A REMEDY FOR Uncleanness.  
OR, Certain Queries propounded to his Highness the Lord PROTECTOR.  
By a Person of quality.  
LONDON, Printed in the year 1658.   

To his HIGHNESS the LORD PROTECTOR.  
MY LORD!  
I Am not able to divine what suggestions or thoughts of heart these Queries may raise in your Highness, which makes me for the present veil my face, and sit down in expectation. I call Heaven and Earth to witness, no carnal end, or fleshly respect excites me to Query, but an innocent and righteous design to promote the ruin and extirpation (by this conceived remedy) of those impure and unnatural abominations so frequently practised in your Famous City of London, and else where throughout the Nation. Whereof no probable cause, or ground can be assigned more proper, than a denial of this suggested means to prevent them. What is it my Lord, but this rigid restraint and limitation that makes it matter of scorn and reproach to young gallants to marry, and come under the holy Ordinance of God: that foments those domestic differences and contentions so frequently lamented amongst us, that makes almost every assize record the murder of many innocent children. Does not the blood of many thousand infants cry against the rigour of those laws? not permitting their Fathers to espouse their Mothers, and legitimate them unto the world. Is it credible, my Lord, that the note of infamy should only rest upon Christendom? The whole Turkish Empire, if my intelligence and reading fail me not, where this means is used, doth not recount the death of so many innocents' inhumanly destroyed by the cruel hands of their own parents, as England doth.  
May it suffice, my Lord, so far as it relates to your part, that the Christian world hath been deprived so long already of her lawful liberty, by the interposal of Antichristian power; who according as 'twas prophesied of them have forbid to marry, which Luther the great father of Reformation bitterly inveighed against; though the reformed Churches have been so unhappy, as not to take the Alarm from him.  
My Lord, I know custom is not the mistress of your actions; you have learned to stand for Religion, equity, and reason, against mouldy Laws, and rotten Records; and given ample demonstration that your Lordship is not of the number of those slavish and ignoble spirited men, more ready to stoop down to every wormeaten custom, then to the precept of reason and rule of righteousness.  
My Lord, the eyes of a considerable part of Christendom are upon you: something verily is expected from you that shall answer (not to disparage your own virtue) the miracle of your rise and exaltation: no less than the ruin of Turk or Pope, or something of that grand concernment can give satisfaction. Reason and religion persuades me it is but inclining to the querist and investing men (so far as your authority extends) with that right the law of nature and grace hath given them, and you shall need no other Ram to batter the walls of Rome and Constantinople, and make the territories of the Reformed religion equally extensive with them both.  
It's well known, my Lord, nothing hath stretched the Turkish Empire to that breadth that now it is, so much as Polygamy; and if we have but an historical faith, your Lordship cannot be ignorant, that a considerable Country upon this score alone apostatised from christian faith, and fell away to the Mahometan, preferring the liberty of the Koran before the now practised restraint of the Gospel; though the large dominions of Prester John do still retain them both.  
I shall not give your Lordship any further divertisement, but humbly recommend the ensuing Queries to the grave consideration of your most High person, and the gracious presence of God be with you, and the wisdom of Heaven direct you, is the unfeigned prayer. Of  
MY LORD! Your Highness, though unknown, yet most humble servant.   

A REMEDY FOR Uncleanness.  
AS Temperance is accounted amongst the Heathens a Cardinal virtue, so in sacred writ a grace of the Spirit? a temperate man is one well composed in body and mind; one that is not exorbitant in his desires, but in whom all things move as in their proper Sphere. He is as a river running within its banks; he is the lively image of his Creator, and in all his demands is as innocent as his mother the Earth, when she craves the showers to make her fruitful; the abstenious lives of the patriarchs, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, are lively patterns of this virtue; who spent not their days upon Earth, like the men of this generation, in riot and excess, gluttony and drunkenness; but by their sobriety and abstinence commended the holiness of their lives, to the imitation of succeeding ages. What greater monsters in the world than those whom intemperance hath made; they are as a people not of humane race or kind, acting in the pursuit of their sensual appetites beyond the bounds of common justice and honesty. I have thought them like hunters, that scruple not the breaking down their neighbour's fence, to pursue their own game. If temperance were more in credit amongst men, I question not the reduction of things to their primitive beauty, purity, and order. And that love and amity would then advance, and take the wall of hatred, revenge, and injury: What is the great incentive and provocation to uncleanness, and all those abominations not to be named amongst us, but that the bounds and limits for enjoying the creature set by this abstenuous virtue, are passed over in-observed; and by their intemperance, riot, and excess, impose a kind of necessity upon themselves of becoming sinners and transgressors of the laws of holiness.  
Although temperance hath appeared in the first place, yet shall I proceed to the proposal of some humble Queries appertaining to the discovery of another remedy besides it: and the reason inducing me hereunto, is; that although a man be as temperate as in this life it is possible for him; yet may it not alone seem sufficient for the good men. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, David, and Solomon, as temperate as the Earth had any, took Sanctuary at other means besides it.  
Querie 1 Whether it is not more than probable, that the Popish Clergy and the Churchmen in all ages, have not been the only obstructers of Polygamy; because the Holy Ghost hath thought meet to appoint their allowance (in conjunction with their own severe policy) to be but one, that they might the better intent the business of the Church: how for those that are and have been lawgivers to Kings and Princes, and to all sorts of men in ecclesiastics, as marriage they have made a part: for them I say to have but one, nay none at all according to their own unrighteous politics, and to see others round about them permitted to have as many as they please, this they could not bear, and therefore introduced it as a common Law for all men to have but one.  
Whether that Scripture 1 Tim. 3 2. [That a Bishop be the husband of one wife] doth not strongly imply, that other men that are at liberty from Ministerial engagements may have more, if they themselves see cause.  
Whether Paul's judgement in the case be binding to all ages and sorts of men in that principal place [Let every man have his 
1 Cor. 7.2.  own wife] being only spoken by permission, and not by commandment at his own acknowledgement.  
Whether Paul's advice in the  place, did not solely relate to the present state of Christ's Church; the exigency of things obliging them to think of marriage as little as may be. The blessed Apostle knowing that in their present posture and future likely hood they were as Partridges upon the mountains, hunted by their bloody persecutors: and therefore for Christians to have as small a retinue as could be was their wisdom; and so it would be in all persecuting times: but when God shall please to give them peace round about, and to permit them to sit under their own Vines, and eat their own fruit, that they should then continue in that straight condition, or deny themselves of that lawful liberty made use of by others their predecessors in godliness, if they themselves see cause in the Querie.  
Whether Paul in the New Testament, when he speaks of a man having his wife in the singular number, means any more than God in the Tenth Commandment, Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, etc. that is to maintain propriety only, that a man should not desire another man's, but might have more of his own if he pleased; otherwise it might be interpreted a sin to have more houses and oxen than one, they being both in the singular number as well as the wife.  
Whether that must not needs be lawful and imitable for us, which was practised by the patriarchs and Prophets of old, and no where reproved or disannulled by either Prophet, Apostle, or Christ. For amongst all the sins and provocations of the Jewish nation, Polygamy is not so much as whispered: now to think the Lord Christ (who was faithful in all things, and did not spare that nation above all others, whom he came to reclaim from all their sin and wickedness) judged it a sin, and yet not censure it in the least, being so spreading and epidemical, is to make him unfaithful in the great concernments of his office.  
Whether Polygamy carry with it any repugnancy to the rites, laws, and privileges of nature, which God never gave to any the least imperative or permissive dispensation to infringe; but in case of absolute and unparalleled necessity; or whether it be probable there should be any superadded law in grace against that which is no sin in nature.  
Whether that which God himself signifies to be the fruit of his bounty and goodness, ought not to be entertained and thankfully received by men; the Querie is grounded upon that saying of God by Nathan to David, 2 Sam. 12.8. [and I gave thee thy master's house, and thy master's wives, and if that had been too little, etc. Where God speaks immediately by his Prophet of multiplicity of wives, not only by way of connivance and toleration, but as the issue of his goodness, and the expresseness of his will: this wrought up David's sin to the highest aggravation, to have to do with another man's, the Lord having allowed him so many wives of his own.  
Whether a Concubine was a term of reproach in Israel, or in plain English a Whore: as some now no wiser than needs must phrase it. First, because then many of the Patriarches, and sons of other good men must needs prove illegitimate, and their parents fall under the greatest imputation: To pass this censure upon them, what were it but to besmear the beautiful faces of the Fathers of the faithful; and the most excellent servants of God, to take that Crown of glory from their heads which God hath set upon them, and lay it in the dust.  
Whether God hath not left the law of nature to its own carving, and to be supplied according to its own wants, there being no particular rule appointed, assigning unto every individual person his just dimension of meat, drink, or apparel; but every man is left to be a rule unto himself, according to his want and indigency; if he exceeds in quantity or quality, at his own peril, he shall bear his own burden; so in the case in hand, if he sees it convenient, nay, necessary also: Who can forbid his desires in this kind, or shall say unto nature, thus far thou shalt go and no further: or whether it be not hazardous that nature would break out in an unnatural issue, when the common and natural way is denied her and obstructed.  
Whether that ordinary and common allegation that is so frequently made in defence of Monogamy, that God suffered Polygamy only for a season to replenish the world, have any thing in it: If it were malum in se, to receive the least countenance from God; for the least space or tract of time, for ends how great soever were to tolerate evil that good might come of it, besides the Land of Judea (even then when Polygamy was most in use) was as populous, for the like quantity and proportion of ground as any part of the world is at this day; witness that great sight 'twixt Abijah and Jeroboam, 2 Chron. 13.17. where on Israel's side there fell down five hundred thousand chosen men.  
Whether Luther, the Father of reformation, in his inveighing against the Popish doctrine of forbidding marriage, did not countenance Polygamy, positively affirming, that to have more wives than one was not where forbidden, neither did he forbidden it, and that in case of the woman's impotency or infirmity, he might lawfully take his handmaid.  
Whether the Laws made in Queen Elizabeth's time, and since touching adultery be just and rational, because they make that adultery which God never made, viz. If a married man have carnal knowledge of a single woman, and not only so, but punish it with death; justifying their penal statutes from the Law of Moses, but refusing and rejecting the remedies propounded by the Law, the Querie is made, Whether it were not equitable, before they inflict so severe punishment as is provided by our Laws in this case, to afford men the same means of prevention, as under the Legal dispensation was tolerated and allowed them.  
Whether there be any thing material in that 19 of Matth. against Polygamy: because the question is demanded of our Saviour out of design to ensnare him concerning divorce, a thing of a far different nature: whether then it can be supposed his answer concerning one thing should be binding and effectual to another of a quite contrary subject: the saying itself being framed and calculated by Christ, to reprove that readiness and forwardness in the Jews to divorce upon every sleight occasion. And as cutting as this his answer seems to be to the Pharisees upon the demand of the Disciples, our Saviour seems to be more favourable. For when they told him [If it be so, it is good not to marry] he replies, [That all men cannot receive this saying, but those to whom it is given] so lest they should stumble at marriage, he removes it out of their way by his mild and gentle answer: and in the next verse, [He that is able to receive it, let him receive it]: Complying with that of Saint Paul, that one man hath one gift, and another, another; leaving them in this at liberty as he found them, lest he should seem to cross nature, or infringe the Laws thereof, which he himself had made.  
Whether to forbid plurality of wives under the Gospel, be not highly derogatory, from the free and sweet tenor thereof, and constructively and in effect to make the Legal and Mosaical dispensation (which neither we nor our Fathers were able to bear) more easy and tolerable than the Christian and Evangelical; and to thwart that testimony given of it by our Saviour: That his Yoke was easy, and his burden light.  
Whether it may not stand with a gracious Spirit, and be every way consistent with the principles of a man fearing God, and loving holiness, to have more women than one to his proper use and service, because it hath been at good accord and agreement, with the principles and practices of as godly, holy, righteous, and just men as ever the earth bore any, that were merely men, and subject to the like infirmities that we are; or what is it that hath made the diversification, that it should not every way suit and comport with the nature and essence of purity and holiness, in the present Saints and people of God, as well as those that walked with God before and after the flood.  
Whether Polygamy by the strictest rules of reason and equity, can be judged any way obstructive unto humane society, and communication. Nay, whether it be not the fairest accord and correspondency therewith tending so much to the defence and preservation of propriety: He that takes another man's Ox or Ass is doubtless a transgressor; but he that puts himself out of the occasion of that temptation, by keeping of his own, seems to be a right, honest, and well meaning man.  
Whether that passage; [They two shall be one flesh] have any thing in it considerable against Polygamy: or whether in the sense of that Scripture, one man may not be one flesh with two women: As in the body of Christ there are many members, yet but one body, by our Saviour's own Logic. Why should many wives with one husband be denied to be one flesh, any more than the other; our Saviour himself alluding to marriage, to make good his argument in that kind.  
FINIS.