Tetrachordon: expositions upon the foure chief places in scripture, which treat of mariage, or nullities in mariage. On Gen.I.27.28. compar'd and explain'd by Gen.2.18.23.24. Deut.24.1.2. Matth.5.31.32. with Matth.19. from the 3d.v. to the 11th. I Cor.7. from the 10th to the 16th. Wherein the doctrine and discipline of divorce, as was lately publish'd, is confirm'd by explanation of scripture, by testimony of ancient fathers, of civill lawes in the primitive church, of famousest reformed divines, and lastly, by an intended act of the Parlament and Church of England in the last eyare of Edvvard the sixth. / By the former author J.M. Milton, John, 1608-1674. 1645 Approx. 298 KB of XML-encoded text transcribed from 55 1-bit group-IV TIFF page images. Text Creation Partnership, Ann Arbor, MI ; Oxford (UK) : 2008-09 (EEBO-TCP Phase 1). A89158 Wing M2184 Thomason E271_12 ESTC R212199 99870845 99870845 123241 This keyboarded and encoded edition of the work described above is co-owned by the institutions providing financial support to the Early English Books Online Text Creation Partnership. This Phase I text is available for reuse, according to the terms of Creative Commons 0 1.0 Universal . The text can be copied, modified, distributed and performed, even for commercial purposes, all without asking permission. Early English books online. (EEBO-TCP ; phase 1, no. A89158) Transcribed from: (Early English Books Online ; image set 123241) Images scanned from microfilm: (Thomason Tracts ; 45:E271[12]) Tetrachordon: expositions upon the foure chief places in scripture, which treat of mariage, or nullities in mariage. On Gen.I.27.28. compar'd and explain'd by Gen.2.18.23.24. Deut.24.1.2. Matth.5.31.32. with Matth.19. from the 3d.v. to the 11th. I Cor.7. from the 10th to the 16th. Wherein the doctrine and discipline of divorce, as was lately publish'd, is confirm'd by explanation of scripture, by testimony of ancient fathers, of civill lawes in the primitive church, of famousest reformed divines, and lastly, by an intended act of the Parlament and Church of England in the last eyare of Edvvard the sixth. / By the former author J.M. Milton, John, 1608-1674. [8], 40, 37-98, [2] p. [s.n.], London: : Printed in the yeare 1645. J.M. = John Milton, who has signed "To the Parlament". Text is continuous despite pagination. The final leaf is blank. Annotation on Thomason copy: "March 4th 1644"; the 5 in imprint date is crossed out. Reproduction of the original in the British Library. Created by converting TCP files to TEI P5 using tcp2tei.xsl, TEI @ Oxford. Re-processed by University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Northwestern, with changes to facilitate morpho-syntactic tagging. 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Marriage law -- England -- Early works to 1800. 2007-02 TCP Assigned for keying and markup 2007-03 Apex CoVantage Keyed and coded from ProQuest page images 2007-05 John Latta Sampled and proofread 2007-05 John Latta Text and markup reviewed and edited 2008-02 pfs Batch review (QC) and XML conversion Tetrachordon : EXPOSITIONS UPON The foure chief places in Scripture , which treat of Mariage , or nullities in Mariage . On Gen. 1. 27. 28. compar'd and explain'd by Gen. 2. 18. 23. 24. Deut. 24. 1. 2. Matth. 5. 31. 32. with Matth. 19. from the 3d. v. to the 11th . 1 Cor. 7. from the 10th to the 16th . Wherin the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce , as was lately publish'd , is confirm'd by explanation of Scripture , by testimony of ancient Fathers , of civill lawes in the Primitive Church , of famousest Reformed Divines , And lastly , by an intended Act of the Parlament and Church of England in the last yeare of EDVVARD the sixth . By the former Author J. M. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 , 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 . Euripid. Medea . LONDON : Printed in the yeare 1645. To the PARLAMENT . THat which I knew to be the part of a good Magistrate , aiming at true liberty through the right information of religious and civil life , and that which I saw , and was partaker , of your Vows and solemne Cov'nants , Parlament of England , your actions also manifestly tending to exalt the truth , and to depresse the tyranny of error , and ill custome , with more constancy and prowesse then ever yet any , since that Parlament which put the first Scepter of this Kingdom into his hand whom God and extraordinary vertue made thir Monarch , were the causes that mov'd me , one else not placing much in the eminence of a dedication , to present your high notice with a Discourse , conscious to it self of nothing more then of diligence , and firm affection to the publick good . And tbat ye took it so as wise and impartial men , obtaining so great power and dignitie , are wont to accept , in matters both doubtfull and important , what they think offer'd them well meant , and from a rational ability , I had no lesse then to perswade me . And on that perswaston am return'd , as to a famous and free Port , my self also bound by more then a maritime Law , to expose as freely what fraughtage I conceave to bring of no trifles . For although it be generally known , how and by whom ye have been instigated to a hard censure of that former book entitl'd , The Doctrine , and Diseipline of Divorce , an opinion held by some of the best among reformed Writers without scandal or confutement , though now thought new and dangerous by some of our severe Gnostics , whose little reading , and lesse meditating holds ever with hardest obstinacy tbat which it took up with easiest credulity , I do not find yet that ought , for the furious ineitements which have been used , hath issu'd by your appointment , that might give the least interruption or disrepute either to the Author , or to the Book . Which he who will be better advis'd then to call your neglect , or connivence at a thing imagin'd so perilous , can attribute it to nothing more justly , then to the deep and quiet streame of your direct and calme deliberations ; that gave not way either to the fervent rashnesse , or the immaterial gravity of those who ceas'd not to exasperate without cause . For which uprightnesse and incorrupt refusall of what ye were incens'd to , Lords and Commons , ( though it were don to justice , not to me , and was a peculiar demonstration how farre your waies are different from the rash vulgar ) besides tbose allegiances of oath and duty , which are my publie debt to your public labours , I have yet a store of gratitude laid up , which cannot be exhausted ; and such thanks perhaps they may live to be , as shall more then whisper to the next ages . Yet that the Author may be known to ground himself upon his own innocence , and the merit of his cause , not upon the favour of a diversion , or a delay to any just censure , but wishes rather he might see those his detracters at any fair meeting , as learned debatements are privileg'd with a due freedome under equall Moderators , I shall here briefly single one of them ( because he hath oblig'd me to it ) who I perswade me having scarse read the book , nor knowing him who writ it , or at least faining the latter , bath not forborn to scandalize him , unconferr'd with , unadmonisht , undealt with by any Pastorly or brotherly convincement , in the most open and invective manner , and at the most bitter opportunity that drift or set designe could have invented . And this , when as the Canon Law , though commonly most favouring the boldnesse of their Priests , punishes the naming or traducing of any person in the Pulpit , was by him made no scruple . If I shall therfore take licence by the right of nature , and that liberty wherin I was born , to defend my self publicly against a printed Calumny , and do willingly appeal to those Judges to whom I am accus'd , it can be no immoderate , or unallowable course of seeking so just and needfull reparations . Which I had don long since , had not these employments , which are now visible , deferr'd me . It was preacht before ye , Lords and Commons , in August last upon a special day of humiliation , that there was a wicked Book abroad , and ye were taxt of sin that it was yet uncensur'd , the book deserving to be burnt , and impudence also was charg'd upon the Author , who durst set his name to it , and dedicate it to your selves . First , Lords and Commons , I pray to that God , before whom ye then were prostrate , so to forgive ye those omissions and trespasses , which ye desire most should find forgivness , as I shall soon shew to the world how easily ye absolve your selves of that which this man calls your sin , and is indeed your wisdome , and your Noblenesse , whereof to this day ye have don well not to repent . He terms it a wicked book , and why but for allowing other causes of Divorce , then Christ and his Apostles mention ; and with the same censure condemns of wickednesse not onely Martin Bucer that elect Instrument of Reformation , highly honour'd and had in reverence by Edward the sixth , and his whole Parlament , whom also I had publisht in English by a good providence , about a week before this calumnious digression was preach'd ; so that if he knew not Bucer then , as he ought to have known , he might at least have known him some months after , ere the Sermon came in print , wherein notwithstanding he persists in his former sentence , and condemnes again of wickednesse , either ignorantly or wilfully , not onely Martin Bucer , and all the choisest and holiest of our Reformers , but the whole Parlament and Church of England in those best and purest times of Edward the sixth . All which I shall prove with good evidence , at the end of these Explanations . And then let it be judg'd and seriously consider'd with what hope the affairs of our Religion are committed to one among others , who hath now onely left him which of the twain he will choose , whether this shall be his palpable ignorance , or the same wickednesse of his own book , which he so lavishly imputes to the writings of other men : and whether this of his , that thus peremptorily defames and attaints of wickednesse unspotted Churches , unblemisht Parlaments , and the most eminent restorers of Christian Doctrine , deserve not to be burnt first . And if his heat had burst out onely against the opinion , his wonted passion had no doubt bin silently born with wonted patience . But since against the charity of that solemne place and meeting , it serv'd him furder to inveigh opprobriously against the person , branding him with no lesse then impudence , onely for setting his name to what he had writt'n , I must be excus'd not to be so wanting to the defence of an honest name , or to the reputation of those good men who afford me their society , but to be sensible of such a foule endeavour'd disgrace : not knowing ought either in mine own deserts , or the Laws of this Land , why I should be subject , in such a notorious and illegal manner , to the intemperancies of this mans preaching choler . And indeed to be so prompt and ready in the midst of his humblenesse , to tosse reproaches of this bulk and size , argues as if they were the weapons of his exercise , I am sure not of his Ministery , or of that dayes work . Certainly to subscribe my name at what I was to own , was what the State had order'd and requires . And he who lists not to be malicious , would call it ingenuity , cleer conscience , willingnesse to avouch what might be question'd , or to be better instructed . And if God were so displeas'd with those , Isa . 58. who on the solemne fast were wont to smite with the fist of wickednesse , it could be no signe of his own humiliation accepted , which dispos'd him to smite so keenly with a reviling tongue . But if onely to have writ my name must be counted impudence , how doth this but justifie another , who might affirm with as good warrant , that the late Discourse of Scripture and Reason , which is certain to be chiefly his own draught , was publisht without a name , out of base fear , and the sly avoidance of what might follow to his detriment , if the party at Court should hap to reach him . And I , to have set my name , where he accuses me to have set it , am so far from recanting , that I offer my hand also if need be , to make good the same opinion which I there maintain , by inevitable consequences drawn parallel from his own principal arguments in that of Scripture and Reason ; which I shall pardon him , if he can deny , without shaking his own composition to peeces . The impudence therfore , since he waigh'd so little what a grosse revile that was to give his equall , I send him back again for a phylactery to stitch upon his arrogance , that censures not onely before conviction so bitterly without so much as one reason giv'n , but censures the Congregation of his Governors to their faces , for not being so hasty as himself to censure . And whereas my other crime is , that I address'd the Dedication of what I had studied , to the Parlament , how could I better declare the loyalty which Iowe to that supreme and majestick Tribunal , and the opinion which I have of the high-entrusted judgement , and personall worth assembl'd in that place . With the same affections therfore , and the same addicted fidelity , Parlament of England , I here again have brought to your perusal on the same argument these following Expositions of Scripture . The former book , as pleas'd some to think , who were thought judicious , had of reason in it to a sufficiencie ; what they requir'd , was that the Scriptures there alleg'd , might he discuss'd more fully . To their desires , thus much furder hath been labour'd in the Scriptures . Another sort also who wanted more autorities , and citations , have not been here unthought of . If all this attain not to satisfie them , as I am confident that none of those our great controversies at this day , hath had a more demonstrative explaining , I must confesse to admire what it is , for doubtlesse it is not reason now adayes that satisfies , or suborns the common credence of men , to yeeld so easily , and grow so vehement in matters much more disputable , and farre lesse conducing to the daily good and peace of life . Some whose necessary shifts haeve long enur'd them to cloak the defects of their unstudied yeers , and hatred now to learn , under the appearance of a grave solidity , which estimation they have gain'd among weak perceivers , find the ease of slighting what they cannot refute , and are determin'd , as I hear , to hold it not worth the answering . In which number I must be forc'd to reck'n that Doctor , who in a late equivocating Treatise plausibly set afloat against the Dippers , diving the while himselfwith a more deep prelatical malignance against the present state , & Church-government , mentions with ignominy the Tractate of Divorce ; yet answers nothing , but instead thereof ( for which I do not commend his marshalling ) sets Moses also among the crew of his Anabaptists ; as one who to a holy Nation , the Common-wealth of Israel , gave Laws breaking the bonds of mariage to inordinate lust . These are no mean surges of blasphemy , not onely dipping Moses the divine Law-giver , but dashing with a high hand against the justice and purity of God himself ; as these ensuing Scriptures plainly and freely handl'd shall verifie to the launcing of that old apostemated error . Him therefore I leave now to his repentance . Others , which is their courtesie , confesse that wit and parts may do much to make that seem true which is not ( as was objected to Socrates by them who could not resist his efficacy , that he ever made the worse cause seem the better ) and thus thinking themselves discharg'd of the difficulty , love not to wade furder into the fear of a convincement . These will be their excuses to decline the full examining of this serious point . So much the more I presse it and repeat it , Lords and Commons , that ye beware while time is , ere this grand secret , and onely art of ignorance affecting tyrany , grow powerfull and rule among us . For if sound argument and reason shall be thus put off , either by an undervaluing silence , or the maisterly censure of a rayling word or two in the Pulpit , or by rejecting the force of truth , as the meer cunning of eloquence , and Sophistry , what can be the end of this , but that all good learning and knowledge will suddenly decay : Ignorance , and illiterate presumption , which is yet but our disease , will turn at length into our very constitution , and prove the hectic evill of this age : worse to be fear'd , if it get once to reign over us , then any fift Monarchy . If this shall be the course , that what was wont to be a chief commendation , and the ground of other mens confidence in an Author , his diligence , his learning , his elocution whether by right , or by ill meaning granted him , shall be turn'd now to a disadvantage and suspicion against him , that what he writes though unconfuted , must therefore be mistrusted , therfore not receiv'd for the industry , the exactnesse , the labour in it , confess'd to be more then ordnary ; as if wisdome had now forsak'n the thirstie and laborious inquirer to dwell against her nature with the arrogant and shallow babler , to what purpose all those pains and that continual searching requir'd of us by Solomon to the attainment of understanding ; why are men bred up with such care and expence to a life of perpetual studies , why do your selves with such endeavour seek to wipe off the imputation of intending to discourage the progresse and advance of learning ? He therfore whose heart can bear him to the high pitch of your noble enterprises , may easily assure himself that the prudence and farre-judging circumspectnesse of so grave a Magistracy sitting in Parlament , who have before them the prepar'd and purpos'd Act of their most religious predecessors to imitate in this question , cannot reject the cleernesse of these reasons , and these allegations both here and formerly offer'd them ; nor can over-look the necessity of ordaining more wholsomly and more humanly in the casualties of Divorce , then our Laws have yet establisht : if the most urgent and excessive grievances hapning in domestick life , be worth the laying to heart , which , unlesse charity be farre from us , cannot be neglected . And that these things both in the right constitution , and in the right reformation of a Common-wealth call for speediest redresse , and ought to be the first consider'd , anough was urg'd in what was prefac'd to that monument of Bucer which I brought to your remembrance , and the other time before . Hence forth , except new cause be giv'n , I shall say lesse and lesse . For if the Law make not timely provision , let the Law , as reason is , bear the censure of those consequences , which her own default now more evidently produces . And if men want manlinesse to expostulate the right of their due ransom , and to second their own occasions , they may sit hereafter and bemoan themselves to have neglected through faintnesse the onely remedy of their sufferings , which a seasonable and well grounded speaking might have purchas'd them . And perhaps in time to come , others will know how to esteem what is not every day put into their hands , when they have markt events , and better weigh'd how hurtfull and unwise it is , to hide a secret and pernicious rupture under the ill counsell of a bashfull silence . But who would distrust ought , or not be ample in his hopes of your wise and Christian determinations ? who have the prudence to consider , and should have the goodnesse like gods , as ye are call'd , to find out readily , and by just Law to administer those redresses which have of old , not without God ordaining , bin granted to the adversities of mankind , ere they who needed , were put to ask . Certainly , if any other have enlarg'd his thoughts to expect from this government so justly undertak'n , and by frequent assistances from heaven so apparently upheld , glorious changes and renovations both in Church and State , he among the formost might be nam'd , who prayes that the fate of England may tarry for no other Deliverers . JOHN MILTON . TETRACHORDON , Expositions upon the foure chiefe places in Scripture which treat of Mariage , or nullities in Mariage . Gen. 1. 27. So God created man in his owne image , in the image of God created he him ; male and female created he them . 28. And God blessed them , and God said unto them be fruitfull , &c. Gen. 2. 18. And the Lord God said , It is not good that man should be alone , I will make him a helpe meet for him . 23. And Adam said , This is now bone of my bones , and flesh of my flesh ; she shall be called Woman , because she was taken out of Man. 24. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother , and shall cleave unto his wife , and they shall be one flesh . Gen. 1. 27. SO God created man in his owne image . ] To be inform'd aright in the whole History of Mariage , that we may know for certain , not by a forc't yoke , but by an impartial definition , what Mariage is , and what is not Mariage ; it will undoubtedly be lafest , fairest , and most with our obedience , to enquire , as our Saviours direction is , how it was in the beginning . And that we begin so high as man created after Gods owne Image , there want not earnest causes . For nothing now adayes is more degenerately forgott'n , then the true dignity of man , almost in every respect , but especially in this prime institution of Matrimony , wherein his native pre-eminence ought most to shine . Although if we consider that just and naturall privileges men neither can rightly seek , nor dare fully claime , unlesse they be ally'd to inward goodnesse , and stedfast knowledge , and that the want of this quells them to a servile sense of their own conscious unworthinesse , it may save the wondring why in this age many are so opposite both to human and to Christian liberty , either while they understand not , or envy others that do ; contenting , or rather priding themselves in a specious humility and strictnesse bred out of low ignorance that never yet conceiv'd the freedome of the Gospel ; and is therefore by the Apostle to the Colossians rankt with no better company , then Will-worship and the meer shew of wisdome . And how injurious herein they are , if not to themselves , yet to their neighbours , and not to them only , but to the all-wise and bounteous grace offer'd us in our redemption , will orderly appear . [ In the Image of God created he him . ] It is anough determin'd , that this Image of God wherin man was created , is meant Wisdom , Purity , Justice , and rule over all creatures . All which being lost in Adam , was recover'd with gain by the merits of Christ . For albeit our first parent had lordship over sea , and land , and aire , yet there was a law without him , as a guard set over him . But Christ having cancell'd the hand writing of ordinances which was against us , Coloss . 2. 14. and interpreted the fulfilling of all through charity , hath in that respect set us overlaw , in the free custody of his love , and left us victorious under the guidance of his living Spirit , not under the dead letter ; to follow that which most edifies , most aides and furders a religious life , makes us holiest and likest to his immortall Image , not that which makes us most conformable and captive to civill and subordinat precepts ; whereof the strictest observance may oftimes prove the destruction not only of many innocent persons and families , but of whole Nations . Although indeed no ordinance human or from heav'n can binde against the good of man ; so that to keep them strictly against that end , is all one with to breake them . Men of most renowned vertu have sometimes by transgressing , most truly kept the law ; and wisest Magistrates have permitted and dispenc't it ; while they lookt not peevishly at the letter , but with a greater spirit at the good of mankinde , if alwayes not writt'n in the characters of law , yet engrav'n in the heart of man by a divine impression . This Heathens could see , as the well-read in story can recount of Solon and Epaminondas , whom Cicero in his first booke of invention nobly defends . All law , saith he , we ought referr to the common good , and interpret by that , not by the scrowl of letters . No man observes law for laws sake , but for the good of them for whom it was made . The rest might serv well to lecture these times , deluded through belly-doctrines into a devout slavery . The Scripture also affords us David in the shew-bread , Hezechiah in the passeover sound and safe transgressors of the literall command , which also dispenc'd not seldom with it self ; and taught us on what just occasions to doe so : untill our Saviour for whom that great and God-like work was reserv'd , redeem'd us to a state above prescriptions by dissolving the whole law into charity . And have we not the soul to understand this , and must we against this glory of Gods transcendent love towards us be still the servants of a literall indightment ? [ Created he him . ] It might be doubted why he saith , In the Image of God created he him , not them , as well as male and female them ; especially since that Image might be common to them both , but male and female could not , however the Jewes fable , and please themselvs with the accidentall concurrence of Plato's wit , as if man at first had bin created Hermaphrodite : but then it must have bin male and female created he him . So had the Image of God bin equally common to them both , it had no doubt bin said , In the image of God created he them . But St. Paul ends the controversie by explaining that the woman is not primarily and immediatly the image of God , but in reference to the man. The head of the woman , saith he , 1 Cor. 11. is the man : he the image and glory of God , she the glory of the man : he not for her , but she for him . Therefore his precept is , Wives be subject to your husbands as is fit in the Lord , Coloss . 3. 18. In every thing , Eph. 5. 24. Neverthelesse man is not to hold her as a servant , but receives her into a part of that empire which God proclaims him to , though not equally , yet largely , as his own image and glory : for it is no small glory to him , that a creature so like him , should be made subject to him . Not but that particular exceptions may have place , if she exceed her husband in prudence and dexterity , and he contentedly yeeld , for then a superior and more naturall law comes in , that the wiser should govern the lesse wise , whether male or female . But that which far more easily and obediently follows from this verse , is that , seeing woman was purposely made for man , and he her head , it cannot stand before the breath of this divine utterance , that man the portraiture of God , joyning to himself for his intended good and solace an inferiour sexe , should so becom her thrall , whose wilfulnes or inability to be a wife frustrates the occasionall end of her creation , but that he may acquitt himself to freedom by his naturall birth-right , and that indeleble character of priority which God crown'd him with . If it be urg'd that sin hath lost him this , the answer is not far to seek , that from her the sin first proceeded , which keeps her justly in the same proportion still beneath . She is not to gain by being first in the transgression , that man should furder loose to her , because already he hath lost by her means . Oft it happens that in this matter he is without fault ; so that his punishment herein is causeles : and God hath the praise in our speeches of him , to sort his punishment in the same kind with the offence . Suppose he err'd ; it is not the intent of God or man , to hunt an error so to the death with a revenge beyond all measure and proportion . But if we argue thus , this affliction is befaln him for his sin , therefore he must bear it , without seeking the only remedy , first it will be false that all affliction comes for sin , as in the case of Joh , and of the man born blind , Joh. 9. 3 , was evident : next by that reason , all miseries comming for sin , we must let them all lye upon us like the vermin of an Indian Catharist , which his fond religion forbids him to molest . Were it a particular punishment inflicted through the anger of God upon a person , or upon a land , no law hinders us in that regard , no law but bidds us remove it if we can : much more if it be a dangerous temptation withall , much more yet , if it be certainly a temptation , and not certainly a punishment , though a pain . As for what they say we must bear with patience , to bear with patience , and to seek effectuall remedies , implies no contradiction . It may no lesse be for our disobedience , our unfaithfulnes , and other sins against God , that wives becom adulterous to the bed , and questionles we ought to take the affliction as patiently , as christian prudence would wish ; yet hereby is not lost the right of divorcing for adultery . No you say , because our Saviour excepted that only . But why , if he were so bent to punish our sins , and try our patience in binding on us a disastrous mariage , why did he except adultery ? Certainly to have bin bound from divorce in that case also had bin as plentifull a punishment to our sins , and not too little work for the patientest . Nay perhaps they will say it was too great a sufferance : And with as slight a reason , for no wise man but would sooner pardon the act of adultery once and again committed by a person worth pitty and forgivnes , then to lead a wearisom life of unloving & unquiet conversation with one who neither affects nor is affected , much lesse with one who exercises all bitternes , and would commit adultery too , but for envy lest the persecuted condition should thereby get the benefit of his freedom . 'T is plain therefore that God enjoyns not this supposed strictnes of not divorcing either to punish us , or to try our patience . Moreover , if man be the image of God , which consists in holines , and woman ought in the same respect to be the image and companion of man , in such wise to belov'd , as the Church is belov'd of Christ , and if , as God is the head of Christ , and Christ the head of man , so man is the head of woman ; I cannot see by this golden dependance of headship and subjection , but that Piety and Religion is the main tye of Christian Matrimony : So as if there be found between the pair a notorious disparity either of wickednes or heresie , the husband by all manner of right is disingag'd from a creature , not made and inflicted on him to the vexation of his righteousnes ; the wife also , as her subjection is terminated in the Lord , being her self the redeem'd of Christ , is not still bound to be the vassall of him , who is the bondslave of Satan : she being now neither the image nor the glory of such a person , nor made for him , nor left in bondage to him ; but hath recours to the wing of charity , and protection of the Church ; unless there be a hope on either side ; yet such a hope must be meant , as may be a rationall hope , and not an endles servitude . Of which hereafter . But usually it is objected , that if it be thus , then there can be no true mariage between misbeleevers and irreligious persons ? I might answer , let them see to that who are such ; the Church hath no commission to judge those without , 1 Cor. 5. But this they will say perhaps , is but penuriously to resolv a doubt . I answer therefore , that where they are both irreligious , the mariage may be yet true anough to them in a civill relation . For there are left som remains of Gods image in man , as he is meerly man ; which reason God gives against the shedding of mans bloud , Gen. 9. as being made in Gods image , without expression whether he were a good man or a bad , to exempt the slayer from punishment . So that in those mariages where the parties are alike void of Religion , the wife owes a civill homage and subjection , the husband owes a civill loyalty . But where the yoke is mis-yok't , heretick with faithfull , godly with ungodly , to the grievance and manifest endangering of a brother or sister , reasons of a higher strain then matrimoniall bear sway ; unlesse the Gospel instead of freeing us , debase it self to make us bondmen , and suffer evill to controule good . [ Male and female created he them . ] This contains another end of matching man and woman , being the right , and lawfulnes of the marige bed ; though much inferior to the former end of her being his image and helpo in religious society . And who of weakest insight may not see that this creating of them male and female , cannot in any order of reason , or Christianity , be of such moment against the better and higher purposes of their creation , as to enthrall husband or wife to duties or to sufferings , unworthy and unbeseeming the image of God in them ? Now when as not only men , but good men doe stand upon their right , their estimation , their dignity in all other actions and deportments with warrant anough and good conscience , as having the image of God in them , it will not be difficult to determin what is unworthy and unseemly for a man to do or suffer in wedlock ; and the like proportionally may be found for woman : if we love not to stand disputing below the principles of humanity . He that said , Male and female created he them , immediatly before that said also in the same verse , In the Image of God created he him , and redoubl'd it , that our thoughts might not be so full of dregs as to urge this poor consideration of male and female , without remembring the noblenes of that former repetition ; lest when God sends a wise eye to examin our triviall glosses , they be found extremly to creep upon the ground : especially since they confesse that what here concerns mariage is but a brief touch , only preparative to the institution which follows more expressely in the next Chapter : and that Christ so took it , as desiring to be briefest with them who came to tempt him , account shall be given in due place . V. 28. And Godblessed them , and God said unto them , be fruitfull , and multiply , and replenish the earth , &c. This declares another end of Matrimony , the propagation of mankind ; and is again repeated to Noah and his sons , Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary , nor unworth the noting ; but I undertook not a generall Comment . Hence therefore we see the desire of children is honest and pious ; if we be not lesse zealous in our Christianity , then Plato was in his heathenism ; who in the sixt of his laws , counts off-spring therefore desirable , that we may leav in our stead sons of our sons , continuall servants of God : a religious and prudent desire , if people knew as well what were requir'd to breeding as to begetting ; which desire perhaps was a cause why the Jews hardly could endure a barren wedlock : and Philo in his book of speciall laws esteems him only worth pardon that sends not barrennes away . Carvilius the first recorded in Rome to have sought divorce , had it granted him for the barrennes of his wife , upon his oath that he maried to the end he might have children ; as Dionysius and Gellius are authors . But to dismisse a wife only for barrennes , is hard : and yet in som the desire of children is so great , and so just , yea somtime so necessary , that to condemn such a one to a childles age , the fault apparently not being in him , might seem perhaps more strict then needed . Somtimes inheritances , crowns , and dignities are so interested and annext in their common peace and good to such or such lineall descent , that it may prove a great moment both in the affairs of men and of religion , to consider throughly what might be don heerin , notwithstanding the way wardnes of our School Doctors . Gen. 2. 18. And the Lord said , It is not good that man should be alone ; I will make him a help meet for him . V. 23. And Adam said , &c. V. 24. Therefore shall a man leave , &c. THis second Chapter is granted to be a Commentary on the first ; and these verses granted to be an exposition of that former verse , Male and female created he them , and yet when this male and female is by the explicite words of God himselfe heer declar'd to be not meant other then a fit help , and meet society ; som who would ingrosse to themselves the whole trade of interpreting , will not suffer the cleer text of God to doe the office of explaining it self . [ And the Lord God said it is not good . ] A man would think that the consideration of who spake , should raise up the attention of our minds to enquire better , and obey the purpos of so great a Speaker : for as we order the busines of Mariage , that which he heer speaks is all made vain ; and in the decision of matrimony , or not matrimony , nothing at all regarded . Our presumption , hath utterly chang'd the state and condition of this ordinance : God ordain'd it in love and helpfulnes to be indissoluble , and we in outward act and formality to be a forc't bondage ; so that being subject to a thousand errors in the best men , if it prove a blessing to any , it is of meer accident , as mans law hath handl'd it , and not of institution . [ It is not good for man to be alone . ] Hitherto all things that have bin nam'd , were approv'd of God to be very good : lonelines is the first thing which Gods eye nam'd not good : whether it be a thing , or the want of somthing , I labour not ; let it be their tendance , who have the art to be industriously idle . And heer alone is meant alone without woman ; otherwise Adam had the company of God himself , and Angels to convers with ; all creatures to delight him seriously , or to make him sport . God could have created him out of the same mould a thousand friends and brother Adams to have bin his consorts , yet for all this till Eve was giv'n him , God reckn'd him to be alone . [ It is not good . ] God heer presents himself like to a man deliberating ; both to shew us that the matter is of high consequence , and that he intended to found it according to naturall reason , not impulsive command , but that the duty should arise from the reason of it , not the reason be swallow'd up in a reasonlesse duty . Not good , was as much to Adam before his fall , as not pleasing , not expedient ; but since the comming of sin into the world , to him who hath not receiv'd the continence , it is not only not expedient to be alone , but plainly sinfull . And therefore he who wilfully abstains from mariage , not being supernaturally gifted , and he who by making the yoke of mariage unjust and intolerable , causes men to abhorr it , are both in a diabolicall sin , equall to that of Antichrist who forbids to marry . For what difference at all whether he abstain men from marying , or restrain them in a mariage hapning totally discommodious , distastfull , dishonest and pernicious to him without the appearance of his fault ? For God does not heer precisely say , I make a female to this male , as he did briefly before , but expounding himselfe heer on purpos , he saith , because it is not good for man to be alone , I make him therefore a meet help . God supplies the privation of not good , with the perfect gift of a reall and positive good ; it is mans pervers cooking who hath turn'd this bounty of God into a Scorpion , either by weak and shallow constructions , or by proud arrogance and cruelty to them who neither in their purposes nor in their actions have offended against the due honour of wedlock . Now whereas the Apostle speaking in the Spirit , 1 Cor. 7. pronounces quite contrary to this word of God , It is good for a man not to touch a woman , and God cannot contradict himself , it instructs us that his commands and words , especially such as bear the manifest title of som good to man , are not to be so strictly wrung , as to command without regard to the most naturall and miserable necessities of mankind . Therefore the Apostle adds a limitation in the 26 v. of that chap. for the present necessity it is good ; which he gives us doubtlesse as a pattern how to reconcile other places by the generall rule of charity . [ For man to be alone . ] Som would have the sense heerof to be in respect of procreation only : and Austin contests that manly friendship in all other regards had bin a more becomming solace for Adam , then to spend so many secret years in an empty world with one woman . But our Writers deservedly reject this crabbed opinion ; and defend that there is a peculiar comfort in the maried state besides the genial bed , which no other society affords . No mortall nature can endure either in the actions of Religion , or study of wisdome , without somtime slackning the cords of intense thought and labour : which lest we should think faulty , God himself conceals us not his own recreations before the world was built ; I was , saith the eternall wisdome , dayly his delight , playing alwayes before him . And to him indeed wisdom is as a high towr of pleasure , but to us a steep hill , and we toyling ever about the bottom : he executes with ease the exploits of his omnipotence , as easie as with us it is to will : but no worthy enterprise can be don by us without continuall plodding and wearisomnes to our faint and sensitive abilities . We cannot therefore alwayes be contemplative , or pragmaticall abroad , but have need of som delightfull intermissions , wherin the enlarg'd soul may leav off a while her severe schooling ; and like a glad youth in wandring vacancy , may keep her hollidaies to joy and harmles pastime : which as she cannot well doe without company , so in no company so well as where the different sexe in most resembling unlikenes , and most unlike resemblance cannot but please best and be pleas'd in the aptitude of that variety . Wherof lest we should be too timorous , in the aw that our flat sages would form us and dresse us , wisest Salomon among his gravest Proverbs countenances a kinde of ravishment and erring fondnes in the entertainment of wedded leisures ; and in the Song of Songs , which is generally beleev'd , even in the jolliest expressions to figure the spousals of the Church with Christ , sings of a thousand raptures between those two lovely ones farre on the hither side of carnall enjoyment . By these instances , and more which might be brought , we may imagine how indulgently God provided against mans lonelines ; that he approv'd it not , as by himself declar'd not good ; that he approv'd the remedy therof , as of his own ordaining , consequently good ; and as he ordain'd it , so doubtles proportionably to our fal n estate he gives it ; els were his ordinance at least in vain , and we for all his gift still empty handed . Nay such an unbounteous giver we should make him , as in the fables Jupiter was to Ixion , giving him a cloud instead of Juno , giving him a monstrous issue by her , the breed of Centaures a neglected and unlov'd race , the fruits of a delufive mariage , and lastly giving him her with a damnation to that wheele in hell , from a life thrown into the midst of temptations and disorders . But God is no deceitfull giver , to bestow that on us for a remedy of lonelines , which if it bring not a sociable minde as well as a conjunctive body , leavs us no lesse alone then before ; and if it bring a minde perpetually avers and disagreeable , betraies us to a wors condition then the most deserted lonelines . God cannot in the justice of his own promise and institution so unexpectedly mock us by forcing that upon us as the remedy of solitude , which wraps us in a misery worse then any wildernes , as the Spirit of God himself judges , Prov. 19. especially knowing that the best and wisest men amidst the sincere and most cordiall designes of their heart doe dayly erre in choosing . We may conclude therfore seeing orthodoxall Expositers confesse to our hands , that by lonelines is not only meant the want of copulation , and that man is not lesse alone by turning in a body to him , unlesse there be within it a minde answerable , that it is a work more worthy the care and consultation of God to provide for the worthiest part of man which is his minde , and not unnaturally to set it beneath the formalities and respects of the body , to make it a servant of its owne vassal , I say we may conclude that such a mariage , wherin the minde is so disgrac't and vilify'd below the bodies interest , and can have no just or tolerable contentment , is not of Gods institution , and therfore no mariage . Nay in concluding this , I say we conclude no more then what the common Expositers themselves give us , both in that which I have recited and much more hereafter . But the truth is , they give us in such a manner , as they who leav their own mature positions like the eggs of an Ostrich in the dust ; I do but lay them in the sun ; their own pregnancies hatch the truth ; and I am taxt of novelties and strange producements , while they , like that inconsiderat bird , know not that these are their own naturall breed . [ I will make him a help meet for him . ] Heer the heavnly instituter , as if he labour'd , not to be mistak'n by the supercilious hypocrisie of those that love to maister their brethren , and to make us sure that he gave us not now a servil yoke , but an amiable knot ; contents not himself to say , I will make him a wife , but resolving to give us first the meaning before the name of a wife , saith graciously , I will make him a help meet for him . And heer again , as before , I doe not require more full and fair deductions then the whole consent of our Divines usually raise from this text , that in matrimony there must be first a mutuall help to piety , next to civill fellowship of love and amity , then to generation , so to houshold affairs , lastly the remedy of incontinence . And commonly they reck'n them in such order , as leavs generation and incontinence to be last consider'd . This I amaze me at , that though all the superior and nobler ends both of mariage and of the maried persons he absolutely frustrat , the matrimony stirs not , looses no hold , remains as rooted as the center : but if the body bring but in a complaint of frigidity , by that cold application only , this adamantine Alpe of wedlock has leav to dissolve ; which els all the machinations of religious or civill reason at the suit of a distressed mind , either for divine worship or humane conversation violated , cannot unfasten . What courts of concupiscence are these , wherin fleshly appetite is heard before right reason , lust before love or devotion ? They may be pious Christians together , they may be loving and friendly , they may be helpfull to each other in the family , but they cannot couple ; that shall divorce them though either party would not . They can neither serv God together , nor one be at peace with the other , nor be good in the family one to other , but live as they were dead , or live as they were deadly enemies in a cage together ; t is all one , they can couple , they shall not divorce till death , no though this sentence be their death . What is this , besides tyranny , but to turn nature upside down , to make both religion , and the minde of man wait upon the slavish errands of the body , and not the body to follow either the sanctity , or the sovranty of the mind unspeakably wrong'd , and with all equity complaining ? What is this but to abuse the sacred and misterious bed of mariage to be the compulsive stie of an ingratefull and malignant lust , stirr'd up only from a carnall acrimony , withour either love or peace , or regard to any other thing holy or human . This I admire how possibly it should inhabit thus long in the sense of so many disputing Theologians , unlesse it be the lowest lees of a canonicall infection liver-grown to their sides ; which perhaps will never uncling , without the strong abstersive of som heroick magistrat , whole mind equall to his high office dares lead him both to know and to do without their frivolous case-putting . For certain he shall have God and this institution plainly on his side . And if it be true both in divinity and law , that consent alone , though copulation never follow , makes a mariage , how can they dissolv it for the want of that which made it not , and not dissolv it for that not continuing which made it , and should preserve it in love and reason , and difference it from a brute conjugality . [ Meet for him . ] The originall heer is more expressive then other languages word for word can render it ; but all agree effectuall conformity of disposition and affection to be heerby signify'd ; which God as it were not satisfy'd with the naming of a help , goes on describing another self , a secondself , a very self it self . Yet now there is nothing in the life of man through our misconstruction , made more uncertain , more hazardous and full of chance then this divine blessing with such favorable significance heer conferr'd upon us , which if we do but erre in our choice the most unblamable error that can be , erre but one minute , one moment after those mighty syllables pronounc't which take upon them to joyn heavn and hell together unpardnably till death pardon , this divine blessing that lookt but now with such a human smile upon us , and spoke such gentle reason , strait vanishes like a fair skie and brings on such a scene of cloud and tempest , as turns all to shipwrack without havn or shoar but to a ransomles captivity . And then they tell us it is our sin ; but let them be told again , that sin through the mercy of God hath not made such wast upon us , as to make utterly void to our use any temporall benefit , much lesse any so much a vailing to a peacefull and sanctify'd life , meerly for a most incident error which no warines can certainly shun . And wherfore servs our happy redemption , and the liberty we have in Christ , but to deliver us from calamirous yokes not to beliv'd under without the endangerment of our souls , and to restore us in som competent measure to a right in every good thing both of this life , and the other . Thus we see how treatably and distinctly God hath heer taught us what the prime ends of mariage are , mutuall solace and help . That we are now , upon the most irreprehensible mistake in choosing , defeated and defrauded of all this originall benignity , was begun first through the snare of Antichristian canons long since obtruded upon the Church of Rome , and not yet scour●d off by reformation , out of a lingting vain-glory that abides among us to make fair shews in formall ordinances , and to enjoyn continence & bearing of crosses in such a garb as no Scripture binds us , under the thickest arrows of temptation , where we need not stand . Now we shall see with what acknowledgement and assent Adam receiv'd this new associat , which God brought him . V. 23. And Adam said this is now bone of my bones , and flesh of my flesh , she shall be called Woman , because she was tak'n out of Man. That there was a neerer alliance between Adam and Eve , then could be ever after between man and wife , is visible to any . For no other woman was ever moulded out of her husbands rib , but of meer strangers for the most part they com to have that consanguinity which they have by wedlock . And if we look neerly upon the matter , though mariage be most agreeable to holines , to purity and justice , yet is it not a naturall , but a civill and ordain'd relation . For if it were in nature , no law or crime could disanull it , to make a wife , or husband , otherwise then still a wife or husband , but only death ; as nothing but that can make a father no father , or a son no son . But divorce for adultery or desertion , as all our Churches agree but England , not only separats , but nullifies , and extinguishes the relation it self of matrimony , so that they are no more man and wife ; otherwise the innocent party could not marry else-where , without the guilt of adultery ; next were it meerly naturall why was it heer ordain'd more then the rest of morall law to man in his originall rectitude , in whose brest all that was naturall or morall was engrav'n without externall constitutions and edicts . Adam therfore in these words does not establish an indissoluble bond of mariage in the carnall ligaments of flesh and bones , for if he did , it would belong only to himself in the literall sense ; every one of us being neerer in flesh of flesh , and bone of bones to our parents then to a wife ; they therfore were not to be left for her in that respect . But Adam who had the wisdom giv'n him to know all creatures , and to name them according to their properties , no doubt but had the gift to discern perfectly , that which concern'd him much more ; and to apprehend at first sight the true fitnes of that consort which God provided him . And therfore spake in reference to those words which God pronounc't before ; as if he had said , this is she by whose meet help and society I shall no more be alone ; this is she who was made my image , ev'n as I the Image of God ; not so much in body , as in unity of mind and heart . And he might as easily know what were the words of God , as he knew so readily what had bin don with his rib , while he slept so soundly . He might well know , if God took a rib out of his inside , to form of it a double good to him , he would far sooner dis-joyn it from his outside , to prevent a treble mischief to him : and far sooner cut it quite off from all relation for his undoubted ease , then nail it into his body again , to stick for ever there a thorn in his heart . When as nature teaches us to divide any limb from the body to the saving of his fellows , though it be the maiming and deformity of the whole ; how much more is it her doctrin to sever by incision , not a true limb so much , though that be lawfull , but an adherent , a sore , the gangrene of a limb , to the recovery of a whole man. But if in these words we shall make Adam to erect a new establishment of mariage in the meer flesh , which God so lately had instituted , and founded in the sweet and mild familiarity of love and solace and mutuall fitnes , what do we but use the mouth of our generall parent , the first time it opens , to an arrogant opposition , and correcting of Gods wiser ordinance . These words therfore cannot import any thing new in mariage , but either that which belongs to Adam only , or to us in reference only to the instituting words of God which made a meet help against lonelines . Adam spake like Adam the words of flesh and bones , the shell and rinde of matrimony : but God spake like God , of love and solace and meet help , the soul both of Adams words and of matrimony . V. 24. Therefore shall a man leav his father and his mother , and shall cleav unto his wife ; and they shall be one flesh . This vers , as our common heed expounds it , is the great knot tier , which hath undon by tying , and by tangling , millions of guiltles consciences : this is that greisly Porter , who having drawn men and wisest men by suttle allurement within the train of an unhappy matrimony , claps the dungeon gate upon them , as irrecoverable as the grave . But if we view him well , and hear him with not too hasty and prejudicant ears , we shall finde no such terror in him . For first , it is not heer said absolutely without all reason he shall cleave to his wife , be it to his weal or to his destruction as it happens , but he shall doe this upon the premises and considerations of that meet help and society before mention'd , Therefore he shall cleave to his wife , no otherwise a wife , then a fit help . He is not bid to leave the dear cohabitation of his father , mother , brothers and sisters , to link himself inseparably with the meer carcas of a Mariage , perhaps an enemy . This joyning particle Therefore is in all equity , nay in all necessity of construction to comprehend first and most principally what God spake concerning the inward essence of Mariage in his institution : that we may learn how far to attend what Adam spake of the outward materials therof in his approbation . For if we shall bind these words of Adam only to a corporall meaning , and that the force of this injunction upon all us his sons to live individually with any woman which hath befaln us in the most mistak'n wedlock , shall consist not in those morall and relative causes of Eves creation , but in the meer anatomy of a rib , and that Adams insight concerning wedlock reacht no furder , we shall make him as very an idiot as the Socinians make him ; which would not be reverently don of us . Let us be content to allow our great forefather so much wisdom , as to take the instituting words of God along with him into this sentence , which if they be well minded , wil assure us that flesh and ribs are but of a weak and dead efficacy to keep Mariage united where there is no other fitnes . The rib of Mariage , to all since Adam , is a relation much rather then a bone ; the nerves and sinews therof are love and meet help , they knit not every couple that maries , and where they knit they seldom break , but where they break , which for the most part is where they never truly joyn'd , to such at the same instant both flesh and rib cease to be in common ; so that heer they argue nothing to the continuance of a false or violated Mariage , but must be led back to receive their meaning from those institutive words of God which give them all the life and vigor they have . [ Therefore shall a man leav his father , &c. ] What to a mans thinking more plain by this appointment , that the fatherly power should give place to conjugall prerogative ? yet it is generally held by reformed writers against the Papist , that though in persons at discretion the Mariage in it self be never so fit , though it be fully accomplisht with benediction , board and bed , yet the father not consenting , his main will without dispute shall dissolv all . And this they affirm only from collective reason , not any direct law : for that in Exod. 22. 17. which is most particular , speaks that a father may refuse to marry his daughter to one who hath deflour'd her , not that he may take her away from one who hath soberly married her . Yet because the generall honor due to parents is great , they hold he may , and perhaps hold not amisse . But again when the question is of barsh and rugged parents who deferr to bestow their childern seasonably , they agree joyntly that the Church or Magistrat may bestow them , though without the Fathers consent : and for this they have no express autority in Scripture . So that they may see by thir own handling of this very place , that it is not the stubborn letter must govern us , but the divine and softning breath of charity which turns and windes the dictat of every positive command , and shapes it to the good of mankind . Shall the outward accessory of a Fathers will wanting , rend the fittest and most affectionat mariage in twain , after all nuptial consummations , and shall not the want of love and the privation of all civil and religious concord , which is the inward essence of wedlock , doe as much to part those who were never truly wedded ? shall a Father have this power to vindicate his own wilfull honour and autority to the utter breach of a most dearly-united mariage , and shall not a man in his own power have the permission to free his Soul , his life , and all his comfort of life from the disastre of a no-mariage . Shall fatherhood , which is but man , for his own pleasure dissolve matrimony , and shall not matrimony , which is Gods Ordinance , for its own honour and better conservation , dissolv it self , when it is wrong , and not fitted to any of the cheif ends which it owes us ? [ And they shall bee one flesh . ] These words also inferre that there ought to be an individualty in Mariage ; but without all question presuppose the joyning causes . Not a rule yet that we have met with , so universall in this whole institution , but hath admitted limitations and conditions according to human necessity . The very foundation of Matrimony , though God laid it so deliberatly , that it is not good for man to bee alone holds not always , if the Apostle can secure us . Soon after wee are bid leav Father and Mother , and cleav to a Wife , but must understand the Fathers consent withall , els not . Cleav to a Wife , but let her bee a wife , let her be a meet help , a solace , not a nothing , not an adversary , not a defertrice ; can any law or command be so unreasonable as to make men cleav to calamity , to ruin , to perdition ? In like manner heer , They shall be one flesh : but let the causes hold , and be made really good , which only have the possibility to make them one flesh . Wee know that flesh can neither joyn , nor keep together two bodies of it self ; what is it then must make them one flesh , but likenes , but fitnes of mind and disposition , which may breed the Spirit of concord , and union between them ? If that be not in the nature of either , and that there has bin a remediles mistake , as vain wee goe about to compell them into one flesh , as if wee undertook to weav a garment of drie sand . It were more easy to compell the vegetable and nutritive power of nature to assimilations and mixtures which are not alterable each by other ; or force the concoctive stomach to turn that into flesh which is so totally unlike that substance , as not to be wrought on . For as the unity of minde is neerer and greater then the union of bodies , so doubtles , is the dissimilitude greater , and more dividuall , as that which makes between bodies all difference and distinction . Especially when as besides the singular and substantial differences of every Soul , there is an intimat quality of good or evil , through the whol progeny of Adam , which like a radical heat , or mortal chilnes joyns them , or disjoyns them irresistibly . In whom therefore either the will , or the faculty is found to have never joyn'd , or now not to continue so , 't is not to say , they shall be one flesh , for they cannot be one flesh . God commands not impossibilities ; and all the Ecclesiastical glue , that Liturgy , or Laymen can compound , is not able to soder up two such incongruous natures into the one flesh of a true beseeming Mariage . Why did Moses then set down thir uniting into one flesh ? And I again ask , why the Gospel so oft repeats the eating of our Saviours flesh , the drinking of his blood ? That wee are one body with him , the members of his body , flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone . Ephes . 5. Yet lest wee should be Capernaitans , as wee are told there that the flesh profiteth nothing , so wee are told heer , if we be not as deaf as adders , that this union of the flesh proceeds from the union of a fit help and solace . Wee know that there was never a more spiritual mystery then this Gospel taught us under the terms of body and flesh ; yet nothing less intended then that wee should stick there . What a stupidnes then is it , that in Mariage , which is the neerest resemblance of our union with Christ , wee should deject our selvs to such a sluggish and underfoot Philosophy , as to esteem the validity of Mariage meerly by the flesh ; though never so brokn and disjoynted from love and peace , which only can give a human qualification to that act of the flesh , and distinguish it from bestial . The Text therefore uses this phrase , that they shall bee one flesh , to justify and make legitimat the rites of Mariage bed ; which was not unneedfull , if for all this warrant , they were suspected of pollution by some sects of Philosophy , and Religions of old , and latelier among the Papists , and other heretics elder then they . Som think there is a high mystery in those words , from that which Paul saith of them , Ephes . 5. This is a great mystery , but I speak of Christ and the Church : and thence they would conclude mariage to be inseparable . For me I dispute not now whether matrimony bee a mystery or no ; if it bee of Christ and his Church , certainly it is not meant of every ungodly and miswedded mariage , but then only mysterious , when it is a holy , happy , and peacefull match . But when a Saint is joyn'd with a reprobate , or both alike , wicked with wicked , fool with fool , a hee drunkard with a she , when the bed hath bin nothing els for twenty yeares or more , but an old haunt of lust and malice mixt together , no love , no goodnes , no loyalty , but counterplotting , and secret wishing one anothers dissolution , this is to me the greatest mystery in the world , if such a mariage as this , can be the mystery of ought , unless it bee the mystery of iniquity : According to that which Paraeus cites out of Chrysostom , that a bad wife is a help for the devill , and the like may be said of a bad husband . Since therfore none but a fit and pious matrimony can signify the union of Christ and his Church , ther cannot hence be any hindrance of divorce to that wedlock wherin ther can be no good mystery . Rather it might to a Christian Conscience bee matter of finding it self so much less satisfy'd then before , in the continuance of an unhappy yoke , wherein there can be no representation either of Christ , or of his Church . Thus having enquir'd the institution how it was in the beginning , both from the 1 Chap. of Gen , where it was only mention'd in part , and from the second , where it was plainly and evidently instituted , and having attended each clause and word necessary , with a diligence not drousy , wee shall now fix with som advantage ; and by a short view backward gather up the ground wee have gon ; and summ up the strength wee have , into one argumentative head , with that organic force that logic proffers us . All arts acknowledge that then only we know certainly , when we can define ; for definition is that which refines the pure essence of things from the circumstance . If therfore we can attain in this our Controversy to define exactly what mariage is , wee shall soon lern , when there is a nullity thereof , and when a divorce . The part therfore of this Chapter which hath bin heer treated , doth orderly and readily resolv it self into a definition of mariage , and a consectary from thence . To the definition these words cheifly contribute . It is not good , &c. I will make , &c. Where the consectary begins this connexion Therfore informs us , Therfore shall a man , &c. Definition is decreed by Logicians to consist only of causes constituting the essence of a thing , What is not therfore among the causes constituting mariage , must not stay in the definition . Those causes are concluded to be matter , and , as the Artist calls it , Form. But inasmuch as the same thing may be a cause more waies then one , and that in relations and institutions which have no corporal subsistence , but only a respective beeing , the Form by which the thing is what it is , is oft so slender and undistinguishable , that it would soon confuse , were it not sustain'd by the efficient and final causes , which concurre to make up the form invalid otherwise of it self , it will bee needfull to take in all the fowr causes into the definition . First therfore the material cause of matrimony is man and woman ; the Author and efficient , God and their consent , the internal Form and soul of this relation , is conjugal love arising from a mutual fitnes to the final causes of wedlock , help and society in Religious , Civil and Domestic conversation , which includes as an inferior end the fulfilling of natural desire , and specifical increase ; these are the final causes both moving the efficient , and perfeting the form . And although copulation be consider'd among the ends of mariage , yet the act therof in a right esteem can no longer be matrimonial , then it is an effect of conjugal love . When love findes it self utterly unmatcht , and justly vanishes , nay rather cannot but vanish , the fleshly act indeed may continue , but not holy , not pure , not beseeming the sacred bond of mariage ; beeing at best but an animal excretion , but more truly wors and more ignoble then that mute kindlyness among the heards and flocks : in that proceeding as it ought from intellective principles , it participates of nothing rational , but that which the feild and the fould equalls . For in human actions the soule is the agent , the body in a manner passive . If then the body doe out of sensitive force , what the soul complies not with , how can man , and not rather somthing beneath man be thought the doer . But to proceed in the persute of an accurat definition , it will a vail us somthing , and whet our thoughts , to examin what fabric heerof others have already reard . Paraeus on Gen. defines Mariage to be an indissoluble conjunction of one man and one woman to an individual and intimat conversation , and mutual benevolence , &c. Wherin is to be markt his placing of intimat conversation before bodily benevolence ; for bodily is meant , though indeed benevolence rather sounds will then body . Why then shall divorce be granted for want of bodily performance , and not for want of fitnes to intimat conversation , when as corporal benevolence cannot in any human fashion bee without this ? Thus his definition places the ends of Mariage in one order , and esteems them in another . His Tautology also of indissoluble and individual is not to be imitated ; especially since neither indissoluble , nor individual hath ought to doe in the exact definition , beeing but a consectary flowing from thence , as appears by plain Scripture , Therfore shall a man leav , &c. For Mariage is not true mariage by beeing individual , but therfore individual , if it be true Mariage . No argument but causes enter the definition ; a Consectary is but the effect of those causes . Besides , that Mariage is indissoluble , is not Catholickly true ; wee know it dissoluble for Adultery , and for desertion by the verdit of all Reformed Churches . Dr. Ames defines it an individual conjunction of one man and one woman , to communion of body and mutual society of life ; But this perverts the order of God , who in the institution places meet help and society of life before communion of body . And vulgar estimation undervalues beyond comparison all society of life and communion of minde beneath the communion of body ; granting no divorce , but to the want , or miscommunicating of that . Hemingius , an approved Author , Melanchtons Scholler , and who next to Bucer and Erasmus writes of divorce most like a Divine , thus comprises , Mariage is a conjunction of one man and one woman lawfully consenting , into one flesh , for mutual helps sake , ordain'd of God. And in his explanation stands punctually upon the conditions of consent , that it be not in any main matter deluded , as beeing the life of wedloc , and no true marriage without a true consent . Into one flesh he expounds into one minde , as well as one body , and makes it the formal cause : Heerin only missing , while he puts the effect into his definition instead of the cause which the Text affords him . For one flesh is not the formal essence of wedloc , but one end , or one effect of a meet help ; The end oft times beeing the effect and fruit of the form , as Logic teaches : Els many aged and holy matrimonies , and more eminently that of Joseph and Mary , would bee no true mariage . And that maxim generally receiv'd , would be fals , that consent alone , though copulation never follow , makes the mariage . Therefore to consent lawfully into one flesh , is not the formal cause of Matrimony , but only one of the effects . The Civil Lawyers , and first Justinian or Tribonian defines Matrimony a conjunction of man and woman containing individual accustom of life . Wherin first , individual is not so bad as indissoluble put in by others : And although much cavil might be made in the distinguishing between indivisible , and individual , yet the one tak'n for possible , the other for actuall , neither the one nor the other can belong to the essence of mariage ; especially when a Civilian defines , by which Law mariage is actually divorc't for many causes , and with good leav , by mutual consent . Therfore where conjunction is said , they who comment the Institutes , agree that conjunction of minde is by the Law meant , not necessarily conjunction of body . That Law then had good reason attending to its own definition , that divorce should be granted for the breaking of that conjunction which it holds necessary , sooner then for the want of that conjunction which it holds not necessary . And wheras Tuningus a famous Lawyer excuses individual as the purpos of Mariage , not always the success , it suffices not . Purpos is not able to constitute the essence of a thing . Nature her self the universal Mother intends nothing but her own perfection and preservation ; yet is not the more indissoluble for that . The Pandects out of Modestinus , though not define , yet well describe Mariage , the conjunction of male and female , the society of all life , the communion of divine and human right : which Bucer also imitates on the fifth to the Ephesians . But it seems rather to comprehend the several ends of Mariage , then to contain the more constituting cause that makes it what it is . That I therefore among others ( for who sings not Hylas ) may give as well as take matter to be judg'd on , it will be lookt I should produce another definition then these which have not stood the tryal . Thus then I suppose that Mariage by the natural and plain order of Gods institution in the Text may be more demonstratively and essentially defin'd . Mariage is a divine institution joyning man and woman in a love fitly dispos'd to the helps and comforts of domestic life . A divine institution . This contains the prime efficient cause of Mariage ; as for consent of Parents and Guardians , it seems rather a concurrence then a cause ; for as many , that marry are in thir own power as not ; and where they are not thir own , yet are they not subjected beyond reason . Now though efficient causes are not requisite in a definition , yet divine institution hath such influence upon the Form , and is so a conserving cause of it , that without it the Form is not sufficient to distinguish matrimony from other conjunctions of male and female , which are not to be counted mariage . Joyning man and woman in a love , &c. This brings in the parties consent ; until which be , the mariage hath no true beeing . When I say consent , I mean not error , for error is not properly consent : And why should not consent be heer understood with equity and good to either part , as in all other freindly covnants , and not be strain'd and cruelly urg'd to the mischeif and destruction of both ? Neither doe I mean that singular act of consent which made the contract , for that may remain , and yet the mariage not true nor lawful ; and that may cease , and yet the mariage both true and lawful , to their sin that break it . So that either as no efficient at all , or but a transitory , it comes not into the definition . That consent I mean which is a love fitly dispos'd to mutual help and comfort of life ; this is that happy Form of mariage naturally arising from the very heart of divine institution in the Text , in all the former definitions either obscurely , and under mistak'n terms exprest , or not at all . This gives mariage all her due , all her benefits , all her beeing , all her distinct and proper beeing . This makes a mariage not a bondage , a blessing not a curse , a gift of God not a snare . Unless ther be a love , and that love born of fitnes , how can it last ? unless it last how can the best and sweetest purposes of mariage be attain'd , and they not attain'd , which are the cheif ends , and with a lawful love constitute the formal cause it self of mariage , how can the essence thereof subsist , how can it bee indeed what it goes for ? Conclude therfore by all the power of reason , that where this essence of mariage is not , there can bee no true mariage ; and the parties either one of them , or both are free , and without fault rather by a nullity , then by a divorce may betake them to a second choys ; if thir present condition be not tolerable to them . If any shall ask , why domestic in the definition ? I answer , that because both in the Scriptures , and in the gravest Poets and Philosophers I finde the properties and excellencies of a wife set out only from domestic vertues ; if they extend furder , it diffuses them into the notion of som more common duty then matrimonial . Thus farre of the definition ; the Consectary which flows from thence , and altogether depends theron , is manifestly brought in by this connexive particle Therfore ; and branches it self into a double consequence ; First individual Society , therfore shall a man leav father and mother : Secondly conjugal benevolence , and they shall bee one flesh . Which as was shewn , is not without cause heer mention'd , to prevent and to abolish the suspect of pollution in that natural and undefiled act . These consequences therfore cannot either in Religion , Law , or Reason bee bound , and posted upon mankind to his sorrow and misery , but receiv what force they have from the meetnes of help and solace , which is the formal cause and end of that definition that sustains them . And although it be not for the Majesty of Scripture to humble her self in artificial theorems , and definitions , and Corollaries , like a professor in the Schools , but looks to be analys'd , and interpreted by the logical industry of her Disciples and followers , and to bee reduc't by them , as oft as need is , into those Sciential rules , which are the implements of instruction , yet Moses , as if foreseeing the miserable work that mans ignorance and pusillanimity would make in this matrimonious busines , and endevouring his utmost to prevent it , condescends in this place to such a methodical and School-like way of defining , and consequencing , as in no place of the whole Law more . Thus wee have seen , and if wee be not contentious , may know what was Mariage in the beginning , to which in the Gospel wee are referr'd ; and what from hence to judge of nullity , or divorce , Heer I esteem the work don ; in this field the controversie decided ; but because other places of Scripture seem to look aversly upon this our decision , although indeed they keep all harmony with it , and because it is a better work to reconcile the seeming diversities of Scripture , then the reall dissentions of neerest friends , I shall assay in three following Discourses to perform that Office. Deut. 24. 1 , 2. 1. When a man hath taken a Wife , and married her , and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes , because he hath found som uncleannes in her , then let him write her a bill of divercement , and give it in her hand , and send her out of his house . 2 And when she is departed out of his house , she may goe and be another mans wife . THat which is the only discommodity of speaking in a cleer matter , the abundance of argument that presses to bee utter'd , 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 judgements eevn as the Lord my God commanded mee , keep therfore and doe them . For this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of Nations that shall hear all these Statutes and say , surely this great Nation is a wise and understanding people . For what Nation is ther so great , who hath God so nigh to them ? and what Nation that hath Statutes and Judgements so righteons as all this Law which I set before you this day ? Thus whether wee look at the purity and justice of God himself , the jealousy of his honour among other Nations , the holines and moral perfection which hee intended by his Law to teach this people , wee cannot possibly think how he could indure to let them slugg & grow inveteratly wicked , under base allowances , & whole adulterous lives by dispensation . They might not eat , they might not touch an unclean thing ; to what hypocrisy then were they train'd up , if by prescription of the same Law , they might be unjust , they might be adulterous for term of life ? forbid to soile thir garments with a coy imaginary pollution , but not forbid , but countnanc't and animated by Law to soile thir soules with deepest defilements . What more unlike to God , what more like that God should hate , then that his Law should bee so curious to wash vestures ; and so careles to leav unwasht , unregarded , so foul a scab of Egypt in thir Soules ? what would wee more ? the Statutes of the Lord are all pure and just : and if all , then this of Divorce . Because hee hath found som uncleannes in her . That wee may not esteem this law to bee a meer authorizing of licence , as the Pharises took it , Moses adds the reason , for som uncleannes found . Som heertofore have bin so ignorant , as to have thought , that this uncleannes means adultery . But Erasmus , who for having writ an excellent Treatise of Divorce , was wrote against by som burly standard Divine , perhaps of Cullen , or of Lovain , who calls himself Phimostomus , shews learnedly out of the Fathers with other Testimonies and Reasons , that uncleannes is not heer so understood ; defends his former work , though new to that age , and perhaps counted licentious , and fears not to ingage all his fame on the Argument . Afterward , when Expositers began to understand the Hebrew Text , which they had not done of many ages before , they translated word for word not uncleannes , but the nakednes of any thing ; and considering that nakednes is usually referr'd in Scripture to the minde as well as to the body , they constantly expound it any defect , annoyance , or ill quality in nature , which to bee joyn'd with , makes life tedious , and such company wors then solitude . So that heer will be no cause to vary from the generall consent of exposition , which gives us freely that God permitted divorce , for whatever was unalterably distastful , whether in body or mind . But with this admonishment , that if the Roman law especially in contracts and dowries left many things to equity with these cautions , exfide bonâ , quod aequius melius erit , ut inter bonos bene agier , wee will not grudge to think that God intended not licence heer to every humor , but to such remediles greevances as might move a good , and honest , and faithfull man then to divorce , when it can no more bee peace or comfort to either of them continuing thus joyn'd . And although it could not be avoided , bat that men of hard hearts would abuse this liberty , yet doubtles it was intended as all other privileges in Law are , to good men principally , to bad only by accident . So that the sin was not in the permission , nor simply in the action of divorce ( for then the permitting also had bin sin ) but only in the abuse . But that this Law should , as it were , bee wrung from God and Moses , only to serve the hard heartednes , and the lust of injurious men , how remote it is from all sense , and law , and honesty , and therfore surely from the meaning of Christ , shall abundantly be manifest in due order . Now although Moses needed not to adde other reason of this law then that one there exprest , yet to these ages wherin Canons , and Scotisms , and Lumbard Laws , have dull'd , and almost obliterated the lively Sculpture of ancient reason , and humanity , it will be requisit to heap reason upon reason , and all little enough to vindicat the whitenes and the innocence of this divine Law , from the calumny it findes at this day , of beeing a dore to licence and confusion . When as indeed there is not a judicial point in all Moses , consisting of more true equity , high wisdom , and God-like pitty then this Law ; not derogating , but preserving the honour and peace of Mariage , and exactly agreeing with the sense and mind of that institution in Genesis . For first , if Mariage be but an ordain'd relation , as it seems not more , it cannot take place above the prime dictats of nature ; and if it bee of natural right , yet it must yeeld to that which is more natural , and before it by eldership and precedence in nature . Now it is not natural that Hugh marries Beatrice , or Thomas Rebecca , beeing only a civill contract , and full of many chances , but that these men seek them meet helps , that only is natural ; and that they espouse them such , that only is mariage . But if they find them neither fit helps , nor tolerable society , what thing more natural , more original and first in nature then to depart from that which is irksom , greevous , actively hateful , and injurious eevn to hostility , especially in a conjugal respect , wherin antipathies are invincible , and wher the forc't abiding of the one , can bee no true good , no real comfort to the other . For if hee find no contentment from the other , how can he return it from himself , or no acceptance , how can hee mutually accept ? what more equal , more pious then to untie a civil knot for a natural enmity held by violence from parting , to dissolv an accidental conjunction of this or that man & woman , for the most natural and most necessary disagreement of meet from unmeet , guilty from guiltles , contrary from contrary ? It beeing certain that the mystical and blessed unity of mariage can bee no way more unhallow'd and profan'd , then by the forcible uniting of such disunions and separations . Which if wee see oft times they cannot joyn or peece up to a common friendship , or to a willing conversation in the same house , how should they possibly agree to the most familiar and united amity of wedlock ? Abraham and Lot , though dear friends and brethren in a strange Country , chose rather to part asunder , then to infect thir friendship with the strife of thir servants : Paul and Barnabas joyn'd together by the Holy Ghost to a Spiritual work , thought it better to separate when once they grew at variance . If these great Saints joynd by nature , friendship , religion , high providence , and revelation , could not so govern a casual difference , a sudden passion , but must in wisdom divide from the outward duties of a 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 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 , with the endurance of a whole life lost to all houshold comfort and society , a punishment of too vast and huge dimension for an error , and the more unreasonable for that the like objection may be oppos'd against the plea of divorcing for adultery ; hee might have lookt better before to her breeding under religious Parents : why did hee not then more diligently inquire into her manners , into what company she kept ? every glaunce of her eye , every step of her gate would have propheci'd adultery , if the quick sent of these discerners had bin took along ; they had the divination to have foretold you all this ; as they have now the divinity to punish an error inhumanly . As good reason to be content , and forc't to be content with your adultress , if these objecters might be the judges of human frailtie . But God more mild and good to man , then man to his brother , in all this liberty givn to divorcement , mentions not a word of our past errors and mistakes , if any were , which these men objecting from their own inventions prosecute with all violence and iniquity . For if the one bee to look so narrowly what hee takes , at the peril of ever keeping , why should not the other bee made as wary what is promis'd , by the peril of loosing ? for without those promises the treaty of mariage had not proceeded . Why should his own error bind him , rather then the others fraud acquit him ? Let the buyer beware , saith the old Law-beaten termer . Belike then ther is no more honesty , nor ingenuity in the bargain of a wedloc , then in the buying of a colt : Wee must it seems drive it on as craftily with those whose affinity wee seek , as if they were a pack of sale men and complotters . But the deceiver deceivs himself in the unprosperous mariage , and therin is sufficiently punisht . I answer , that the most of those who deceiv , are such as either understand not , or value not the true purposes of mariage ; they have the prey they seek , not the punishment : yet say it prove to them som cross , it is not equal that error and fraud should bee linkt in the same degree of forfeture , but rather that error should be acquitted , and fraud bereav'd his morsel : if the mistake were not on both sides , for then on both sides the acquitment will be reasonable , if the bondage be intolerable ; which this Law graciously determins , not unmindful of the wife , as was granted willingly to the common Expositers , though beyond the letter of this law , yet not beyond the spirit of charity . Tenthly , Mariage is a solemn thing , som say a holy , the resemblance of Christ and his Church ; and so indeed it is where the persons are truly religious ; and wee know all Sacred things not perform'd sincerely as they ought , are no way acceptable to God in thir outward formality . And that wherin it differs from personal duties , if they be not truly don , the fault is in our selves ; but mariage to be a true and pious mariage is not in the single power of any person ; the essence whereof , as of all other Covnants is in relation to another , the making and maintaining causes thereof are all mutual , and must be a communion of spiritual and temporal comforts . If then either of them cannot , or obstinatly will not be answerable in these duties , so as that the other can have no peaceful living , or enduring the want of what he justly seeks , and sees no hope , then strait from that dwelling love , which is the soul of wedloc , takes his flight , leaving only som cold performances of civil and common respects , but the true bond of mariage , if there were ever any there , is already burst like a rott'n thred . Then follows dissimulation , suspicion , fals colours , fals pretences , and wors then these , disturbance , annoyance , vexation , sorrow , temtation eevn in the faultles person , weary of himself , and of all action public or domestic ; then comes disorder , neglect , hatred , and perpetual strife , all these the enemies of holines and christianity , and every one of these persisted in , a remediles violation to matrimony . Therfore God who hates all faining and formality , wher there should bee all faith and sincerenes , and abhorrs to see inevitable discord , wher there should be greatest concord , when through anothers default , faith and concord cannot bee , counts it neither just to punish the innocent with the transgressor , nor holy , nor honourable for the sanctity of mariage , that should bee the unlon of peace and love , to be made the commitment , and close fight of enmity and hate . And therfore doth in this Law , what best agrees with his goodnes , loosning a sacred thing to peace and charity , rather then binding it to hatred and contention ; loosning only the outward and formal tie of that which is already inwardly , and really brokn , or els was really never joyn'd . Eleventhly , One of the cheif matrimonial ends is said to seek a holy seed ; but where an unfit mariage administers continual cause of hatred and distemper , there , as was heard before , cannot choose but much unholines abide . Nothing more unhallows a man , more unprepares him to the service of God in any duty , then a habit of wrath and perturbation , arising from the importunity of troublous causes never absent . And wher the houshold stands in this plight , what love can ther bee to the unfortunat issue , what care of thir breeding , which is of main conducement to thir beeing holy . God therfore knowing how unhappy it would bee for children to bee-born in such a family , gives this Law either as a prevention , that beeing an unhappy pair , they should not adde to bee unhappy parents , or els as a remedy that if ther be childern , while they are fewest , they may follow either parent , as shall bee agreed , or judg'd , from the house of hatred and discord , to a place of more holy and peaceable education . Twelfthly , All Law is available to som good end , but the final prohibition of divorce a vails to no good end , causing only the endles aggravation of evil , and therfore this permission of divorce was givn to the Jews by the wisdom and fatherly providence of God ; who knew that Law cannot command love , without which , matrimony hath no true beeing , no good , no solace , nothing of Gods instituting , nothing but so sordid and so low , as to bee disdain'd of any generous person . Law cannot inable natural inability either of body , or mind , which gives the greevance ; it cannot make equal those inequalities , it cannot make fit those unfitnesses : and where there is malice more then defect of nature , it cannot hinder ten thousand injuries , and bitter actions of despight too suttle and too unapparent for Law to deal with . And while it seeks to remedy more outward wrongs , it exposes the injur'd person to other more inward and more cutting . All these evils unavoidably will redound upon the children , if any be , and the whole family . It degenerates and disorders the best spirits , leavs them to unsettl'd imaginations , and degraded hopes , careles of themselvs , their houshold and their freinds , unactive to all public service , dead to the Common-wealth ; wherin they are by one mishapp , and no willing trespas of theirs , outlaw'd from all the benefits and comforts of married life and posterity . It conferrs as little to the honour and inviolable keeping of Matrimony , but sooner stirrs up temptations , and occasions to secret adulteries , and unchast roaving . But it maintaines public honesty . Public folly rather , who shall judge of public honesty ? the Law of God , and of ancientest Christians , and all Civil Nations , or the illegitimat Law of Monks and Canonists , the most malevolent , most unexperienc't , and incompetent judges of Matrimony ? These reasons , and many more that might bee alleg'd , afford us plainly to perceav , both what good cause this Law had to doe for good men in mischances , and what necessity it had to suffer accidentally the hard heartednes of bad men , which it could not certainly discover , or discovering could not subdue , no nor indeavour to restrain without multiplying sorrow to them , for whom all was indeavour'd . The guiltles therfore were not depriv'd thir needful redresses , and the hard hearts of others unchastisable in those judicial Courts , were so remitted there , as bound over to the higher Session of Conscience . Notwithstanding all this , ther is a loud exception against this Law of God , nor can the holy Author save his Law from this exception , that it opens a dore to all licence and confusion . But this is the rudest , I was almost saying the most graceles objection , and with the least reverence to God and Moses , that could bee devis'd : This is to cite God before mans Tribunal , to arrogate a wisdom and holines above him . Did not God then foresee what event of licence or confusion could follow ? did not hee know how to ponder these abuses with more prevailing respects , in the most eevn ballance of his justice and purenes , till these correctors cameup to shew him better ? The Law is , if it stirre up sin any way , to stirre it up by forbidding , as one contrary excites another , Rom. 7. but if it once come to provoke sin , by granting licence to sin , according to Laws that have no other honest end , but only to permit the fulfilling of obstinat lust , how is God not made the contradicter of himself ? No man denies that best things may bee abus'd : but it is a rule resulting from many pregnant experiences , that what doth most harm in the abusing , us'd rightly doth most good . And such a good to take a way from honest men , for beeing abus'd by such as abuse all things , is the greatest abuse of all . That the whole Law is no furder usefull , then as a man uses it lawfully , St. Paul teaches 1 Tim. 1. And that Christian liberty may bee us'd for an occasion to the flesh , the same Apostle confesses , Galat. 5. yet thinks not of removing it for that , but bidds us rather Stand fast in the liberty wherwith Christ hath freed us , and not bee held again in the yoke of bondage . The very permission which Christ gave to divorce for adultery , may bee fouly abus'd , by any whose hardnes of heart can either fain adultery , or dares committ , that hee may divorce . And for this cause the Pope , and hitherto the Church of England , forbid all divorce from the bond of mariage , though for openest adultery . If then it bee righteous to hinder for the fear of abuse , that which Gods Law notwithstanding that caution , hath warranted to bee don , doth not our righteousnes come short of Antichrist , or doe we not rather heerin conform our selvs to his unrighteousnes in this undue and unwise fear . For God regards more to releev by this Law the just complaints of good men , then to curb the licence of wicked men , to the crushing withall , and the overwhelming of his afflicted servants . He loves more that his Law should look with pitty upon the difficulties of his own , then with rigor upon the boundlesse riots of them who serv another Maister , and hinder'd heer by strictnes , will break another way to wors enormities . If this Law therfore have many good reasons for which God gave it , and no intention of giving scope to leudnes , but as abuse by accident comes in with every good Law , and every good thing , it cannot be wisdom in us , while we can content us with Gods wisdom , nor can be purity , if his purity will suffice us , to except against this Law , as if it foster'd licence . But if they affirm this Law had no other end , but to permitt obdurat lust , because it would bee obdurat , making the Law of God intentionally to proclame and enact sin lawful , as if the will of God were becom sinfull , or sin stronger then his direct and Law-giving will , the men would bee admonisht to look well to it , that while they are so eager to shut the dore against licence , they doe not open a wors dore to blasphemy . And yet they shall bee heer furder shewn thir iniquity ; what more foul and common sin among us then drnnkennes , and who can bee ignorant , that if the importation of Wine , and the use of all strong drink were forbid , it would both clean ridde the possibility of committing that odious vice , and men might afterwards live happily and healthfully , without the use of those intoxicating licors . Yet who is ther the severest of them all , that ever propounded to loos his Sack , his Ale , toward the certain abolishing of so great a sin , who is ther of them , the holiest , that less loves his rich Canary at meals , though it bee fetcht from places that hazard the Religion of them who fetch it , and though it make his neighbour drunk out of the same Tunne ? While they forbid not therfore the use of that liquid Marchandise , which forbidd'n would utterly remove a most loathsom sin , and not impair either the health , or the refreshment of mankind , suppli'd many other wayes , why doe they forbid a Law of God , the forbidding wherof brings into an excessive bondage , oft times the best of men , and betters not the wors ? Hee to remove a Nationall vice , will not pardon his cupps , nor think it concerns him to forbear the quaffing of that outlandish Grape , in his unnecessary fullnes , though other men abuse it never so much , nor is hee so abstemious as to intercede with the Magistrate that all matter of drunkennes be banisht the Common-wealth , and yet for the fear of a less inconvenience unpardnably requires of his brethren , in thir extreme necessity to debarre themselves the use of Gods permissive Law , though it might bee thir saving , and no mans indangering the more . Thus this peremptory strictnes we may discern of what sort it is , how unequal , and how unjust . But it will breed confusion . What confusion it would breed , God himself took the care to prevent in the fourth verse of this Chapter , that the divorc't beeing maried to another , might not return to her former Husband . And Justinians law counsels the same in his Title of Nuptials . And what confusion els can ther bee in separation , to separat , upon extrem 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 is the same with this here , to put away . And Erasmus quotes Hilary rendering it by an expression , not so soft . Whence may be doubted , whether the Pharises did not state this question in the strict right of the man , not tarrying for the wives consent . And if our Saviour answer directly according to what was askt in the tearm of putting away , it may be questionable , whether the rigor of his sentence did not forbid only such putting away as is without mutuall consent ▪ in a violent and and harsh manner , or without any reason , but will , as the Tetrarch did . Which might be the cause that those Christian Emperours fear'd not in their constitutions to dissolve mariage by mutuall consent ; In that our Saviour seemes here , as the case is most likely , not to condemne all divorce but all injury and violence in divorce . But no injury can be done to them who seeke it , as the Ethics of Aristotle sufficiently prove . True it is , that an unjust thing may be done to one though willing , and so may justly be forbid'n : But divorce being in it selfe no unjust or evill thing , but only as it is joyn'd with injury , or lust , injury it cannot be at law , if consent be , and Aristotle erre not . And lust it may as frequently not be , while charity hath the judging of so many private greevances in a misfortun'd Wedlock , which may pard'nably seeke a redemption . But whether it be or not , the law cannot discerne , or examine lust , so long as it walkes from one lawfull terme to another , from divorce to marriage both in themselves indifferent . For if the law cannot take hold to punish many actions apparently covetous , ambitious , ingratefull , proud , how can it forbid and punish that for lust , which is but only surmis'd so , and can no more be certainly prov'd in the divorcing now , then before in the marrying . Whence if divorce be no unjust thing , but through lust , a cause not discernable by law , as law is wont to discerne in other cases , and can be no injury where consent is , there can be nothing in the equity of law , why divorce by consent may not be lawfull : leaving secrecies to conscience , the thing which our Saviour here aimes to rectifie , not to revoke the statutes of Moses . In the meane while the wotd To put away , being in the Gteeke , to loosen or disolve , utterly takes away that vaine papisticall distinction of divorce from bed , and divorce from bond , evincing plainly that both Christ and the Pharises meane here that divorce which finally disolves the bond and frees both parties to a second marriage . [ For every cause . ] This the Pharises held , that for every cause they might divorce , for every accidentall cause , any quarrell or difference that might happ'n . So both Josephus and Philo , men who liv'd in the same age , explain ; and the Syriac translater , whose antiquity is thought parallel to the Evangelists themselves , reads it conformably upon any occasion or pretence . Divines also generally agree that thus the Pharises meant . Cameron a late writer much applauded , commenting this place not undiligently , affirmes that the Greeke preposition 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 translated unusually ( For ) hath a force in it implying the suddennesse of those Pharisaic divorces ; and that their question was to this effect , whether for any cause , whatever it chanc'd to be , straight as it rose , the divorse might be lawfull . This he freely gives what ever mou'd him , and I as freely take , nor can deny his observation to be acute & learned . If therfore we insist upon the word of putting away , that it imports a constraint without consent , as might be insisted , and may enjoy what Cameron bestowes on us , that for every cause is to be understood , according as any cause may happen , with a relation to the speedinesse of those divorces and that Herodian act especially , as is already brought us , the sentence of our Saviour wil appeare nothing so strict a prohibition as hath beene long conceiv'd , forbidding only to divorce for casuall & temporary causes , that may be soon ended , or soone remedied ; & likewise forbidding to divorce rashly , & on thesudden heate , except it be for adultery . If these qualifications may be admitted , as partly we offer them , partly are offer'd them by some of their own opinion , and that where nothing is repugnant why they should not bee admitted , nothing can wrest them from us , the severe sentence of our Saviour will straight unbend the seeming frowne into that gentlenesse and compassion which was so abundant in all his actions , his office and his doctrine , from all which otherwise it stands off at no meane distance . Vers . 4. And he answered and said unto them , have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning , made them Male and Female ? Vers . 5. And said , for this cause shall a man leave Father and Mother , and shall cleave to his wife , and they twaine shall be one flesh ? Vers . 6. VVherefore they are no more twaine but one flesh , what therefore God hath joyned together , let no man put asunder . [ 4. and 5 Made them Male and Female , And said for this cause , &c. ] We see it here undeniably , that the law which our Saviour cites to prove that divorce was forbidd'n , is not an absolute and tyrannicall command without reason , as now adaies wee make it little better , but is grounded upon some rationall cause not difficult to be apprehended , being in a matter which equally concernes the meanest and the plainest sort of persons in a houshold life . Our next way then will be to inquire if there bee not more reasons then one , and if there be , whether this be the best and cheifest . That we shall finde by turning to the first institution , to which Christ referrs our owne reading ; He himselfe having to deale with treacherous affailants , useth brevity , and lighting on the first place in Genesis that mentions any thing tending to Marriage in the first chapter , joynes it immediately to the 24. verse of the 2 chapter , omitting all the prime words between , which create the institution , and containe the noblest and purest ends of Matrimony , without which attain'd , that conjunction hath nothing in it above what is common to us with beasts . So likewise beneath in this very chapter , to the young man who came not tempting him , but to learne of him , asking him which commandments hee should keepe , he neither repeates the first table , nor all the second , nor that in order which he repeates . If heere then being tempted , hee desire to bee the shorter , and the darker in his conference , and omitt to cite that from the second of Genesis , which all Divines confesse is a commentary to what he cites out of the first , the making them Male and Female ; what are we to doe , but to search the institution our selves ; and we shall finde there his owne authority giving other manner of reasons why such firme union is to bee in matrimony , without which reasons their being male and female can be no cause of joyning them unseparably : for if it be , then no Adultery can sever . Therefore the prohibition of divorce depends not upon this reason heere exprest to the Pharises , but upon the plainer & more eminent causes omitted heere and referr'd to the institution ; which causes not being found in a particular and casuall Matrimony , this sensitive and materious cause alone can no more hinder a divorce against those higher and more human reasons urging it , then it can alone without them to warrant a copulation , but leaves it arbitrary to those who in their chance of marriage finde not why divorce is farbidd them , but why it is permitted them ; and finde both here and in Genesis , that the forbidding is not absolute , but according to the reasons there taught us , not here . And that our Saviour taught them no better , but uses the most vulgar , most animal and corporal argument to convince them , is first to shew us , that as through their licentious divorces they made no more of mariage then as if to marry , were no more then to be male and female , so hee goes no higher in his confutation ; deeming them unworthy to be talkt with in a higher straine , but to bee ty'd in marriage by the meere material cause thereof , since their owne licence testify'd that nothing matrimonial was in their thought but to be male and female . Next it might be don to discover the brute ignorance of these carnall Doctors , who taking on them to dispute of marriage and divorce , were put to silence with such a slender opposition as this , and outed from their hold with scarce one quarter of an argument . That we may beleeve this , his entertainment of the young man soon after may perswade us . Whom , though he came to preach eternall life by faith only , he dismisses with a salvation taught him by workes only . On which place Paraeus notes . That this man was to be convinc'd by a false perswasion ; and that Christ is wont otherwise to answer hypocrites , otherwise those that are docible . Much rather then may we thinke that in handling these tempters , he forgot not so to frame his prudent ambiguities and concealements , as was to the troubling of those peremtory disputants most wholsome . When therefore we would know what right there may be , in ill accidents , to divorce , wee must repaire thither where God professes to teach his servants by the prime institution , and not where we see him intending to dazle sophisters : Wee must not reade hee made them Male and Female , & not understand he made them more intendedly a meet helpe to remove the evill of being alone . We must take both these together , and then we may inferre compleatly as from the whole cause why a man shall cleave to his wife , and they twaine shall be one flesh : but if the full and cheife cause why we may not divorce , be wanting heer , this place may skirmish with the rabbies while it will , but to the true christian it prohibits nothing beyond the full reason of it's own prohibiting , which is best knowne by the institution . Vers . 6. [ Wherefore they are no more twaine , but one flesh . ] This is true in the generall right of marriage , but not in the chance medley of every particular match . For if they who were once undoubtedly one flesh , yet become twain by adultery , then sure they who were never one flesh rightly , never helps meete for each other according to the plain prescript of God , may with lesse adoe then a volume be concluded still twaine . And so long as we account a Magistrate no Magistrate , if there be but a flaw in his election , why should we not much rather count a Matrimony no Matrimony , if it cannot be in any reasonable manner according to the words of Gods institution . [ What therefore God hath joyned , let no man put asunder . ] But heare the christian prudence lies to consider what God hath joyn'd ; shall wee say that God hath joyn'd error , fraud , unfitnesse , wrath , contention , perpetuall lonelinesse , perpetuall discord ; what ever lust , or wine , or witchery , threate , or inticement , avarice or ambition hath joyn'd together , faithfull with unfaithfull , christian with antichristian , hate with hate , or hate with love , shall we say this is Gods joyning ? [ Let not man put a sunder . ] That is to say , what God hath joyn'd ; for if it be , as how oft we see it may be , not of Gods joyning , and his law tells us he joynes not unmachable things but hates to joyne them , as an abominable confusion , then the divine law of Moses puts them asunder , his owne divine will in the institution puts them asunder , as oft as the reasons be not extant , for which only God ordain'd their joyning . Man only puts asunder when his inordinate desires , his passion , his violence , his injury makes the breach : not when the utter want of that which lawfully was the end of his joyning , when wrongs and extremities , and unsupportable greevances compell him to disjoyne : when such as Herod & the pharises divorce beside law , or against law , then only man separates , and to such only this prohibition belongs . In a word , if it be unlawful for man to put asunder that which God hath joyn'd , let man take heede it be not detestable to joyne that by compulsion which God hath put assunder . Vers . 7. They say unto him , why did Moses then command to give a writing of divorcement , and to put her away ? Vers . 8. He saith unto them , Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you to put away your wives , but from the beginning it was not so . [ Moses because of the hardnesse of your hearts suffered you . ] Henee the divinity now current argues that this judiciall Moses is abolisht . But suppose it were so , though it hath bin prov'd otherwise , the firmenesse of such right to divorce as here pleads , is fetcht from the prime institution , does not stand or fall with the judiciall Jew , but is as morall as what is moralest . Yet as I have shewn positively that this law cannot bee abrogated , both by the words of our Saviour pronouncing the contrary , and by that unabolishable equity which it convaies to us , so I shall now bring to view those appearances of strength which are levied from this text to maintaine the most grosse and massy paradox that ever did violence to reason and religion , bred onely under the shadow of these words , to all other piety or philosophy strange and insolent , that God by act of law drew out a line of adultery almost two thousand yeares long : although to detect the prodigy of this surmise , the former booke set forth on this argument hath already beene copious . I shall not repeate much though I might borrow of mine own , but shall endeavour to adde something either yet untoucht , or not largely anough explain'd First it shal be manifest that the common exposition cannot possibly consist with christian doctrine : next a truer meaning of this our Saviours reply shall be left in the roome . The receiv'd exposition is , that God though not approving did enact a law to permit adultery by divorcement simply unlawfull . And this conceit they feede with fond supposals that have not the least footing in Scripture . As that the Jews learnt this custome of divorce in Egypt , and therefore God would not unteach it them till Christ came , but let it stick as a notorious botch of deformity in the midst of his most perfect and severe law . And yet he saith , Levit. the 18th after the doings of Egypt ye shall not do . Another while they invent a slander ( as what thing more bold then teaching Ignorance when he shifts to hide his nakednes ) that the Jews were naturally to their wives the cruellest men in the world ; would poison , braine , and doe I know not what , if they might not divorce . Certain , if it were a fault heavily punisht , to bring an evill report upon the land which God gave , what is it to raise a groundles calumny against the people which God made choise of ? But that this bold interpretament , how commonly so ever sided with , cannot stand a minute with any competent reverence to God or his law , or his people , nor with any other maxim of religion , or good manners , might bee prov'd through all the heads and Topics of argumentation : but I shall willingly bee as concise as possible . First the law , not onely the moral , but the judicial given by Moses is just and pure ; for such is God who gave it . Harken O Israel , saith Moses , Dent. 4. unto the statutes and the judgements which I teach you , to doe them , that ye may live , &c. ye shall not adde unto the word which J command you , neither shall ye diminish ought from it , that ye may keepe the commandements of the Lord your God which I command you . And onward in the chapter , Behold I have taught you statutes and judgements , even as the Lord my God commanded me . Keepe therefore and doe them , for this is your wisedome and your understanding . For what nation hath God so nigh unto them , and what-nation hath statutes and judgements so righteous as all this law which I set before ye this day . Is it imaginable there should bee among these a law which God allow'd not , a law giving permissions laxative to unmarry a wife and marry a lust , a law to suffer a kind of tribunall adultery ? Many other scriptures might be brought to assert the purity of this judicial law , and many I have alleg'd before ; this law therefore is pure and just . But if it permit , if it teach , if it defend that which is both unjust and impure , as by the common doctrine it doth , what thinke we ? The three generall doctrines of Justinians law , are To live in honesty , To hurt no man , To give every one his due . Shall the Roman civil law observe these three things , as the onely end of law , and shall a statute be found in the civil law of God , enacted simply and totally against all these three precepts of nature and morality ? Secondly , the gifts of God are all perfet , and certainely the law is of all his other gifts one of the perfetest . But if it give that outwardly which it takes away really , & give that seemingly , which , if a man take it , wraps him into sinne and damns him , what gift of an enemy can be more dangerous and destroying then this . Thirdly , Moses every where commends his lawes , preferrs them before all of other nations , and warrants them to be the way of life and safety to all that walke therein , Levit. 18. But if they containe statutes which God approves not , and traine men unweeting to committ injustice and adultery , under the shelter of law , if those things bee sin , and death sins wages , what is this law but the snare of death ? Fourthly , the statutes and judgements of the Lord , which without exception are often told us to be such , as doing wee may live by them , are doubtles to be counted the rule of knowledge and of conscience . For I had not known lust , saith the Apostle , but by the law . But if the law come downe from the state of her incorruptible majesty to grant lust his boon , palpably it darkns and confounds both knowledge and conscience ; it goes against the common office of all goodnes and freindlinesse , wich is at lest to counsel and admonish ; it subverts the rules of all sober education ; and is it selfe a most negligent and debaushing tutor . Fiftly , if the law permit a thing unlawfull , it permitts that which else where it hath forbid ; so that hereby it contradicts it selfe , and transgresses it selfe . But if the law become a transgressor , it stands guilty to it selfe , and how then shall it save another ; it makes a confederacy with sin , how then can it justly condemne a sinner ? and thus reducing it selfe to the stateof neither saving nor condemning , it will not faile to expire solemnely ridiculous . Sixtly , the Prophets in Scripture declare severely against the decreeing of that which is unjust , Psal . 94. 20. Isaiah the 10th . But it was done , they say , for heardnesse of heart ; To which objection the Apostles rule , not to doe evill that good may come thereby , gives an invincible repuls ; and here especially , where it cannot be shewn how any good came by doing this evil , how rather more evil did not hereon abound ; for the giving way to hardnesse of heart hard'ns the more , and adds more to the number . God to an evil and adulterous generation would not grant a signe ; much lesse would he for their hardnesse of heatt pollute his law with an adulterous permission . Yea but to permitt evil is not to doe evil . Yes , it is in a most eminent manner to doe evil : where else are all our grave and faithfull sayings , that he whose office is to forbid and forbids not , bids , exhorts , encourages . Why hath God denounc'd his anger against parents , maisters , freinds , magistrates neglectfull of forbidding what they ought , if law the common father , maister , friend , and perpetuall magistrate shall not onely not forbidd , but enact , exhibit , and uphold with countnance and protection a deede every way dishonest , what ever the pretence be . If it were of those inward vices , which the law cannot by outward constraint remedy , but leaves to conscience and perswasion , it had bin guiltlesse in being silent : but to write a decree of that which can be no way lawfull , and might with ease be hinder'd , makes law by the doome of law it selfe accessory in the highest degree . Seventhly , it makes God the direct author of sin , For although he bee not made the authour of what he silently permitts in his providence , yet in his law , the image of his will , when in plaine expression he constitutes and ordaines a fact utterly unlawfull , what wants hee to authorize it , and what wants that to be the author ? Eightly , to establish by law a thing wholy unlawfull and dishonest , is an affirmation was never heard of before in any law , reason , philosophy , or religion , till it was rais'd by inconsideratglossists from the mistake of this text . And though the Civilians have bin contented to chew this opinion , after the canon had subdu'd them , yet they never could bring example or authority 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 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 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 manu●'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 conversatiō 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 to a rectitude and mediocrity , stands not in the middle way of duty , but in the other extreme . Which art of powerfull reclaiming , wisest men have also taught in their ethical precepts and gnomologies ; resembling it , as when wee bend a crooked wand the contrary way ; not that it should stand so bent , but that the overbending might reduce it to a straitnesse by its own reluctance . And as the Physician cures him who hath tak'n down poyson , not by the middling temper of nourishment , but by the other extreme of antidote , so Christ administers heer a sharpe & corrosive sentence against a foul and putrid licence ; not to eate into the flesh , but into the sore . And knowing that our divines through all their comments make no scruple , where they please , to soften the high and vehem ent speeches of our Saviour , which they call hyperbolics , why in this one text should they be such crabbed masorites of the Letter , as not to mollifie a transcendence of literal rigidity , which they confesse to find often elsewhere in his manner of delivery , but must make their exposition heer such an obdurat Cyclops , to have but one eye for this text , and that onely open to cruelty and enthralment , such as no divine , or human law before ever heard of . No , let the foppish canouist with his fardel of matrimonial cases goe and be vendible where men bee so unhappy as to cheap'n him ; the words of Christ shall be asserted from such elementall notaries , and resolv'd by the now-only lawgiving mouth of charity ; which may be done undoubtedly by understanding them as followes . [ Whosoever shall put away his wife . ] That is to say , shall so away as the propounders of this question , the Pharisees were wont to doe and covertly defended Herod for so doing ; whom to rebuke , our Saviour heer mainely intends , and not to determine all the cases of divorce , as appeares by Saint Paul. Whosoever shall put away , either violently without mutuall consent for urgent reasons , or conspiringly by plot of lust , or cunning malice , shall put away for any sudden mood , or contingency of disagreement , which is not daily practice , but may blow soone over , and be reconcil'd , except it bee fornication ; whosoever shall put away rashly , as his choler prompts him , without due time of deliberating , and thinke his conscience discharg'd only by the bill of divorce giv'n , and the outward law satisfi'd ; whosoever lastly shall put away his wife , that is a wife indeede , & not in name only , such a one who both can and is willing to bee a meet helpe toward the cheif ends of mariage both civil , and sanctify'd , except fornication be the cause , that man , or that pair committ adulcery . Not he who puts away by mutuall consent , with all the considerations and respects of humanity and gentlenesse without malicious or lustfull drift . Not he who after sober and coole experience , and long debate within himself puts away whom though he cannot love or suffer as a wife , with that sincere affection that marriage requires , yet loves at lest with that civility and goodnesse , as not to keepe her under a neglected and unwelcom residence , where nothing can be hearty , and not beeing , it must needs bee both unjoyous and injurious to any perceaving person so detain'd , and more injurious , then to be freely , and upon good termes dismist . Nor doth hee put away adulterously who complaines of causes rooted in immutable nature , utter unfitnesse , utter disconformity , not concileable , because not to be amended without a miracle . Nor hee who puts away an unquenshable vexation from his bosom , and flies an evil then which a greater cannot befall human society . Nor hee who puts away with the the full suffrage and applause of his conscience , not relying on the writt'n bill of law , but claiming by faith and fulnes of perswasion the rights and promises of Gods institution , of which hee finds himselfe in a mistak'n wedlock defrauded . Doubtlesse this man hath baile anough to bee no adulterer giving divorc : for these causes . [ His Wife . ] This word is not to be idle here , a meere word without a sense , much lesse a fallacious word signifying contrary to what it pretends ; but faithfully signifies a wife , that is , a comfortable helpe and society , as God instituted ; does not signify deceitfully under this name , an intolerable adversary , not a helpelesse , unaffectionate and sullen masse whose very company represents the visible and exactest figure of lonelines it selfe . Such an associate he who puts away , divorces not a wife , but disjoyns a nullity which God never joyn'd , if she be neither willing , nor to her proper and requisite duties sufficient , as the words of God institute her . And this also is Bucers explicat●on of this place . [ Except it bee for fornication , or saving for the cause of fornication , as Matt. 5th . This declares what kind of causes our Saviour meant ; fornication being no natural and perpetual cause , but onely accidental and temporary ; therefore shewes that head of causes from whence it is excepted , to bee meant of the same sort . For exceptions are not logically deduc't from a divers kind , as to say who so puts away for any naturall cause except fornication , the exception would want salt . And if they understand it , who so for any cause what ever , they cast themselves ; granting divorce for frigidity a naturall cause of their own allowing , though not heer exprest , and for desertion without infidelity when as he who marries , as they allow him for a desertion , deserts as well as is deserted , and finally puts away , for another cause besides adultery . It will with all due reason therefore be thus better understood , who so puts away for any accidental and temporary causes , except one of them , which is fornication . Thus this exception finds out the causes from whence it is excepted , to be of the same kind , that is , casuall , not continuall . [ Saving for the cause of fornication . ] The New Testament , though it be said originally writt in Greeke , yet hath nothing neer so many Atticisms as Hebraisms , & Syriacisms which was the Majesty of God , not filing the tongue of Scripture to a Gentilish Idiom , but in a princely manner offring to them as to Gentiles and Foreiners grace and mercy , though not in forein words , yet in a forein stile that might induce them to the fountaines ; and though their calling were high and happy , yet still to acknowledge Gods ancient people their betters , and that language the Metropolitan language . He therefore who thinks to Scholiaze upon the Gospel , though Greek , according to his Greek Analogies , and hath not bin Auditor to the oriental dialects , shall want in the heat of his Analysis no accomodation to stumble . In this place , as the 5th of Matth , reads it , Saving for the cause of fornication , the Greek , such as it is , sounds it , except for the word , report , speech , or proportion of fornication . In which regard with other inducements , many ancient and learned writers have understood this exception as comprehending any fault equivalent and proportional to fornication But truth is , the Evangelist heer Hebraizes , taking word or speech for cause or matter in the common eastern phrase , meaning perhaps no more then if he had said for fornication , as in this 19th chapter . And yet the word is found in the 5th of Exodus also fignifying Proportion ; where the Israelites are commanded to doe their tasks , The matter of each day in his day . A task we know is a proportion of work not doing the same thing absolutely every day , but so much . Whereby it may be doubtfull yet , whether heer be not excepted not only fornication it self , but other causes equipollent , and proportional to fornication . Which very word also to understand rightly , wee must of necessity have recours again to the Ebrew . For in the Greek and Latin sense by fornication is meant the common prostitution of body for sale . So that they who are so exact for the letter , shall be dealt with by the Lexicon , and the Etymologicon too if they please , and must be bound to forbidd divorce for adultery also , untill it come to open whoredom and trade , like that for which Claudius divorc't Messalina . Since therfore they take not heer the word fornication in the common significance , for an open exercise in the stews , but grant divorce for one single act of privatest adultery , notwithstanding that the word speakes a public and notorious frequency of fact , not without price , we may reason with as good leav , and as little straining to the text , that our Saviour on set purpose chose this word Fornication , improperly appli'd to the lapse of adultery , that we might not think our selvs bound from all divorce , except when that fault hath bin actually committed . For the language of Scripture signifies by fornication ( and others beside St. Austin so expounded it ) not only the trespas of body nor perhaps that between maried persons , unlesse in a degree or quality as shameles as the Bordello , but signifies also any notable disobedience , or intractable cariage of the wife to the husband , as Judg. the 192. Whereof at large in the Doctrin of Divorce . l. 2. c. 18 Secondly signifies the apparent alienation of mind not to idolatry , ( which may seeme to answer the act of adultery ) but farre on this side , to any point of will worship , though to the true God ; some times it notes the love of earthly things , or worldly pleasures though in a right beleever , some times the least suspicion of unwitting idolatry . As Num. 15. 39. willsull disobedience to any the least of Gods commandements is call'd fornication . Psal . 73. 26 , 27. A distrust only in God , and withdrawing from that neernes of zeal and confidence which ought to be , is call'd fornication . We may be sure it could not import thus much less then Idolatry in the borrow'd metaphor between God and man , unless it signifi'd as much less then adultery in the ordinary acception between man and wife . Adde also that there was no need our Saviour should grant divorce for adultery , it being death by law , and law then in force . Which was the cause why Joseph sought to put away his betrothed wife privately , least he should make her an example of capitall punishment , as lernedest expounders affirm , Herod being a great zelot of the Mosaic law , and the Pharises great maisters of the text , as the woman tak'n in adultery doubtless had cause to fear . Or if they can prove it was neglected , which they cannot doe , why did our Saviour shape his answer to the corruption of that age , and not rather tell them of their neglect ? If they say he came not to meddle with their judicatures , much less then was it in his thought to make them new ones , or that divorce should be judicially restrain'd in a stricter manner by these his words , more then adultery judicially acquitted by those his words to the adultres . His sentence doth no more by law forbidd divorce heer , then by law it doth absolve adultery there . To them therefore , who have drawn this yoke upon Christians from his words thus wrested , nothing remaines but the guilt of a presumption and perversnes which will be hard for them to answer . Thus much that the word fornication is to be understood as the language of Christ understands it , for a constant alienation and disaffection of mind , or for the continual practise of disobedience and crossnes from the duties of love and peace , that is in summ , when to be a tolerable wife is either naturally not in their power , or obstinatly not in their will , and this opinion also is St. Austins , least it should hap to be suspected of novelty . Yet grant the thing heer meant were only adultery , the reason of things will afford more to our assertion , then did the reason of words . For why is divorce unlawfull but only for adultery ? because , say they , that crime only breaks the matrimony . But this , I reply , the institution itselfe gainsaies : for that which is most contrary to the words and meaning of the institution , that most breaks the matrimony ; but a perpetuall unmeetnes and unwillingnesse to all the duties of helpe , of love and tranquillity is most contrary to the words and meaning of the institution ; that therefore much more breaks matrimony then the act of adultery though repeated . For this , as it is not felt , nor troubles him who perceaves it not , so beeing perceav'd , may be soon repented , soon amended , soon , if it can be pardon'd , may be redeem'd w th the more ardent love and duty in her who hath the pardon . But this naturall unmeetnes both cannot be unknown long , and ever after cannot be amended , if it be natural , and will not , if it be farregon obstinat . So that wanting ought in the instant to be as great a breach as adultery , it gains it in the perpetuity to be greater . Next adultery does not exclude her other fitnes , her other pleasingnes ; she may be otherwise both loving and prevalent , as many adultresses be ; but in this general unfitnes or alienation she can be nothing to him that can please . In adultery nothing is given from the husband , which he misses , or enjoyes the less , as it may be suttly giv'n : but this unfitnes defrauds him of the whole contentment which is sought in wedloc . And what benefit to him , though nothing be giv'n by the stealth of adultery to another , if that which there is to give , whether it be solace , or society , be not such as may justly content him ? and so not only deprives him of what it should give him , but gives him sorrow and affliction , which it did not ow him . Besides is adultery the greatest breach of matrimony in respect of the offence to God , or of the injury to man ? if in the former , then other sins may offend God more , and sooner cause him to disunite his servant from being one flesh with such an offender . If in respect of the latter , other injuries are demonstrated therein more heavy to mans nature then the iterated act of adultery . God therfore in his wisedom would not so dispose his remedies , as to provide them for the less injuries , and not allow them for the greater . Thus is won both from the word fornication , & the reason of adultery , that the exception of divorce is not limitted to that act , but enlarg'd to the causes above specify'd . [ And who so marieth her which is put away doth committ adultery . By this clause alone , if by nothing els , we may assure us , that Christ intended not to deliver heer the whole doctrin of divorce , but only to condemn abuses . Otherwise to marry after desertion , which the Apostle , and the reformed Churches at this day permitt , is heer forbid , as adultery . Be she never so wrongfully deserted , or put away , as the law then suffer'd , if thus forsak'n and expulst , she accept the refuge and protection of any honester man who would love her better , and give her self in mariage to him , by what the letter guides us , it shall be present adultery to them both . This is either harsh and cruel , or all the Churches teaching as they doe the contrary , are loos and remiss ; besides that the Apostle himselfe stands deeply fin'd in a contradiction against our Saviour . What shall we make of this ? what rather the common interpreter can make of it , for they be his own markets , let him now trie ; let him trie which way he can wind in his Vertumnian distinctions and evasions , if his canonical gabardine of text and letter do not now sit too close about him , and pinch his activity ; which if I erre not , hath heer hamper'd it selfe in a springe fitt for those who put their confidence in Alphabets . Spanheim a writer of Evangelic doubts comes now and confesses that our Saviours words are to be limited beyond the limitation there exprest and excepted beyond their own exception , as not speaking of what happn'd rarely , but what most commonly . Is it so rare Spanheim , to be deserted , or was it then so rare to put away injuriously , that a person so hatefully expell'd , should to the heaping of more injury be turn'd like an infectious thing out of all maried fruition upon pain of adultery , as not considerable to the brevity of this halfe sentence ? Of what then speakes our Saviour ? of that collusion , saith he , which was then most frequent among the Jews of changing wives and husbands , through inconstancy and unchast desires . Colluders your selves , as violent to this law of God by your unmercifull binding , as the Pharises by their unbounded loosning ! Have thousands of Christian souls perisht as to this life , and God knows what hath betided their consciences , for want of this healing explanation , and is it now at last obscurely drawn forth , only to cure a scratch , and leave the main wound spouting ? Who so ever putteth away his wife except for fornication committeth adultery ; That shall be spoke of all ages , and all men , though never so justly otherwise mov'd to divorce : in the very next breath , And who so marieth her which is put away committeth adultery , the men are new and miraculous , they tell you now you are to limit it to that age , when it was in fashion to chop matrimonies ; and must be meant of him who puts away with his wives consent through the lightnes , and leudnes of them both . But what rule of Logic , or indeed of reason is our commission to understand the Anteeedent one way and the Consequent another ; for in that habitude this whole vers may be fider'd : or at least to take the parts of a copulat axiom , both absolutely affirmative , and to say the first is absolutely true , the other not , but must bee limited to a certain time and custome ; which is no lesse then to say they are both false . For in this compound axiom , be the parts never so many , if one of them doe but falter , & be not equally absolute and generall , the rest are all fals . If therefore , that he who marries her which is put away committs adultery , be not generally true , neither is it generally true that he committs adultery who puts away for other cause then fornication . And if the marrying her which is put away must be understood limited , which they cannot but yeild it must , with the same limitation must be understood the putting away . Thus doth the common exposition confound it selfe , and justify this which is heer brought ; that our Saviour as well in the first part of this sentence as in the second , prohibited onely such divorses as the Jewes then made through malice or through plotted licence , not those which are for necessary and just causes ; where charity and wisedome disjoyns , that which not God , but Error and Disastre joyn'd . And there is yet to this our exposition , a stronger siding freind , then any can be an adversary , unlesse Saint Paul be doubted , who repeating a command concerning divorce , 1 Cor. 7. which is agreed by writers to be the same with this of our Saviour , and appointing that the wife remaine unmaried , or be reconcil'd to her husband , leavs it infallible that our Saviour spake cheifly against putting away for casual and choleric disagreements , or any other cause which may with human patience and wisedom be reconcil'd , not hereby meaning to hale and dash together the irreconcilable aversations of nature , nor to tie up a faultlesse person like a parricide , as it were into one sack with an enemy , to be his causelesse tormenter and executioner the length of a long life . Lastly , let this sentence of Christ bee understood how it will , yet that it was never intended for a judicial law , to be inforc'd by the Magistrat , besides that the office of our Saviour had no such purpose in the Gospel , this latter part of the sentence may assure us , And who so marrieth her which is put away committs adultery . Shall the exception for adultery belong to this clause or not ? if not , it would be strange , that he who marries a woman really divorc't for adultery , as Christ permitted , should become an adulter by marrying one who is now no other mans wife , himself being also free , who might by this meanes reclaim her from common whordome . And if the exception must belong hither , then it followes that he who marries an adultresse divorc'd , commits no adultry ; which would soone discover to us what an absurd and senseles peece of injustice this would be , to make a civil statute of , in penal courts : whereby the adultresse put away may marry another safely , and without a crime to him that marries her : but the innocent and wrongfully divorc'd shall not marry again without the guilt of adultery both to her selfe and to her second husband . This saying of Christ therefore cannot be made a temporal law , were it but for this reason . Nor is it easie to say what coherence there is at all in it from the letter , to any perfet sense not obnoxious to som absurdity , and seems much lesse agreeable to what ever els of the Gospel is left us written ; doubtles by our Saviour spok'n in that fiercenes and abstruse intricacy , first to amuse his tempters , and admonish in general the abusers of that Mosaic law ; next to let Herod know a second knower of his unlawfull act , though the Baptist were beheaded ; last that his Disciples and all good men might learne to expound him in this place , as in all other his precepts , not by the written letter , but by that unerring paraphrase of Christian love and Charity , which is the summe of all commands , and the perfection . Vers . 10. His Disciples say unto him , if the case of the man be so with his wife , it is not good to marry . This verse I adde , to leave no objection behind unanswer'd : for some may thinke , if this our Saviours sentence be so faire , as not commanding ought that patience or nature cannot brook , why then did the Disciples murmur and say , it is not good to marry . I answer that the Disciples had bin longer bred up under the Pharisaean doctrin , then under that of Christ , and so no marvel though they yet retain'd the infection of loving old licentious customs ; no marvel though they thought it hard they might not for any offence that throughly anger'd them , divorce a wife , as well as put away a servant ; since it was but giving her a bill , as they were taught . Secondly , it was no unwonted thing with them not to understand our Saviour in matters farre easier . So that bee it granted their conceit of this text was the same which is now commonly conceiv'd , according to the usuall rate of their capacity then , it will not hurt a better interpretation . But why did not Christ seeing their error informe them ? for good cause ; it was his profest method not to teach them all things at all times , but each thing in due place and season . Christ said Luke 22. that hee who had no sword should sell his garment and buy one : the Disciples tooke it in a manifest wrong sense , yet our Saviour did not there informe them better . He told them it was easier for a Camell to go through a needles eye , then a rich man in at heav'n gate . They were amaz'd exceedingly : he explain'd himselfe to meane of those who trust in riches , Mark 10. They were amaz'd then out of measure , for so Marke relates it ; as if his explaining had increas'd their amazement , in such a plaine case , and which concern'd so neerely their calling to be inform'd in Good reason therefore , if Christ at that time did not stand amplifying , to the thick prejudice and tradition where in they were , this question of more difficulty , and lesse concernment to any perhaps of them in particular . Yet did he not omitt to sow within them the seeds of a sufficient determining , agen the time that his promis'd spirit should bring all things to their memory . Hee had declar'd in their hearing not long before , how distant hee was from abolishing the law it selfe of divorce ; hee had referr'd them to the institution ; and after all this , gives them a set answer , from which they might collect what was cleer anough , that all men cannot receive all sayings , verse 11. If such regard bee had to each mans receiving of mariage or single life , what can arise , that the same christian regard should not bee had in most necessary divorce ? All which instructed both them and us , that it beseem'd his Disciples to learne the deciding of this question , which hath nothing new in it , first by the institution , then by the generall grounds of religion , not by a particular saying here or there , temper'd and level'd only to an incident occasion , the riddance of a tempting assault . For what can this bee but weake and shallow apprehension , to forsake the standard principles of institution , faith , & charity ; then to be blanke & various at every occurrence in Scripture , and in a cold Spasm of scruple , to reare peculiar doctrines upon the place ; that shall bid the gray autority of most unchangeable and sovran rules to stand by & be contradicted . Thus to this Evangelic precept of famous difficulty , which for these many ages weakly understood , and violently put in practice , hath made a shambles rather then an ordinance of matrimony , I am firme a truer exposition cannot be given . If this or that argument heer us'd , please not every one , there is no scarsity of arguments , any halfe of them will suffice , Or should they all faile , as Truth it selfe can faile as soon , I should content me with the institution alone to wage this controversie , and not distrust to evince . If any need it not , the happier ; yet Christians ought to study earnestly what may be anothers need . But if , as mortall mischances are , som hap to need it , let them be sure they abuse not , and give God his thanks , who hath reviv'd this remedy , not too late for them , and scowr'd off an inveterat misexposition from the Gospel : a work not to perish by the vaine breath or doome of this age . Our next industry shall bee , under the same guidance , to try with what fidelity that remaining passage in the Epistles touching this matter , hath bin commented . 1 COR. 7. 10 , &c. 10. And unto the maried I command , &c. 11. And let not the husband put away his wife . THis intimates but what our Saviour taught before , that divorce is no rashly to be made , but reconcilement to be persuaded and endevo'rd , as oft as the cause can have to doe with reconcilement , & is not under the dominion of blameles nature ; which may have reason to depart though seldomest and last from charitable love , yet somtimes from friendly , and familiar , and somthing oftner from conjugal love , which requires not only moral , but natural causes to the making and maintayning ; and may be warrantably excus'd to retire from the deception of what it justly seeks , and the ill requitals which unjustly it finds . For Nature hath her Zodiac also , keepes her great annual circuit over human things as truly as the Sun and Planers in the firmament ; hath her anomalies , hath her obliquities in ascensions and declinations , accesses and recesses , as blamelesly as they in heaven . And sitting in her planetary Orb with two rains in each hand , one strait , the other loos , tempers the cours of minds as well as bodies to several conjunctions and oppositions , freindly , or unfriendly aspects , consenting oftest with reason , but never contrary . This in the effect no man of meanest reach but daily sees ; and though to every one it appeare not in the cause , yet to a cleare capacity , well nurtur'd with good reading and observation , it cannot but be plaine and visible . Other exposition therefore then hath bin given to former places that give light to these two summary verses , will not be needfull : save onely that these precepts are meant to those maried who differ not in religion . [ But to the rest speake I , not the Lord ; if any brother hath a wife that beleeveth not , and she be pleased to dwell with him , let him not put her away . Now followes what is to be done , if the persons wedded be of a different faith . The common beleef is , that a christian is heer commanded not to divorce , if the infidel please to stay , though it be but to vexe , or to deride , or to seduce the christian . This doctrin will be the easie worke of a refutation . The other opinion is , that a christian is heer conditionally permitted to hold wedloc with a misbeleever only upon hopes limited by christian prudence , which without much difficulty shall be defended . That this heer spoken by Paul , not by the Lord cannot be a command , these reas avouch . First the law of Moses , Exod. 34. 16. Dent. 7. 3. 6. interpreted by Ezra , and Nehemiah two infallible authors , commands to divorce an infidel not for the feare onely of a ceremonious defilement , but of an irreligious seducem ent , fear'd both in respect of the beleever himselfe , and of his children in danger to bee perverted by the misbeleeving parent . Nehem. 13. 24. 26 and Peter Martyr thought this a convincing reason . If therefore the legal pollution vanishing have abrogated the ceremony of this law , so that a christian may be permitted to retaine an infidel without uncleannes , yet the moral reason of divorcing stands to eternity , which neither Apostle nor Angel from heaven can countermand . All that they reply to this , is their human warrant , that God will preserve us in our obedience to this command against the danger of seducement . And so undoubtedly he will , if we understand his commands aright ; if we turn not this evangelic permission into a legal , and yet illegal command : If we turne not hope into bondage , the charitable and free hope of gaining another , into the forc't and servil temptation of loosing our selves ; but more of this beneath . Thus these words of Paul by common doctrin made a command , are made a contradiction to the morall law . Secondly , not the law only , but the Gospel from the law , and from it selfe requires even in the same chapter , where divorce between them of one religion is so narrowly forbidd , rather then our christian love should come into danger of backsliding , to forsake all relations how neer so ever , and the wife expresly , with promise of a high reward , Mat. 19. And he who hates not father or mother , wife , or children hindring his christian cours , much more , if they despise or assault it , cannot be a Disciple , Luke 14. How can the Apostle then command us , to love and continue in that matrimony , which our Saviour bids us hate , and forsake ? They can as soon teach our faculty of respiration to contract and to dilate it selfe at once , to breath and to fetch breath in the same instant , as teach our minds how to doe such contrary acts as these , towards the same object , and as they must he done in the same moment . For either the hatred of her religion , & her hatred to our religion will work powerfully against the love of her society , or the love of that will by degrees flatter out all our zealous hatred and forsaking and soone ensnare us to unchristianly compliances . Thirdly , In mariage there ought not only to be a civil love , but such a love as Christ loves his Church ; but where the religion is contrary without hope of conversion , there can be no love , no faith , no peacefull society , ( they of the other opinion confess it ) nay there ought not to be , furder then in expectation of gaining a soul ; when that ceases , we know God hath put enmity between the seed of the woman , and the seed of the Serpent . Neither should we love them that hate the Lord , as the Prophet told Jehosaphat . 2 Chron. 19. And this Apostle himselfe in another place , warns us that we be not unequally yokt with Infidels 2 Cor. 6. for that there can be no fellowship , no communion , no concord between such . Outward commerce and civil intercours cannot perhaps be avoided ; but true friendship and familiarity there can be none . How vainly therefore , not to say how impiously would the most inward and dear alliance of mariage or continuance in mariage be commanded , where true friendship is confest impossible . For say they , wee are forbidd heer to marry with an infidel , not bid to divorce . But to rob the words thus of their full sense will not be allow'd them : it is not said , enter not into yoke , but be not unequally yokt ; which plainly forbids the thing in present act , as well as in purpose ; and his manitest conclu●ion is , not only that we should not touch , but that having toucht , we should come out from among them , and be separat ; with the promise of a blessing thereupon that God will receave us , will be our father , and we his sons and daughters . v. 17. 18. Why we should stay with an Infidel after the expence of all our hopes , can be but for a civil relation ; but why we should depart from a seducer , setting afide the misconstruction of this place , is from a religious necessity of departing . The wors cause therefore of staying ( if it be any cause at all , for civil government forces it not ) must not overtop the religious cause of separating , executed with such an urgent zeal , & such a prostrate humiliation by Ezra and Nehemiah . What God hates to joyn , certainly he cannot love should continue joyn'd : it being all one in matter of ill consequence , to marry , or to continue maried with an Infidel , save only so long as we wait willingly , and with a safe hope . St. Paul therefore citing heer a command of the Lord Almighty , for so he terms it , that we should separate , cannot have bound us with that which he calls his own whether command or counsel that we should not separate . Which is the fourth reason , for he himselfe takes care least we should mistake him , [ But to the rest speak If not the Lord. ] If the Lord spake not , then man spake it and man hath no Lordship to command the conscience : yet modern interpreters will have it a command maugre St. Paul himselfe , they will make him a Prophet like Caiaphas to speak the word of the Lord not thinking , nay denying to think ; though he disavow to have receav'd it from the Lord , his word shall not be tak'n , though an Apostle , he shall be born down in his own Epistle , by a race of expositers who presume to know from whom he spake , better then he himselfe . Paul deposes that the Lord speaks not this , they , that the Lord speaks it : can this be less then to brave him with a full fac't contradiction ? Certainly to such a violence as this , for I cannot call it an expounding , what a man should answer I know not , unless that if it be their pleasure next to put a gag into the Apostles mouth , they are already surnisht with a commodious audacity toward the attempt . Beza would seem to shun the contradictory by telling us that the Lord spake it not in person , as he did the former precept . But how many other doctrines doth St. Paul deliver which the Lord spake not in person , and yet never uses this preamble but in things indifferent ? So long as we receave him for a messenger of God , for him to stand sorting sentences what the Lord spake in person , and what he , not the Lord in person , would be but a chill trifling , and his readers might catch an ague the while . But if we shall supply the grammatical Ellipsis regularly , and as we must in the sam tense , all will be then cleer , for we cannot supply it thus , to the rest I speake , the Lord spake not , but I speake , the Lord speaks not . If then the Lord neither spake in person nor speakes it now , the Apostle testifying both , it follows duely , that this can be no command . Forsooth the fear is , least this not being a command , would prove an evangelic counsel , & so make way for supererogations . As if the Apostle could not speak his mind in things indifferent , as he doth in fowr or five several places of this chapter with the like preface of not commanding , but that the doubted inconvenience of supererogating must needs rush in . And how adds it to the word of the Lord , ( for this also they object ) when as the Apostle by his christian prudence guids us in the liberty which God hath left us to , without command ? could not the spirit of God instruct us by him what was free , as well as what was not ? But what need I more , when Cameron an ingenuous writer , and in high esteem , solidly confutes the surmise of a command heer , and among other words hath these . That when Paul speaks as an Apostle , he uses this forme , The Lord saith , not I v 10. but as a privat man he saith , I speak , not the Lord. And thus also all the prime fathers Austin , Jerom , and the rest understood this place . Fiftly , The very stating of the question declares this to be no command ; If any brother hath an unbeleeuing wife , and she be pleased to dwell with him , let him not put her away . For the Greek word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 does not imply only her being pleas'd to stay , but his being pleas'd to let her stay ; it must be a consent of them both . Nor can the force of this word be render'd less , without either much negligence or iniquity of him that otherwise translates it . And thus the Greek Church also and their Synods understood it , who best knew what their own language meant , as appeares by Matthaeus Monachus an author set forth by Leunclauius and of antiquity perhaps not inferior to Balsamon who writes upon the canons of the Apostles ; this Author in his chap. that mariage is not to be made with heretics , thus recites the second canon of the 6. Synod , As to the Corinthians Paul determins , If the beleeving wife choos to live with the unbeleeving husband , or the beleeving husband with the unbeleeving wife . Mark saith he , how the Apostle heer condescends , if the beleever please to dwell with the unbeleever ; so that if he please not , out of doubt the mariage is dissolv'd . And I am perswaded it was so in the beginning , and thus preach't . And thereupon gives an example of one , who though not deserted , yet by the decree of Theodotus the Patriarch divorc't an unbeleeving wife . What therefore depends in the plain state of this question on the consent and well liking of them both , must not be a command . Lay next the latter end of the 11. v , to the twelf ( for wherefore els is Logic taught us ) in a discrete axiom , as it can be no other by the phrase , The Lord saith , let not the husband put away his wife , But I say let him not put away a misbeleeving wife ; this sounds as if by the judgement of Paul , a man might put away any wife but the misbeleeving ; or els the parts are not discrete , or dissentanie , for both conclude not putting away , and consequently in such a form the proposition is ridiculous . Of necessity therfore the former part of this sentence must be conceav'd , as understood , and silently granted , that although the Lord command to divorce an infidel , yet I , not the Lord command you ? No , but give my judgement , that for som evangelic reasons a christian may be permitted not to divorce her . Thus while we reduce the brevity of St. Paul to a plainer sense , by the needfull supply of that which was granted between him and the Corinthians , the very logic of his speech extracts him confessing that the Lords command lay in a seeming contrariety to this his counsel : and that he meant not to thrust out a command of the Lord by a new one of his own , as one nail drives another , but to release us from the rigor of it , by the right of the Gospel , so farre forth as a charitable cause leads us on in the hope of winning another soule without the peril of loosing our own . For this is the glory of the Gospel to teach us that the end of the commandment is charity , 1 Tim. 1. not the drudging out a poore and worthlesse duty forc't from us by the taxe , and taile of so many letters . This doctrine therefore can bee no command , but it must contradict the moral law , the Gospel , and the Apostle himselfe both else where , and heere also eevn in the act of speaking . If then it be no command , it must remain to be a permission , and that not absolute , for so it would be still contrary to the law , but with such a caution as breaks not the law , but as the manner of the Gospel is , fulfills it through charity . The law had two reasons , the one was ceremonial , the pollution that all Gentiles were to the Jewes ; this the vision of Peter had abolisht , Acts 10. and clens'd all creatures to the use of a Christian . The Corinthians understood not this , but fear'd lest dwelling in matrimony with an unbeleever , they were defil'd . The Apostle discusses that scruple with an Evangelic reason , shewing them that although God heretofore under the law , not intending the conversion of the Gentiles , except some special ones , held them as polluted things to the Jew , yet now purposing to call them in , he hath purify'd them from that legal uncleannesse wherein they stood , to use and to be us'd in a pure manner . For saith he , The unbeleeving husband is sanctifi'd by the wife , and the unbeleeving wife , is sanctifi'd by the husband , else were your children uncleane ; but now they are holy . That is , they are sanctify'd to you , from that legal impurity which you so feare ; and are brought into a neer capacity to be holy , if they beleeve , and to have free accesse to holy things . In the mean time , as being Gods creatures , a christian hath power to use them according to their proper use ; in as much as now , all things to the pure are become pure . In this legal respect therefore ye need not doubt to continue in mariage with an unbeleever . Thus others also expound this place and Cameron especially . This reason warrants us onely what wee may doe without feare of pollution , does not binde us that we must . But the other reason of the law to divorce an infidel was moral , the avoiding of enticement from the true faith . This cannot shrink ; but remains in as full force as ever , to save the actuall 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 any one grossly erroneous or profane may be referr'd hither . For St. Paul seaves us heer the solution not of this case only , which little concernes us , but of such like cases , which may occurr to us . For where the reasons directly square , who can forbid why the verdit should not be the same ? But this the common writers allow us not . And yet from this text which in plaine words gives liberty to none unlesse deserted by an infidel , they collect the same freedom though the desertion bee not for religion , which , as I conceive , they neede not doe ; but may without straining reduce it to the cause of fornication . For first they confesse that desertion is seldome without a just suspition of adultery : next it is a breach of mariage in the same kind , and in some sort worse : for adultery though it give to another , yet it bereaves not al ; but the deserter wholly denies all right , and makes one flesh twain , which is counted the absolutest breach of matrimony , and causes the other , as much as in him lies , to commit sin , by being so left . Neverthelesse those reasons which they bring of establishing by this place the like liberty from any desertion , are faire and solid : and if the thing be lawfull , and can be prov'd so , more waies then one , so much the safer . Their arguments I shall heer recite , and that they may not com idle , shall use them to make good the like freedome to divorce for other causes ; and that we are no more under bondage to any hainous default against the main ends of matrimony , then to a desertion : First they allege that to Tim. 1. 5. 8. If any provide not for those of his own house , hee hath deny'd the faith , and is worse then an Infidel . But a deserter , say they , can have no care of them who are most his owne , therefore the deserted party is not lesse to bee righted against such a one then against an infidel . With the same evidence I argue , that man or wife who hates in wedloc , is perpetually unsociable , unpeacefull , or unduteous , either not being able , or not willing to performe what the maine ends of mariage demand in helpe and solace , cannot bee said to care for who shou'd bee dearest in the house ; therefore is worse then an infidel in both regards , either in undertaking a duty which he cannot performe , to the undeserved and unspeakable injury of the other party so defrauded and betrai'd , or not performing what he hath undertaken , whenas he may or might have , to the perjury of himselfe more irreligious then heathenisme . The blamelesse person therefore hath as good a plea to sue out his delivery from this bondage , as from the desertion of an infidel . Since most writers cannot but grant that desertion is not only a local absence , but an intolerable society ; or if they grant it not , the reasons of Saint Paul grant it , with all as much leave as they grant to enlarge a particular freedom from paganisme , into a general freedom from any desertion . Secondly , they reafon from the likenes of either fact , the same losse redounds to the deserted by a christian , as by an infidel , the same peril of temptation . And I in like manner affirme that if honest and free persons may be allow'd to know what is most to their owne losse , the same losse and discontent , but worse disquiet with continuall misery and temptation resides in the company , or better call'd the persecution of an unfit , or an unpeaceable consort , then by his desertion . For then the deserted may enjoy himselfe at least . And he who deserts is more favourable to the party whom his presence afflicts , then that importunat thing which is and will be ever conversant before the eyes a loyal and individual vexation . As for those who still rudely urge it no loss to mariage , no desertion , so long as the flesh is present and offers a benevolence that hates , or is justly hated , I am not of that vulgar and low perswasion , to thinke such forc'd embracements as these worth the honour , or the humanity of mariage , but farre beneath the soul of a rational and freeborne man. Thirdly they say , it is not the infidelity of the deserter , but the desertion of the infidel from which the Apostle gives this freedom ; and I joyne that the Apostle could as little require our subjection to an unfit and injurious bondage present , as to an infidel absent . To free us from that which is an evil by being distant , and not from that which is an inmate , and in the bosome evil , argues an improvident and careles deliverer . And thus all occasions , which way so ever they turn , are not unofficious to administer somthing which may conduce to explain , or to defend the assertion of this book touching divorce . I complain of nothing , but that it is indeed too copious to be the matter of a dispute , or a defence , rather to be yeelded , as in the best ages , a thing of common reason , not of controversie . What have I left to say ? I fear to be more elaborat in such a perspicuity as this ; lest I should seem not to teach , but to upbraid the dulnes of an age ; not to commun with reason in men , but to deplore the loss of reason from among men : this only , and not the want of more to say , is the limit of my discours . Who among the sathers have interpreted the words of Christ concerning divorce , as is heer interpreted ; and what the civil law of Christian Emperors in the primitive Church determi'nd . Although testimony be in Logic an argument rightly call'd inartificial , & doth not solidly fetch the truth by multiplicity of Authors , nor argue a thing false by the few that hold so , yet seeing most men from their youth so accustom , as not to scanne reason , nor cleerly to apprehend it , but to trust for that the names and numbers of such , as have got , and many times undeservedly , the reputation among them to know much , and because there is a vulgar also of teachers , who are as blindly by whom they fancy led , as they lead the people , it will not be amiss for them who had rather list themselves under this weaker sort , and follow authorities , to take notice that this opinion which I bring , hath bin favour'd , and by som of those affirm'd , who in their time were able to carry what they taught , had they urg'd it , through all Christendom ; or to have left it such a credit with all good men , as they who could not bouldly use the opinion , would have fear'd to censure it . But since by his appointment on whom the times and seasons wait , every point of doctrin is not fatall to be throughly sifted out in every age , it will be anough for me to find , that the thoughts of wisest heads heertofore , and hearts no less reverenc't for devotion have tended this way , and contributed their lot in some good measure towards this which hath bin heer attain'd . Others of them and modern especially , have bin as full in the assertion , though not so full in the reason ; so that either in this regard , or in the former , I shall be manifest in a middle fortune to meet the praise or dispraise of beeing somthing first . But I deferr not what I undertooke to shew , that in the Church both primitive and reformed , the words of Christ have bin understood to grant divorce for other causes then adultery ; and that the word fornication in mariage hath a larger sense then that commonly suppos'd . Iustin Martyr in his first Apology writt'n within 50. yeares after St. Iohn dy'd , relates a story which Eusebius transcribes , that a certain matron of Rome , the wife of a vitious husband , her selfe also formerly vitious , but converted to the faith , and persuading the same to her husband , at lest the amendment of his wicked life , upon his not yeilding to her daily entreaties and persuasions in this behalf , procur'd by law to be divorc't from him . This was neither for adultery , nor desertion , but as the relation saies , Esteeming it an ungodly thing to be the consort of bed with him , who against the law of nature and of right sought out voluptuous waies . Suppose he endeavour'd som unnaturall abuse , as the Greek admitts that meaning , it cannot yet be call'd adultery ; it therefore could be thought worthy of divorce no otherwise then as equivalent , or wors ; and other vices will appear in other respects as much divorsive . Next t is said her freinds advis'd her to stay a while ; and what reason gave they ? not because they held unlawfull what she purpos'd , but because they thought she might longer yet hope his repentance . She obey'd , till the man going to Alexandria , and from thence reported to grow still more impenitent , not for any adultery or desertion , wherof neither can be gather'd , but , saith the Martyr , and speaks it like one approving , lest she should be partaker of his unrighteous and ungodly deeds , remaining in wedloc , the communion of bed and board with such a person , she left him by a lawfull divorce . This cannot but give us the judgement of the Church in those pure and next to Apostolic times . For how els could the woman have bin permitted , or heer not reprehended ; and if a wife might then doe this without reprooff , a husband certainly might no less , if not more . Tertullian in the same age writing his 4. book against Marcion witnesses that Christ by his answer to the Pharises protected the constitution of Moses as his own , and directed the institution of the creator , for I alter not his Carthaginian phrase ; he excus'd rather then destroi'd the constitution of Moses ; I say he forbidd conditionally , if any one therefore put away that he may marry another : so that if he prohibited conditionally , then not wholly ; and what he forbadd not wholly , he permitted otherwise , where the cause ceases for which he prohibited : that is when a man makes it not the cause of his putting away , meerly that he may marry again . Christ teaches not contrary to Moses , the justice of divorce hath Christ the asserter : he would not have mariage separat , nor kept with ignominy , permitting then a divorce , and guesses that this vehemence of our Saviours sentence was cheifly bent against Herod , as was cited before . Which leavs it evident how Tertullian interpreted this prohibition of our Saviour ; for wheras the text is , Whosoever putteth away and marieth another , wherfore should Tertullian explain it , Whosoever putteth away that he may marry another , but to signify his opinion that our Saviour did not forbidd divorce from an unworthy yoke , but forbidd the malice or the lust of a needles change and cheifly those plotted divorces then in use . Origen in the next century testifies to have known certain who had the government of Churches in his time , who permitted som to marry , while yet their former husbands liv'd , and excuses the deed , as don not without cause , though without Scripture , which confirms that cause not to be adultery ; for how then was it against Scripture that they maried again . And a little beneath , for I cite his 7. homily on Matthew , saith he , To endure faults wors then adultery and fornication , seems a thing unreasonable , and disputes therfore that Christ did not speak by way of precept , but as it were expounding . By which and the like speeches Origen declares his mind farre from thinking that our Saviour confin'd all the causes of divorce to actual adultery . Lactantius of the age that succeeded speaking of this matter in the 6. of his institutions , hath these words . But lest any think he may circumscribe divine precepts , let this be added , that all misinterpreting , and occasion of fraud , or death may be remov'd , he commits adultery who marries the divorc't wife , and , besides the crime of adultery , divorces a wife that he may marry another . To divorce and marry another , and to divorce that he may marry another , are two different things ; and imply that Lactantius thought not this place the forbidding of all necessary divorce , but such only as proceeded from the wanton desire of a future chois , not from the burden of a present affliction . About this time the Councel of Eliberis in Spain decreed the husband excommunicat , If he kept his wife being an adultress ; but if he left her , he might after ten yeares be receav'd into communion , if he retain'd her any while in his house after the adultery known . The councel of Neocaesarea in the year 314. decreed , that if the wife of any Laic were convicted of adultery , that man could not be admitted into the ministery : if after ordination it were committed , he was to divorce her ; if not , he could not hold his ministery . The councel of Nantes condemn'd in 7. yeares penance the husband that would reconcile with an adultress . But how proves this that other causes may divorce ? it proves thus ; there can be but two causes why these councels enjoyn'd so strictly the divorsing of an adultress , either as an offender against God , or against the husband ; in the latter respect they could not impose on him to divorce ; for every man is the maister of his own forgivenes ; who shal hinder him to pardon the injuries don against himself ? It follows therfore that the divorce of an adultress was commanded by these three councels , as it was a sin against God ; and by all consequence they could not but beleeve that other sins as hainous might with equal justice be the ground of a divorce . Basil in his 73. rule , as Chamier numbers it , thus determins , that divorce ought not to be , unlesse for adultery , or the hindrance to a godly life . What doth this but proclaime aloud more causes of divorce then adultery , if by other sins besides this , in wife or husband , the godlines of the better person may be certainly hinder'd , and endanger'd . Epiphanius no less ancient , writing against Heretics , & therefore should himself be orthodoxal above others , acquaints us in his second book Tom. 1 , not that his private persuasion was , but that the whole Church in his time generally thought other causes of divorce lawful besides adultery , as comprehended under that name ; If , saith he , a divorce happ'n for any cause either fornication , or adultery , or any hainous fault , the word of God blames not either the man or wife marrying again , nor cutts them off from the congregation , or from life , but beares with the infirmity ; not that he may keep both wives , but that leaving the former he may be lawfully joyn'd to the latter , the holy word , and the holy Church of God commiserates this man , especially , if he be otherwise of good conversation , and live according to Gods law . This place is cleerer then exposition , and needs no comment . Ambrose on the 16. of Luke , teaches that all wedloc is not Gods joyning and to the 19. of Pro. That a wife is prepard of the Lord , as the old latin translates it , he answers that the septuagint renders it , a wife is fitted by the Lord , and temper'd to a kind of harmony ; and where that harmony is there God joyns ; where it is not , there dissention reigns , which is not from God , for God is love . This he brings to prove the marrying of Christian with Gentile to be no mariage , and consequently divorc't without sin : but he who sees not this argument how plainly it serves to divorce any untunable , or unattonable matrimony , sees little . On the 1 to the Cor , 7 , he grants a woman may leave her husband not for only fornication , but for Apostacy , and inverting nature , though not marry again ; but the man may : heer are causes of divorce assign'd other then adultery . And going on he affirms , that the cause of God is greater then the cause of matrimony ; that the reverence of wedloc is not due to him who hates the author thereof ; that no matrimony is firm without devotion to God ; that dishonour don to God acquitts the other being deserted from the bond of matrimony ; that the faith of mariage is not to be kept with such . If these contorted sentences be ought worth , it is not the desertion that breaks what is broken , but the impiety ; and who then may not for that cause better divorce , then tarry to be deserted ? or these grave sayings of St. Ambrose are but knacks . Jerom on the 19. of Matthew explains , that for the cause of fornication , or the suspicion thereof a man may freely divorce . What can breed that suspicion , but sundry faults leading that way ? by Jeroms consent therfore divorce is free not only for actuall adultery , but for any cause that may encline a wise man to the just suspicion therof . Austin also must be remember'd among those who hold that this instance offornication gives equal inference to other faults equally hateful , for which to divorce : & therfore in his books to Pollentius he disputes that infidelity , as being a greater sin then adultery , ought so much the rather cause a divorce . And on the Sermon in the Mount , under the name of fornication will have idolatry , or any harmfull superstition contain'd , which are not thought to disturb matrimony so directly as som other obstinacies and dissaffections , more against the daily duties of that cov'nant , & in the eastern tongues not unfrequently call'd fornication , as hath bin shew'n . Hence is understood , faith he , that not only for bodily fornication , but for that which draws the mind from Gods law , and fouly corrupts it , a man may without fault put away his wife , and a wife her husband , because the Lord excepts the cause of fornication , which fornication we are constrain'd to interpret in a general sense . And in the first book of his retractations chap. 16. he retracts not this his opinion , but commends it to serious consideration ; and explains that he counted not there all sin to be fornication , but the more detestable sort of sins . The cause of fornication therefore is not in this discours newly interpreted to signify other faults infringing the duties of wedloc , besides adultery . Lastly the councel of Agatba in the year 506. can . 25. decreed , that if lay men who divorc't without some great fault , or giving no probable cause , therfore divorc't , that they might marry som unlawfull person , or som other mans , if before the provinciall Bishops were made acquainted , or judgement past ; they presum'd this , excommunication was the penalty . Whence it followes , that if the cause of divorce were som great offence , or that they gave probable causes for what they did , and did not therefore divorce that they might presume with som unlawfull person , or what was another mans , the censure of Church in those daies did not touch them . Thus having alleg'd anough to shew after what manner the primitive Church for above 500. yeares understood our Saviours words touching divorce , I shall now with a labour less disperst , and sooner dispatcht , bring under view what the civil law of those times constituted about this matter : I say the civil law , which is the honour of every true Civilian to stand for , rather then to count that for law , which the pontificiall Canon hath enthrall'd them to , and in stead of interpreting a generous and elegant law , made them the drudges of a blockish Rubric . Theodosius and Valentinian , pious Emperors both , ordain'd that as by consent lawfull mariages were made , so by consent , but not without the bill of divorce , they might be dissolv'd ; and to dissolve was the more difficult , onely in favour of the children . We see the wisedome and piety of that age one of the purest and learnedest since Christ , conceav'd no hindrance in the words of our Saviour , but that a divorce mutually consented , might bee suffer'd by the law , especially if there were no children , or if there were , carefull provision was made . And further saith that law ( supposing there wanted the consent of either ) wee designe the causes of divorce by this most wholsom law ; for as we forbid the dissolving of mariage without just cause , so we desire that a husband or a wife distrest by som advers necessity , should be freed , though by an unhappy , yet a necessary releefe . What dramm of wisedome , or religion ( for charity is truest religion ) could there be in that knowing age , which is not virtually summ'd up in this most just law ? As for those other Christian Emperours , from Constantine the first of them , finding thé Roman law in this point so answerable to the Mosaic , it might bee the likeliest cause why they alter'd nothing to restraint , but if ought , rather to liberty , for the helpe , and consideration of the weaker sexe , according as the Gospel seems to make the wife more equal to her husband in these conjugal respects then the law of Moses doth . Therefore if a man were absent from his wife foure yeares , and in that space not heard of , though gon to warre in the service of the Empire , she might divorce , and mary another by the edict of Constantine to Dalmatius . Co. l. 5. tit . 17. And this was an age of the Church both antient , and cry'd up still for the most flourishing in knowledge and pious government since the Apostles . But to returne to this law of Theodosius , with this observation by the 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 probibits it , Whence Gregory the Pope writing to Theoctista inferrs that Ecclesiasticall Courts cannot be dissolv'd by the Magistrate . A faire conclusion from a double error . First in saying that the divine law prohibited divorce , for what will hee make of Moses ; next supposing that it did , how will it follow , that what ever Christ for bids in his Evangelic precepts , should be hal'd into a judicial constraint against the patterne of a divine law : Certainely the Gospel came not to enact such compulsions . In the meane while wee may note heere that the restraint of divorce was one of the first faire seeming pleas which the Pope had , to step into secular authority , and with his Antichristian rigor to abolish the permissive law of Christian princes conforming to a sacred lawgiver . Which if we consider , this papal and unjust restriction of divorce need not be so deere to us , since the plausible restraining of that , was in a manner the first loosning of Antichrist ; and as it were the substance of his eldest horn . Nor doe we less remarkably ow the first meanes of his fall heer in England to the contemning of that restraint by Henry 8. whose divorce he oppos'd . Yet was not that rigour executed anciently in spiritual Courts untill Alexander the third , who trod upon the neck of Frederic Barbarossa the Emperor , and summond our Henry 2. into Normandy about the death of Becket . He it was , that the worthy author may be known , who first actually repeal'd the imperial law of divorce , and decreed this tyranous decree , that matrimony for no cause should be disolv'd , though for many causes it might separate ; as may be seen decret , Gregor . l. 4. tit . 19. and in other places of the Canonicall Tomes . The main good of which invention , wherein it consists who can tell ? but that it hath one vertue incomparable , to fill all christendom with whordomes , and adulteries beyond the art of Balaams or of divells . Yet neither can these , though so perverse , but acknowledge that the words of Christ under the name of fornication allow putting away for other causes then adultery both from bed and bord , but not from the bond ; their only reason is , because mariage they beleeve to bee a Sacrament . But our Divines who would seem long since to have renounc'd that reason , have so forgot them selves , as yet to hold the absurdity , which but for that reason , unlesse there be some mystery of Satan in it , perhaps the Papist would not hold . T is true , we grant divorce for actual & prov'd adultery , and not for lesse then many tedious and unreparable yeares of desertion , wherein a man shall loose all his hope of posterity , which great and holy men have bewail'd , ere he can be righted ; and then perhaps on the confines of his old age , when all is not worth the while . But grant this were seasonably don ; what are these two cases to many other , which afflict the state of mariage as bad , and yet find no redresse ? What hath the soule of man deserv'd , if it be in the way of salvation , that it should be morgag'd thus , and may not redeem it selfe according to conscience out of the hands of such ignorant and slothfull teachers as these , who are neither able nor mindful to give due tendance to that pretious cure which they rashly vndertake ; nor have in them the noble goodnesse to consider these distresses and accidents of mans life ; but are bent rather to fill their mouthes with Tithe and oblation . Yet if they can learne to follow , as well as they can seeke to be follow'd , I shall direct them to a faire number of renowned men , worthy to be their leaders , who will commend to them a doctrin in this point wiser then their own , and if they bee not-impatient , it will be the same doctrin which this treatis hath defended . Wicklef that Englishman honor'd of God to be the first preacher of a general reformation to all Europe , was not in this thing better taught of God , then to teach among his cheifest recoveries of truth , that divorce is lawfull to the christian for many other causes equall to adultery . This book indeed through the poverty of our Libraries I am forc't to cite from Arnisaeus of Halberstad on the right of mariage , who cites it from Corasius of Tolouse c. 4. Cent. Sct. and he from Wicklef . l. 4. Dial. c. 21. So much the sorrier , for that I never lookt into author cited by his adversary upon this occasion , but found him more conducible to the question , then his quotation render'd him . Next Luther , how great a servant of God , in his book of conjugal life quoted by Gerard out of the Dutch , allowes divorce for the obstinate denial of conjugal duty ; and that a man may send away a proud Vasthi , and marry an Esther in her stead . It seemes if this example shall not be impertinent , that Luther meant not onely the refusall of benevolence , but a stubborn denial of any main conjugal duty ; or if he did not , it will be evinc't from what he allowes . For out of question , with men that are not barbarous , love and peace , and fitnesse will be yeelded as essential to mariage , as corporal benevolence . Though I give my body to be burnt , saith Saint Paul , and have not charity , it profits me nothing . So though the body prostitute it selfe to whom the mind affords no other love or peace , but constant malice and vexation , can this bodily benevolence deserv to be call'd a mariage between Christians and rationall creatures . Melanchton , the third great luminary of reformation in his book concerning marriage grants divorce for cruell usage , and danger of life , urging the authority of that Theodosian law , which he esteemes written with the grave deliberation of godly men ; and that they who reject this law , and thinke it disagreeing from the Gospel , understand not the difference of law and Gospel ; that the Magistrat ought not only to defend life , but to succour the weake conscience , lest broke with greif and indignation it relinquish praier , and turn to som unlawful thing What if this heavy plight of despaire arise from other discontents in wedloc which may goe to the soule of a good man more then the danger of his life , or cruel using , which a man cannot bee liable to , suppose it be ingratefull usage , suppose it be perpetuall spight and disobedience , suppose a hatred , shall not the Magistrat free him from this disquiet which interrupts his prayers , and disturbs the cours of his service to God and his Country all as much , and brings him such a misery , as that he more desires to leave his life then feares to loose it : Shall not this equally concerne the office of civil protection , and much more the charity of a true Church to remedy ? Erasmus who for learning was the wonder of his age , both in his notes on Matthew , and on the first to the Corinthians in a large and eloquent discourse , and in his answer to Phimostonus a Papist , maintaines ( and no protestant then living contradicted him ) that the words of Christ comprehend many other causes of divorce under the name of fornication . Bucer , whom our famous Dr Rainolds was wont to preferr before Calvin , in his comment on Matthew , and in his second booke of the Kingdome of Christ , treats of divorce at large to the same effect , as is written in the doctrine and discipline of divorce lately publisht , and the translation is extant : whom lest I should be thought to have wrested to mine own purpose , take somthing more out of his 49. Chap. which I then for brevity omitted . It will be the duty of pious princes , and all who govern Church , or common wealth , if any , whether husband or wife , shall affirme their want of such who either will , or can tolerably performe the necessary duties of maried life , to grant that they may seeke them such , and marry them ; if they make it appeare that such they have not . This book he wrote heer in England , where he liv'd the greatest admir'd man , and this hee dedicated to Edward the sixth . Fagius rankt among the famous divines of Germany , whom Frederic at that time the Palatine sent for to be the reformer of his Dominion , and whom afterwards England sought to , and obtain'd of him to come and teach her , differs not in this opinion from Bucer , as his notes on the Chaldey paraphrast well testify . The whole Church of Strasburgh in her most flourishing time , when Zellius , Hedio , Capito , and other great Divines taught there , and those two renouned magistrates Farrerus and Sturmius govern'd that common wealth and Academy to the admiration of all Germany , hath thus in the 21. Article . We teach that if according to the word of God , yea or against it , divorces happen , to doe according to Gods word , Devt . 24. 1. Mat. 19. 1 Cor. 7. and the observation of the primitive Church , and the Christian constitution of pious Caesars . Peter Martyr seems in word our easy adversary , but is in deed for us : toward which though it be somthing when he saith of this opinion , that it is not wicked , and can hardly be refuted , this which followes is much more , I speake not heer saith he , Of natural impediments which may so happ'n , that the matrimony can no longer hold : but adding , that he often wonder'd , how the antient and most christian Emperors establisht those lawes of divorce , and neither Ambrose , who had such influence upon the lawes of Theodosius , nor any of those holy fathers found fault , nor any of the Churches , why the Magistrats of this day should be so loth to constitute the same . Perhaps , they feare an inundation of divorces , which is not likely , whenas we reade not either among the Ebrews , Greeks , or Romans that they were much frequent where they were most permitted . If they judge christian men worse then Jewes or Pagans . they both injure that name , and by this reason will bee constrain'd to grant divorces the rather ; because it was permitted as a remedy of evil , for who would remove the medcin , while the disease is yet so rife ? This being read both in his common places , & on the first to the Corinthians , with what we shall relate more of him yet ere the end , sets him absolutely on this side . Not to insist that in both these , & other places of his commentaries hee grants divorce not onely for desertion , but for the seducement and scandalous demeanour of a heretical consort . Musculus a divine of no obscure fame distinguishes betweene the religious and the civil determination of divorce ; and leaving the civil wholly to the lawyers , pronounces a conscionable divorce for importence not only natural , but accidental , if it be durable . His equity it seems , can enlarge the words of Christ to one cause more then adultery ; why may not the reason of another man as wise , enlarge them to another cause . Gualter of Zuric a well known judicious commentator in his Homilies on Matthew , allows divorce for Leprosie , or any other cause which renders unfit for wedloc , and calls this rather a nullity of mariage then a divorce , and who , that is not himselfe a meer body , can restrain all the unfitnes of mariage only to a corporal defect . Hemingius an Author highly esteem'd , and his works printed at Geneva , writing of divorce , confesses that lerned men vary in this question , some granting three causes thereof , some five , others many more ; he himselfe gives us sixe , adultery , desertion , inability , error , evill usage , and impiety , using argument that Christ under one special containes the whole kind , & under the name & example of fornication he includes other causes equipollent . This discours he wrote at the request of many who had the judging of these causes in Denmark and Norway , who by all likely hood follow'd his advice . Hunnius a Doctor of Wittenberg , well known both in Divinity & other arts , on the 19. of Matt. affirmes that the exception of fornicationexprest by our Saviour excludes not other causes equalling adultery , or destructive to the substantials of matrimony ; but was oppos'd to the custom of the Jewes who made divorce for every light cause . Felix Bidenbachius an eminent Divine in the Dutchy of Wirtemberg affirmes that the obstinat refusal of conjugal due is a lawful cause of divorce , and gives an instance that the consistory of that state sojudg'd . Gerard cites Harbardus an author not unknown , and Arnisaeus cites Wigandus , both yeelding divorce in case of cruel usage ; and another author who testifies to have seen in a dukedom of Germany mariages disjoynd for some implacable enmities arising . Beza one of the strictest against divorce , denies it not for danger of life from a Heretic , or importunat solicitation to doe ought against religion : and counts it all one whether the heretic desert , or would stay upon intolerable conditions . But this decision well examin'd will be found of no solidity . For Beza would be askt why , if God so strictly exact our stay in any kind of wedloc , wee had not better stay and hazard a murdering for Religion at the hand of a wife , or husband , as he and others enjoyn us to stay and venture it for all other causes but that ? and why a mans life is not as well and warrantably sav'd by divorcing from an orthodox murderer , as a heretical ? Againe , if desertion be confest by him to consist not only in the forsaking , but in the unsufferable conditions of staying , a man may as well deduce the lawfulnesse of divorcing from any intolerable conditions ( if his grant bee good that wee may divorce thereupon from a heretic ) as he can deduce it lawfull to divorce from any deserter , by finding it lawful to divorce from a deserting infidel . For this is plaine , if Saint Pauls permission to divorce an infidel deserter , inferre it lawfull for any malicious desertion , then doth Beza's definition of a deserter transferr it selfe with like facility from the cause of religion to the cause of malice , and proves it as good to divorce from him who intolerably stayes as from him who purposely departs ; and leaves it as lawfull to depart from him 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 .