and such of them as have Propriety in Goods and Chattels Tenements and Haereditaments as Bees Ants and Squirrels leaving as they die their Hives and Honey-Hills and Corn-Holes and Nuts to their Descendents to be their Successors The Internal Readers and Witnesses in Man are the Divine faculties of the Soul Sense and Reason one doth Testifie the Fact the other the Law The Internal Judg of the Probation of both is the Conscience The Laws which they read and testifie are written in the Internal Tables of the Heart Christ expresseth the first concerning Marriage in the foresighted Text Matth. 19.5 For this cause shall a man leave Father and Mother and they two shall be one flesh Concerning Filiation the Law of natural affection which is writ in the heart of the Father is mention'd Psal 103.13 As the Father pittieth his Children so the Lord pittieth them that fear him And the Law of natural affection writ in the heart of the Mother is mention'd Isa 49.15 Can a Woman forget her sucking Child that she should not have compassion on the Son of her Womb As to the Law of Aliment written in the heart of the Father it is mention'd Luke 11.11 If a Son shall ask bread of any of you that is a Father will he give him a stone or if he ask a Fish will he give him a Serpent or if he shall ask an Egg will he offer him a Scorpion Lastly as to the Law of Succession written in the heart of the Father whereby all natural Sons succeeded either to the right of Primogeniture or Filial Portions the same runs through all the examples of Jews in Scripture and of Gentiles in Histories This great Law of Nature is acknowledged to be written in the Tables of the Heart by the Scripture it self Rom. 2.14 The Gentiles who have not the Law do by Nature the things contained in the Law these having not the Law are a Law unto themselves which shew the work of the Law written in their Hearts their Conscience also bearing witness and their thoughts mean while accusing or excusing one another So Rom. 1.26 Paul saith Women did sin against Nature Yet was there no Law of Moses nor any Law written by God or Man in Paper and Ink which particularly prohibited them but only that of Nature And that this Law of Nature can neither be changed nor abolished or dispensed with by any humane power is agreed by Philosophers Poets Divines Common and Civil Lawyers and all others except Popes who exalt themselves above God Christ and Nature and all that is called God Lex Naturae neo tolli neo abrogari potest saith Tul. de leg 205. Dionysius when his Mother being an old Woman desired of him he would get her to be married to a young Man He answer'd Kings might overthrow Civil Laws but could not the Laws of Nature Lex humana derivari debet à lege Dei sed eam perfectè persequi non Potest Aquin. Augustin In humanis Legibus nihil est justum nisi ab aeterna lege dirivatur Honesta turpia natura judicanda sunt Tul. de leg 169.6 Hobart's Reports 120. It is acknowledged that all customs and Acts of Parliament against the Laws of Nature are void for Lex naturae est lex legum the Law of Nature is the Law of God and positive Law if contrary or variant from it is the Law of Man Yelverion Justice said When a new Case comes for which there is no positive Law before we do as the Sophonisis and Civilians resort to the Law of Nature which is the reason and ground of all Laws and of that which is most beneficial for the Common-wealth make a Law quod non negatur 8 E. 4. fo 12. Claudius justly reprehends Tribonian That in compiling the Institutes of the Civil Law he omitted the Law of Nature de Ferraiis 552. But the flattering Courtier had he done so knew he must have prefixed another imperatoriam Majestatem and laid other manner of principles then placitum Principis to be the original of right he could not have then divided Title and Jurisdiction with his Master And Jupiter Proclaiming that Deus est imperator in Coelis Imperator est Deus in Terris 'T is well he claims only the Earth for now the Pope claims not only plenitudinem Terrae but Heaven too to sell to his Customers Yet the Civil Law acknowledges the Law of Nature immutable And this point of Marriage and Succession saith Lege duodecim tabularum benè humano generi prospectum est quae unam consonantiam tam in maribus quà m in foeminis Legitimis in eorum successionibus necnon in liberis observandam esse existimavit nullo discrimine in successionibus habito cum natura utrumque corpus ediderit ut maneat suis vicibus immortale alterum alterius auxilio egeat ut uno semoto alterum corrumpatur sed posteritas dum inimica utitur subtilitate non piam induxit differentiam c. Cod. lib. 6. tit 47. l. lege By the Law of the Twelve Tables it is well provided for Mankind that there should be the same rule of Successions for Males and Females and in Children and no difference to be made in their Successions seeing Nature hath brought forth the Bodies of both that they might continue in their course immortal and one need help of another and one taken away the other might be destroyed But later Ages while they use so much subtilty have made an impious difference c. Which is intended between Males and Females in Succession when Lands are Intailed to Heirs Males By which appears what opinion the Civil Law hath of Successions to such Intails to be impious because contrary to the Law of Nature The Civil Law likewise acknowledgeth that Jura Sanguinis nullo jure Civili dirimi possunt and again it follows the Law of Nature in Legitimation Si mulier quinquagenaria partum ediderit an debet hujusmodi soboles suo patri succedere haereditatem â—jus nancisci à Caesariano advocato interrogati sumus sancimus Licet mirabilis hujusmodi partus inveniatur raro contingat nihil tamen eorum quae probabiliter à natura nascuntur esse producta respui sed omne jus quod ex quacunque Lege liberis praestitum est hoc merum atque immutilatum hujusmodi filiis vel filiabus servari in omnibus succâ—ssionibus sive ex testamento sive ab intestata Et summatim non absimiles aliis fiant in quos similes natura efficit Cod. lib. 6. tit 47. si major A question is proposed us by the Advocate of Caesar if a Woman above fifty bring forth a Child whether such Issue shall be Successor to the Father in the whole inheritance And we Decree though it be an admirable Case and rarely happens yet we ought not to reject any thing known to be probably produced by Nature but all the right which by any Law is given to
Year after his being wounded or beaten punisheth only the Event of an unlawful Act of wounding or beating not of lawful which Event is subsequent and not preceding to the Act. So likewise the Scripture useth the word Event for what follows and not for what precedes as Eccles 2.14 One Event happeneth to them all And Eccles 9.2 There is one Event to the Righteous and to the Wicked And Verse 11. Ireturned and saw under the Sun that the Race is not to the Swift nor the Battel to the Strong neither yet Bread to the Wise nor Riches to men of Vnderstanding nor yet Favour to men of Skill but Time and Chance happeneth to them all Man purposeth but God disposeth Events are only in the Power of God Ceremonies and Circumstances in this agree 1. That they are both accessary and not the Principal Acts. 2. That when single they may be neither good nor evil but when join'd with another Act they may become either good or evil 3. They may be in some junctures each the Principal and in other the accessary Act. 4. In some junctures each may be good in other evil and in a third neither good nor evil that is neither be Ceremonies nor Circumstances 5. In this Ceremonies and Circumstances agree that they have been used and abused in all Affairs and Acts both Civil Military and Religious but I shall here only insist on such Ceremonies as have been abused and compel'd by Pagan and Episcopal Canons in relation to Marriage Ceremonies and Circumstances in this differ 1. Ceremonies and Circumstances differ That Marriage and other Acts are impossible to be done without Circumstances but the same is possible to be done without Ceremonies 2. Ceremonies are always Acts external and made the objects of the external Senses of Witnesses and are of no Use in Marriage but the gains of the Priest where Witnesses are unlawful as in Carnal knowledg or impossible as in Filiation as is already proved P. 104 105. But Circumstances of Marriage may be both external or internal and invisible External as Youth Age Sexes Health Sickness Plurality Unity Internal and Invisible as Religion Conscience Vertue Vice Love Hatred and the like Ceremonies make Acts gawdy which they call decent or deformed before men but Circumstances only make them so before God 3. All Ceremonials are Artificial and not Natural but Circumstances may be both Artificial and Natural 4. No Ceremonies in Marriage are Commanded or Prohibited in the Moral Law of God but many Circumstances are Commanded and many Prohibited in the same Moral Law 5. God is the Author of all Natural and Moral Circumstances which make Marriage lawful or unlawful but the Devil is the Author of Ceremonies where is no Miracle or sign of Mission from God And it hath been before shewn the compulsion to Ceremonies of Marriage came from Daemons and Priests of Priapus and Venus and such as judg Marriage by such Ceremonies come not from God 6. Ceremony is a matter of Formality in Judgment but Circumstance if any is the matter of Substance To conclude it is a thing so absurd to judg by Ceremonies above Circumstances and by Formalities above Substance that never any Lawyer was so shameless to maintain in writing or lay any such Principle in judicial Proceâ—dings to be equal though by the Corruption of Practice not only in Marriage but in all things else The Truth and Substance of Religion and Justice hath been utterly lost and destroyed in an heap of Ceremonies and Formalities invented only for the gains of such Judges as would for that end with such Empty-nothings pretend to wâ—igh Right and Wrong For the Law of man can not make any Ceremony or other matter to be Substance which the Law of God and Nature hath made an Accident or make that Moral which God hath made to be only Ceremonial or make that Act Good or Evil in it self or to affect anoâ—her Act with Good or Evil for to make Moral Good or Evil or a Law for it belongs only to Supream Power Isa 45 7. I form the Light and create Darkness I make Peace and create Evil. Otherwise he were not Legislator of the World Of the manifold Mischiefs which insue by Compulsion to Marry by the particular Ceremonies of a Priest or a Temple It is not here affirmed That 't is unlawful to Marry by a Priest or in a Temple but it is only affirmed That 't is unlawful to compel any so to do by Penalties and especially by so unjust Penalties as is done by the Popish and Eplsâ—opal Canons of making Marriages Null or illegitimating the Children and that 't is unlawful for Bishops to judg Marriages Null or make Certificates of Ne unques accouple in Loyal Matrimony concerning the Parents or of illegitimation of the Child for no other cause than the omission or defect of so frivolous a Ceremony as a Priest or a Temple and that such affirmance is not without cause may appear from the manifold mischiefs which follow Compulsion of the same 1. It compels to enter into an indissoluble Obligation before the Parties can know each other whether they are fit for Marriage or no. Mischiefs of Verbal Espousals before Real Knowledg Proh Deum aâ—que hominum fidem quae haec contumelia est uxorem decrevit sese darâ— mihi hodie nonne oporâ—et prascisse me ante nonne Communicatam oportuiâ— Ter. And. 1. Act. Scen. 5. Oh the Faith of Gods and Men what a scorn is this He hath Decreed to put a Wife upon me to Day should I not first know her should I not first talk with her This Custom of Verbal Precontracts was in ancient time much used amongst the Jews and Marriage delayed a long time after as Jacob's was with Rachel for Seven Years But the later Rabbles finding many great inconveniences in the same injoined if it were at all the same should be a very little while before the Marriage In like manner the Armenians who are of the Greek Church Contract and Espouse together their Children at two or three Years old yea often times the Mothers agree a Marriage between their Children if one happen to be a Male and the other a Female while they are in their Bellies Tavernier Woman deluded This Custom of Precontracts and Espousals is likewise used though not between Children so young as with the Armenians by the Canon Law and most wickedly allowed to be a sufficient Cause of Nulling a Marriage Consummate by Carnal knowledg and Birth of a Child and illegitimation of the same Child of an innocent Person altogether ignorant of such Precontracts Vid. plus of Precontract before P. 88 94 95 c. 1. The inconveniences of Precontracts and Espousals is that when Contracted the one especially the Man delays and deludes the other so long that one chief end of Marriage which is prevention of Fornication is defeated and many times Women are kept along with Promises all their life time and the Man in
of Babes and is the true Popish Limbus Puerorum Translated into the Romish Church from Hell according to the Poet Continuo auditae voces vagitus Ingens Infantumque animae flentes in Limine primo Quos Dulcis vitae Exortes ab ubere raptos Abstulit atra dies funere mersit acerbo Virg. Aen.l. 6. And these Papal and Episcopal Destroyers make the Child-bearing Woman justly take up the complaint of her Described Jer. 4.31 I have heard a voice of a Woman in travel and the anguish as of her who bringeth forth her first Child that bewaileth her self that spreadeth her hands saying wo is me now for my Soul is wearyed because of Murderers Surely these Bloody Legislatours must have a Dreadful account who make Laws for their gains to destroy the most Innocent of all Creatures little Children Luk. 17.1.2 Then said be unto his Disciples it is impossible but offences will come but wo unto him through whom they come It were better for him that a Milstone were hanged about his neck and he cast into the Sea than that he should offend one of these little ones O how far in this is the Practice of such as call themselves Christians different from the Doctrine of Christ Matth. 18.2 And Jesus called a little Child unto him and set him in the midst of them and said verily I say unto you except ye be Converted and become as little Children ye shall not enter into the Kingdom of Heaven And vers 6. Whoso receiveth one such little Child in my Name receiveth me But alas how doth this corrupted age receive such a little one They receive him indeed as He Himself was received Matth. 26.55 In that same hour said Jesus to the multitude Are you come out as against a Theif with swords and with staves for to take me But this was not the Receiving he intended of a little one though now amongst those who profess his name no sooner doth God send a Child to be born in a Parish unless the Mother bought a Licence of the Bishop to bear him and bought which none but God can give more than the Child the Benediction of a Priest in the Temple but the whole Multitude presently rise with swords and staves and are all in Arms against a poor naked Infant weeping and wailing as the first tast of his misery to be born into so wicked a World and against the more miserable Mother like the Dam sitting on her Young whom they throw into some Dung-Cart or other filthy Carriage to draw her and her Child out of their bounds and unless she is Rich enough to hire a House of Ten Pounds per annum value they will not suffer her to come into it Oh Prodigious Oppression Oh Antichristian Cruelty What benefit now have the Poor who have not Ten Pounds per annum of the Gospels the whole Land is in Hostility against them they will neither suffer them to enter into their Parishes nor their Churches what benefit have these hundreds of thousands who have not ten Pounds per annum of Magna Charta What of the Petition of Right The Foxes have holes and the Birds of the Air have nests but the Woman with Child like her pursuâ—d with the Dragon Rev. 12.2 Cryed travailing in birth and pained to be delivered Quis talia fando temperet à Lachrymis hath not where to lay her Young her Child unborn by reason of Papal and Episcopal Laws which are the flood of Waters cast out of the mouth of the true Romish Dragon heu miserande puer damnatus antequam natus Hospitals to prevent the Murder of Children not born under Popish Matrimony There are Hospitals in Italy and Spain and many other places of large Revenues to which Mothers who have Children without the Popish Ceremonial Marriage of a Priest in a Temple may by night secretly bring or send their Babes who shall be their Received Alimented and Educated without knowledg or enquiry by Bishops Citations or Justice of Peace's Warrants and there is now one in Paris by the name of l' Hostle pur les Enfantes troves or the Hospital of Infant Fondlings wherein there are now no less than four Thousand But in Great Britain there is not the least Relique of any such Charity but on the Contrary most cruel Laws made to punish Mothers for bringing forth Children the most part of them lawfully joined to men according to the Moral Law of God only on pretence of prohibition by Papal and Episcopal Laws and their Doctrine of Devils contrary to the Law of God whereby they may get Money the wicked Price of Blood and of the Blood of those who are of all other the most Innocent the blood of Infants and are so far from providing Hospitals for Babes when they are born that they will not in England suffer their Mothers to bring them as is already said to an House of their own if not of the Value of above Ten Pounds per Annum and so far from being Fathers to the Fatherless that by their inhuman prosecution of the Punishments of those Cruel Laws against Babes born of Parents not licensed by the Bishop and benedicted by a Priest in a Temple they make thâ— Child for whom God had provided Parents by compelling them to flie from him for fear of their own punishment both Fatherless and Motherless or what is more horrible to be Murder'd by them who would have otherwise as affectionately preserved him as all other Natural Parents and Creatures both Human and Brutish do their Young Oh is it not a sufficient misery for an Infant to be born unless he is likewise pursued to be destroyed by the Cruelty of Ecclesiastical Monsters and hurried from the Womb to the Tomb of their Coemeterial Aceldamas before he knows any thing of Life but Misery if Bishops pity him not let Lucretius do it to their shame though an Atheist Tum porro Puer ut Saevis projectus ab undis Navita Nudus humi jacet Infans indigus omni Vitali Auxilio cum primum in Luminis oras Nixibus ex alveo Matris Natura profundit Vagituque locum Lugubri complet ut aequum est Cui tantum in Vita restat transire malorum Like Shipwrackt Mariners the Child at Birth Cast from Rough Seas lies Naked on the Earth Wanting all Vital help when first from throws Of Mothers Womb Nature doth him disclose He Weeps and Wails not without cause alas Why so much Evil in this Life must pass All Mariages lawful not prohibited by the Moral Law of God All these Murders of Children would cease better than by a Thousand Hospitals if only this wicked Ceremonial Law invented by him who was a Murderer from the beginning forbidding to Marry without a Priest in a Temple were abolished and all Marriage Publick or Private not prohibited by the Moral Law of God and Consummate by the birth of a Child Established to be Sine poena