of the father which may be prejudicial to the government of the family paternal pow'r which is sufficient for my purpose in the question in hand And although those Casuists doe sufficiently doat upon their Monkery and the vows thereunto appertayning yet they ascribe so much to the bond of filial duty as that they teach That a sonne which his parents being in extreme need and wanting his help enters into a religious order or comes not out of it though professed when hee might be likely by his coming forth to bee aidfull to his said Parents is guilty of a sin against the fift Commandement so as even with them the respect to a parent ought to overweigh a vow of religion although consummate by a solemn profession But that you may not object to me the age of the law as therefore abrogated because Mosaicall heare what the chosen vessell saies under the new law of the Gospel If any man thinke that he behaveth himselfe uncomely towards his virgin if shee passe the floure of her age and need so require let him doe what hee will hee sinneth not let her marry 1 Cor. 7. 36. Neverthelesse he that standeth stedfast in his heart having no necessity but hath power over his owne will and hath so decreed in his heart that he will keep his virgin doth well c. ver 37. Loe the Apostle supposeth it in the parents power either to keep his daughter a virgin or to dispose of her in marriage she is not her owne either to hold or give but must be altogether ordered by the superior will of a parent Not that any force is allowed either way to be used towards the daughter whether to continue her in a constrained virginity or to call her against her minde upon a dis-affected match No that God who disposeth all things sweetly would have us doe so too hee allowes parents to be rulers of their children but not tyrants what they doe therefore in this kinde must be more by councel then command and with more sway of love then authority thus consulting wisely with the state of times and the childs disposition and abilities of contayning must the parent either keep his virgin or labour for the provision of a meete consortship Thus did the two great Patriarchs of Gods ancient Church Abraham and Isaac provide fit matches for their holy seed whiles the unholy provided unfit matches for themselves Thus did their godly issue in all generations take their parents along with them in the choice of meet yoke-fellowes whiles the godless whether out of impetuous lust or stubborn disobedience affect with Esau Gen. 28. 6 7 8. to be their owne purveyors to the great regret and heart-breaking of their parents Lastly the latitude that S. Paul gives of the liberty of marriage to al Christians is Tantum in Domino onely in the Lord 1 Cor. 7. 39. Now how can that marriage bee in the Lord which is against him and how can that bee other then against the Lord which is against the Lords commandement And what commandment can be more express then Honor thy father and thy mother Gal. 6. 1. And Children obey your parents ver 2. And what can bee more contrary to the honour and obedience due to Parents then to neglect them in the main business that concernes our lives And what businesse can concern our life so much as the choice of a meet partner with whom we may comfortably weare out all the dayes of our pilgrimage on earth Doubtlesse then we may in a generality safely conclude that it is altogether unlawfull for a childe to sleight his Parents consent in the choice of his marriage There may be some particular cases incident wherein perhaps this may without sinne or blame be forborn as when the child either by general permission or former elocation shall be out of the Parents disposing or where the parent is defective in his intellectuals or where the child lives in remotis out of the compasse of intelligence or where the Parent being averse from the true Religion denies his consent to match with any but those of his own straine or shall upon other by-occasions wilfully stand upon so unreasonable terms that neither friends nor authority can over-rule him But where these or the like preponderating exceptions doe not intervene the child cannot without sin balk the Parents consent to his choice in marriage But though such marriages without or against consent bee not lawfully made yet being once made they are valid The civill law out of the grounds of policy goes herein too far which sentenceth those marriages void which are made without the consent of Parents of Guardians but as Matrimony hath somthing in it of Nature something of Civility something of Divinity as instituted by God and by him to be regulated so sure this last interest ought to over-sway the other two The marriage therefore thus made being though faulty yet true is doubtlesse after consummation indissoluble The parties repentance and the parents sorrow may have leisure to afflict them no power to relieve them CASE II. Whether Marriage lawfully made may admit of any cause of divorce save only for the violation of the marriage bed by Fornication or Adulterie OUr Saviour hath so punctually decided the case in his Divine Sermon upon the mount that I cannot but wonder at the boldnesse of any man who calls himself a Christian that dares raise a question after so full and clear a determination from the mouth of truth it self Whosoever saith he shall put away his wife saving for the cause of fornication causeth her to commit adultery and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery Mat. 5. 32. Yet I find this so evident an assertion checked by two sorts of adversaries The one certain wild Novellists who admit of very sleight causes of separation the other Romish Doctors who plead for some other main and important additions to this liberty of divorce I have heard too much of once saw a licentious Pamphlet thrown abroad in these lawlesse times in the defence and encouragement of Divorces not to be sued out that solemnity needed not but to be arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to his displeasing and unquiet wife upon this ground principally that Marriage was instituted for the help and comfort of man where therefore the match proves such as that the wife doth but pull downe a side and by her innate peevishnesse and either sullen or pettish and froward disposition brings rather discomfort to her husband the end of Marriage being hereby frustrate why should it not saith he be in the Husbands power after some unprevailing means of reclamation attempted to procure his own peace by casting off this clog and to provide for his own peace and contentment in a fitter Match Woe is me To what a passe is the world come that a Christian pretending to Reformation should dare to tender so loose a project to
man-slayer justly shed than any others I am sure Phineas thought not so nor Samuel after him and which is most of all that the honor and priviledges of the Sonnes of Levi were both procured and seoffed on them upon an injoyned blood-shed Onely here is the favour and mercy of that learned Casuist that Clerks and Votaries are not alwayes bound rather to dye than kill for saith he if such religious persons should bethink himselfe that he is in a deadly sinne and should thereupon feare that he should be damned if he were killed in that wofull and desperate estate hee were then bound by all meanes to defend himselfe and to preferre the safety of his owne soule before the life of another As if nothing but the feare of damnation could warrant a man for his owne safeguard as if nothing but the danger of hell could authorize an holy person to be his owne guardian as if the best of lives were so cheap and worthlesse that they might be given away for nothing whereas contrarily Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of all his Saints Psalm 116. But in such a case according to the opinion of this great Casuist charity to our selves doth not more arme and enforce our hand than charity to our neighbour holds it and bindes it up We may not kill lest the man-slayer dying in the attempt of this murther should everlastingly perish Surely I cannot but admire this unreasonable mercy in a father of the Society Where was this consideration when so many thousands of innocent persons were doomed to be blown up in a state of impenitence whose unrepented heresie must needs have sent them up instantly to their hell By this reason a malefactor if he be obdured in his sinne and professeth to bee remorslesse may not feele the stroke of Justice Shortly then if a man will needes be wicked to my destruction the evill is his owne let him beare his owne guilt let me looke to my owne indempnity The case is yet more difficult where the attempt is not upon my person but my goods if a man will be offering to robbe my house or to take my purse what may I doe in this case Surely neither charity nor justice can disswade me from resisting the lawes of God and man will allow me to defend my owne and if in this resistance the Thief or Burglayer miscarry his blood will be upon his owne head although in the meane time charity forbids that this slaughter should be first in my intention which is primarily bent upon my owne safety and the vindication of my owne just propriety the blood that followes is but the unwilling attendant of my defence of the shedding whereof God is so tender that he ordained it onely to be inoffensively done in a nightly robbery Exodus 22. 2. where the purpose of the thiefe is likely to bee more murtherous and the act more uncapable of restitution What then if the thiefe after his robbery done ceasing any further danger of violence shall betake himselfe to his heeles and run away with my money In such a case if the summe be so considerable as that it much imports my estate how ever our municipall lawes may censure it with which of old even as killing se defendendo was no lesse than felony of death my Conscience should not strike me if I pursue him with all might and in hot chase so strike him as that by this meanes I disable him from a further escape for the recovery of my owne and if hereupon his death shall follow however I should passe with men God and my owne heart would acquit mee Neither doubt I to sayâ— the like may be done upon a forcible attempt of the violation of the Chastity of either sexe A case long agoe adjudged by the doome of nature it selfe in Marius the Generall of the Roman army as Cicero tells us clearely acquitting a young man for killing a Colonel that would have forced him in this kind But I may not assent to Dominicus Bannez Petrus Navarrus and Cajetan though grave Authors who hold that if a man goe about upon false and deadly criminations to subborne witnesses against mee to accuse me to a corrupted Judge with a purpose to take away my life in a colour of justice if I have no other way to avoid the malice I may lawfully kill him It were a wofull and dangerous case if every man might be allowed to carve himselfe of justice Meere accusations are no convictions How know I what God may work for me on the Bench or at the Barre what evidence hee may raise to cleare mee what confusion or contraction hee may cause in the mouthes of the hired witnesses what change he may work in the Judge what interposition of higher powers There is a providence in this case to be relyed upon which can and will bring about his owne holy purposes without our presumptuous and unwarrantable undertakings CASE II. Whether may I lawfully make use of a Duell for the deciding of my right or the vindication of my honour I Have long agoe spent my opinion upon this point in a large epistolar discourse which I finde no reason to alter thither I might referre you to spare my labour but lest perhaps that should not be at hand shortly thus The sword in a private hand was never ordained to be a decider of any controversies save this one whether of the two is the better Fencer nor yet that alwayes since Eccles. 9. 11. The race is not to the swift nor the battaile to the strong as Solomon hath observed It can be no better therefore than a meere tempting of God as Rodriguez justly censures it to put our selves or our cause upon so unwarranted a tryall I finde but two practises of it in the Records of Scripture the one that famous challenge of Goliah which that proud Philistim had not made if he had not presumed of his Giantly strength and stature so utterly unmatchable by all Israel 1 Sam. 17. 24. that the whole host was ready to give back upon his appearance he knew the advantage so palpable that none would dare to undertake the quarrell and had still gone on to triumph over that trembling army had not Gods inexpected champion by divine instinct taken up the monster and vanquisht him leaving all but his head to bedung that earth which had lately shaken at his terrour The other was in that mortall quarrell betwixt Joab and Abner on the behalfe of their two Masters David and Ishbosheth 2 Sam. 2. 14. wherein Abner invites his rivall in honor to a Tragicall play as he termes it a monomachie of twelve single combatants on either part which was so acted that no man went victor away from that bloudy Theater Only it is observable that in both these conflicts still the challengers had the worst In imitation of which latter I cannot allow that which I find frequently
next to the publique executioners so certainly those busie spirited-men which out of the itching humour of medling run from house to house with tales of private detraction may well challenge the next roome in our detestation This together with the other is that which God so strictly forbids in his Law Levit. 19. 16. Thou shalt not goe up and downe as a Tale-bearer amongst thy people neither shalt thou stand against the bloud of thy neighbour I am the Lord. A practice which wise Solomon though a great King and as one would think out of the reach of tongues cryes downe with much feeling bitternesse Prov. 18. 8. The words of the Tale bearer are as wounds and they goe downe into the innermost parts of the belly No lesse than five severall times in his divine Proverbs inveighing sharply as if himselfe had been stung in this kinde against these close back-biting calumniations Shorlty then accuse when you are forced either by the foulenesse of the fact or the necessity of your duty otherwise reserve your tongue for better offices CASE VIII Whether a prisoner indicted of a felonious act which he hath committed and interrogated by the Judge concerning the same may stand upon the deniall and plead Not guilty THe Casuists vary and out of respect to their owne Lawes are much perplexed in their resolutions making the great scruple to be in the Juridicall interrogations which if the Judge have not proceeded in the due forme of Law required in such cases may warrant the offenders deniall and secondly making difference of the quality of the offence and danger of the punishment which if no lesse than capitall may say they give just ground to the accused party either to conceale the truth or to answer with such amphibolies and equivocations as may serve to his owne preservation in which course naturall equity will beare him out which allowes every man to stand upon his owne defence And the case I perceive is aggravated in forraigne parts as by the Rack so by an Oath administred to the person accused which they call Juramentum calumniae which Lessius justly calls a spirituall torture by the vertue whereof hee solemnely urged not to deny what hee knowes or believes to be true concerning the businesse questioned A practise which I cannot blame Lessius if he professe to wish that the Pope and all secular Princes would joyne together to abrogate as being an evident occasion of much perjury To lay down and determine the case as it stands with us in our ordinary proceedings of justice it must be premised 1. To deny a knowne truth and to averre a willfull lye cannot be other than a sin 2. There is a vast difference betwixt concealing a truth and denying it 3. It may be sometimes lawfull to conceale some Truths though never lawfull to deny or contradict them 4. No man can be bound directly to accuse himselfe 5. It is consonant to naturall equity that a man for the saving of his life should use the helpe of all evasions that are not sinfull 6. It cannot be sinfull to put himselfe upon a legall triall in a case importing his life 7. There is no place for a legall triall where there is an absolute confession of guiltinesse These positions being pre-required I say that it is lawfull for the prisoner though convinced in his conscience of the fact yet to plead Not guilty to the Indictment at the Barre for as much as he doth therein according to the sense both of the Judge and Jury onely hide and keepe back that Truth the finding out and eviction whereof lyes upon their further search and proofe so as he doth in pleading Not guilty in effect as good as say What ever I finde in my selfe I have no reason to confesse my guiltinesse I stand upon my lawfull defence and cast my selfe upon my just tryall Yielding my selfe onely so far guilty as your evidence and proofes can make me let Justice passe upon me I have no reason to draw on my owne condemnation The plea thus construed is lawfull and just wherein not the shuffling equivocations of the offendor but the upright verdict of a legall Jury must carry the cause to which purpose that which sounds as a deniall in the accused is nothing else but a professed referring himselfe to a juridicall triall of that fact which he is not bound to confesse But when the hand of God hath once found out the man in his sin and he finds himselfe legally convinced of his crime it greatly behoves him as Joshuah charged Achan after the lot had discovered his sin to give glory to God in a free and full confession of his wickednesse and to be more open and ingenuous in his acknowledgement than he was close and reserved in his plea wherein as he shall discharge his conscience to that great and holy God whom he hath offended so he shall thus tender some kind of poore satisfaction to that Society of men whom hee hath scandalized by his crime In which regard I cannot but marvell at the strange determination of learned Azpilcueta the Oracle of Confessaries who teaches that the prisoner who being rightly interrogated by the Judge stood stiffly in deniall of the fact and is upon his Condemnation carried to his execution is not bound at his death to confesse the crime to the world if he have before secretly whispered it in the ear of his ghostly father and by him received absolution A sentence that allowes the smothering of truthes and the strangling of just satisfaction to those who are concerned as patience in the offence and lastly highly injurious to publique Justice whose righteous sentence is by this meanes left questionable and obnoxious to unjust censure How much more requisite were it that a publique confession should in this case save the labour of a private whereby certainly the soule of the offender would be more sensibly unloaded justice better vindicated more glory would accrew to God and to men more satisfaction But however it be lawfull for the accused to stand upon these points of legality in the proceedings against him yet for my owne part should I be so farre given over as to have my hand in bloud and thereupon be arraigned at the barre of publique Justice I should out of just remorse be the first man that should rise up against my selfe and which in other mens cases were utterly unlawfull be my owne Accuser Witnesse and Judge and this disposition I should rather commend in those whose conscience hath inwardly convicted them for haynously criminous that since they had not the grace to resist so flagitious a wickednesse they may yet endeavour to expiate it before men with an ingenuous confession as before God with a deepe and serious repentance CASE IX Whether and how farre a man may take up armes in the publique quarrell of a war WArre is no other than a necessary evill necessary in relation to peace onely
as that without which so great a blessing cannot bee had As the wise Woman said to Joab 2 Sam. 20. 18. they should first treat with the men of Abel ere they smite upon the charge of the Lord of hosts Deut. 20. 10. conditions must first be tendered even to heathen enemies before any acts of hostility shall be exercised where this which is the worst of all remedies proves needfull if you ask how farre it is lawfull to ingage I must aske you ere I can returne answer first of the justice of the quarrell for surely where the warre is knowne to be unjust the willing abettors of it cannot wash their hands from blood To make a warre just as our Casuists rightly there must bee a lawfull authority to raise it a just ground whereon to raise it due formes and conditions in the raising managing and cessation of it That no authority lesse than supreame can wage a warre it is cleare in nature for that none other besides it can have power of life and death which both must lye at the publique stake in warre That none but a just and weighty cause can be the ground of a warre every mans reason apprehends for how precious a blessing had that need to bee that is held worth the purchasing with the price of so much bloud and how heavy a curse must that needes bee which can onely be remedied or prevented by so grievous a judgement as war That due termes and conditions are requisite to bee offered ere warre be undertaken and observed in the managing and ceasing of it humanity it self teacheth us without which men should run upon one another with no lesse fury and disorder than beasts not staying for any capitulation but the first advantage nor terminating their discord in any thing but utter destruction Where all or any of these are wanting the warre cannot be just and where it is known not to be such woe be to those hands that are willingly active in prosecuting it Now the care of all these three maine requisites must lie chiefly upon that Power which is entrusted by the Almighty with the over-ruling of publique affaires For the Subject as he is bound to an implicite reliance upon the command of the supreame power so unlesse it be in a case notoriously apparent to be unjust must yeild a blind-fold obedience to authority going whither he is led and doing what he is bidden But if the case be such as that his heart is fully convinced of the injustice of the enterprise and that he clearly finds that he is charged to smite Innocence and to him against God I cannot blame fight if with Sauls footmen when they were commanded to fall upon the Priests of the Lord he withhold his hand and craving pardon shew lesse readinesse to act than to suffer In the second place I must aske you with what intentions you addresse your selfe to the field if it be out of the conscience of maintaining a just cause if out of a loyall obedience to lawfull authority I shall bid you go on and prosper but if either malice to the parties opposed and therein desire of revenge or a base covetousnesse of pay or hope and desire of plunder have put you into armes repent and withdraw For what can be more sordid or cruell than to be hired for dayes-wages to shed innocent blood Or what can bee more horribly mischievous for a Man than to kill that hee may steale Upon your answer to these questions it will be easie for mee to returne mine In a just quarrell being thereto lawfully called you may fight warrantable authority hath put the sword into your hand you may use it But take heed that you use it with that moderation and with those affections that are meet Even an authorized hand may offend in striking Magistrates themselves if there be revenge in their executions doe no other than murder Far be it from you to take pleasure in bloud and to enjoy another mans destruction If especially in those warres that are intestine you shall mingle your teares with the blood which you are forced to spill it may well become Christian fortitude Shortly doe you enter into your armes imprest or voluntary If the former you have nothing but your owne heart to looke unto for a fit disposition That Power whom you justly obey must answer for the cause If the latter you have reason diligently to examine all the necessary points of the power of the cause of your intentions as well considering that in a warre it is no lesse impossible that both sides should be in the right than that in a contradiction both parts should be true Here therefore your will makes it selfe the Judg of all three and if any of them faile leaves you answerable for all miscarriages so as you had need to be carefully inquisitive in this case upon what grounds you goe that so whatsoever may befall a good conscience may beare you out in the greatest difficulties and saddest events that are wont to attend upon warre CASE X. Whether and how farre a man may act towards his own Death DIrectly to intend or endeavour that which may worke his owne death is abominably wicked and no lesse than the worst murder For if a man may not kill another much lesse himselfe by how much he is nearer to himselfe than to another and certainely if we must regulate our love to another by that to our selves it must follow that love to our selves must take up the first roome in our hearts and that love cannot but be accompanied with a detestation of any thing that may bee harmefull to our selves Doubtlesse many that can be cruell to another are favourable enough to themselves but never man that could be cruell to himself would be sparing to another's blood To will or attempt this is highly injurious to that God whose we onely are who hath committed our life as a most precious thing to our trust for his use more than our owne and will require from us an account of our managing of it and our parting from it It is a foule misprision in those men that make account of themselves as their owne and therefore that they are the absolute Lords of their life Did they give themselves their owne being had they nothing but meere nature in them can they but acknowledge an higher hand in their formation and animating What a wrong were it therefore to the great Lord and giver of life to steale out of the world without his leave that placed us there But much more if Christians they know themselves besides dearly paid for and therefore not in their own disposing but in his that bought them Secondly most desperately injurious to our selves as incurring thereby a certaine damnation for ought appeares to lookers on for ever of those soules which have wilfully broken Gods more easie and temporary prison to put themselves upon the direfull prison of Satan to all eternity Nature