all these kind of offences were fit in public to bee complain'd on or beeing compell'd were any satisfaction to a mate not sottish or malicious And these injuries work so vehemently that if the Law remedy them not by separating the cause when no way els will pacify the person not releev'd betakes him either to such disorderly courses or to such a dull dejection as renders him either infamous or useles to the service of God and his Country Which the Law ought to prevent as a thing pernicious to the Common wealth and what better prevention then this which Moses us'd Fifthly The Law is to tender the liberty and the human dignity of them that live under the Law whether it bee the mans right above the woman or the womans just appeal against wrong and servitude But the duties of mariage contain in them a duty of benevolence which to doe by compulsion against the Soul where ther can bee neither peace nor joy nor love but an enthrallment to one who either cannot or will not bee mutual in the godliest and the civilest ends of that society is the ignoblest and the lowest slavery that a human shape can bee put to This Law therfore justly and piously provides against such an unmanly task of bondage as this The civil Law though it favour'd the setting free of a slave yet if hee prov'd ungratefull to his Patron reduc't him to a servil condition If that Law did well to reduce from liberty to bondage for an ingratitude not the greatest much more became it the Law of God to enact the restorement of a free born man from an unpurpos'd and unworthy bondage to a rightfull liberty for the most unnatural fraud and ingratitude that can be committed against him And if that Civilian Emperour in his tide of Donations permit the giver to recall his guift from him who proves unthankful towards him yea though hee had subscrib'd and sign'd in the deed of his guift not to recall it though for this very cause of ingratitude with much more equity doth Moses permit heer the giver to recall no petty guift but the guift of himself from one who most injuriously deceitfully uses him against the main ends and conditions of his giving himself exprest in Gods institution Sixthly Although ther bee nothing in the plain words of this Law that seems to regard the afflictions of a wife how great so ever yet Expositers determin and doubtles determin rightly that God was not uncompassionat of them also in the framing of this Law For should the rescript of Antoninus in the Civil Law give release to servants flying for refuge to the Emperours statue by giving leav to change thir cruel Maisters and should God who in his Law also is good to injur'd servants by granting them thir freedom in divers cases not consider the wrongs and miseries of a wife which is no servant Though heerin the counter sense of our Divines to me I must confesse seems admirable who teach that God gave this as a mercifull Law not for man whom he heer names and to whom by name hee gives this power but for the wife whom hee names not and to whom by name hee gives no power at all For certainly if man beliable to injuries in mariage as well as woman and man be the worthier person it were a preposterous law to respect only the less worthy her whom God made for mariage and not him at all for whom mariage was made Seventhly The Law of mariage gives place to the power of Parents for wee hold that consent of Parents not had may break the wedlock though els accomplisht It gives place to maisterly power for the Maister might take away from an Hebrew servant the wife which hee gave him Exod. 21. If it be answer'd that the mariage of servants is no matrimony t is reply'd that this in the ancient Roman Law is true not in the Mosaic If it bee added she was a stranger not an Hebrew therfore easily divorc't it will be answerd that strangers not beeing Canaanites and they also beeing Converts might bee lawfully maryed as Rahab was And her conversion is heer suppos'd for an Hebrew maister could not lawfully give a heathen wife to an Hebrew servant However the divorcing of an Israelitish woman was as easy by the Law as the divorcing of a stranger and almost in the same words permitted Deut. 24. and Deut. 21. Lastly it gives place to the right of warr for a captiv woman lawfully maryed and afterward not belov'd might bee dismist only without ransom Deut. 21. If mariage may bee dissolv'd by so many exterior powers not superior as wee think why may not the power of mariage it self for its own peace and honour dissolv it self wher the persons wedded be free persons why may not a greater and more natural power complaining dissolv mariage for the ends why matrimony was ordain'd are certainly and by all Logic above the Ordinance it self why may not that dissolv mariage without which that institution hath no force at all for the prime ends of mariage are the whole strength and validity therof without which matrimony is like an Idol nothing in the world But those former allowances were all for hardnes of heart Be that granted untill we come where to understand it better if the Law suffer thus farr the obstinacy of a bad man is it not more righteous heer to doe willingly what is but equal to remove in season the extremities of a good man Eightly If a man had deflowr'd a Virgin or brought an ill name on his wife that shee came not a Virgin to him hee was amerc't in certain shekles of Silver and bound never to divorce her all his daies Deut. 22. which shews that the Law gave no liberty to divorce wher the injury was palpable and that the absolute forbidding to divorce was in part the punishment of a deflowrer and a defamer Yet not so but that the wife questionles might depart when shee pleas'd Otherwise this cours had not so much righted her as deliverd her up to more spight and cruel usage This Law therfore doth justly distinguish the privilege of an honest and blameles man in the matter of divorce from the punishment of a notorious offender Ninthly Suppose it might bee imputed to a man that hee was too rash in his choyse and why took hee not better heed let him now smart and bear his folly as he may although the Law of God that terrible law doe not thus upbraid the infirmities and unwilling mistakes of man in his integrity But suppose these and the like proud aggravations of som stern hypocrite more merciles in his mercies then any literall Law in the vigor of severity must be patiently heard yet all Law and Gods Law especially grants every where to error easy remitments eevn where the utmost penalty exacted were no undoing With great reason therfore and mercy doth it heer not torment an error if it be so
the whole law of nations as only sufferd for the same cause it being shewn us by Saint Paul 1 Cor. 6. that the very seeking of a mans right by law and at the hands of a worldly magistrat is not without the hardnesse of our hearts For why doe ye not rather take wrong saith he why suffer ye not rather your selves to be defrauded If nothing now must be suffer'd for hardnes of heart I say the very prosecution of our right by way of civil justice can no more bee suffer'd among Christians for the hardnes of heart wherwith most men persue it And that would next remove all our judiciall lawes and this restraint of divorce also in the number which would more then halfe end the controversy But if it be plaine that the whole juridical law and civil power is only suffer'd under the Gospel for the hardnes of our hearts then wherefore should not that which Moses suffer'd be suffer'd still by the same reason In a second signification hardnes of heart is tak'n for a stubborne resolution to doe evil And that God ever makes any law purposely to such I deny for he voutsafes not to enter gov'nant with them but as they fortune to be mixt with good men and passe undiscover'd much lesse that he should decree an unlawfull thing only to serve their licentiousnes But that God suffers this reprobate hardnes of heart I affirm not only in this law of divorce but throughout all his best and purest commandements He commands all to worship in singlenes of heart according to all his Ordinances and yet suffers the wicked man to performe all the rites of religion hypocritically and in the hardnes of his heart He gives us generall statutes privileges in all civil matters just good of themselves yet suffers unworthiest men to use them by themt o prosecute their own right or any colour of right though for the most part maliciously covetously nigorously revengefully He allow'd by law the discreet father and husband to forbidd if he thought fit the religious vows of his wife or daughter Num. 30. and in the same law suffer'd the hard heartednes of impious and covetous fathers or husbands abusing this law to forbidd their wives or daughters in their offrings and devotions of greatest zeal If then God suffer hardnes of heart equally in the best laws as in this of divorce there can be no reason that for this cause this law should be abolisht But other lawes they object may be well us'd this never How often shall I answer both from the institution of mariage and from other general rules in Scripture that this law of divorce hath many wise and charitable ends besides the being suffer'd for hardnes of heart which is indeed no end but an accident happning through the whole law which gives to good men right and to bad men who abuse right under false pretences gives only sufferance Now although Christ express no other reasons here but only what was suffer'd it nothing followes that this law had no other reason to be permitted but for hardnes of heart The Scripture seldome or never in one place sets down all the reasons of what it grants or commands especially when it talks to enemies and tempters St Paul permitting mariage 1 Cor. 7 seems to permit even that also for hardnes of heart only lest we should run into fornication yet no intelligent man thence concludes mariage allow'd in the Gospel only to avoid an evill because no other end is there exprest Thus Moses of necessity suffer'd many to put away their wives for hardnesse of heart but enacted the law of divorce doubtles for other good causes not for this only sufferance He permitted not divorce by law as an evil for that was impossible to divine law but permitted by accident the evil of them who divorc't against the lawes intention undiscoverably This also may be thought not improbably that Christ stirr'd up in his spirit against these tempting Pharises answer'd them in a certain forme of indignation usual among good authors wherby the question or the truth is not directly answer'd but som thing which is fitter for them who aske to heare So in the ecclesiastical stories one demanding how God imploy'd himself before the world was made had āswer that he was making hel for curious questioners Another and Libanius the Sophist as I remember asking in derision som Christian what the Carpenter meaning our Saviour was doing now that Julian so prevail'd had it return'd him that the Carpenter was making a coffin for the Apostat So Christ being demanded maliciously why Moses made the law of divorce answers them in a vehement scheme not telling them the cause why he made it but what was fittest to be told them that for the hardnes of their hearts he suffer'd them to abuse it And all beit Mark say not he suffer'd you but to you he wrote this precept Mark may be warrantably expounded by Mathew the larger And whether he suffer'd or gave precept being all one as was heard it changes not the trope of indignation fittest account for such askers Next for the hardnes of your hearts to you he wrote this precept inferrs not therfore for this cause only he wrote it as was parallell'd by other Scriptures Lastly It may be worththe observing that Christ speaking to the Pharises does not say in general that for hardnes of heart he gave this precept but you he suffer'd to you he gave this precept for your hardnes of heart It cannot be easily thought that Christ heer included all the children of Israel under the person of these tempting Pharises but that he conceals wherefore he gave the better sort of them this law and expresses by saying emphatically To you how he gave it to the worser such as the Pharises best represented that is to say for the hardnes of your hearts as indeed to wicked men and hardn'd hearts he gives the whole law and the Gospel also to hard'n them the more Thus many waies it may orthod oxally be understood how God or Moses suffer'd such as the demanders were to divorce for hardnes of heart Whereas the vulgar expositer beset with contradictions and absurdities round and resolving at any peril to make an exposition of it as there is nothing more violent and boistrous then a reverend ignorance in fear to be convicted rushes brutely and impetuously against all the principles both of nature piety and moral goodnes and in the sury of his literal expounding overturns them all But from the the beginning it was not so Not how from the beginning doe they suppose that men might not divorce at all not necessarily not deliberatly except for adultery but that som law like canon law presently attacht them both before and after the flood till stricter Moses came and with law brought licence into the world that were a fancy indeed to smile at Undoubtedly as to point of judiciall law divorce was more
be more then ordnary as if wisdome had now forsak'n the thirstie and laborious inquirer to dwell against her nature with the arrogant and shallow babler to what purpose all those pains and that continual searching requir'd of us by Solomon to the attainment of understanding why are men bred up with such care and expence to a life of perpetual studies why do your selves with such endeavour seek to wipe off the imputation of intending to discourage the progresse and advance of learning He therfore whose heart can bear him to the high pitch of your noble enterprises may easily assure himself that the prudence and farre-judging circumspectnesse of so grave a Magistracy sitting in Parlament who have before them the prepar'd and purpos'd Act of their most religious predecessors to imitate in this question cannot reject the cleernesse of these reasons and these allegations both here and formerly offer'd them nor can over-look the necessity of ordaining more wholsomly and more humanly in the casualties of Divorce then our Laws have yet establisht if the most urgent and excessive grievances hapning in domestick life be worth the laying to heart which unlesse charity be farre from us cannot be neglected And that these things both in the right constitution and in the right reformation of a Common-wealth call for speediest redresse and ought to be the first consider'd anough was urg'd in what was prefac'd to that monument of Bucer which I brought to your remembrance and the other time before Hence forth except new cause be giv'n I shall say lesse and lesse For if the Law make not timely provision let the Law as reason is bear the censure of those consequences which her own default now more evidently produces And if men want manlinesse to expostulate the right of their due ransom and to second their own occasions they may sit hereafter and bemoan themselves to have neglected through faintnesse the onely remedy of their sufferings which a seasonable and well grounded speaking might have purchas'd them And perhaps in time to come others will know how to esteem what is not every day put into their hands when they have markt events and better weigh'd how hurtfull and unwise it is to hide a secret and pernicious rupture under the ill counsell of a bashfull silence But who would distrust ought or not be ample in his hopes of your wise and Christian determinations who have the prudence to consider and should have the goodnesse like gods as ye are call'd to find out readily and by just Law to administer those redresses which have of old not without God ordaining bin granted to the adversities of mankind ere they who needed were put to ask Certainly if any other have enlarg'd his thoughts to expect from this government so justly undertak'n and by frequent assistances from heaven so apparently upheld glorious changes and renovations both in Church and State he among the formost might be nam'd who prayes that the fate of England may tarry for no other Deliverers JOHN MILTON TETRACHORDON Expositions upon the foure chiefe places in Scripture which treat of Mariage or nullities in Mariage Gen. 1. 27. So God created man in his owne image in the image of God created he him male and female created he them 28. And God blessed them and God said unto them be fruitfull c. Gen. 2. 18. And the Lord God said It is not good that man should be alone I will make him a helpe meet for him 23. And Adam said This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh she shall be called Woman because she was taken out of Man 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and shall cleave unto his wife and they shall be one flesh Gen. 1. 27. SO God created man in his owne image To be inform'd aright in the whole History of Mariage that we may know for certain not by a forc't yoke but by an impartial definition what Mariage is and what is not Mariage it will undoubtedly be lafest fairest and most with our obedience to enquire as our Saviours direction is how it was in the beginning And that we begin so high as man created after Gods owne Image there want not earnest causes For nothing now adayes is more degenerately forgott'n then the true dignity of man almost in every respect but especially in this prime institution of Matrimony wherein his native pre-eminence ought most to shine Although if we consider that just and naturall privileges men neither can rightly seek nor dare fully claime unlesse they be ally'd to inward goodnesse and stedfast knowledge and that the want of this quells them to a servile sense of their own conscious unworthinesse it may save the wondring why in this age many are so opposite both to human and to Christian liberty either while they understand not or envy others that do contenting or rather priding themselves in a specious humility and strictnesse bred out of low ignorance that never yet conceiv'd the freedome of the Gospel and is therefore by the Apostle to the Colossians rankt with no better company then Will-worship and the meer shew of wisdome And how injurious herein they are if not to themselves yet to their neighbours and not to them only but to the all-wise and bounteous grace offer'd us in our redemption will orderly appear In the Image of God created he him It is anough determin'd that this Image of God wherin man was created is meant Wisdom Purity Justice and rule over all creatures All which being lost in Adam was recover'd with gain by the merits of Christ For albeit our first parent had lordship over sea and land and aire yet there was a law without him as a guard set over him But Christ having cancell'd the hand writing of ordinances which was against us Coloss 2. 14. and interpreted the fulfilling of all through charity hath in that respect set us overlaw in the free custody of his love and left us victorious under the guidance of his living Spirit not under the dead letter to follow that which most edifies most aides and furders a religious life makes us holiest and likest to his immortall Image not that which makes us most conformable and captive to civill and subordinat precepts whereof the strictest observance may oftimes prove the destruction not only of many innocent persons and families but of whole Nations Although indeed no ordinance human or from heav'n can binde against the good of man so that to keep them strictly against that end is all one with to breake them Men of most renowned vertu have sometimes by transgressing most truly kept the law and wisest Magistrates have permitted and dispenc't it while they lookt not peevishly at the letter but with a greater spirit at the good of mankinde if alwayes not writt'n in the characters of law yet engrav'n in the heart of man by a divine impression This Heathens could see as the well-read in
and the suspence of judgement what to choose and how in the multitude of reason to be not tedious is the greatest difficulty which I expect heer to meet with Yet much hath bin said formerly concerning this Law in the Doctrins of divorce Wherof I shall repeat no more then what is necessary Two things are heer doubted First and that but of late whether this bee a Law or no next what this reason of uncleannes might mean for which the Law is granted That it is a plain Law no man ever question'd till Vatablus within these hunder'd years profess'd Hebrew at Paris a man of no Religion as Beza deciphers him Yet som there be who follow him not only against the current of all antiquity both Jewish and Christian but the evidence of Scripture also Malach. 2. 16. Let him who hateth put away saith the Lord God of Israel Although this place also hath bin tamper'd with as if it were to be thus render'd The Lord God saith that hee hateth putting away But this new interpretation rests only in the autority of Junius for neither Calvin nor Vatablus himself nor any other known Divine so interpreted before And they of best note who have translated the Scripture since and Diodati for one follow not his reading And perhaps they might reject it if for nothing els for these two reasons First it introduces in a new manner the person of God speaking less Majestic then he is ever wont When God speaks by his Profet he ever speaks in the first person thereby signifying his Majesty and omni-presence Hee would have said I hate putting away saith the Lord and not sent word by Malachi in a sudden faln stile The Lord God saith that hee hateth putting away that were a phrase to shrink the glorious omnipresence of God speaking into a kind of circumscriptive absence And were as if a Herald in the Atcheivment of a King should commit the indecorum to set his helmet sidewaies and close not full fac't and open in the posture of direction and command Wee cannot think therfore that this last Profet would thus in a new fashion absent the person of God from his own words as if he came not along with them For it would also be wide from the proper scope of this place hee that reads attentively will soon perceav that God blames not heer the Jews for putting away thir wives but for keeping strange Concubines to the profaning of Juda's holines and the vexation of thir Hebrew wives v. 11. and 14. Judah hath maried the daughter of a strange God And exhorts them rather to put thir wives away whom they hate as the Law permitted then to keep them under such affronts And it is receiv'd that this Profet livd in those times of Ezra and Nehemiah nay by som is thought to bee Ezra himself when the people were forc't by these two Worthies to put thir strange wives away So that what the story of those times and the plain context of the 11 verse from whence this rebuke begins can give us to conjecture of the obscure and curt Ebraisms that follow this Profet does not forbid putting away but forbids keeping and commands putting away according to Gods Law which is the plainest interpreter both of what God will and what he can best suffer Thus much evinces that God there commanded divorce by Malachi and this confirmes that he commands it also heer by Moses I may the less doubt to mention by the way an Author though counted Apocryphal yet of no small account for piety and wisdom the Author of Ecclesiasticus Which Book begun by the Grand-father of that Jesus who is call'd the Son of Sirach might have bin writt'n in part not much after the time when Malachi livd if wee compute by the Reigne of Ptolemaeus Euergetes It professes to explain the Law and the Profets and yet exhorts us to divorce for incurable causes and to cut off from the flesh those whom it there describes Ecclesiastic 25. 26. Which doubtles that wise and ancient Writer would never have advis'd had either Malachi so lately forbidd'n it or the Law by a full precept not left it lawful But I urge not this for want of better prooff our Saviour himself allows divorce to be a command Mark 10. 3. 5. Neither doe they weak'n this assertion who say it was only a sufferance as shall be prov'd at large in that place of Matthew But suppose it were not a writt'n Law they never can deny it was a custom and so effect nothing For the same reasons that induce them why it should not bee a law will strair'n them as hard why it should bee allow'd a custom All custom is either evil or not evil if it be evil this is the very end of Law-giving to abolish evil customs by wholsom Laws unless wee imagin Moses weaker then every negligent and startling Politician If it be as they make this of divorce to be a custom against nature against justice against chastity how upon this most impure custom tolerated could the God of purenes erect a nice and precise Law that the wife marryed after divorce could not return to her former husband as beeing defil'd What was all this following nicenes worth built upon the leud foundation of a wicked thing allow'd In few words then this custom of divorce either was allowable or not allowable if not allowable how could it be allow'd if it were allowable all who understand Law will consent that a tolerated custom hath the force of a Law and is indeed no other but an unwritt'n Law as Justinian calls it and is as prevalent as any writt'n statute So that thir shift of turning this Law into a custom wheels about and gives the onset upon thir own flanks not disproving but concluding it to be the more firm law because it was without controversy a granted custom as cleer in the reason of common life as those giv'n rules wheron Euclides builds his propositions Thus beeing every way a Law of God who can without blasphemy doubt it to be a just and pure Law Moses continually disavows the giving them any statute or judgement but what hee learnt of God of whom also in his Song hee saith Deut. 32. Hee is the rock his work is perfet all his waies are judgement a God of truth and without iniquity just and right is hee And David testifies the judgements of the Lord are true and righteous altogether Not partly right and partly wrong much less wrong altogether as Divines of now adaies dare censure them Moses again of that people to whom hee gave this Law saith Deut. 14. Yee are the childern of the Lord your God the Lord hath chosen thee to bee a peculiar people to himself above all the nations upon the earth that thou shouldst keep all his Commandements and be high in praise in name and in honour holy to the Lord Chap. 26. And in the fourth Behold I have taught you statutes and
friendship or a Collegueship in the same family or in the same journey lest it should grow to a wors division can any thing bee more absurd and barbarous then that they whom only error casualty art or plot hath joynd should be compell'd not against a sudden passion but against the permanent and radical discords of nature to the most intimat and incorporating duties of love and imbracement therin only rational and human as they are free and voluntary beeing els an abject and servile yoke scars not brutish And that there is in man such a peculiar sway of liking or disliking in the affairs of matrimony is evidently seen before mariage among those who can bee freindly can respect each other yet to marry each other would not for any perswasion If then this unfitnes and disparity bee not till after mariage discover'd through many causes and colours and concealements that may overshadow undoubtedly it will produce the same effects and perhaps with more vehemence that such a mistakn pair would give the world to be unmarried again And thir condition Solomon to the plain justification of divorce expresses Prov. 30. 21. 23. Where hee rells us of his own accord that a hated or a hatefull woman when shee is married is a thing for which the earth is disquieted and cannot bear it thus giving divine testimony to this divine Law which bids us nothing more then is the first and most innocent lesson of nature to turn away peaceably from what afflicts and hazards our destruction especially when our staying can doe no good and is expos'd to all evil Secondly It is unjust that any Ordinance ordain'd to the good and comfort of man where that end is missing without his fault should be forc't upon him to an unsufferable misery and discomfort if not commonly ruin All Ordinances are establisht in thir end the end of Law is the vertu is the righteousnes of Law And therfore him wee count an ill Expounder who urges Law against the intention therof The general end of every Ordinance of every severest every divinest eevn of Sabbath is the good of man yea his temporal good not excluded But marriage is one of the benignest ordinances of God to man wherof both the general and particular end is the peace and contentment of mans mind as the institution declares Contentment of body they grant which if it bee defrauded the plea of frigidity shall divorce But heer lies the fadomles absurdity that granting this for bodily defect they will not grant it for any defect of the mind any violation of religious or civil society When as if the argument of Christ bee firm against the ruler of the Synagogue Luk. 13. Thou hypocrite doth not each of you on the Sabbath day loos'n his Oxe or his Asse from the stall and lead him to watering and should not I unbind a daughter of Abraham from this bond of Satan it stands as good heer yee have regard in mariage to the greevance of body should you not regard more the greevances of the mind seeing the Soul as much excells the body as the outward man excells the Ass and more for that animal is yet a living creature perfet in it self but the body without the Soul is a meer senseles trunck No Ordinance therfore givn particularly to the good both spiritual and temporal of man can bee urg'd upon him to his mischief and if they yeeld this to the unworthier part the body wherabout are they in thir principles that they yeeld it not to the more worthy the mind of a good man Thirdly As no Ordinance so no Covnant no not between God and man much less between man and man beeing as all are intended to the good of both parties can hold to the deluding or making miserable of them both For equity is understood in every Covnant eevn between enemies though the terms bee not exprest If equity therfore made it extremity may dissolv it But Mariage they use to say is the Covnant of God Undoubted and so is any covnant frequently call'd in Scripture wherin God is call'd to witnes the covnant of freindship between David and Jonathan is call'd the Covnant of the Lord 1 Sam. 20. The covnant of Zedechiah with the King of Babel a Covnant to bee doubted whether lawfull or no yet in respect of God invok't thereto is call'd the Oath and the Covnant of God Ezech. 17. Mariage also is call'd the Covnant of God Prov. 2. 17. Why but as before because God is the witnes therof Malach. 2. 14. So that this denomination adds nothing to the Covnant of Mariage above any other civil and solemn contract nor is it more indissoluble for this reason then any other against the end of its own ordination nor is any vow or Oath to God exacted with such a rigor where superstition reignes not For look how much divine the Covnant is so much the more equal So much the more to bee expected that every article therof should bee fairly made good no fals dealing or unperforming should be thrust upon men without redress if the covnant bee so divine But faith they say must bee kept in Covnant though to our dammage I answer that only holds true where the other side performs which failing hee is no longer bound Again this is true when the keeping of faith can bee of any use or benefit to the other But in Mariage a league of love and willingnes if faith bee not willingly kept it scars is worth the keeping nor can bee any delight to a generous minde with whom it is forcibly kept and the question still supposes the one brought to an impossibility of keeping it as hee ought by the others default and to keep it formally not only with a thousand shifts and dissimulations but with open anguish perpetual sadnes and disturbance no willingnes no cheerfulnes no contentment cannot bee any good to a minde not basely poor and shallow with whom the contract of love is so kept A Covnant therfore brought to that passe is on the unfaulty side without injury dissolv'd Fourthly The Law is not to neglect men under greatest sufferances but to see Covnants of greatest moment faithfullest perform'd And what injury comparable to that sustain'd in a frustrat and fals dealing Mariage to loose for anothers fault against him the best portion of his temporal comforts and of his spiritual too as it may fall out It was the Law that for mans good and quiet reduc't things to propriety which were at first in common how much more Law-like were it to assist nature in disappropriating that evil which by continuing proper becomes destructive But hee might have bewar'd So hee might in any other covnant wherin the Law does not constrain error to so dear a forfeit And yet in these matters wherin the wisest are apt to erre all the warines that can bee oft times nothing avails But the Law can compell the offending party to bee more duteous Yes if
urgency the Religious from the irreligious the fit from the unfit the willing from the wilfull the abus'd from the abuser such a separation is quite contrary to confusion But to binde and mixe together holy with Atheist hevnly with hellish fitnes with unfitnes light with darknes antipathy with antipathy the injur'd with the injurer and force them into the most inward neernes of a detested union this doubtles is the most horrid the most unnatural mixture the greatest confusion that can be confus'd Thus by this plain and Christian Talmud vindicating the Law of God from irreverent and unwary expositions I trust wher it shall meet with intelligible perufers som stay at least of mens thoughts will bee obtain'd to consider these many prudent and righteous ends of this divorcing permission That it may have for the great Authors sake heerafter som competent allowance to bee counted a little purer then the prerogative of a legal and public ribaldry granted to that holy seed So that from hence wee shall hope to finde the way still more open to the reconciling of those places which treat this matter in the Gospel And thether now without interruption the cours of method brings us TETRACHORDON MATT. 5. 31 32. 31 It hath beene said whosoever shall put away his wife let him give her a writing of divorcement 32 But I say unto you that whosoever shall put away his wife c. MATT. 19. 3 4. c. 3 And the Pharises also came unto him tempting him c. IT hath beene said What hitherto hath beene spoke upon the law of God touching Matrimony or divorce hee who will deny to have bin argu'd according to reason and all equity of Scripture I cannot edifie how or by what rule of proportion that mans vertue calculates what his elements are not what his analytics Confidently to those who have read good bookes and to those whose reason is not an illiterate booke to themselves I appeale whether they would not confesse all this to bee the commentary of truth and justice were it not for these recited words of our Saviour And if they take not backe that which they thus grant nothing sooner might perswade them that Christ heer teaches no new precept and nothing sooner might direct them to finde his meaning then to compare and measure it by the rules of nature and eternall righteousnes which no writt'n law extinguishes and the Gospel least of all For what can be more opposite and disparaging to the cov'nant of love of freedom of our manhood in grace then to bee made the yoaking pedagogue of new severities the scribe of syllables and rigid letters not only greevous to the best of men but different and strange from the light of reason in them save only as they are fain to stretch distort their apprehensions for feare of displeasing the verbal straightnesse of a text which our owne servil feare gives us not the leisure to understand aright If the law of Christ shall be writt'n in our hearts as was promis'd to the Gospel Jer. 31 how can this in the vulgar and superficiall sense be a law of Christ so farre from beeing writt'n in our hearts that it injures and dissallowes not onely the free dictates of nature and morall law but of charity also and religion in our hearts Our Saviours doctrine is that the end and the fulfilling of every command is charity no faith without it no truth without it no worship no workes pleasing to God but as they partake of charity He himselfe sets us an example breaking the solemnest and the strictest ordinance of religious rest and justify'd the breaking not to cure a dying man but such whose cure might without danger have beene deserr'd And wherefore needes must the sick mans bed be carried home on that day by his appointment and why were the Disciples who could not forbeare on that day to pluck the corne so industriously desended but to shew us that if he preferr'd the slightest occasions of mans good before the observing of highest and severest ordinances hee gave us much more easie leave to breake the intolerable yoake of a never well joyn'd wedlocke for the removing of our heaviest afflictions Therefore it is that the most of evangelick precepts are given us in proverbiall formes to drive us from the letter though we love ever to be sticking there For no other cause did Christ assure us that whatsoever things wee binde or slacken on earth are so in heaven but to signifie that the christian arbitrement of charity is supreme decider of all controversie and supreme resolver of all Scripture not as the Pope determines for his owne tyrany but as the Church ought to determine for its owne true liberty Hence Eusebius not far from beginning his History compares the state of Christians to that of Noah and the Patriarkes before the Law And this indeede was the reason why Apostolick tradition in the antient Church was counted nigh equall to the writt'n word though it carried them at length awry for want of considering that tradition was not left to bee impos'd as law but to be a patterne of that Christian prudence and liberty which holy men by right assum'd of old which truth was so evident that it found entrance even into the Councell of Trent when the point of tradition came to be discusst And Marinaro a learned Carmelite for approaching too neere the true cause that gave esteeme to tradition that is to say the difference betweene the Old and New Testament the one punctually prescribing writt'n Law the other guiding by the inward spirit was reprehended by Cardinall Poole as one that had spoken more worthy a German Collequie then a generall councell I omit many instances many proofes and arguments of this kind which alone would compile a just volume and shall content me heer to have shew'n breifly that the great and almost only commandment of the Gospel is to command nothing against the good of man and much more no civil command against his civil good If we understand not this we are but crackt cimbals we do but tinckle we know nothing we doe nothing all the sweat of our toilsomest obedience will but mock us And what wee suffer superstitiously returnes us no thankes Thus med'cining our eyes wee neede not doubt to see more into the meaning of these our Saviours words then many who have gone before us It hath beene said whosoever shall put away his wife Our Saviour was by the doctors of his time suspected of intending to dissolve the law In this chapter he wipes off this aspersion upon his accusers and shewes how they were the law brea kers In every common wealth when it decayes corruption makes two maine steps first when men cease to doe according to the inward and uncompell'd actions of vertue caring only to live by the outward constraint of law and turne the Simplicity of reall good into the craft of seeming so by law To this
hypocritical honesty was Rome declin'd in that age wherein Horace liv'd and discover'd it to Quintius Whom doe we count a good man whom but he Who keepes the lawes and statutes of the Senate Who judges in great suits and controversies Whose witnesse and opinion winnes the cause But his owne house and the whole neighbourhood Sees his foule inside through his whited skin The next declining is when law becomes now too straight for the secular manners and those too loose for the cincture of law This brings in false and crooked interpretations to ecke out law and invents the suttle encroachment of obscure traditions hard to be disprov'd To both these descents the Pharises themselves were fall'n Our Saviour therefore shews them both where they broke the law in not marking the divine intent thereof but onely the letter and where they deprav'd the letter also with sophisticall expositions This law of divorse they had deprav'd both waies First by teaching that to give a bill of divorse was all the duty which that law requir'd what ever the cause were Next by running to divorse for any triviall accidentall cause whenas the law evidently stayes in the grave causes of naturall and immutable dislike It hath been said saith he Christ doth not put any contempt or disesteeme upon the law struct but if he discerne his willingnesse and candor made use of to intrapp him will suddainly draw in himselfe and laying aside the facil vein of perspicuity will know his time to utter clouds and riddles If he be not lesse wise then that noted Fish when as he should bee not unwiser then the Serpent Our Saviour at no time exprest any great desire to teach the obstinate and unteachable Pharises but when they came to tempt him then least of all As now about the liberty of divorce so another time about the punishment of adultery they came to sound him and what satisfaction got they from his answer either to themselves or to us that might direct a law under the Gospel new from that of Moses unlesse we draw his absolution of adultery into an edict So about the tribute who is there can picke out a full solution what and when we must give to Caesar by the answer which he gave the Pharises If we must give to Caesar that which is Caesars and all be Caesars which hath his image wee must either new stamp our Coine or we may goe new stamp our Foreheads with the superscription of slaves in stead of freemen Besides it is a generall precept not only of Christ but of all other Sages not to instruct the unworthy and the conceited who love tradition more then truth but to perplex and stumble them purposely with contriv'd obscurities No wonder then if they who would determine of divorce by this place have ever found it difficult and unfatisfying through all the ages of the Church as Austine himselfe and other great writers confesse Lastly it is manifest to be the principal scope of our Saviour both here and in the 5. of Mat. to convince the Pharises of what they being evill did licentiously not to explaine what others being good and blamelesse men might be permitted to doe in case of extremity Neither was it seasonable to talke of honest and conscientious liberty among them who had abused legall and civil liberty to uncivil licence We doe not say to a servant what we say to a sonne nor was it expedient to preach freedome to those who had transgrest in wantonnesse When we rebuke a Prodigal we admonish him of thrift not of magnificence or bounty And to school a proud man we labour to make him humble not magnanimous So Christ to retort these arrogant inquisitors their own tooke the course to lay their hautinesse under a severity which they deserv'd not to acquaint them or to make them judges either of the just mans right and privilege or of the afflicted mans necessity And if wee may have leave to conjecture there is a likelyhood offer'd us by Tertullian in his 4. against Marcion whereby it may seeme very probable that the Pharises had a private drifr of malice against our Saviours life in proposing this question and our Saviour had a peculiar aim in the rigor of his answer both to let them know the freedome of his spirit and the sharpenesse of his discerning This I must now shew saith Tertullian Whence our Lord deduc'd this sentence and which way he directed it whereby it will more fully appeare that he intended not to dissolve Moses And there upon tells us that the vehemence of this our Saviours speech was cheifly darted against Herod and Herodias The story is out of Josephus Herod had beene a long time married to the daughter of Aretas King of Petra til hapning on his jorney towards Rome to be entertain'd at his brother Philips house he cast his eye unlawfully and unguestlike upon Herodias there the wife of Philip but daughter to Aristobulus their common brother and durst make words of marrying her his Neece from his brothers bed She assented upon agreement he should expell his former wife All was accomplisht and by the Baptist rebuk't with the losse of his head Though doubtlesse that staid not the various discourses of men upon the fact which while the Herodian flatterers and not a few perhaps among the Pharises endevout'd to defend by wresting the law it might be a meanes to bring the question of divorce into a hot agitation among the people how farre Moses gave allowance The Pharises therefore knowing our Saviour to be a friend of Iohn the Baptist and no doubt but having heard much of his Sermon in the Mount wherein he spake rigidly against the licence of divorce they put him this question both in hope to find him a contradicter of Moses and a condemner of Herod so to insnare him within compasse of the same accusation which had ended his friend and our Saviour so orders his answer as that they might perceive Herod and his Adultresse only not nam'd so lively it concern'd them both what he spake No wonder then if the sentence of our Saviour sounded stricter then his custome was which his conscious attempters doubtlesse apprehended sooner then his other auditors Thus much we gaine from hence to informe us that what Christ intends to speake here of divorce will be rather the forbidding of of what we may not doe herein passionately and abusively as Herod and Herodias did then the discussing of what herein we may doe reasonably and necessarily Is it lawfull for a man to put away his wife It might be render'd more exactly from the Greeke to loosen or to set free which though it seeme to have a milder fignification then the two Hebrew words commonly us'd for divorce yet Interpreters have noted that the Greeke also is read in the Septuagint for an act which is not without constraint As when Achish drove from his presence David counterfeting madnesse Psal 34. the Greeke word
either from divine writt or human learning or human practice in any nation or well-form'd republick but only from the customary abuse of this text Usually they allege the Epistle of Cicero to Atticus wherein Cato is blam'd for giving sentence to the scumme of Romulus as if he were in Plato's common wealth Cato would have call'd some great one into judgemēt for bribery Cicero as the time stood advis'd against it Cato not to endammage the public treasury would not grant to the Roman Knights that the Asian taxes might bee farm'd them at a lesse rate Cicero wisht it granted Nothing in all this will bee like the establishing of a law to sinne here are no lawes made here onely the execution of law is crav'd might be suspended between which and our question is a broad difference And what if human law givers have confest they could not frame their lawes to that perfection which they desir'd we heare of no such confession from Moses concerning the lawes of God but rather all praise and high testimony of perfection given them And although mans nature cannot beare exactest lawes yet still within the confines of good it may and must so long as lesse good is far anough from altogether evil As for what they instance of usury let them first prove usury to be wholly unlawfull as the law allowes it which learned men as numerous on the other side will deny them Or if it be altogether unlawfull why is it tolerated more then divorce he who said divorse not said also lend hoping for nothing againe Luk. 6. 35. But then they put in that trade could not stand And so to serve the commodity of insatiable trading usury shall be permitted but divorce the onely meanes oft times to right the innocent outrageously wrong'd shall be utterly forbid This is egregious doctrine and for which one day charity will much thanke them Beza not finding how to salve this perplexity and Cameron since him would secure us although the latter confesses that to permit a wicked thing by law is a wickednesse from which God abhorrs yet to limit sin and prescribe it a certaine measure is good First this evasion will not helpe heere for this law bounded no man he might put away whatever found not favour in his eyes And how could it forbid to divorce whom it could not forbidd to dislike or command to love If these be the limits of law to restraine sinne who so lame a sinner but may hoppe over them more easily then over those Romulean circumscriptions not as Remus did with hard succes but with all indemnity Such a limiting as this were not worth the mischeif that accompanies it This law therefore not bounding the supposed sinne by permitting enlarges it gives it enfranchisement And never greater confusion then when law and sin move their land markes mixe their territories and correspond have intercourse and traffic together When law contracts a kindred and hospitality with transgression becomes the godfather of sinne and names it Lawfull when sin revels and gossips within the arcenal of law plaies and dandles the artillery of justice that should be bent against her this is a faire limitation indeede Besides it is an absurdity to say that law can measure sin or moderate sin sin is not in a predicament to be measur'd and modify'd but is alwaies an excesse The least sinne that is exceeds the measure of the largest law that can bee good and is as boundlesse as that vacuity beyond the world If once it square to the measure of Law it ceases to be an excesse and consequently ceases to be a sinne or else law conforming it selfe to the obliquity of sin betraies it selfe to be not strait but crooked and so immediatly no law And the improper conceit of moderating sin by law will appeare if wee can imagin any lawgiver so senselesse as to decree that so farre a man may steale and thus farre bee drunk that moderately he may cozen and moderatly committ adultery To the same extent it would be as pithily absurd to publish that a man may moderately divorce if to doe that be intirely naught But to end this moot the law of Moses is manifest to fixe no limit therein at all or such at lest as impeaches the fraudulent abuser no more then if it were not set only requires the dismissive writing without other caution leaves that to the inner man and the barre of conscience But it stopt other sins This is as vaine as the rest and dangerously uncertain the contrary to be fear'd rather that one sin admitted courteously by law open'd the gate to another However evil must not be don for good And it were a fall to be lamented an indignity unspeakable if law should becom tributary to sin her slave and forc't to yeild up into his hands her awfull minister Punishment should buy out her peace with sinne for sinne paying as it were her so many Philistian foreskins to the proud demand of Trangression But suppose it any way possible to limit sinne to put a girdle about that Chaos suppose it also good yet if to permitt sin by Law bee an abomination in the eyes of God as Cameron acknowledges the evil of permitting will eate out the good of limiting For though sin be not limited there can but evil come out of evil but if it be permitted decreed lawfull by divine law of force then sin must proceed from the infinit Good which is a dreadfull thought But if the restraining of sinne by this permission beeing good as this author testifies be more good then the permission of more sin by the restraint of divorce and that God waighing both these like two ingots in the perfet scales of his justice and providence found them so and others coming without authority from God shall change this counter poise and judge it better to let fin multiply by setting a judicial restraint upon divorce which Christ never set then to limit sin by this permission as God himselfe thought best to permitt it it will behoove them to consult betimes whether these their ballances be not fals and abominable and this their limiting that which God loosen'd and their loosning the sinnes that he limited which they confesse was good to doe and were it possible to doe by law doubtlesse it would be most morally good and they so beleeving as we heare they doe and yet abolishing a law so good and moral the limiter of sin what are they else but contrary to themselves for they can never bring us to that time wherein it will not be good to limit sinne and they can never limit it better then so as God prescrib'd in his law Others conceav it a more defensible retirement to say this permission to divorce sinfully for hardnesse of heart was a dispensation But surely they either know not or attend not what a dispensation meanes A dispensation is for no long time is particular to som persons rather then
generall to a whole people alwaies hath charity the end is granted to necessities and infirmities not to obstinat lust This permission is another creatnre hath all those evils and absurdities following the name of a dispensation as when it was nam'd a law and is the very antarctic pole against charity nothing more advers ensnaring and ruining those that trust in it or use it so leud and criminous as never durst enter into the head of any Politician Jew or Proselyte till they became the apt Schollers of this canonistic exposition Ought in it that can allude in the lest manner to charity or goodnes belongs with more full right to the chrian under grace and liberty then to the Jew under law and bondage To Jewish ignorance it could not be dispenc'd without a horrid imputation laid upon the law to dispence fouly in stead of teaching fairly like that dispensation that first polluted Christendom with idolatry permitting to lay men images in stead of bookes and preaching Sloth or malice in the law would they have this calld But what ignorance can be pretended for the Jewes who had all the same precepts about mariage that we now for Christ referrs all to the institution It was as reasonable for them to know then as for us now and concern'd them alike for wherein hath the gospel alter'd the nature of matrimony All these considerations or many of them have bin furder amplify'd in the doctrine of divorce And what Rivetus and Paraeus hath objected or giv'n over as past cure hath bin there discusst Whereby it may be plain anough to men of eyes that the vulgar exposition of a permittance by law to an entire fin what ever the colour may be is an opinion both ungodly unpolitic unvertuous and void of all honesty civil sense It appertaines therefore to every zealous Christian both for the honour of Gods law the vindication of our Saviours words that such an irreligious depravement no longer may be sooth'd and flatter'd through custome but with all diligence and speed solidly refuted and in the room a better explanation giv'n which is now our next endeavour Moses suffer'd you to put away c. Not commanded you saies the common observer and therefore car'd not how soon it were abolisht being but suffer'd heerin declaring his annotation to be slight nothing law prudent For in this place commanded and suffer'd are interehangeably us'd in the same sense both by our Saviour and the Pharises Our Saviour who heer saith Moses suffer'd you in the 10th of Marke saith Moses wrote you this command And the Pharisees who heer say Moses commanded and would mainly have it a command in that place of Marke say Moses suffer'd which had made against them in their owne mouthes if the word of suffering had weakn'd the command So that suffer'd and commanded is heer taken for the same thing on both sides of the controversy as Cameron also and others on this place acknowledge And Lawyers know that all the precepts of law are devided into obligatorie and permissive containing either what we must doe or what wee may doe and of this latter sort are as many precepts as of the former and all as lawfull Tutelage an ordainment then which nothing more just being for the defence of Orfanes the Justitutes of Justinian say is given and permitted by the civil law and to parents it is permitted to choose and appoint by will the guardians of their children What more equall and yet the civil law calls this permission So likewise to manumise to adopt to make a will and to be made an heire is call'd permission by law Marriage it selfe and this which is already granted to divorce for adultery obliges no man is but a permission by law is but suffer'd By this we may see how weakly it hath bin thought that all divorce is utterly unlawfull because the law is said to suffer it whenas to suffer is but the legall phrase denoting what by law a man may doe or not doe Because of the hardnesse of your hearts Hence they argue that therefore he allowd it not and therefore it must be abolisht But the contrary to this will sooner follow that because he suffer'd it for a cause therefore in relation to that cause he allow'd it Next if he in his wisedome and in the midst of his severity allow'd it for hardnesse of heart it can be nothing better then arrogance and presumption to take stricter courses against hardnes of heart then God ever set an example and that under the Gospel which warrants them to no judicial act of compulsion in this matter much lesse to be more severe against hardnes of extremity then God thought good to bee against hardnes of heart He suffer'd it rather then worse inconveniences these men wiser as they make themselves will suffer the worst and hainousest inconveniences to follow rather then they will suffer what God suffer'd Although they can know when they please that Christ spake only to the conscience did not judge on the civil bench but alwaies disavow'd it What can be more contrary to the waies of God then these their doings If they bee such enemies to hardnes of heart although this groundlesse rigor proclaims it to be in themselves they may yet learne or consider that hardnesse of heart hath a twofould acception in the Gospel One when it is in a good man taken for infirmity and imperfection which was in all the Apostles whose weaknesse only not utter want of beleef is call'd hardnes of heart Marke 16. partly for this hardnesse of heart the imperfection and decay of man from original righteousnesse it was that God suffer'd not divorce onely but all that which by Civilians is term'd the secondary law of nature and of nations He suffer'd his owne people to wast and spoyle and slay by warre to lead captives to be som maisters som servants som to be princes others to be subjects hee suffer'd propriety to divide all things by severall possession trade and commerce not with out usury in his comon wealth some to bee undeservedly rich others to bee undeservingly poore All which till hardnesse of heart came in was most unjust whenas prime Nature made us all equall made us equall coheirs by common right and dominion over all creatures In the same manner and for the same cause hee suffer'd divorce as well as mariage our imperfet and degenerat condition of necessity requiring this law among the rest as a remedy against intolerable wrong and servitude above the patience of man to beare Nor was it giv'n only because our infirmity or if it must be so call'd hardnesse of heart could not endure all things but because the hardnes of anothers heart might not inflict all things upon an innocent person whom far other ends brought into a league of love and not of bondage and indignity If therefore we abolish divorce as only suffer'd for hardnes of heart we may as well abolish
permissive from the beginning before Moses then under Moses But from the beginning that is to say by the institution in Paradice it was not intended that matrimony should dissolve for every trivial cause as you Pharises accustome But that it was not thus suffer'd from the beginning ever since the race of men corrupted laws were made he who will affirme must have found out other antiquities then are yer known Besides we must consider now what can be so as from the beginning not only what should be so In the beginning had men continu'd perfet it had bin just that all things should have remain'd as they began to Adam Eve But after that the sons of men grew violent injurious it alter'd the lore of justice and put the goverment of things into a new frame While man and woman were both perfet each to other there needed no divorce but when they both degenerated to imperfection oft times grew to be an intolerable evil each to other then law more justly did permitt the alienating of that evil which mistake made proper then it did the appropriating of that good which Nature at first made common For if the absence of outward good be not so bad as the presence of a close evil that propriety whether by cov'nant or possession be but the attainment of some outward good it is more natural righteous that the law should sever us from an intimat evil then appropriate any outward good to us from the community of nature The Gospel indeed tending ever to that which is perfetest aim'dat the restorement of all things as they were in the beginning And therefore all things were in common to those primitive Christians in the Acts which Ananias Sapphira dearly felt That custome also continu'd more or less till the time of Justin Martyr as may be read in his 2d Apology which might be writt after that act of communion perhaps some 40. yeares above a hunder'd But who will be the man shall introduce this kind of common wealth as christianity now goes If then mariage must be as in the beginning the persons that marry must be such as then were the institution must make good in som tolerable sort what it promises toeeither party If not it is but madnes to drag this one ordinance back to the beginning and draw down all other to the present necessity and condition farre from the beginning even to the tolerating of extortions and opp ressions Christ only told us that from the beginning it was not so that is to say not so as the Pharises manuâ—'d the busines did not command us that it should be forcibly so again in all points as at the beginning or so at least in our intentions and desires but so in execution as reason and present nature can bear Although we are not to seek that the institution it selfe from the first beginning was never but conditional as all cov'nants are because thus and thus therefore so and so if not thus then not so Then moreover was perfetest to fulfill each law in it selfe now is perfetest in this estate of things to ask of charity how much law may be fulfill'd els the fulfilling oft times is the greatest breaking If any therefore demand which is now most perfection to ease an extremity by divorce or to enrage and fester it by the greevous observance of a miserable wedloc I am not destitute to say which is most perfection although som who beleev they thinke favourably of divorce esteem it only venial to infirmity Him I hold more in the way to perfection who forgoes an unfit ungodly discordant wedloc to live according to peace love Gods institution in a fitter chois then he who debarrs himself the happy experience of all godly which is peaceful conversatioÌ„ in his family to live a contentious and unchritian life not to be avoided in temptations not to be liv'd in only for the fals keeping of a most unreal nullity a mariage that hath no affinity with Gods intention a daring phantasm a meer toy of terror awing weak senses to the lamentable superstition of ruining themselves the remedy wherof God in his law voutsafes us Which not to dare use he warranting is not our perfection is our infirmity our little faith our timorous and low conceit of charity and in them who force us it is their masking pride and vanity to seem holier more circumspect then God So far is it that we need impute to him infirmity who thus divorces since the rule of perfection is not so much that which was don in the beginning as that which now is nearest to the rule of charity This is the greatest the perfetest the highest commandment V. 9. And I say unto you who so shall put away his wife except it be for Fornication and shall marry another committeth adultery and whose marrieth her which is put away doth commit adultery And I say unto you That this restrictive denouncement of Christ contradicts and refutes that permissive precept of Moses common expositers themselves disclaime and that it does not traverse from the closet of conscience to the courts of civil or canon law with any Christian rightly commenc't requires not long evincing If Christ then did not heer check permissive Moses nor did reduce matrimony to the beginning more then all other things as the reason of mans condition could beare we would know precisely what it was which he did and what the end was of his declaring thus austerely against divorce For this is a confesst oracle in law that he who lookes not at the intention of a precept the more superstitions he is of the letter the more he misinterprets Was it to shame Moses that had beene monstrous or all those purest ages of Israel to whom the permission was granted that were as incredible Or was it that he who came to abrogate the burden of law not the equity should put this yoke upon a blamelesse person to league himselfe in chaines with a begirting mischeif not to separat till death hee who taught us that no man puts a peece of new cloth upon an old garment nor new wine into old bottles that he should sow this patch of strictnes upon the old apparel of our frailty to make a rent more incurable when as in all other amendments his doctrine still charges that regard be had to the garment and to the vessel what it can endure this were an irregular and single peece of rigor not onely sounding disproportion to the whole Gospel but outstretching the most rigorous nervs of law and rigor it selfe No other end therefore can bee left imaginable of this excessive restraint but to bridle those erroneous and licentious postillers the Pharises not by telling them what may bee done in necessity but what censure they deserve who divorce abusively which their Tetrarch had done And as the offence was in one extreme so the rebuke to bring more efficaciously
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
christian from the snare of a misbeleever Yet if a Christian full of grace and spirituall gifts finding the misbeleever not frowardly affected feares not a seducing but hopes rather a gaining who sees not that this morall reason is not violated by not divorcing which the law commanded to doe but better fulfill'd by the excellence of the Gospel working through charity For neither the faithfull is seduc't and the unfaithfull is either sav'd or with all discharge of love and evangelic duty sought to be sav'd But contrarywise if the infirme Christian shall bee commanded here against his minde against his hope and against his strength to dwell with all the scandals the houshold persecutions or alluring temptations of an infidel how is not the Gospel by this made harsher then the law and more yoaking Therefore the Apostle ere he deliver this other reason why wee need not in all hast put away an infidel his mind misgiving him least he should seem to be the imposer of a new command staies not for method but with an abrupt speed inserts the declaration of their liberty in this matter But if the unbeleeving depart let him depart a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases but God hath called us to peace But if the unbeleeving depart This cannot be restrain'd to locall departure only for who knows not that an offencive society is worse then a forsaking If his purpose of cohabitation be to endanger the life or the conscience Beza himselfe is halfe perswaded that this may purchase to the faithfull person the same freedome that a desertion may and so Gerard and others whom he cites If therefore he depart in affection if hee depart from giving hope of his conversion if he disturb or scoffe at religion seduce or tempt if he rage doubtlesse not the weake only but the strong may leave him if not for feare yet for the dignities sake of religion which cannot be liable to all base affronts meerely for the worshiping of a civil mariage I take therefore departing to bee as large as the negative of being well pleas'd that is if he be not pleas'd for the present to live lovingly quietly inoffensively so as may give good hope which appeares well by that which followes A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases If Saint Paul provide seriously against the bondage of a christian it is not the only bondage to live unmaried for a deserting infidel but to endure his presence intolerably to beare indignities against his religion in words or deedes to be wearied with seducements to have idolatries and superstitions ever before his eyes to be tormented with impure and prophane conversation this must needs be bondage to a christian is this left all unprovided for without remedy or freedom granted undoubtedly no for the Apostle leavs it furder to be consider'd with prudence what bondage a brother or sister is not under not onely in this case but as hee speaks himselfe plurally in such cases But God hath called us to peace To peace not to bondage not to brabbles and contentions with him who is not pleas'd to live peaceably as mariage and christianity requires And where strise arises from a cause hopelesse to be allayd what better way to peace then by separating that which is ill joyn'd It is not divorce that first breaks the peace of family as som fondly comment on this place but it is peace already brok'n which when other cures fail can only be restor'd to the faultles person by a necessary divorce And Saint Paul heer warrants us to seeke peace rather then to remain in bondage If God hath call'd us to peace why should we not follow him why should we miserably stay in perpetual discord under a servitude not requir'd For what knowest thou O wife whether thou shalt save thy husband c. St. Paul having thus clear'd himselfe not to goe about the mining of our christian liberty not to cast a snare upon us which to doe hee so much hated returnes now to the second reason of that law to put away an infidel for feare of seducement which hee does not heer contradict with a command now to venture that but if neither the infirmity of the Christian nor the strength of the unbeleever be fear'd but hopes appearing that he may be won he judges it no breaking of that law though the beleever be permitted to forbeare divorce and can abide without the peril of seducement to offer the charity of a salvation to wife or husband which is the fulfilling not the transgressing of that law and well worth the undertaking with much hazard and patience For what knowest thou whether thou shalt save thy wife that is till all meanes convenient and possible with discretion and probability as human things are have bin us'd For Christ himselfe sends not our hope on pilgrimage to the worlds end but sets it bounds beyond which we need not wait on a brother much lesse on an infidell If after such a time we may count a professing Christian no better then a heathen after less time perhaps wee may cease to hope of a heathen that hee will turne christian Otherwise to binde us harder then the law and tell us wee are not under bondage is meere mockery If till the unbeleever please to part we may not stirre from the house of our bondage then certain this our liberty is not grounded in the purchas of Christ but in the pleasure of a miscreant What knowes the loyal husband whether he may not save the adulteresse he is not therfore bound to receive her What knowes the wife but shee may reclaim her husband who hath deserted her yet the reformed Churches doe not enjoyn her to wait longer then after the contempt of an Ecclesiastical Summons Beza himselfe heer befriends us with a remarkable speech what could be firmly constituted in human matters if under pretence of expecting grace from aboue it should be never lawfull for us to seeke our right And yet in other cases not lesse reasonable to obtain a most just and needfull remedy by divorce he turnes the innocent party to a taske of prayers beyond the multitude of beads and rosaries to beg the gift of chastity in recompence of an injurious mariage But the Apostle is evident anough we are not under bondage trusting that he writes to those who are not ignorant what bondage is to let supercilious determiners cheat them of their freedome God hath call'd us to peace and so doubtlesse hath left in our hands how to obtaine it seasonably if it be not our own choise to sit ever like novices wretchedly servile Thus much the Apostle on this question between Christian and Pagan to us now of little use yet supposing it written for our instruction as it may be rightly apply'd I doubt not but that the difference between a true beleever and a heretic or any one truely religious either deserted or seeking divorce from
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
who urgently requires a wicked thing though professing the same religion as from him who urges a heathenish or superstitious compliance in a different faith For if there be such necessity of our abiding wee ought rather to abide the utmost for religion then for any other cause seeing both the cause of our stay is pretended our religion to mariage and the cause of our suffering is suppos'd our constant mariage to religion Beza therfore by his owne definition of a deserter justifies a divorce from any wicked or intolerable conditions rather in the same religion then in a different Aretius a famous Divine of Bern approves many causes of divorce in his Problemes and adds that the lawes and consistories of Swizzerland approve them also As first adultery and that not actual only but intentional all eging Matthew the fifth Whosoever looketh to lust hath committed adultery already in his heart Wher by saith he our Saviour shewes that the breach of matrimony may be not only by outward act but by the heart and desire when that hath once possest it renders the conversation intolerable and commonly the fact followes Other causes to the number of 9. or 10. consenting in most with the imperial lawes may bee read in the author himselfe who averrs them to be grave and weighty All these are men of name in Divinity and to these if need were might be added more Nor have the Civilians bin all so blinded by the Canon as not to avouch the justice of those old permissions touching divorce Alciat of Millain a man of extraordinary wisedome and learning in the sixt book of his Parerga defends those imperial lawes not repugnant to the Gospel as the Church then interpreted For saith hee the antients understood him separat by man whom passions and corrupt affections divorc't not if the provincial Bishops first heard the matter and judg'd as the councel of Agatha declares and on some part of the Code hee names Isidorus Hispalensis the first computer of Canons to be in the same minde And in the former place gives his opinion that diuorce might be more lawfully permitted then usury Corasius recorded by Helvicus among the famous Lawyers hath been already cited of the same judgement Wesembechius a much nam'd Civilian in his comment on this law defends it and afficms that our Sauiour excluded not other faults equall to adultery and that the word fornication signifies larger among the Hebrewes then with us comprehending every fault which alienates from him to whom obedience is due and that the primitive Church interpreted so Grotius yet living and of prime note among learned men retires plainly from the Canon to the antient civility yea to the Mosaic law as being most just and undecevable On the fifth of Matt. he saith that Christ made no civil lawes but taught us how to use law that the law sent not a husband to the Judge about this matter of divorce but left him to his owne conscience that Christ therfore cannot be thought to send him that adultery may be judg'd by a vehement suspition that the exception of adultery seems an example of other like offences proves it from the manner of speech the maxims of law the reason of charity and common equity These authorities without long search I had to produce all excellent men som of them such as many ages had brought forth none greater almost the meanest of them might deserve to obtain credit in a singularity what might not then all of them joyn'd in an opinion so consonant to reason For although som speak of this cause others of that why divorce may be yet all agreeing in the necessary enlargement of that textual straitnes leave the matter to equity not to literal bondage and so the opinion closes Nor could I have wanted more testimonies had the cause needed a more sollicitous enquiry But herein the satisfaction of others hath bin studied not the gaining of more assurance to mine own perswasion although authorities contributing reason withall bee a good confirmation and a welcom But God I solemnly attest him with held from my knowledge the consenting judgement of these men so late untill they could not bee my instructers but only my unexpected witnesses to partial men that in this work I had not given the worst experiment of an industry joyn'd with integrity and the free utterance though of an unpopular truth Which yet to the people of England may if God so please prove a memorable informing certainly a benefit which was intended them long since by men of highest repute for wisedome piety Bucer Erasmus Only this one autority more whether in place or out of place I am not to omitt which if any can think a small one I must bee patitient it is no smaller then the whole assembl'd autority of England both Church and State and in those times which are on record for the purest and sincerest that ever shon yet on the reformation of this Iland the time of Edward the 6th That worthy Prince having utterly abolisht the Canon Law out of his Dominions as his Father did before him appointed by full vote of Parlament a Committy of two and thirty chosen men Divines and Lawyers of whom Cranmer the Archbishop Peter Martyr and Walter Haddon not without the assistance of Sir John Cheeke the Kings Tutor a man at that time counted the learnedest of Englishmen for piety not inferior were the cheif to frame anew som Ecclesiastical Laws that might be in stead of what was abrogated The work with great diligence was finisht and with as great approbation of that reforming age was receav'd and had bin doubtlesse as the learned Preface thereof testifies establisht by Act of Parlament had not the good Kings death so soon ensuing arrested the furder growth of Religion also from that season to this Those laws thus founded on the memorable wisedome and piety of that religious Parlament and Synod allow divorce and second mariage not only for adultery or desertion but for any capital cnmity or plot laid against the others life and likewise for evil and fierce usage nay the 12. Chap. of that title by plaine consequence declares that lesser contentions if they be perpetual may obtaine divorce which is all one really with the position by me held in the former treatise publisht on this argument herein only differing that there the cause of perpetual strife was put for example in the unchangeable discord of som natures but in these lawes intended us by the best of our ancestors the effect of continual strife is determin'd no unjust plea of divorce whether the cause be naturall or wilfull Wherby the warinesse and deliberation from which that discourse proceeded will appeare that God hath aided us to make no bad conclusion of this point seeing the opinion which of late hath undergon ill censures among the vulgar hath now prov'd to have don no violence to Scripture unlesse all these famous Authors alleg'd have done the like nor hath affirm'd ought more then what indeed the most nominated Fathers of the Church both ancient and modern are unexpectedly found affirming the lawes of Gods peculiar people of primitive Christendom found to have practis'd reformed Churches and states to have imitated and especially the most pious Church-times of this Kingdom to have fram'd and publisht and but for sad hindrances in the sudden change of religion had enacted by Parlament Hence forth let them who condemn the assertion of this book for new and licentious be sorry lest while they think to be of the graver sort and take on them to be teachers they expose themselves rather to be pledg'd up and down by men who intimatly know them to the discovery and contempt of their ignorance and presumption The End Errata Pag. 57. lin 16. and by them to prosecute no comma between Pag. 88. lin 3. Basilius Macedo no comma between