comprehended under that name If saith he a divorce happ'n for any cause either fornication or adultery or any hainous fault the word of God blames not either the man or wife marrying again nor cutts them off from the congregation or from life but beares with the infirmity not that he may keep both wives but that leaving the former he may be lawfully joyn'd to the latter the holy word and the holy Church of God commiserates this man especially if he be otherwise of good conversation and live according to Gods law This place is cleerer then exposition and needs no comment Ambrose on the 16. of Luke teaches that all wedloc is not Gods joyning and to the 19. of Pro. That a wife is prepard of the Lord as the old latin translates it he answers that the septuagint renders it a wife is fitted by the Lord and temper'd to a kind of harmony and where that harmony is there God joyns where it is not there dissention reigns which is not from God for God is love This he brings to prove the marrying of Christian with Gentile to be no mariage and consequently divorc't without sin but he who sees not this argument how plainly it serves to divorce any untunable or unattonable matrimony sees little On the 1 to the Cor 7 he grants a woman may leave her husband not for only fornication but for Apostacy and inverting nature though not marry again but the man may heer are causes of divorce assign'd other then adultery And going on he affirms that the cause of God is greater then the cause of matrimony that the reverence of wedloc is not due to him who hates the author thereof that no matrimony is firm without devotion to God that dishonour don to God acquitts the other being deserted from the bond of matrimony that the faith of mariage is not to be kept with such If these contorted sentences be ought worth it is not the desertion that breaks what is broken but the impiety and who then may not for that cause better divorce then tarry to be deserted or these grave sayings of St. Ambrose are but knacks Jerom on the 19. of Matthew explains that for the cause of fornication or the suspicion thereof a man may freely divorce What can breed that suspicion but sundry faults leading that way by Jeroms consent therfore divorce is free not only for actuall adultery but for any cause that may encline a wise man to the just suspicion therof Austin also must be remember'd among those who hold that this instance offornication gives equal inference to other faults equally hateful for which to divorce therfore in his books to Pollentius he disputes that infidelity as being a greater sin then adultery ought so much the rather cause a divorce And on the Sermon in the Mount under the name of fornication will have idolatry or any harmfull superstition contain'd which are not thought to disturb matrimony so directly as som other obstinacies and dissaffections more against the daily duties of that cov'nant in the eastern tongues not unfrequently call'd fornication as hath bin shew'n Hence is understood faith he that not only for bodily fornication but for that which draws the mind from Gods law and fouly corrupts it a man may without fault put away his wife and a wife her husband because the Lord excepts the cause of fornication which fornication we are constrain'd to interpret in a general sense And in the first book of his retractations chap. 16. he retracts not this his opinion but commends it to serious consideration and explains that he counted not there all sin to be fornication but the more detestable sort of sins The cause of fornication therefore is not in this discours newly interpreted to signify other faults infringing the duties of wedloc besides adultery Lastly the councel of Agatba in the year 506. can 25. decreed that if lay men who divorc't without some great fault or giving no probable cause therfore divorc't that they might marry som unlawfull person or som other mans if before the provinciall Bishops were made acquainted or judgement past they presum'd this excommunication was the penalty Whence it followes that if the cause of divorce were som great offence or that they gave probable causes for what they did and did not therefore divorce that they might presume with som unlawfull person or what was another mans the censure of Church in those daies did not touch them Thus having alleg'd anough to shew after what manner the primitive Church for above 500. yeares understood our Saviours words touching divorce I shall now with a labour less disperst and sooner dispatcht bring under view what the civil law of those times constituted about this matter I say the civil law which is the honour of every true Civilian to stand for rather then to count that for law which the pontificiall Canon hath enthrall'd them to and in stead of interpreting a generous and elegant law made them the drudges of a blockish Rubric Theodosius and Valentinian pious Emperors both ordain'd that as by consent lawfull mariages were made so by consent but not without the bill of divorce they might be dissolv'd and to dissolve was the more difficult onely in favour of the children We see the wisedome and piety of that age one of the purest and learnedest since Christ conceav'd no hindrance in the words of our Saviour but that a divorce mutually consented might bee suffer'd by the law especially if there were no children or if there were carefull provision was made And further saith that law supposing there wanted the consent of either wee designe the causes of divorce by this most wholsom law for as we forbid the dissolving of mariage without just cause so we desire that a husband or a wife distrest by som advers necessity should be freed though by an unhappy yet a necessary releefe What dramm of wisedome or religion for charity is truest religion could there be in that knowing age which is not virtually summ'd up in this most just law As for those other Christian Emperours from Constantine the first of them finding thé Roman law in this point so answerable to the Mosaic it might bee the likeliest cause why they alter'd nothing to restraint but if ought rather to liberty for the helpe and consideration of the weaker sexe according as the Gospel seems to make the wife more equal to her husband in these conjugal respects then the law of Moses doth Therefore if a man were absent from his wife foure yeares and in that space not heard of though gon to warre in the service of the Empire she might divorce and mary another by the edict of Constantine to Dalmatius Co. l. 5. tit 17. And this was an age of the Church both antient and cry'd up still for the most flourishing in knowledge and pious government since the Apostles But to returne to this law of Theodosius with this observation by
the reason so that either in this regard or in the former I shall be manifest in a middle fortune to meet the praise or dispraise of beeing somthing first But I deferr not what I undertooke to shew that in the Church both primitive and reformed the words of Christ have bin understood to grant divorce for other causes then adultery and that the word fornication in mariage hath a larger sense then that commonly suppos'd Iustin Martyr in his first Apology writt'n within 50. yeares after St. Iohn dy'd relates a story which Eusebius transcribes that a certain matron of Rome the wife of a vitious husband her selfe also formerly vitious but converted to the faith and persuading the same to her husband at lest the amendment of his wicked life upon his not yeilding to her daily entreaties and persuasions in this behalf procur'd by law to be divorc't from him This was neither for adultery nor desertion but as the relation saies Esteeming it an ungodly thing to be the consort of bed with him who against the law of nature and of right sought out voluptuous waies Suppose he endeavour'd som unnaturall abuse as the Greek admitts that meaning it cannot yet be call'd adultery it therefore could be thought worthy of divorce no otherwise then as equivalent or wors and other vices will appear in other respects as much divorsive Next t is said her freinds advis'd her to stay a while and what reason gave they not because they held unlawfull what she purpos'd but because they thought she might longer yet hope his repentance She obey'd till the man going to Alexandria and from thence reported to grow still more impenitent not for any adultery or desertion wherof neither can be gather'd but saith the Martyr and speaks it like one approving lest she should be partaker of his unrighteous and ungodly deeds remaining in wedloc the communion of bed and board with such a person she left him by a lawfull divorce This cannot but give us the judgement of the Church in those pure and next to Apostolic times For how els could the woman have bin permitted or heer not reprehended and if a wife might then doe this without reprooff a husband certainly might no less if not more Tertullian in the same age writing his 4. book against Marcion witnesses that Christ by his answer to the Pharises protected the constitution of Moses as his own and directed the institution of the creator for I alter not his Carthaginian phrase he excus'd rather then destroi'd the constitution of Moses I say he forbidd conditionally if any one therefore put away that he may marry another so that if he prohibited conditionally then not wholly and what he forbadd not wholly he permitted otherwise where the cause ceases for which he prohibited that is when a man makes it not the cause of his putting away meerly that he may marry again Christ teaches not contrary to Moses the justice of divorce hath Christ the asserter he would not have mariage separat nor kept with ignominy permitting then a divorce and guesses that this vehemence of our Saviours sentence was cheifly bent against Herod as was cited before Which leavs it evident how Tertullian interpreted this prohibition of our Saviour for wheras the text is Whosoever putteth away and marieth another wherfore should Tertullian explain it Whosoever putteth away that he may marry another but to signify his opinion that our Saviour did not forbidd divorce from an unworthy yoke but forbidd the malice or the lust of a needles change and cheifly those plotted divorces then in use Origen in the next century testifies to have known certain who had the government of Churches in his time who permitted som to marry while yet their former husbands liv'd and excuses the deed as don not without cause though without Scripture which confirms that cause not to be adultery for how then was it against Scripture that they maried again And a little beneath for I cite his 7. homily on Matthew saith he To endure faults wors then adultery and fornication seems a thing unreasonable and disputes therfore that Christ did not speak by way of precept but as it were expounding By which and the like speeches Origen declares his mind farre from thinking that our Saviour confin'd all the causes of divorce to actual adultery Lactantius of the age that succeeded speaking of this matter in the 6. of his institutions hath these words But lest any think he may circumscribe divine precepts let this be added that all misinterpreting and occasion of fraud or death may be remov'd he commits adultery who marries the divorc't wife and besides the crime of adultery divorces a wife that he may marry another To divorce and marry another and to divorce that he may marry another are two different things and imply that Lactantius thought not this place the forbidding of all necessary divorce but such only as proceeded from the wanton desire of a future chois not from the burden of a present affliction About this time the Councel of Eliberis in Spain decreed the husband excommunicat If he kept his wife being an adultress but if he left her he might after ten yeares be receav'd into communion if he retain'd her any while in his house after the adultery known The councel of Neocaesarea in the year 314. decreed that if the wife of any Laic were convicted of adultery that man could not be admitted into the ministery if after ordination it were committed he was to divorce her if not he could not hold his ministery The councel of Nantes condemn'd in 7. yeares penance the husband that would reconcile with an adultress But how proves this that other causes may divorce it proves thus there can be but two causes why these councels enjoyn'd so strictly the divorsing of an adultress either as an offender against God or against the husband in the latter respect they could not impose on him to divorce for every man is the maister of his own forgivenes who shal hinder him to pardon the injuries don against himself It follows therfore that the divorce of an adultress was commanded by these three councels as it was a sin against God and by all consequence they could not but beleeve that other sins as hainous might with equal justice be the ground of a divorce Basil in his 73. rule as Chamier numbers it thus determins that divorce ought not to be unlesse for adultery or the hindrance to a godly life What doth this but proclaime aloud more causes of divorce then adultery if by other sins besides this in wife or husband the godlines of the better person may be certainly hinder'd and endanger'd Epiphanius no less ancient writing against Heretics therefore should himself be orthodoxal above others acquaints us in his second book Tom. 1 not that his private persuasion was but that the whole Church in his time generally thought other causes of divorce lawful besides adultery as
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
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
is the same with this here to put away And Erasmus quotes Hilary rendering it by an expression not so soft Whence may be doubted whether the Pharises did not state this question in the strict right of the man not tarrying for the wives consent And if our Saviour answer directly according to what was askt in the tearm of putting away it may be questionable whether the rigor of his sentence did not forbid only such putting away as is without mutuall consent in a violent and and harsh manner or without any reason but will as the Tetrarch did Which might be the cause that those Christian Emperours fear'd not in their constitutions to dissolve mariage by mutuall consent In that our Saviour seemes here as the case is most likely not to condemne all divorce but all injury and violence in divorce But no injury can be done to them who seeke it as the Ethics of Aristotle sufficiently prove True it is that an unjust thing may be done to one though willing and so may justly be forbid'n But divorce being in it selfe no unjust or evill thing but only as it is joyn'd with injury or lust injury it cannot be at law if consent be and Aristotle erre not And lust it may as frequently not be while charity hath the judging of so many private greevances in a misfortun'd Wedlock which may pard'nably seeke a redemption But whether it be or not the law cannot discerne or examine lust so long as it walkes from one lawfull terme to another from divorce to marriage both in themselves indifferent For if the law cannot take hold to punish many actions apparently covetous ambitious ingratefull proud how can it forbid and punish that for lust which is but only surmis'd so and can no more be certainly prov'd in the divorcing now then before in the marrying Whence if divorce be no unjust thing but through lust a cause not discernable by law as law is wont to discerne in other cases and can be no injury where consent is there can be nothing in the equity of law why divorce by consent may not be lawfull leaving secrecies to conscience the thing which our Saviour here aimes to rectifie not to revoke the statutes of Moses In the meane while the wotd To put away being in the Gteeke to loosen or disolve utterly takes away that vaine papisticall distinction of divorce from bed and divorce from bond evincing plainly that both Christ and the Pharises meane here that divorce which finally disolves the bond and frees both parties to a second marriage For every cause This the Pharises held that for every cause they might divorce for every accidentall cause any quarrell or difference that might happ'n So both Josephus and Philo men who liv'd in the same age explain and the Syriac translater whose antiquity is thought parallel to the Evangelists themselves reads it conformably upon any occasion or pretence Divines also generally agree that thus the Pharises meant Cameron a late writer much applauded commenting this place not undiligently affirmes that the Greeke preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated unusually For hath a force in it implying the suddennesse of those Pharisaic divorces and that their question was to this effect whether for any cause whatever it chanc'd to be straight as it rose the divorse might be lawfull This he freely gives what ever mou'd him and I as freely take nor can deny his observation to be acute learned If therfore we insist upon the word of putting away that it imports a constraint without consent as might be insisted and may enjoy what Cameron bestowes on us that for every cause is to be understood according as any cause may happen with a relation to the speedinesse of those divorces and that Herodian act especially as is already brought us the sentence of our Saviour wil appeare nothing so strict a prohibition as hath beene long conceiv'd forbidding only to divorce for casuall temporary causes that may be soon ended or soone remedied likewise forbidding to divorce rashly on thesudden heate except it be for adultery If these qualifications may be admitted as partly we offer them partly are offer'd them by some of their own opinion and that where nothing is repugnant why they should not bee admitted nothing can wrest them from us the severe sentence of our Saviour will straight unbend the seeming frowne into that gentlenesse and compassion which was so abundant in all his actions his office and his doctrine from all which otherwise it stands off at no meane distance Vers 4. And he answered and said unto them have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning made them Male and Female Vers 5. And said for this cause shall a man leave Father and Mother and shall cleave to his wife and they twaine shall be one flesh Vers 6. VVherefore they are no more twaine but one flesh what therefore God hath joyned together let no man put asunder 4. and 5 Made them Male and Female And said for this cause c. We see it here undeniably that the law which our Saviour cites to prove that divorce was forbidd'n is not an absolute and tyrannicall command without reason as now adaies wee make it little better but is grounded upon some rationall cause not difficult to be apprehended being in a matter which equally concernes the meanest and the plainest sort of persons in a houshold life Our next way then will be to inquire if there bee not more reasons then one and if there be whether this be the best and cheifest That we shall finde by turning to the first institution to which Christ referrs our owne reading He himselfe having to deale with treacherous affailants useth brevity and lighting on the first place in Genesis that mentions any thing tending to Marriage in the first chapter joynes it immediately to the 24. verse of the 2 chapter omitting all the prime words between which create the institution and containe the noblest and purest ends of Matrimony without which attain'd that conjunction hath nothing in it above what is common to us with beasts So likewise beneath in this very chapter to the young man who came not tempting him but to learne of him asking him which commandments hee should keepe he neither repeates the first table nor all the second nor that in order which he repeates If heere then being tempted hee desire to bee the shorter and the darker in his conference and omitt to cite that from the second of Genesis which all Divines confesse is a commentary to what he cites out of the first the making them Male and Female what are we to doe but to search the institution our selves and we shall finde there his owne authority giving other manner of reasons why such firme union is to bee in matrimony without which reasons their being male and female can be no cause of joyning them unseparably for if it be then no Adultery
can sever Therefore the prohibition of divorce depends not upon this reason heere exprest to the Pharises but upon the plainer more eminent causes omitted heere and referr'd to the institution which causes not being found in a particular and casuall Matrimony this sensitive and materious cause alone can no more hinder a divorce against those higher and more human reasons urging it then it can alone without them to warrant a copulation but leaves it arbitrary to those who in their chance of marriage finde not why divorce is farbidd them but why it is permitted them and finde both here and in Genesis that the forbidding is not absolute but according to the reasons there taught us not here And that our Saviour taught them no better but uses the most vulgar most animal and corporal argument to convince them is first to shew us that as through their licentious divorces they made no more of mariage then as if to marry were no more then to be male and female so hee goes no higher in his confutation deeming them unworthy to be talkt with in a higher straine but to bee ty'd in marriage by the meere material cause thereof since their owne licence testify'd that nothing matrimonial was in their thought but to be male and female Next it might be don to discover the brute ignorance of these carnall Doctors who taking on them to dispute of marriage and divorce were put to silence with such a slender opposition as this and outed from their hold with scarce one quarter of an argument That we may beleeve this his entertainment of the young man soon after may perswade us Whom though he came to preach eternall life by faith only he dismisses with a salvation taught him by workes only On which place Paraeus notes That this man was to be convinc'd by a false perswasion and that Christ is wont otherwise to answer hypocrites otherwise those that are docible Much rather then may we thinke that in handling these tempters he forgot not so to frame his prudent ambiguities and concealements as was to the troubling of those peremtory disputants most wholsome When therefore we would know what right there may be in ill accidents to divorce wee must repaire thither where God professes to teach his servants by the prime institution and not where we see him intending to dazle sophisters Wee must not reade hee made them Male and Female not understand he made them more intendedly a meet helpe to remove the evill of being alone We must take both these together and then we may inferre compleatly as from the whole cause why a man shall cleave to his wife and they twaine shall be one flesh but if the full and cheife cause why we may not divorce be wanting heer this place may skirmish with the rabbies while it will but to the true christian it prohibits nothing beyond the full reason of it's own prohibiting which is best knowne by the institution Vers 6. Wherefore they are no more twaine but one flesh This is true in the generall right of marriage but not in the chance medley of every particular match For if they who were once undoubtedly one flesh yet become twain by adultery then sure they who were never one flesh rightly never helps meete for each other according to the plain prescript of God may with lesse adoe then a volume be concluded still twaine And so long as we account a Magistrate no Magistrate if there be but a flaw in his election why should we not much rather count a Matrimony no Matrimony if it cannot be in any reasonable manner according to the words of Gods institution What therefore God hath joyned let no man put asunder But heare the christian prudence lies to consider what God hath joyn'd shall wee say that God hath joyn'd error fraud unfitnesse wrath contention perpetuall lonelinesse perpetuall discord what ever lust or wine or witchery threate or inticement avarice or ambition hath joyn'd together faithfull with unfaithfull christian with antichristian hate with hate or hate with love shall we say this is Gods joyning Let not man put a sunder That is to say what God hath joyn'd for if it be as how oft we see it may be not of Gods joyning and his law tells us he joynes not unmachable things but hates to joyne them as an abominable confusion then the divine law of Moses puts them asunder his owne divine will in the institution puts them asunder as oft as the reasons be not extant for which only God ordain'd their joyning Man only puts asunder when his inordinate desires his passion his violence his injury makes the breach not when the utter want of that which lawfully was the end of his joyning when wrongs and extremities and unsupportable greevances compell him to disjoyne when such as Herod the pharises divorce beside law or against law then only man separates and to such only this prohibition belongs In a word if it be unlawful for man to put asunder that which God hath joyn'd let man take heede it be not detestable to joyne that by compulsion which God hath put assunder Vers 7. They say unto him why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement and to put her away Vers 8. He saith unto them Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives but from the beginning it was not so Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you Henee the divinity now current argues that this judiciall Moses is abolisht But suppose it were so though it hath bin prov'd otherwise the firmenesse of such right to divorce as here pleads is fetcht from the prime institution does not stand or fall with the judiciall Jew but is as morall as what is moralest Yet as I have shewn positively that this law cannot bee abrogated both by the words of our Saviour pronouncing the contrary and by that unabolishable equity which it convaies to us so I shall now bring to view those appearances of strength which are levied from this text to maintaine the most grosse and massy paradox that ever did violence to reason and religion bred onely under the shadow of these words to all other piety or philosophy strange and insolent that God by act of law drew out a line of adultery almost two thousand yeares long although to detect the prodigy of this surmise the former booke set forth on this argument hath already beene copious I shall not repeate much though I might borrow of mine own but shall endeavour to adde something either yet untoucht or not largely anough explain'd First it shal be manifest that the common exposition cannot possibly consist with christian doctrine next a truer meaning of this our Saviours reply shall be left in the roome The receiv'd exposition is that God though not approving did enact a law to permit adultery by divorcement simply unlawfull And this conceit they feede with
to a rectitude and mediocrity stands not in the middle way of duty but in the other extreme Which art of powerfull reclaiming wisest men have also taught in their ethical precepts and gnomologies resembling it as when wee bend a crooked wand the contrary way not that it should stand so bent but that the overbending might reduce it to a straitnesse by its own reluctance And as the Physician cures him who hath tak'n down poyson not by the middling temper of nourishment but by the other extreme of antidote so Christ administers heer a sharpe corrosive sentence against a foul and putrid licence not to eate into the flesh but into the sore And knowing that our divines through all their comments make no scruple where they please to soften the high and vehem ent speeches of our Saviour which they call hyperbolics why in this one text should they be such crabbed masorites of the Letter as not to mollifie a transcendence of literal rigidity which they confesse to find often elsewhere in his manner of delivery but must make their exposition heer such an obdurat Cyclops to have but one eye for this text and that onely open to cruelty and enthralment such as no divine or human law before ever heard of No let the foppish canouist with his fardel of matrimonial cases goe and be vendible where men bee so unhappy as to cheap'n him the words of Christ shall be asserted from such elementall notaries and resolv'd by the now-only lawgiving mouth of charity which may be done undoubtedly by understanding them as followes Whosoever shall put away his wife That is to say shall so away as the propounders of this question the Pharisees were wont to doe and covertly defended Herod for so doing whom to rebuke our Saviour heer mainely intends and not to determine all the cases of divorce as appeares by Saint Paul Whosoever shall put away either violently without mutuall consent for urgent reasons or conspiringly by plot of lust or cunning malice shall put away for any sudden mood or contingency of disagreement which is not daily practice but may blow soone over and be reconcil'd except it bee fornication whosoever shall put away rashly as his choler prompts him without due time of deliberating and thinke his conscience discharg'd only by the bill of divorce giv'n and the outward law satisfi'd whosoever lastly shall put away his wife that is a wife indeede not in name only such a one who both can and is willing to bee a meet helpe toward the cheif ends of mariage both civil and sanctify'd except fornication be the cause that man or that pair committ adulcery Not he who puts away by mutuall consent with all the considerations and respects of humanity and gentlenesse without malicious or lustfull drift Not he who after sober and coole experience and long debate within himself puts away whom though he cannot love or suffer as a wife with that sincere affection that marriage requires yet loves at lest with that civility and goodnesse as not to keepe her under a neglected and unwelcom residence where nothing can be hearty and not beeing it must needs bee both unjoyous and injurious to any perceaving person so detain'd and more injurious then to be freely and upon good termes dismist Nor doth hee put away adulterously who complaines of causes rooted in immutable nature utter unfitnesse utter disconformity not concileable because not to be amended without a miracle Nor hee who puts away an unquenshable vexation from his bosom and flies an evil then which a greater cannot befall human society Nor hee who puts away with the the full suffrage and applause of his conscience not relying on the writt'n bill of law but claiming by faith and fulnes of perswasion the rights and promises of Gods institution of which hee finds himselfe in a mistak'n wedlock defrauded Doubtlesse this man hath baile anough to bee no adulterer giving divorc for these causes His Wife This word is not to be idle here a meere word without a sense much lesse a fallacious word signifying contrary to what it pretends but faithfully signifies a wife that is a comfortable helpe and society as God instituted does not signify deceitfully under this name an intolerable adversary not a helpelesse unaffectionate and sullen masse whose very company represents the visible and exactest figure of lonelines it selfe Such an associate he who puts away divorces not a wife but disjoyns a nullity which God never joyn'd if she be neither willing nor to her proper and requisite duties sufficient as the words of God institute her And this also is Bucers explicatâ—on of this place Except it bee for fornication or saving for the cause of fornication as Matt. 5th This declares what kind of causes our Saviour meant fornication being no natural and perpetual cause but onely accidental and temporary therefore shewes that head of causes from whence it is excepted to bee meant of the same sort For exceptions are not logically deduc't from a divers kind as to say who so puts away for any naturall cause except fornication the exception would want salt And if they understand it who so for any cause what ever they cast themselves granting divorce for frigidity a naturall cause of their own allowing though not heer exprest and for desertion without infidelity when as he who marries as they allow him for a desertion deserts as well as is deserted and finally puts away for another cause besides adultery It will with all due reason therefore be thus better understood who so puts away for any accidental and temporary causes except one of them which is fornication Thus this exception finds out the causes from whence it is excepted to be of the same kind that is casuall not continuall Saving for the cause of fornication The New Testament though it be said originally writt in Greeke yet hath nothing neer so many Atticisms as Hebraisms Syriacisms which was the Majesty of God not filing the tongue of Scripture to a Gentilish Idiom but in a princely manner offring to them as to Gentiles and Foreiners grace and mercy though not in forein words yet in a forein stile that might induce them to the fountaines and though their calling were high and happy yet still to acknowledge Gods ancient people their betters and that language the Metropolitan language He therefore who thinks to Scholiaze upon the Gospel though Greek according to his Greek Analogies and hath not bin Auditor to the oriental dialects shall want in the heat of his Analysis no accomodation to stumble In this place as the 5th of Matth reads it Saving for the cause of fornication the Greek such as it is sounds it except for the word report speech or proportion of fornication In which regard with other inducements many ancient and learned writers have understood this exception as comprehending any fault equivalent and proportional to fornication But truth is the Evangelist heer Hebraizes
taking word or speech for cause or matter in the common eastern phrase meaning perhaps no more then if he had said for fornication as in this 19th chapter And yet the word is found in the 5th of Exodus also fignifying Proportion where the Israelites are commanded to doe their tasks The matter of each day in his day A task we know is a proportion of work not doing the same thing absolutely every day but so much Whereby it may be doubtfull yet whether heer be not excepted not only fornication it self but other causes equipollent and proportional to fornication Which very word also to understand rightly wee must of necessity have recours again to the Ebrew For in the Greek and Latin sense by fornication is meant the common prostitution of body for sale So that they who are so exact for the letter shall be dealt with by the Lexicon and the Etymologicon too if they please and must be bound to forbidd divorce for adultery also untill it come to open whoredom and trade like that for which Claudius divorc't Messalina Since therfore they take not heer the word fornication in the common significance for an open exercise in the stews but grant divorce for one single act of privatest adultery notwithstanding that the word speakes a public and notorious frequency of fact not without price we may reason with as good leav and as little straining to the text that our Saviour on set purpose chose this word Fornication improperly appli'd to the lapse of adultery that we might not think our selvs bound from all divorce except when that fault hath bin actually committed For the language of Scripture signifies by fornication and others beside St. Austin so expounded it not only the trespas of body nor perhaps that between maried persons unlesse in a degree or quality as shameles as the Bordello but signifies also any notable disobedience or intractable cariage of the wife to the husband as Judg. the 192. Whereof at large in the Doctrin of Divorce l. 2. c. 18 Secondly signifies the apparent alienation of mind not to idolatry which may seeme to answer the act of adultery but farre on this side to any point of will worship though to the true God some times it notes the love of earthly things or worldly pleasures though in a right beleever some times the least suspicion of unwitting idolatry As Num. 15. 39. willsull disobedience to any the least of Gods commandements is call'd fornication Psal 73. 26 27. A distrust only in God and withdrawing from that neernes of zeal and confidence which ought to be is call'd fornication We may be sure it could not import thus much less then Idolatry in the borrow'd metaphor between God and man unless it signifi'd as much less then adultery in the ordinary acception between man and wife Adde also that there was no need our Saviour should grant divorce for adultery it being death by law and law then in force Which was the cause why Joseph sought to put away his betrothed wife privately least he should make her an example of capitall punishment as lernedest expounders affirm Herod being a great zelot of the Mosaic law and the Pharises great maisters of the text as the woman tak'n in adultery doubtless had cause to fear Or if they can prove it was neglected which they cannot doe why did our Saviour shape his answer to the corruption of that age and not rather tell them of their neglect If they say he came not to meddle with their judicatures much less then was it in his thought to make them new ones or that divorce should be judicially restrain'd in a stricter manner by these his words more then adultery judicially acquitted by those his words to the adultres His sentence doth no more by law forbidd divorce heer then by law it doth absolve adultery there To them therefore who have drawn this yoke upon Christians from his words thus wrested nothing remaines but the guilt of a presumption and perversnes which will be hard for them to answer Thus much that the word fornication is to be understood as the language of Christ understands it for a constant alienation and disaffection of mind or for the continual practise of disobedience and crossnes from the duties of love and peace that is in summ when to be a tolerable wife is either naturally not in their power or obstinatly not in their will and this opinion also is St. Austins least it should hap to be suspected of novelty Yet grant the thing heer meant were only adultery the reason of things will afford more to our assertion then did the reason of words For why is divorce unlawfull but only for adultery because say they that crime only breaks the matrimony But this I reply the institution itselfe gainsaies for that which is most contrary to the words and meaning of the institution that most breaks the matrimony but a perpetuall unmeetnes and unwillingnesse to all the duties of helpe of love and tranquillity is most contrary to the words and meaning of the institution that therefore much more breaks matrimony then the act of adultery though repeated For this as it is not felt nor troubles him who perceaves it not so beeing perceav'd may be soon repented soon amended soon if it can be pardon'd may be redeem'd w th the more ardent love and duty in her who hath the pardon But this naturall unmeetnes both cannot be unknown long and ever after cannot be amended if it be natural and will not if it be farregon obstinat So that wanting ought in the instant to be as great a breach as adultery it gains it in the perpetuity to be greater Next adultery does not exclude her other fitnes her other pleasingnes she may be otherwise both loving and prevalent as many adultresses be but in this general unfitnes or alienation she can be nothing to him that can please In adultery nothing is given from the husband which he misses or enjoyes the less as it may be suttly giv'n but this unfitnes defrauds him of the whole contentment which is sought in wedloc And what benefit to him though nothing be giv'n by the stealth of adultery to another if that which there is to give whether it be solace or society be not such as may justly content him and so not only deprives him of what it should give him but gives him sorrow and affliction which it did not ow him Besides is adultery the greatest breach of matrimony in respect of the offence to God or of the injury to man if in the former then other sins may offend God more and sooner cause him to disunite his servant from being one flesh with such an offender If in respect of the latter other injuries are demonstrated therein more heavy to mans nature then the iterated act of adultery God therfore in his wisedom would not so dispose his remedies as to provide them for the less injuries and