wise man but would sooner pardon the act of adultery once and again committed by a person worth pitty and forgivnes then to lead a wearisom life of unloving unquiet conversation with one who neither affects nor is affected much lesse with one who exercises all bitternes and would commit adultery too but for envy lest the persecuted condition should thereby get the benefit of his freedom 'T is plain therefore that God enjoyns not this supposed strictnes of not divorcing either to punish us or to try our patience Moreover if man be the image of God which consists in holines and woman ought in the same respect to be the image and companion of man in such wise to belov'd as the Church is belov'd of Christ and if as God is the head of Christ and Christ the head of man so man is the head of woman I cannot see by this golden dependance of headship and subjection but that Piety and Religion is the main tye of Christian Matrimony So as if there be found between the pair a notorious disparity either of wickednes or heresie the husband by all manner of right is disingag'd from a creature not made and inflicted on him to the vexation of his righteousnes the wife also as her subjection is terminated in the Lord being her self the redeem'd of Christ is not still bound to be the vassall of him who is the bondslave of Satan she being now neither the image nor the glory of such a person nor made for
him nor left in bondage to him but hath recours to the wing of charity and protection of the Church unless there be a hope on either side yet such a hope must be meant as may be a rationall hope and not an endles servitude Of which hereafter But usually it is objected that if it be thus then there can be no true mariage between misbeleevers and irreligious persons I might answer let them see to that who are such the Church hath no commission to judge those without 1 Cor. 5. But this they will say perhaps is but penuriously to resolv a doubt I answer therefore that where they are both irreligious the mariage may be yet true anough to them in a civill relation For there are left som remains of Gods image in man as he is meerly man which reason God gives against the shedding of mans bloud Gen. 9. as being made in Gods image without expression whether he were a good man or a bad to exempt the slayer from punishment So that in those mariages where the parties are alike void of Religion the wife owes a civill homage and subjection the husband owes a civill loyalty But where the yoke is mis-yok't heretick with faithfull godly with ungodly to the grievance and manifest endangering of a brother or sister reasons of a higher strain then matrimoniall bear sway unlesse the Gospel instead of freeing us debase it self to make us bondmen and suffer evill to controule good Male and female created he them This contains another end of matching man and woman being the right and lawfulnes of the marige bed though much inferior to the former end of her being his image and helpo in religious society And who of weakest insight may not see that this creating of them male and female cannot in any order of reason or Christianity be of such moment against the better and higher purposes of their creation as to enthrall husband or wife to duties or to sufferings unworthy and unbeseeming the image of God in them Now when as not only men but good men doe stand upon their right their estimation their dignity in all other actions and deportments with warrant anough and good conscience as having the image of God in them it will not be difficult to determin what is unworthy and unseemly for a man to do or suffer in wedlock and the like proportionally may be found for woman if we love not to stand disputing below the principles of humanity He that said Male and female created he them immediatly before that said also in the same verse In the Image of God created he him and redoubl'd it that our thoughts might not be so full of dregs as to urge this poor consideration of male and female without remembring the noblenes of that former repetition lest when God sends a wise eye to examin our triviall glosses they be found extremly to creep upon the ground especially since they confesse that what here concerns mariage is but a brief touch only preparative to the institution which follows more expressely in the next Chapter and that Christ so took it as desiring to be briefest with them who came to tempt him account shall be given in due place V. 28. And Godblessed them and God said unto them be fruitfull and multiply and replenish the earth c. This declares another end of Matrimony the propagation of mankind and is again repeated to Noah and his sons Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary nor unworth the noting but I undertook not a generall Comment Hence therefore we see the desire of children is honest and pious if we be not lesse zealous in our Christianity then Plato was in his heathenism who in the sixt of his laws counts off-spring therefore desirable that we may leav in our stead sons of our sons continuall servants of God a religious and prudent desire if people knew as well what were requir'd to breeding as to begetting which desire perhaps was a cause why the Jews hardly could endure a barren wedlock and Philo in his book of speciall laws esteems him only worth pardon that sends not barrennes away Carvilius the first recorded in Rome to have sought divorce had it granted him for the barrennes of his wife upon his oath that he maried to the end he might have children as Dionysius and Gellius are authors But to dismisse a wife only for barrennes is hard and yet in som the desire of children is so great and so just yea somtime so necessary that to condemn such a one to a childles age the fault apparently not being in him might seem perhaps more strict then needed Somtimes inheritances crowns and dignities are so interested and annext in their common peace and good to such or such lineall descent that it may prove a great moment both in the affairs of men and of religion to consider throughly what might be don heerin notwithstanding the way wardnes of our School Doctors Gen. 2. 18. And the Lord said It is not good that man should be alone I will make him a help meet for him V. 23. And Adam said c. V. 24. Therefore shall a man leave c. THis second Chapter is granted to be a Commentary on the first and these verses granted to be an exposition of that former verse Male and female created he them and yet when this male and female is by the explicite words of God himselfe heer declar'd to be not meant other then a fit help and meet society som who would ingrosse to themselves the whole trade of interpreting will not suffer the cleer text of God to doe the office of explaining it self And the Lord God said it is not good A man would think that the consideration of who spake should raise up the attention of our minds to enquire better and obey the purpos of so great a Speaker for as we order the busines of Mariage that which he heer speaks is all made vain and in the decision of matrimony or not matrimony nothing at all regarded Our presumption hath utterly chang'd the state and condition of this ordinance God ordain'd it in love and helpfulnes to be indissoluble and we in outward act and formality to be a forc't bondage so that being subject to a thousand errors in the best men if it prove a blessing to any it is of meer accident as mans law hath handl'd it and not of institution It is not good for man to be alone Hitherto all things that have bin nam'd were approv'd of God to be very good lonelines is the first thing which Gods eye nam'd not good whether it be a thing or the want of somthing I labour not let it be their tendance who have the art to be industriously idle And heer alone is meant alone without woman otherwise Adam had the company of God himself and Angels to convers with all creatures to delight him seriously or to make him sport God
which I have recited and much more hereafter But the truth is they give us in such a manner as they who leav their own mature positions like the eggs of an Ostrich in the dust I do but lay them in the sun their own pregnancies hatch the truth and I am taxt of novelties and strange producements while they like that inconsiderat bird know not that these are their own naturall breed I will make him a help meet for him Heer the heavnly instituter as if he labour'd not to be mistak'n by the supercilious hypocrisie of those that love to maister their brethren and to make us sure that he gave us not now a servil yoke but an amiable knot contents not himself to say I will make him a wife but resolving to give us first the meaning before the name of a wife saith graciously I will make him a help meet for him And heer again as before I doe not require more full and fair deductions then the whole consent of our Divines usually raise from this text that in matrimony there must be first a mutuall help to piety next to civill fellowship of love and amity then to generation so to houshold affairs lastly the remedy of incontinence And commonly they reck'n them in such order as leavs generation and incontinence to be last consider'd This I amaze me at that though all the superior and nobler ends both of mariage and of the maried persons he absolutely frustrat the matrimony stirs not looses no hold remains as rooted as the center but if the body bring but in a complaint of frigidity by that cold application only this adamantine Alpe of wedlock has leav to dissolve which els all the machinations of religious or civill reason at the suit of a distressed mind either for divine worship or humane conversation violated cannot unfasten What courts of concupiscence are these wherin fleshly appetite is heard before right reason lust before love or devotion They may be pious Christians together they may be loving and friendly they may be helpfull to each other in the family but they cannot couple that shall divorce them though either party would not They can neither serv God together nor one be at peace with the other nor be good in the family one to other but live as they were dead or live as they were deadly enemies in a cage together t is all one they can couple they shall not divorce till death no though this sentence be their death What is this besides tyranny but to turn nature upside down to make both religion and the minde of man wait upon the slavish errands of the body and not the body to follow either the sanctity or the sovranty of the mind unspeakably wrong'd and with all equity complaining What is this but to abuse the sacred and misterious bed of mariage to be the compulsive stie of an ingratefull and malignant lust stirr'd up only from a carnall acrimony withour either love or peace or regard to any other thing holy or human This I admire how possibly it should inhabit thus long in the sense of so many disputing Theologians unlesse it be the lowest lees of a canonicall infection liver-grown to their sides which perhaps will never uncling without the strong abstersive of som heroick magistrat whole mind equall to his high office dares lead him both to know and to do without their frivolous case-putting For certain he shall have God and this institution plainly on his side And if it be true both in divinity and law that consent alone though copulation never follow makes a mariage how can they dissolv it for the want of that which made it not and not dissolv it for that not continuing which made it and should preserve it in love and reason and difference it from a brute conjugality Meet for him The originall heer is more expressive then other languages word for word can render it but all agree effectuall conformity of disposition and affection to be heerby signify'd which God as it were not satisfy'd with the naming of a help goes on describing another self a secondself a very self it self Yet now there is nothing in the life of man through our misconstruction made more uncertain more hazardous and full of chance then this divine blessing with such favorable significance heer conferr'd upon us which if we do but erre in our choice the most unblamable error that can be erre but one minute one moment after those mighty syllables pronounc't which take upon them to joyn heavn and hell together unpardnably till death pardon this divine blessing that lookt but now with such a human smile upon us and spoke such gentle reason strait vanishes like a fair skie and brings on such a scene of cloud and tempest as turns all to shipwrack without havn or shoar but to a ransomles captivity And then they tell us it is our sin but let them be told again that sin through the mercy of God hath not made such wast upon us as to make utterly void to our use any temporall benefit much lesse any so much a vailing to a peacefull and sanctify'd life meerly for a most incident error which no warines can certainly shun And wherfore servs our happy redemption and the liberty we have in Christ but to deliver us from calamirous yokes not to beliv'd under without the endangerment of our souls and to restore us in som competent measure to a right in every good thing both of this life and the other Thus we see how treatably and distinctly God hath heer taught us what the prime ends of mariage are mutuall solace and help That we are now upon the most irreprehensible mistake in choosing defeated and defrauded of all this originall benignity was begun first through the snare of Antichristian canons long since obtruded upon the Church of Rome and not yet scourâ—d off by reformation out of a lingting vain-glory that abides among us to make fair shews in formall ordinances and to enjoyn continence bearing of crosses in such a garb as no Scripture binds us under the thickest arrows of temptation where we need not stand Now we shall see with what acknowledgement and assent Adam receiv'd this new associat which God brought him V. 23. And Adam said this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called Woman because she was tak'n out of Man That there was a neerer alliance between Adam and Eve then could be ever after between man and wife is visible to any For no other woman was ever moulded out of her husbands rib but of meer strangers for the most part they com to have that consanguinity which they have by wedlock And if we look neerly upon the matter though mariage be most agreeable to holines to purity and justice yet is it not a naturall but a civill and ordain'd relation For if it were in nature no law or crime could disanull
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