'ib^ 
 
 u 
 
THE 
 
 DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 OF 
 
 DIVORCE: 
 
 fin Ctoo JSDOlts: 
 
 ALSO THE 
 
 JUDGEMENT OF MARTIN BUCER; 
 TBTBACHORDON ; 
 
 AND AN 
 
 ABRIDGEMENT OF COLASTERION. 
 
 By JOHN MILTON. 
 
 WITH 
 
 Re/erring to Events of deep and pow&'ful Interest at the present Cvisis ; 
 
 INSCRIBED 
 
 TO THE EARL OF LIVERPOOL. 
 
 BY 
 
 A CIVILIAN 
 
 " Crede inihi, noii est parvae fiduciat polliceri opein decertantibus, consilium dubiu, 
 Inmcn coecis, spem dejectis, refrigeriiim fessis. Magna quidem h«c sunt, si ftant ;' 
 pArva, si promittantur," PETRARCH :— De Vita Solitaria. 
 
 itonfton: 
 
 PRINTED FOR SHERWOOD, NEELY, AND JONES, 
 
 PATERNOSTER- ROW. 
 
 1820. 
 
W. Flinf, Printer, Angel Conrt, Skiarier Street. 
 
TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE THE 
 
 EARL OF LIVERPOOL- 
 
 MY LORD, 
 
 The name of Milton requires 
 
 not the sanction of rank or greatness : 
 
 But as the subject of the present volume 
 
 must necessarily engage the deep attention 
 
 of his Majesty's Government ; and as there 
 
 is no other work in which that subject is 
 
 so ably and impartially discussed, I have 
 
 presumed to inscribe it to your Lordship — 
 
 and am, my Lord, with profound respect, 
 
 Yoiir Lordship's most 
 
 Obedient Servant, 
 
 THE EDITOR. 
 
Digitized by tine Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/doctrinediscipliOOmiltrich 
 
PREFACE 
 
 BY 
 
 THE EDI TOR 
 
 Public opinion whether founded in truth or 
 falsehood is uncontroulable* The institutions of 
 rehgion and the laws of society may oppose formi* 
 dable barriers to restrain, but they must ultimately 
 yield to its influence. It is the irrevocable law of 
 human nature that the general will consentaneously 
 and firmly expressed shall triumph. Erroneous 
 opinion, the result of ignorance and prejudice, and 
 sanctioned by custom, has ever been mighty for 
 evil, and in the ages that are past has exercised 
 and maintained an almost omnipotent dominion. 
 Against this usurpation of her throne. Truth has 
 modestly ventured to assert her claims ; but he^ 
 voice has been drowned in the loud clamour of 
 popular indignation, and those who with super- 
 human courage have dared to espouse her cause 
 have been vicariously immolated to appease the 
 daemon invested with her awful and high preroga. 
 tives. Many a victim has perished in the gloom 
 
vi PREFACE. 
 
 of a dungeon and expired on the scaffold, and at 
 the stake. The very weapons of truth as well as 
 her advocates have been violently wrested from her 
 defence. It has been deemed high treason against 
 established authority to seek her in the exile to 
 which she has been driven, or to make an appeal 
 in her behalf through the various mediums of public 
 and accredited instruction. The pulpit, the press, 
 and the intercourse of social life have been placed 
 under the severe interdiction of uttering an expres- 
 sion or a thought that would seem to favour the most 
 trivial of her interests. The world has never been 
 her friend nor the world^s law. Whatever she has 
 acquired have been the laurels of dearly purchased 
 victories, achieved by the prowess and sufferings 
 of her champions and martyrs. Like her glorious 
 prototype it has been her lot to be despised and 
 rejected of men. Still, however, in the darkest 
 periods, and amidst the insolent triumphs of her ad- 
 versaries, a few there have been who have sought 
 het sorrowing, who have paid her the homage of 
 their tears, and who have dared though their lives 
 and estates were the instant forfeiture, to proclaim 
 her the sovereign mistress of their destiny. Chival- 
 rous and brave, they have loved persecution for her 
 sake, and her smile, the smile of immortality has 
 irradiated with glory the disgrace which settled upon 
 their tomb. 
 
 But let it not be imagined that their conflicts 
 and their woes have been wasted in vain attempts 
 to raise a fallen greatness. Not an effort, not aparfg 
 
PREFACE. sM 
 
 has been lost. Error has trembled on her throne 
 and her prophetic soul even now writhes in dread 
 anticipation of her fate. That throne she must 
 abandon ; — -the rightful majesty so long expelled re- 
 turns with a crown of insufferable brightness, too daz- 
 zling for the misty eye-balls of falsehood, and of her 
 impious train to look upon. The mightiest names 
 are enrolled in her list of worthies. Law she has 
 emancipated from the trammels of feudal barba- 
 rism ; science from the restrictions of the schools ; 
 and religion from the manacles of superstition. 
 Self-evident truths, as thev were once deemed, are 
 now denounced as exploded puerilities ; and men 
 whose names were synonymous with infamy, Grali- 
 leo and Milton, and others, are heard with admi- 
 ration and reverence. The minds, even of the 
 common vulgar, are no longer confined within the 
 narrow prejudices which once seemed to be their 
 sad and perpetual inheritance. Bold and singular 
 opinions walk abroad with fearless independence 
 challenging investigation ; — the press is compara- 
 tively free, and nothing but licentiousness, treason, 
 and blasphemy are prohibited or restrained. The 
 present age, thanks to the achievements of the wise 
 and good, may be considered as the commence- 
 ment of the Millenium of truth. Ancient and for- 
 gotten doctrines which were uttered in unheeding 
 ears, or which were heard only to be reprobated, 
 possessing still the vigour of immortahty which 
 obscurity and neglect could never impair, because 
 they were homogenous parts of that tvuth, every 
 particle of which must live for ever, now venture 
 
m PREFACE. 
 
 forth, favoured by the spirit of the age, to plead for 
 themselves ; and though their progress is confessedly 
 slow, and they have still to contend with inveterate 
 prejudice, yet every day enlarges the sphere of 
 their influence, and increases the weight of their 
 authority. 
 
 It has, also, sometimes happened, in furtherance 
 of the cause of knowledge and consequently of 
 happiness, that the errors and evils which, for cen- 
 turies, have triumphed over the human mind, and 
 perverted the laws and institutions of society, have 
 at length run themselves out ; or circumstances have 
 arisen to expose their absurdity, or to abrogate 
 their power. 
 
 A great vital question involving the interests of 
 moraHty and religion, and deeply affecting the well 
 being of the community, it is probable will be 
 brought under discussion by the unhappy differences 
 which prevail between the most illustrious person- 
 ages in the realm, and which agitate, in an unex- 
 ampled and most alarming degree, the feelings and 
 passit)ns of the whole nation. 
 
 It will, perhaps, not be deemed too much to affirm, 
 that if the laws regarding royal marriages had been 
 consonant either with reason or religion, or if the 
 subject of divorce, as it regards the community in 
 general, had been properly understood and embodied 
 , in our canon and civil codes that what we 
 now so deeply deplore, could not have taken 
 place ; and that the two distinguished individuals 
 who occupy a station of such distressing celebrity. 
 
PREFACE. ix 
 
 could never have been obtruded upon the pubHc, 
 under circumstances so agonizing to their feelings, 
 and so injurious to their dignity. 
 
 If, however, from this lamented and partial 
 calamity, general benefit should arise and the 
 public mind should be enlightened to the right 
 understanding of the nature of the marriage con- 
 tract, and the limits of the obligation which it im- 
 poses, and that public mind so enlightened, should 
 express its will in the high court of Parliament, abro- 
 gating every irrational, impolitic, and anti-Christian 
 canon and statute, the domestic misfortunes of the 
 royal family will have a mitigation and relief which 
 will reconcile the illustrious sufferers to the evils 
 which they endure ; because they will enjoy the 
 generous consolation of knowing that these evils 
 can never again be inflicted, either upon the prince 
 or the people. 
 
 Alas ! how many thousands, as well as their 
 majesties, are the victims of a barbarism as foreign 
 from the spirit and improvement of the age, as it is 
 repugnant to the mild and equitable requirements 
 of the Christian law-giver. In how many miser- 
 able families, are the greatest and best ends of 
 marriage altogether frustrated ! Yet, can the injured 
 obtain no redress ; and their wretchedness is aggra- 
 vated by the bitter reflection, that it can terminate 
 only with life. 
 
 The present work of Milton is re-published, 
 because it is the only book on this great and mo- 
 mentous subject, which is at the same time full and 
 
X BRl&FACE. 
 
 compendious ; which argues the whole question 
 with fairness and impartiality, appealing to every 
 principle of reason, and every dictate of scripture ; 
 which is learned, and yet popular ; which cites the 
 best authorities, and refutes the strongest objections ; 
 and which will amply re-pay every reader that sits 
 down to its perusal, if not by making him a convert 
 to its doctrines, yet by enriching his mind with va-» 
 rious knowledge, and delighting his imagination with 
 the charms of wit and eloquence. 
 
 It was originally addressed to the Parliament of 
 England ; and though it failed in the principal 
 object which its author purposed, yet it was read 
 and approved by philosophers and statesmen. Nor 
 w^as it wholly without effect ; there were not a few 
 who embraced the Doctrine, and obeyed the Disci- 
 pline of Divorce.* 
 
 * Dr. Symmons, perhaps the most impartial biographer of Mil- 
 ton, says " On the subject of Divorce, he makes out a strong case, 
 and fights with arguments which cannot be easily repelled. The 
 whole context of the Holy Scriptures, the laws of the first 
 Christian Emperors, the opinions of some of the most eminent 
 reformers, and a projected statute of Edward the Sixth, are 
 adduced by him for the purpose of demonstrating that by the 
 laws of God, and by the inferences of the most virtuous and 
 enlightened men, the power of divorce ought not to be rigidly 
 restricted to those causes, which render the nuptial state un- 
 fruitful, or which taint it with a spurious offspring. Regard- 
 ing mutual support as the principal object of this union, he 
 contends that whatever defrauds it of these ends, essentially 
 vitiates the contract, and must necessarily justify its dissolution. 
 
PREFACE. xi 
 
 It was violently attacked by the Presbyterian 
 Clergy ; nor can such a writer as Milton, ever 
 prove acceptable to the bigots of any sect. 
 
 Whether our senators and the people at large 
 are prepared to meet this great subject, and fear- 
 lessly to act upon the dictates of truth and charity ; 
 or whether, devoted to established custom and 
 ancient institutions, they resolve not to change an 
 iota of things as they are ; yet will the present 
 work, if read with attention, abate certain popular 
 prejudices, and assuage certain irritable feelings 
 which have betrayed a large portion of our people 
 into the expression of something like injustice 
 towards one suffering party, and induced them to 
 give all their sympathy and regret, with an incon- 
 siderate zeal, to the woes and misfortunes of the 
 other. 
 
 Without venturing to anticipate the topics which 
 form the basis of the following tracts, and without 
 
 Though his arguments failed, and indeed, they could not 
 reasonably hope to produce general conviction, their effect was 
 far from inconsiderable ; and a party distinguished by the name 
 of Miltonists, attested the power of his pen, and gave conse- 
 quence to his pleading for divorce. The legislature however, 
 coinciding evidently with a large majority of the nation, seem 
 to have considered the evil resulting from the indissolubleness 
 of marriage, as not to be weighed against the greater good ; 
 and their wisdom permitted the abilities of Milton to be exerted 
 in vain against that condition of the tontract, which provided 
 the most effectually for the interest of the offspring, and which 
 offered the best means of intimately blending the fortunes, the 
 tempers, and. the manners of the parents,'* 
 
xii PREFACE. 
 
 offering any very decided opinion as to the practi- 
 cability of the disciphne which the author stre- 
 nuously recommends, it may be fairly presumed, 
 that the general unhappiness of married life pro- 
 ceeds from some grand and fundamental error in 
 the laws and canons which respect divorce ; and 
 that this law is perhaps founded on some vital 
 mistake with regard to the institution of marriage 
 itself. Matrimony certainly partakes more of the 
 nature of a civil contract, than of that of a religious 
 obligation ; and is a totally different thing from what 
 either Popish or Protestant Churches in general 
 represent it to be. It is not a necessary and per- 
 mitted evil, as Popery insinuates ; nor is it an into- 
 lerable burthen, and a cleaving curse for life, as 
 some Protestant Churches have decreed, Jeremy 
 Taylor has beautifully observed, that " the first 
 blessing God gave to man, was society ; and that 
 society was a marriage ; and that marriage was 
 confederate by God himself, and hallowed by a 
 blessing. It contains in it all sweetness, and all 
 society and felicity, and all prudence, and all 
 wisdom. For there is nothing can please a 
 man without love. And if a man be weary of 
 the wise discourses of the apostles, and of the 
 innocency of an even and a private fortune, 
 or hates peace or a fruitful year, he hath reaped 
 thorns and thistles from the choicest flowers of 
 Paradise ; for nothing can sweeten felicity itself 
 but love. But when a man dwells in love, then 
 the breasts of his wife are pleasant as the droppings 
 
PREFACE. xfii 
 
 of the hill of Hermon, her eyes are fair as the 
 light of heaven, she is a fountain sealed, and he 
 can quench his thirst, and ease his cares, and lay 
 his sorrow down upon her lap, and can retire home, 
 as to his sanctuary and his garden of sweetness 
 and chaste refreshments. But he that loves not 
 his wife and children, feeds a lioness at home, and 
 broods a nest of sorrows, and blessing itself can- 
 not make him happy. So that all the command- 
 ments of God enjoining a man to love his wife are 
 nothing but so many necessities and capacities of 
 joy ; she that is loved is safe, and he that loves is 
 joyful.'^ But when in the married state there is 
 discovered by the parties a total want of congenia- 
 lity, an absolute incapacity to promote each other's 
 felicity, even the command of Heaven cannot avail 
 to constrain love ; and laws and obligations which 
 make a contract eternal, in which it is impossible 
 for the individuals who have made it to fulfil any of 
 its conditions, can be nothing less than the most 
 odious and oppressive tyranny. A tyranny, which 
 the wise and good governor of the universe could 
 never exercise. Heaven has ordained that they 
 who marry should be a help meet to each other, 
 and Milton, in his immortal Poem, introduces our 
 first parent, thus addressing his Creator. 
 
 " Hast thou not made rnt3 here thy substitute) 
 •* And these inferior far beneath rne set } 
 ** Among unequal what society 
 •* Can sort, what harmony or true delight ? 
 '• Which must be mutual in prf»porti6n due 
 
sir PREFACE. 
 
 " Giv'n and receivM ; hut m disparity 
 
 •* The one intense, the other still remiss, 
 
 " Cannot well suit with either, but soon prove 
 
 " Tedious alike : Of fellowship 1 speak, 
 
 ** Such as I seek, fit to participate 
 
 *« All rational delight."— 
 
 But it is " the unhappy chance of many men, 
 finding (as Taylor quaintly expresses it,) many 
 inconveniencies upon the mountains of a single life 
 to descend into the vallies of marriage to refresh 
 their troubles ; and there they enter into fetters, 
 and are bound to sorrow by the cords of a woman's 
 |)eevishness ; and the worst of the evil is, they have 
 to thank their own folly." But may we not ask, 
 with some degree of indignation, whether justice or 
 humanity can require such an outrageous punish- 
 ment of mere folly and mistake ? Is it not an in- 
 fliction that we should deprecate falling on the head 
 of the most atrocious criminal ? And may we not 
 hope, that amidst the rapid improvement in politi- 
 cal science and legislation that the counsels of the 
 wise, and the efforts of the benevolent will prepare 
 an effectual remedy for this evil, which, according 
 to present intitutions, is lengthened to the utmost 
 period of the life of man ? 
 
 Of Milton himself it is no longer necessary to 
 speak either in the language of censure or applause. 
 He has gained the summit of the immortality to 
 which he knew the justice of mankind would one 
 day advance him. But it is impossible to reflect on 
 his noble struggles in the cause of his country with- 
 
PREFACE. XV 
 
 out admiration. He presents to the imagination one 
 of the most subhme and affecting moral spectacles 
 ever exhibited in human nature. "• My mind/' 
 says Coleridge, (and with thie quotation 1 shall close 
 my observations) "is not capable of forming a more 
 august conception, than arises from the contempla- 
 tion of this great man in his latter days ; poor, sick, 
 old, blind, slandered, persecuted 
 
 ** Darkness before, and Danger's voice behind," 
 
 in an age in which he was as little understood by 
 the party for whom, as by that against whom he 
 had contended ; and among men before whom he 
 strode so far as to divarf himself by the distance ; yet 
 still listening to the music of his own thoughts or if 
 additionally cheered, yet cheered only by the pro- 
 phetic faith of two or three individuals, he did 
 nevertheless 
 
 Argue not 
 
 ** Against heaven*s hand or will, nor bate a jot 
 " Of heart or hope ; but still bore up and steer'd 
 *^ Right onward." 
 
 From others only do we derive our knowledge 
 that Milton in his latter day had his scorners and 
 detractors ; and even in his day of youth and hope, 
 that he had enemies would have been unknown to 
 us, had they not been likewise the enemies of his 
 country." 
 
TO THE 
 
 PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND, 
 
 WITH 
 
 THE ASSEMBLY. 
 
 If it were seriously asked, (and it would be no un- 
 timely question,) renowned parliament, select as- 
 sembly ! who of all teachers and masters, that have 
 ever taught, hath drawn the most disciples after 
 him, both in religion and in manners ? it might be 
 not untruly answered, Custom. Though virtue be 
 commended for the most persuasive in her theory, 
 and conscience in the plain demonstration of the 
 spirit finds most evincing; yet whether it be the 
 secret of Divine will, or the original blindness we 
 are born in, so it happens for the most part, that 
 custom still is silently received for the best in- 
 structor. Except it be, because her method is 
 
t TO THK PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 SO glib and easy, in some manner like to that 
 vision of Ezekiel rolling up her sudden book of 
 implicit knowledge, for him that will to take and 
 swallow down at pleasure ; which proving but of 
 bad nourishment in the concoction, as it was heed- 
 less in the devouring, puffs up unhealthily a certain 
 big face of pretended learning, mistaken among cre- 
 dulous men for the wholesome habit of soundness 
 and good constitution, but is indeed no other than 
 that swoln visage of counterfeit knowledge and lite- 
 rature, which not only in private mars our educa- 
 tion, but also in public is the common climber into 
 every chair, where either religion is preached, or 
 law reported : filling each estate of life and profes- 
 sion with abject and servile principles, depressing 
 the high and heaven-born spirit of man, far beneath 
 the condition wherein either God created him, or 
 sin hath sunk him.- To pursue the allegory, custom 
 being but a mere face, as echo is a mere voice, rests 
 not in her unaccomplishment, until, by secret incli- 
 nation, she accorporate herself with error, who, 
 being a blind and serpentine body without a head, 
 wilhngly. accepts what he wants, and supplies what 
 her incompleteness went seeking. Hence it is, that 
 error supports custom — custom countenances error : 
 and these two between them would persecute and 
 chase away all truth and solid wisdom out of human 
 life, were.it not that God, rather than man, once 
 in many' ages calls together the prudent and religious 
 counsels of men, deputed to repress the encroach- 
 ments, and to work off the inveterate blots and 
 
to THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 8 
 
 obscurities wrought upon our minds by the subtle ' 
 insinuatinor of error and custom ; who, with the 
 numerous and vulgar train of their followers, make 
 it their chief design to envy and cry down the in- 
 dustry of free reasoning, under the terms of humour 
 and innovation ; as if the womb of teeming truth 
 were to be closed up, if she presume to bring forth 
 aught that sorts not with their unchewed notions 
 and suppositions. Against which notorious injury 
 and abuse of man's free soul, to testify and oppose 
 the utmost that study and true labour can attain, 
 heretofore the incitement of men reputed grave hath . 
 led me among others ; and now the duty and the 
 right of an instructed Christian calls me through 
 the chance of good or evil report, to be the sole 
 advocate of a discountenanced truth, if a high en- 
 terprise, lords and commons! a high enterprise 
 and a hard, and such as evei-y seventh son of a 
 seventh son does not venture on. Nor have I . 
 amidst the clamour of so much envy and imperti- 
 nence whither to appeal^ but to the concourse of so 
 much piety and wisdom here assembled. Bringing 
 in my hands an ancient and most necessary,^ most 
 charitable, and yet most injured statute of Moses ; 
 not repealed ever by him who only had the au- 
 thority, but thrown aside with much inconsiderate 
 neglect, under the rubbish of canonical ignorance ; 
 as once the whole law was by some such like con- 
 veyance in Josiah's time. And he who shall en- 
 deavour the amendment of any old neglected griev- 
 ance in church or state, or in the daily course of 
 • B 2 
 
if TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 life, if he be gifted with abilities of mind, that may 
 raise him to so high an undertaking, I grant he 
 hath already much whereof not to repent him ; yet 
 let me aread him, not to be the foreman of any 
 mis-judged opinion, unless his resolutions be firmly 
 seated in a square and constant mind, not conscious 
 to itself of any deserved blame, and regardless of 
 ungrounded suspicions. For this let him be sure 
 he shall be boarded presently by the ruder sort, but 
 not by discreet and well-nurtured men, with a thou- 
 sand idle descants and surmises. Who when they 
 cannot confute the least joint or sinew of any pas- 
 sage in the book ; yet God forbid that truth should 
 be truth, because they have a boisterous conceit 
 of some pretences in the writer. But were they 
 not more busy and inquisitive than the apostle com- 
 mends, they would hear him at least, " rejoicing 
 so the truth be preached, whether of envy or other 
 pi^etence whatsoever -J* for truth is as impossible 
 to be soiled by any outward touch as the sun- 
 beam ; though this ill hap wait on her nativity, 
 that she never comes into the world, but like a bas- 
 tard, to the ignominy of him that brought her forth ; 
 till time, the midwife rather than the mother of 
 truth, have washed and salted the infant, declared 
 her legitimate, and churched the father of his young 
 Minerva, from the needless causes of his purgation. 
 Yourselves can best witness this, worthy patriots ! 
 and better will, no doubt, hereafter: for who among 
 ye of the foremost that have travailed in her behalf 
 to the good of church or state, hath not been often? 
 
TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 5 
 
 traduced to be the agent of his own by-ends, under 
 pretext of reformation ? So much the more I shall 
 not be unjust to hope, that however infamy or envy 
 may work in other men to do her fretful will 
 against this discourse, yet that the experience of your 
 own uprightness mis-interpreted will put ye in mind, 
 to give it free audience and generous construc- 
 tion. What though the brood of Belial, the draff 
 of men, to whom no liberty is pleasing, but un- 
 bridled and vagabond lust without pale or partitiorr, 
 will laugh broad perhaps, to see so great a strength 
 of scripture mustering up in favour, as they sup- 
 pose, of their debaucheries ; they will know better 
 when they shall hence learn, that honest liberty is 
 the greatest foe to dishonest licence. And what 
 though others, out of a waterish and queasy con- 
 science, because ever crazy and never yet sound, 
 will rail and fancy to themselves that injury and 
 licence is the best of this book ? Did not the dis- 
 temper of their own stomachs affect them with a 
 dizzy megrim, they would soon tie up their tongues, 
 and discern themselves like that Assyrian blas- 
 phemer, all this while reproaching not man, but 
 the Almighty, the Holy One of Israel, whom they 
 do not deny to have belawgiven his own sacred 
 people with this very allowance, which they now 
 call injury and licence, and dare cry shame on, and 
 will do yet a while, till they get a little cordial 
 sobriety to settle their qualming zeal. But this 
 question concerns not us perhaps : indeed man^s 
 disposition, though prone to search after vain cu- 
 
6 TO THP PAHLIAMENT OF ENGI.AND. 
 
 riosities, yet when points of difficulty are to be 
 discussed, appertaining to the removal of unreason- 
 able wrong and burden from the perplexed life of 
 our brother, it is incredible how cold, how dull, 
 and far from all fellow-feeling we are, without the 
 spur of self-concernment. Yet if the wisdom, the 
 justice, the purity of God be to be cleared from 
 foulest imputations, which are not yet avoided; if 
 charity be not to be degraded and trodden down 
 under a civil ordinance ; if matrimony be not to 
 be advanced like that exalted perdition written 
 of to the Thessalonians, " above all that is called 
 God,'^ or goodness, nay against them both ; then 
 I dare affirm, there will be found in the con- 
 tents of this book that which may concern us 
 all, You it concerns chiefly, worthies in par^ 
 liament ! on whom, as on our deliverers, all our 
 grievances and cares, by the merit of your emi- 
 nence and fortitude, are devolved. Me it con- 
 cerns next, having with much labour and faithful 
 diligence first found out, or at least with a fearless 
 and communicative candour first published to the 
 manifest good of Christendom, that which, calling 
 to witness every thing mortal and immortal, I 
 believe unfeignedly to be true. Let not other men 
 think their conscience bound to search continually 
 after truth, to pray for enlightening from above, to 
 publish what they think they have so obtained, and 
 debar me from conceiving myself tied by the same 
 duties. Ye have now, doubtless, by the favour and 
 appoiatment of God, ye have now in your hands a 
 
TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 7 
 
 great and populous nation to reform ; from what 
 corruption, what blindness in religion, ye know 
 well ; in what a degenerate and fallen spirit from 
 the apprehension of native liberty, and true manli- 
 ness, I am sure ye find ; with what unbounded 
 licence rushing to whoredoms and adulteries^ needs 
 not long inquiry ; insomuch that the fears, which 
 men have of too strict a discipline, perhaps exceed 
 the hopes, that can be in others, of ever introducing 
 it with any great success. What if I should tell ye 
 now of dispensations and indulgencies, to give a 
 little the reins, to let them play and nibble with 
 the bait a while ; a people as hard of heart as that 
 Egyptian colony that went to Canaan. This is 
 the common doctrine that adulterous and injurious 
 divorces were not connived at only, but with eye 
 open allowed of old for hardness of heart. But that 
 opinion, I trust, by then this following argument 
 hath been well read, will be left for one of the 
 mysteries of an indulgent Antichrist, to farm out 
 incest by, and those his other tributary pollutions. 
 What middle way can be taken then, may some inter- 
 rupt, if we must neither turn to the right nor to the 
 left, and that the people hate to be reformed } Mark 
 then, judges and lawgivers, and ye whose office it is 
 to be our teachers, for I will utter now a doctrine, if 
 ever any other, though neglected or not understood, 
 yet of great and powerful importance to the governing 
 of mankind. He who wisely would restrain the rea- 
 sonable soul of man within due bounds, must first 
 himself know perfectly, how far the territory and 
 
8 TO THE PARI^IAMENT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 dominion extends of just and honest liberty. As 
 little must he offer to bind that which God hath 
 loosened, as to loosen that which he hath bound. 
 The ignorance and mistake of this high point hath 
 heaped up one huge half of all the misery, that hath 
 been since Adam. In the gospel we shall read a 
 supercilious crew of masters, whose holiness, or 
 rather whose evil eye, grieving that God should be 
 so facile to man, was to set straighter limits to obe^ 
 dienee, than God hath set, to enslave the dignity 
 of man, to put a garrison upon his neck of empty 
 and over dignified precepts : and we shall read our 
 Saviour never more grieved and troubled, than to 
 meet with such a peevish madness among men 
 against their own freedom. How can we expect 
 him to be less offended with us, when much of the 
 same folly shall be found yet remaining where it 
 least ought, to the perishing of thousands? The 
 greatest burden in the world is superstition, not 
 only of ceremonies in the church, but of imaginary 
 and scare-crow sins at home. With greater weak* 
 ening, what more subtle stratagem against our 
 Christian warfare, when besides the gross body of 
 real transgressions to encounter, we shall be terrified 
 by a vain and shadowy menacing of faults that are 
 not : when things indifferent shall be set to over* 
 front us under the banners of sin, what wonder if we 
 be routed, and by this art of our adversary, fall into 
 the subjection of worst and deadliest offences? 
 The superstition of the papist is, " touch not, taste 
 not," when God bids both ; and ours is, " part not, 
 
TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 9 
 
 separate not," when God and charity both permit 
 and command. " Let all your things be done 
 with charity/' saith St. Paul ; and his master saith, 
 *' She is the fulfilling of the law." Yet now a c . il, 
 jand indifferent, a sometime dissuaded law of mar- 
 riage, must be forced upon us to fulfil, not only 
 without charity, but against her. No place in 
 Heaven or earth, except Hell, where charity may 
 not enter : yet marriage, the ordinance of our 
 solace and contentment, the remedy of our lone- 
 liness, will not admit now either of charity or 
 mercy, to come in and mediate, or pacify the fierce- 
 ness of this gentle ordinance, the unremedied lone- 
 liness of this remedy. Advise ye well, supreme 
 senate, if charity be thus excluded and expulsed, 
 how ye will defend the untainted honour of your 
 own actions and proceedings. He who marries, 
 intends as little to conspire his own ruin, as he 
 that swears allegiance : and as a whole people is in 
 proportion to an ill government, so is one man to 
 an ill marriage. If they, against any authority, 
 covenant, or statute, may by the sovereign edict of 
 charity, save not only their lives, but honest liber- 
 ties from unworthy bondage, as well may he against 
 any private covenant, which he never entered to his 
 mischief, redeem himself from unsupportable dis- 
 turbances to honest peace, and just contentment : 
 and much the rather, for that to resist the highest 
 magistrate though tyrannizing, God never gave us 
 express allowance, only he gave us reason, charity, 
 nature, and good example to bear us out ; but in 
 
iO TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND, 
 
 this economical misfortune thus to demean our- 
 selves, besides the warrant of those four great direc- 
 tors, which doth as justly belong hither, we have an 
 express law of God, and such a law, as whereof our 
 Saviour with a solemn threat forbid the abrogating. 
 For no effect of tyranny can sit more heavy on the 
 commonwealth, than this household unhappiness 
 on the family. And farewell all hope of true refor- 
 mation in' the state, while such an evil as this lies 
 undiscerned or unregarded in the house: on the 
 redress whereof depends not only the spiritual and 
 orderly hfe of our grown men, but the willing and 
 careful education of our children. Let this there- 
 fore be new examined, this tenure and freehold of 
 mankind, this native and domestic charter given us 
 by a greater lord than that Saxon king the con- 
 fessor. Let the statutes of God be turned over, be 
 scanned anew, and considered not altogether by 
 the narrow intellectuals of quotationists and common 
 places, but (as was the ancient right of councils) 
 by men of what liberal profession soever, of eminent 
 spirit and breeding, joined with a diffuse and various 
 knowledge of divine and human things ; able to 
 balance and define good and evil, right and wrong, 
 throughout every state of life ; able to show us the 
 ways of the Lord straight and faithful as they are, 
 not full of cranks and contradictions, and pit-faUing 
 dispenses, but with divine insight and benignity 
 measured out to the proportion of each mind and 
 spirit, each temper and disposition created so differ- 
 ent each from other, and yet by the skill of wise 
 
TO THE PARLIAMENT OP ENGLAND. 11 
 
 conducting, all to become uniform in virtue. To 
 expedite these knots, were worthy a learned and 
 memorable synod ; while our enemies expect to see 
 the expectation of the church tired out with depen- 
 dencies and independencies how they will com- 
 pound, and in what calends. Doubt not worthy 
 seaators ! to vindicate the sacred honour and judg- 
 ment of Moses your predecessor, from the shallow 
 commenting of scholastics and canonists. Doubt 
 not after him to reach out your steady hands to 
 the mis-informed and wearied life of man ; to restore 
 this his lost heritage, into the household state ; 
 wherewith be sure that peace and love, the best 
 subsistence of a Christian family, will return home 
 from whence they are now banished : places of 
 prostitution will be less haunted, the neighbour's 
 bed less attempted, the yoke of prudent and manly 
 discipline will be generally submitted to; sober 
 and well ordered living will soon spring up in the 
 commonwealth. Ye have an author great beyond 
 exception, Moses ; and one yet greater, he who 
 hedged in from abolishing every smallest jot and 
 tittle of precious equity contained in that law, with 
 a more accurate and lasting Masoreth, than either 
 the synagogue of Ezra or the Galilaean school at 
 Tiberias hath left us. Whatever else ye can enact, 
 will scarce concern a third part of the British name: 
 but the benefit and good of this your magnanimous 
 example, will easily spread far beyond the banks of 
 Tweed and the Norman isles. It would not be 
 the first or second time, since our ancient. Druids. 
 
13 TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 by whom this island was the cathedral of philosophy 
 to France, left off their pagan rites, that England 
 hath had this honour vouchsafed from Heaven, to 
 give out reformation to the world. Who was it but 
 our English Constantine that baptized the Roman 
 empire ? Who but the Northumbrian Willibrode, 
 and Winifride of Devon, with their followers, were 
 the first apostles of Germany ? Who but Alcuin 
 and Wickliff our countrymen opened the eyes 
 of Europe, the one in arts, the other in religion ? 
 Let not England forget her precedence of teaching 
 nations how to live. 
 
 Know, worthies ; and exercise the privilege of your 
 honoured country. A greater title I here bring ye, 
 than is either in the power or in the policy of Rome 
 to give her Monarchs ; this glorious act will style 
 ye the defenders of Charity. Nor is this yet the 
 highest inscription that will adorn so religious and 
 so holy a defence as this : behold here the pure and 
 sacred law of God and his yet purer and more 
 sacred name offering themselves to you, first of all 
 Christian reformers to be acquitted from the long 
 suffered ungodly attribute of patronizing adultery. 
 Defer not to wipe off instantly these imputative 
 blurs and stains cast by rude fancies upon the 
 throne and beauty itself of inviolable holiness : lest 
 some other people more devout and wise than we 
 bereave us this offered immortal glory, our wonted 
 prerogative, of being the first asserters in every 
 great vindication. For me, as far as my part leads 
 me, I have already my greatest gain, assurance and 
 
TO THE PARLIAxMENT OF ENGLAND. 13 
 
 inward satisfaction to have done in this nothing 
 unworthy of an honest life, and studies well em- 
 ployed. With what event, among the wise and 
 right understanding handful of men, I am secure. 
 But how among the drove of custom and prejudice 
 this will be relished by such whose capacity, since 
 their youth run a-head into the easy creek of a system 
 or a medulla, sails there at will under the blown 
 physiognomy of their unlaboured rudiments ; for 
 them, what their taste will be, I have also surety 
 sufficient, from the entire league that hath ever been 
 between formal ignorance and grave obstinacy. 
 Yet when I remember the little that our Saviour 
 could prevail about this doctrine of charity against 
 the crabbed textuists of his time, I make no wonder, 
 but rest confident, that whoso prefers either matri- 
 mony or other ordinance before the good of man 
 and the plain exigence of charity, let him profess 
 papist, or protestant, or what he will, he is no better 
 than a pharisee, and understands not the gospel : 
 whom as a mis-interpreter of Christ I openly pro- 
 test against ; and provoke him to the trial of this 
 truth before all the world : and let him bethink him 
 withal how he will fodder up the shifting flaws of 
 his ungirt permissions, his venial and unvenial dis- 
 penses, wherewith the law of God pardoning and 
 unpardoning hath been shamefully branded for want 
 of heed in glossing, to have eluded and baffled out 
 all faith and chastity from the marriage bed of that 
 holy seed, with politic and judicial adulteries. I 
 seek not to seduce the simple and illiterate ; my 
 
14 to THE PARLIAMEJfT OF ENGLAN0. 
 
 errand is to find out the choicest and the learnedest, 
 who have this high gift of wisdom to answer sohdly, 
 or to be convinced. I crave it from the piety, the 
 learning, and the prudence . which is housed in this 
 place. It might perhaps more fitly have been 
 written in another tongue : and I had done so* 
 but that the esteem I have of my country's judg- 
 ment, and the love I bear to my native language to 
 serve it first with what I endeavour, made me speak 
 it thus, ere I assay the verdict of outlandish readers. 
 And perhaps also here I might have ended name- 
 less, but that the address of these lines chiefly to 
 the Parliament of England might have seemed in- 
 grateful not to acknowledge by whose religious 
 care, unwearied watchfulness, courageous and heroic 
 resolutions, I enjoy the peace and studious leisure 
 to remain, 
 
 The Honourer and Attendant of their noble 
 Worth and Virtues, 
 
 John Milton. 
 
THE 
 
 DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 OF 
 
 DIVORCE; 
 
 RESTORED TO THE GOOD OF BOTH SEXES. 
 
 BOOK I. 
 
 THE PREFACE. 
 
 TTiat man is the occasion of his own miseries in most of 
 those evils which he imputes to God's inflicting. The 
 absurdity of our canonists in their decrees about di- 
 vorce. The Christian imperial laws framed with more 
 equity. The opinion of Hugo Grotius and Paulus 
 Fagius : And the purpose in general of this discourse. 
 
 Many men, whether it be their fate or fond opi- 
 nion, easily persuade themselves, if God would but 
 be pleased a while to withdraw his just punishments 
 from us, and to restrain what power either the 
 devil or any earthly enemy hath to work us wo, 
 that, then man's nature would find immediate rest 
 and releasement from all evils. But verily they who 
 think so, if they be such as have a mind large enough 
 to take into their thoughts a general survey of hu- 
 man things, would soon prove themselves in that 
 opinion far deceived. For though it were granted 
 
16 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 US by Divine indulgence to be exempt from all that 
 can be harmful to us from without, yet the per- 
 verseness of our folly is so bent, that we should 
 never lin hammering out of our own hearts, as it 
 were out of a flinty the seeds and sparkles of new 
 misery to ourselves, till all were in a blaze again. 
 And no marvel if out of our own hearts, for they 
 are evil; but even out of those things which God 
 meant us, either for a principal good, or a pure 
 contentment, we are still hatching and contriving 
 upon ourselves matter of continual sorrow and per- 
 plexity. What greater good to man than that re- 
 vealed rule, whereby God vouchsafes to show us 
 how he would be worshipped ? And yet that not 
 rightly understood became the cause, that once a 
 famous man in Israel could not but oblige his con- 
 science to be the sacrificer ; or if not, the gaoler of 
 his innocent and only daughter : and was the cause 
 ofttimes that armies of valiant men have given up 
 their throats to a heathenish enemy on the sabbath 
 day ; fondly thinking their defensive resistance to 
 be as then a work unlawful. What thing more in- 
 stituted to the solace and delight of man than mar- 
 riage ? And yet the mis-interpreting of some Scrip- 
 ture, directed mainly against the abusers of the law 
 for divorce given by Moses, hath changed the bless- 
 ing of matrimony not seldom into a familiar and 
 co-inhabiting mischief; at least into a drooping and 
 disconsolate household captivity, without refuge or 
 redemption. So ungoverned and so wild a race doth 
 superstition run us, from one extreme of abused 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 17 
 
 liberty into the otlier of unmerciful restraint. For 
 although God in the first ordaining of marriage 
 taught us to what end he did it, in words expressly 
 implying the apt and cheerful conversation of man 
 with woman, to comfort and refresh him against the 
 evil of solitary life, not mentioning the purpose of 
 generation till afterwards, as being but a secondary 
 end in dignity, though not in necessity : yet now, 
 if any two be but once handed in the church, and 
 have tasted in any sort the nuptial bed, let them 
 find themselves never so mistaken in their disposi- 
 tions through any error, concealment, or misad- 
 venture, that through their different tempers, 
 thoughts, and constitutions, they can neither be to 
 one another a remedy against loneliness, nor live 
 in any union or contentment all their days ; yet 
 they shall, so they be but found suitably weaponed 
 to the least possibility of sensual enjoyment, be 
 made, spightof antipathy, to fadge together, and 
 combine as they may to their unspeakable wearisome- 
 ness, and despair of all social delight in the ordi- 
 nance which God established to that very end. 
 What a calamity is this, and as the wise man, if he 
 were alive, would sigh out in his own phrase, what 
 a " sore evil is this under the sun !" All which we 
 can refer justly to no other author than the canon 
 law and her adherents, not consulting with charity, 
 the interpreter and guide of our faith, but resting in 
 the mere element of the text ; doubtless by the 
 policy of the devil to make that gracious ordinance 
 become unsupportable, that what with men not 
 
 c 
 
\S THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 daring to venture upon wedlock, and what with men 
 wearied out of it, all inordinate hcence might abound. 
 It was for many ages that marriage lay in disgrace 
 with most of the ancient doctors, as a work of the 
 flesh, almost a defilement, wholly denied to priests, 
 and the second time dissuaded to all, as he that 
 reads Tertullian or Jerom may see at large. After- 
 wards it was thought so sacramental, that no adul- 
 tery or desertion could dissolve it ; and this is the 
 sense of our canon courts in England to this day, 
 but in no other reformed church else : yet there 
 remains in them also a burden on it as heavy as the 
 other two were disgraceful or superstitious, and of 
 as much iniquity, crossing a law not only written 
 by Moses, but charactered in us by nature, of more 
 antiquity and deeper ground than marriage itself; 
 which law is to force nothing against the faultless 
 proprieties of nature, yet that this may be colour- 
 ably be done, our Saviour's words touching divorce 
 are, as it were, congealed into a stony rigour, 
 inconsistent both with his doctrine and his office ; 
 and that which he preached only to the conscience 
 is by canonical tyranny snatched into the compul- 
 sive censure of a judicial court ; where laws are 
 imposed even against the venerable and secret 
 power of nature's impression, to love, whatever 
 cause be found to loath r which is a heinous bar- 
 barism both against the honour of marriage, the 
 dignity of man and his soul, the goodness of Chris- 
 tianity, and all the human respects of civility. 
 Notwithstanding that some the wisest and gravest 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 19 
 
 among the Christran emperors, who hatl about 
 them, to consult with, those of the fathers their 
 living; who for their learning and hohiiess of hfe 
 are still with us in great renown, have made their 
 statutes and edicts concerning this debate far more 
 easy and relenting in many necessary eases, where- 
 in the canon is inflexible. And Hugo Grotius, a 
 man of these times, one of the best learned, seems 
 not obscurely to adhere in his persuasion to the 
 equity of those imperial decrees, in his notes upor^ 
 the Evangelists ; much allaying the outward rough-^ 
 ness of the text, which hath for the most part been 
 too immoderately expounded ; and excites the dili- 
 gence of others to inquire further into this question^ 
 as containing many points that have not yet beei> 
 explained. Which ever likely to remain intricate, 
 and hopeless upon the suppositions commonly 
 stuck to, the authority of Paulus Fagius, one so 
 learned and so eminent in England once, if it might 
 persuade, would straight acquaint us with a solution 
 of these differences no less prudent than compen- 
 dious. He, in his comment on the Pentateuch, 
 doubted not to maintain that divorces might be as 
 lawfully permitted by the magistrate to Christians, 
 as they were to the Jews. But because he is but 
 brief, and these things of great consequence not to 
 be kept obscure, I shall conceive it nothing above 
 my duty, either for the difficulty or the censure 
 that may pass thereon, to communicate such 
 thoughts as I also have had, and do offer them now 
 in this general labour of reformat ion to the candid 
 
 c 2 
 
20 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 view both of church and magistrate ; especially 
 because I see it the hope of good men, that those 
 irregular and unspiritual courts have spun their 
 utmost date in this land, and some better course 
 must now be constituted. This therefore shall be 
 the task and period of this discourse to prove, First, 
 that other reasons of divorce, besides adultery, were 
 by the law of Moses, and are yet to be allowed by 
 the Christian magistrate as a piece of justice, and 
 that the words of Christ are not hereby contraried. 
 Secondly, that to prohibit absolutely any divorce 
 whatsoever, except those which Moses excepted, is 
 against the reason of law ; — as in due place I shall 
 show out of Fagius with many additions. He there- 
 fore who by adventuring, shall be so happy as with 
 success to light the way of such an expedient liberty 
 and truth as this, shall restore the much wronged 
 and over sorrowed state of matrimony, not only 
 to those merciful and life giving remedies of Moses, 
 but as much as may be, to that serene and blissful 
 condition it was in at the beginning, and shall 
 deserve of all apprehensive men, (considering the 
 troubles and distempers, which, for want of this 
 insight have been so oft in kingdoms, in states, 
 and families) shall deserve to be reckoned among 
 the public benefactors of civil and human life, above 
 the inventors of wine and oil ; for this is a far 
 dearer, far nobler, and more desirable cherishing 
 to man's life, unworthily exposed to sadness and 
 mistake, which he shall vindicate. Not that licence, 
 and levily, and unconsented breach of faith should 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 21 
 
 herein be countenanced, but that some conscionable 
 and tender pity might be had of those who have 
 unwarily, in a thing they never practised before, 
 made themselves the bondmen of a luckless and 
 helpless matrimony. In which argument, he 
 whose courage can serve him to give the first onset, 
 must look for two several oppositions ; the one 
 from those who having sworn themselves to long 
 custom, and the letter of the text, will not go out of 
 the road ; the other from those whose gross and 
 vulgar apprehensions conceit but low t)f matrimo- 
 nial purposes, and in the work of male and female 
 think they have all. Nevertheless, it shall be here 
 sought by due ways to be made appear, that those 
 words of God in the institution, promising a meet 
 help against loneliness, and those words of Christ, 
 " that his yoke is easy, and his burden light,^* 
 were not spoken in vain ; for if the knot of marriage 
 may in no case be dissolved but for adultery, all the 
 burdens and services of the law are not so intoler- 
 able. This only is desired of them who are minded 
 to judge hardly of thus maintaining, that they 
 would be still, and hear all out, nor think it equal 
 to answer deliberate reason with sudden heat and 
 noise ; remembering this, that many truths now of 
 reverend esteem and credit, had their birth and be- 
 ginning once from singular and private thoughts, 
 while the most of men were otherwise possessed ; 
 and had the fate at first to be generally exploded 
 and exclaimed on by many violent opposers : yet 
 I may err perhaps in soothing myself, that this 
 
22 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 present truth revived will deserve on all hands to 
 be not sinisterly received, in that it undertakes the 
 cure of an inveterate disease crept into the best part 
 of human society ; and to do this v^ith no smart- 
 ing corrosive, but with a smooth and pleasing lesson, 
 which received hath the virtue to soften and dispel 
 rooted and knotty sorrows, and without enchant- 
 ment, if that be feared, or spell used, hath regard 
 at once both to serious pity and upright honesty ; 
 that tends to the redeeming and restoring of none 
 but such as are the object of compassion, having in 
 an ill hour hampered themselves, to the utter 
 dispatch of all their most beloved comforts and 
 repose for this life's term. But if we shall obsti- 
 nately dislike this new overture of unexpected 
 ease and recovery, what remains but to deplore the 
 frowardness of our hopeless condition, which neither 
 can endure the estate we are in, nor admit of remedy 
 eithersharp or sweet. Sharp we ourselves distaste; 
 and sweet, under whose hands we are, is scrupled 
 and suspected as too luscious. In such a posture 
 Christ found the Jews, who were neither won with 
 the austerity of John the Baptist, and thought it too 
 much licence to follow freely the charming pipe of 
 him who sounded and proclaimed liberty and relief 
 to all distresses ; yet truth in some age or other 
 will fmd her witness, and shall be justified at last 
 by her own children o 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOECE. 23 
 
 CHAP. I. 
 
 « 
 
 The position proved by the law of Moses. That law expound^ 
 ed and asserted to a moral and charitable use, first by Paulus 
 Fagius, next with other additions. 
 
 To remove therefore, if it be possible, this great 
 and sad oppression, which through the strictness of 
 a literal interpreting hath invaded and disturbed 
 the dearest and most peaceable estate of household 
 society, to the overburdening, if not the overwhelm- 
 ing of many christians better worth than to be 
 deserted of the church's considerate care, this posi- 
 tion shall be laid down, first proving, then answer- 
 ing what may be objected either from scripture 04' 
 light of reason. 
 
 " That indisposition, uniitness, or contrariety of 
 mind, arising from a cause in nature unchangeable, 
 hindering, and ever likely to hinder, the main be- 
 nefits of conjugal society, which are solace and 
 peace ; is a greater reason of divorce than natural 
 frigidity, especially if there be no children, and that 
 there be mutual consent." 
 
 This 1 g-ather from the law in Deut. xxiv. 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 some uncleanness in 
 her, let him write her a bill of divorcement, and 
 
ii THE DOCTRINE AMD 
 
 give it in her hand, and send her out of his house/ 
 &c. This law, if the words of Christ may be 
 admitted into our belief, shall never while the world 
 stands, for him be abrogated. First therefore I 
 here set down what learned Fagius hath observed 
 on this law ; " the law of God," saith he, " per- 
 mitted divorce for the help of human weakness. 
 For every one that of necessity separates, can- 
 not live single. That Christ denied divorce to his 
 own, hinders not ; for what is that to the unregene- 
 rate, who hath not attained such perfection ? Let 
 not the remedy be despised, which was given to 
 weakness. And when Christ saith, who marries the 
 divorced commits adultery, it is to be understood 
 if he had any plot in the divorce.^* The rest I re- 
 serve until it be disputed, how the magistrate is to 
 do herein. From hence we may plainly discern a 
 twofold consideration in this law : first, the end of 
 the law-giver, and the proper act of the law, to com- 
 mand or to allow something just and honest, or 
 indifferent. Secondly, his sufferance from some 
 accidental result of evil by this allowance, which 
 the law cannot remedy. For if this law have no 
 other end or act but only the allowance of sin 
 though never to so good intention, that law is no 
 law, but sin muffled in the robe of law, or law dis- 
 guised in the loose garment of sin. Both which 
 are too foul hypotheses, to save the phaenomenon of 
 our Saviour's answer to the Pharisees about this 
 
DISCIPLINE OF PIVORCfi. 25 
 
 matter. And I trust anon by the help of an infal- 
 lible guide, to perfect such Prutenic tables, as shall 
 mend the astronomy of our wide expositors. 
 
 The cause of divorce mentioned in the law is 
 translated " some uncleanness,^^ but in the Hebrew 
 it sounds " nakedness of aught, or any real naked- 
 ness :" which by all the learned interpreters is re- 
 ferred to the mind as well as to the body. And 
 what greater nakedness or unfitness of mind than 
 that which hinders ever the solace and peaceful so- 
 ciety of the married couple ; and what hinders that 
 more than the unfitness and defectiveness of an 
 unconjugal mind ? The cause therefore of divorce 
 expressed in the position cannot but agree with 
 that described in the best and equallest sense of 
 Moses's law. Which, being a matter of pure cha- 
 rity, is plainly moral, and more now in force than 
 ever ; therefore surely lawful. For if under the 
 law such was God's gracious indulgence, as not to 
 suffer the ordinance of his goodness and favour 
 through any error to be feared and stigmatized upon 
 his servants to their misery and thraldom; much 
 less will he suffer it now under the covenant of 
 grace, by abrogating his former grant of remedy and 
 relief. But the first institution will be objected to 
 have ordained marriage inseparable. To that a little 
 patience until this first part have amply discoursed 
 the grave and pious reasons of this divorcive law ; 
 and then I doubt not but with one gentle stroke 
 to wipe away ten thousand tears out of the life of 
 man. Yet thus much 1 shall now insist on, that 
 
26 THE DOC^TRINE AND 
 
 whatever the institution were, it could not be so 
 enormous, nor so rebeHious against both nature and 
 reason, as to exalt itself above the end and person 
 for whom it was instituted. 
 
 CHAP. IL 
 
 The Jirst reason of this law grounded on the prime reason of 
 matrimony. That no covenant ichatsoever obliges against 
 the main end both of itself, and of the parties covenanting. 
 
 For all sense and equity reclaims, that any law 
 6r covenant, how solemn or straight soever, either 
 between God and man, or man and man, though 
 of God's joining, should oind against a prime and 
 principal scope of its own institution, and of both 
 or either party covenanting : neither can it be of 
 force to engage a blameless creature to his own per- 
 petual sorrow, mistaken for his expected solace, 
 without suffering charity to step in and do a con- 
 fessed good work of parting those, whom nothing 
 bolds together but this of God's joining, falsely 
 supposed against the express end of his own ordi- 
 nance. And what his chief end was of creating 
 woman to be joined with man, his own instituting 
 words declare, and are infallible to inform us what 
 is marriage, and what is no marriage ; unless we 
 can think them set there to no purpose : ' it is not 
 good,' saith he, ' that man should be alone, I 
 will make him a help meet for him.' From which 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 27 
 
 words, so plain, less cannot be concluded, nor is by 
 any learned interpreter, than that in God's intention 
 a meet and happy conversation is the chiefest and 
 the noblest end of marriage : for we find here no 
 expression so necessarily implying carnal knowledge, 
 as this prevention of loneliness to the mind and 
 spirit of man. To this, Fagius, Calvin, Parens, 
 Rivetns, as willingly and largely assent as can be 
 wished. And indeed it is a greater blessing from 
 God, more worthy so excellent a creature as man is, 
 and a higher end to honour and sanctify the league 
 of marriage, whenas the solace and satisfaction of 
 the mind is regarded and provided for before the 
 sensitive pleasing of the body. And with all gene- 
 rous persons married thus it is, that where the mind 
 and person pleases aptly, there some unaccomplish- 
 ment of the body's delight may be better borne 
 with, than when the mind hangs off in an unclosing 
 disproportion, though the body be as it ought ; for 
 there all corporeal delight will soon become unsa- 
 voury and contemptible. And the solitariness of 
 man, which God had namely and principally ordered 
 to prevent by marriage, hath no remedy, but lies 
 under a worse condition than the loneliest single 
 life : for in single life the absence and remoteness 
 of a helper might enure him to expect his own 
 comforts out of himself, or to seek with hope ; but 
 here the continual sight of his deluded thoughts, 
 without cure, must needs be to him, if especially 
 his complexion incline him to melancholy, a daily 
 trouble and pain of loss, in some degree like that 
 
THB DOCTRINE AND 
 
 which reprobates feel. Lest therefore so noble a 
 creature as man should be shut up incurably under 
 a worse evil by an easy mistake in that ordinance 
 which God gave him to remedy a less evil, reaping 
 to himself sorrow while he went to rid away soli- 
 tariness, it cannot avoid to be concluded, that if the 
 woman be naturally so of disposition, as will not 
 help to remove, but help to increase that same God- 
 forbidden loneliness, which will in time draw on 
 with it a general discomfort and dejection of mind, 
 not beseeming either Christian profession or moral 
 conversation, unprofitable and dangerous to the 
 commonwealth, when the household estate, out of 
 which must flourish forth the vigour and spirit of 
 all public enterprises, is so ill-contented and pro- 
 cured at home, and cannot be supported ; such a 
 marriage can be no marriage, whereto the most 
 honest end is wanting : and the aggrieved person 
 shall do more manly, to be extraordinary and sin- 
 gular in claiming the due right whereof he is frus- 
 trated, than to piece up his lost contentment by 
 visiting the stews, or stepping to his neighbour's 
 bed ; which is the common shift in this misfortune : 
 or else by suffering his useful life to waste away, 
 and be lost under a secret affliction of an uncon- 
 scionable size to human strength. Against all 
 which evils the mercy of this Mosaic law was 
 graciously exhibited. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCB. 29 
 
 CHAP. III. 
 
 The ignorance and iniquity of canon law, providing for the 
 right of the body in marriage, but nothing for the wrongs 
 and grievances of the mind. An objection, that the mind 
 should be better looked to before contract, answered. 
 
 How vain therefore is it, and how preposterous 
 in the canon law, to have made such careful pro- 
 vision against the impediment of carnal perform- 
 ance, and to have had no care about the unconvers- 
 ing inability of mind so defective to the purest and 
 most sacred end of matrimony ; and that the vessel 
 of voluptuous enjoyment must be made good to 
 him that has taken it upon trust, without any cau- 
 tion ; whenas the mind, from whence must flow the 
 acts of peace and love, a far more precious mixture 
 than the quintessence of an excrement, though it 
 be found never so deficient and unable to perform 
 the best duty of marriage in a cheerful and agree- 
 able conversation, shall be thought good enough, 
 however flat and melancholious it be, and must 
 serve, though to the eternal disturbance and lan- 
 guishing of him that complains ! Yet wisdom and 
 charity, weighing God^s own institution, would think 
 that the pining of a sad spirit wedded to loneliness 
 should deserve to be freed, as well as the impatience 
 of a sensual desire so providently relieved. It is 
 read to us in the Liturgy, that " we must not marry 
 to satisfy the fleshly appetite, like brute beasts, that 
 
30 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 have no understanding :" but the canon so runs, as 
 if it dreamed of no other matter than such an appe- 
 tite to be satisfied ; for if it happen that nature hath 
 stopped or extinguished the veins of sensuahty, that 
 marriage is annulled. But though all the faculties 
 of the understanding and conversing part after trial 
 appear to be so ill and so aversely met through 
 nature's unalterable working, as that neither peace, 
 nor any sociable cor^tentment can follow, it is as 
 nothing ; the contract shall stand as firm as ever, 
 betide what will. What is this but secretly to 
 instruct us, that however many grave reasons are 
 pretended to the married life, yet that nothing 
 indeed rs thought worth regard therein, but the pre- 
 scribed satisfaction of an irrational heat ? Which 
 cannot be but ignominious to the state of marriage, 
 dishonourable to the under- valued soul of man, and 
 even to christian doctrine itself: while it seems more 
 moved at the disappointing of an impetuous nerve, 
 than at the ingenuous grievance of a mind unrea- 
 sonably yoked ; and to place more of marriage in 
 the channel of concupiscence, than in the pure in- 
 fluence of peace and love whereof the soul's lawful 
 contentment is the only fountain. 
 
 But some are ready to object, that the disposition 
 ought seriously to be considered before. But let 
 them know again, that for all the wariness can be 
 used, it may yet befal a discreet man to be mis- 
 taken in his choice, and we have plenty of exam- 
 ples. The soberest a«d best governed men are least 
 priictised in these affairs ; and who knows not that 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 31 
 
 the bashful muteness of a virgin may ofttimes hide 
 all the unliveliness and natural sloth which is 
 really unfit for conversation ; nor is there that 
 freedom of access granted or presumed, as may 
 suffice to a perfect discerning till too late ; and 
 where any indisposition is suspected, what more 
 usual than the persuasion of friends, that. acquaint- 
 ance, as it increases, will amend all ? And lastly, 
 it is not strange though many, who have spent 
 their youth chastely, are in some things not so 
 quick-sighted, while they haste too eagerly to light 
 the nuptial torch ; nor is it therefore that for a mo- 
 dest error a man should forfeit so great a happiness, 
 and no charitable means to release him ; since they 
 who have lived most loosely, by reason of their bold 
 accustoming, prove most successful in their matches, 
 because their wild affections unsettling at will, have 
 been as so many divorces to teach them experience. 
 When, as the sober man honouring the appear- 
 ance of modesty, and hoping well of every social 
 virtue under that veil, may easily chance to meet, 
 if not with a body impenetrable, yet often with a 
 mind to all other due conversation inaccessible, and 
 to all the more estimable and superior purposes of 
 matrimony useless and almost lifeless ; and what 
 a solace, what a fit help such a consort would be 
 through the whole life of a man, is less pain to con- 
 jecture than to have experience. 
 
38 THE DOCTRINE ANU 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 The second reason of this law, because without it^ marriage at 
 it happens oft is not a remedy of that which it promises, as 
 any rational creature would expect* That marriage, if we 
 pattern from the beginning, as our Saviour bids, was not 
 properly the remedy of lust, but the fulfilling of conjugal love 
 and helpfulness. 
 
 And that we may further see what a violent cruel 
 thing it is to force the continuing of those together, 
 whom God and nature in the gentlest end of mar- 
 riage never joined ; divers evils and extremities, that 
 follow upon such a compulsion, shall here be set in 
 view. Of evils, the first and greatest is, that hereby 
 a most absurd and rash imputation is fixed upon 
 God and his holy laws, of conniving and dispensing 
 with open and common adultery among his chosen 
 people ; a thing which the rankest politician would 
 think it shame and disworship that his laws should 
 countenance : how and in what manner that comes 
 to pass I shall reserve till the course of method 
 brings on the unfolding of many scriptures. Next, 
 the law and gospel are hereby made liable to more 
 than one contradiction, which I refer also thither. 
 Lastly, the supreme dictate of charity is hereby many 
 ways neglected and violated ; which I shall forth- 
 with address to prove. First, we know St. Paul 
 saith. It is better to marry than to burn. Marriage 
 therefore was given as a remedy of that trouble ; but 
 what might this burning mean ? Certainly not the 
 mere motion of carnal lust, not the mere goad of 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 3S 
 
 a sensitive desire : God does not principally take 
 care for such cattle. What is it then but that desire 
 which God put into Adam in Paradise, before he 
 knew the sin of incontinence ; that desire which 
 God saw it was not good that man should be left 
 alone to burn in, the desire and longing to put off 
 an unkindly solitariness by uniting another body, 
 but not without a fit soul to his, in the cheerful 
 society of wedlock ? Which if it were so needful 
 before the fall, when man was much more perfect 
 in himself, how much more is it needful now 
 against all the sorrows and casualties of this life, 
 to have an intimate and speaking help, a ready 
 and reviving associate in marriage ? Whereof who 
 misses, by chancing on a mute and spiritless piate, 
 remains more alone than before, and in a burning 
 less to be contained than that which is fleshly, and 
 more to be considered ; as being more deeply rooted 
 even in the faithless innocence of nature. As for 
 that other burning, which is but as it were the ve- 
 nom of a lusty and over-abounding concoction, strict 
 life and labour, with the abatement of a full diet, 
 may keep that low and obedient enough : but this 
 pure and more inbred desire of joining to itself in 
 conjugal fellowship a fit conversing soul (which 
 desire is properly called love) " is stronger than 
 death/' as the spouse of Christ thought ; " many 
 waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown 
 it." This is that rational burning that marriage is 
 
 D 
 
B4 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 to remedy, not to be allayed with fasting, nor with 
 any penance to be subdued : which how can he 
 assuage who by mishap hath met the most unmeet 
 and unsuitable mind ? Who hath the power to 
 struggle with an intelligible flame, not in Paradise 
 to be resisted, become now more ardent by being 
 failed of what in reason it looked for ; and even 
 then most unquenched, when the importunity of 
 a provender burning is well enough appeased ; and 
 yet the soul hath obtained nothing of what it justly 
 desires. Certainly such a one forbidden to divorce, 
 is in effect forbidden to marry, and compelled to 
 greater difficulties than in a single life ; for if there 
 be not a more humane burning which marriage 
 must satisfy, or else may be dissolved, than that of 
 copulation, marriage cannot be honourable for the 
 meet reducing and terminating lust between two : 
 seeing many beasts in voluntary and chosen cou- 
 ples live together as unadulterously, and are as truly 
 married in that respect. But all ingenuous men 
 will see that the dignity and blessing of marriage 
 is placed rather in the mutual enjoyment of that 
 which the wanting soul needfully seeks, than of 
 that which the plenteous body would joyfully give 
 away. Hence it is that Plato, in his festival dis- 
 course, brings in Socrates relating what he feigned 
 to have learned from the prophetess Diotima, how- 
 Love was the son of Penury, begot of Plenty, in 
 tJie garden of Jupiter. Which divinely sorts with 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 
 
 $5 
 
 that which in effect Moses tells us, that Love was 
 the son of Loneliness, begot in Paradise by that 
 sociable and helpful aptitude which God implanted 
 between man and woman toward each other. The 
 same also is that burning mentioned by St. Paul, 
 whereof marriage ought to be the remedy : the flesh 
 hath other mutual and easy curbs, which are in the 
 power of any temperate man. When therefore this 
 original and sinless penury, or loneliness of the soul, 
 cannot lay itself down by the side of such a meet 
 and acceptable union as God ordained in marriage, 
 at least in some proportion, it cannot conceive and 
 bring forth love, but remains utterly unmarried under 
 a formal wedlock, and still burns in the proper 
 meaning of St. Paul. Then enters Hate, not that 
 hate that sins, but that which only is natural dis- 
 satisfaction, and the turning aside from a mistaken 
 object : if that mistake have done injury, it fails 
 not to dismiss with recompence ; for to retain still, 
 and not be able to love, is to heap up more injury. 
 Thence this wise and pious law of dismission now 
 defended, took beginning : he therefore who lack- 
 ing of his due in the most native and humane end 
 of marriage, thinks it better to part than to live 
 sadly and injuriously to that cheerful covenant (for 
 not to be beloved, and yet retained, is the greatest 
 injury to a gentle spirit,) he, I say, who therefore 
 seeks to part, is one who highly honours the married 
 life and would not stain it : and the reasons which 
 
 D 2 
 
36 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 now move hitn to divorce, are equal to the best of 
 those that could first warrant him to marry ; for, 
 as was plainly shown, both the hate which now 
 diverts him, and the loneliness which leads him 
 still powerfully to seek a fit help, hath not the least 
 grain of a sin in it, if he be worthy to understand 
 himself. 
 
 CHAP. V. 
 
 The third reason of this law, because without it, he who hat 
 happened where he finds nothing but remediless offences and 
 discontents, is in more and greater temptations than ever 
 before. 
 
 Thirdly ; Yet it is next to be feared, if he 
 must be still bound without reason by a deaf rigour 
 that when he perceives the just expectance of his 
 mind defeated, he will begin even against law to 
 cast about where he may find his satisfaction more 
 complete, unless he be a thing heroically virtuous ; 
 and that are not the common lump of men, for 
 whom chiefly the laws ought to be made ; though 
 not to their sins, yet to their unsinning weak- 
 nesses, it being above their strength to endure the 
 lonely estate, which while they shunned they are 
 fallen into. And yet there follows upon this a 
 worse temptation : for if he be such as hath spent 
 his youth unblameably, and laid up his chiefest 
 earthier comforts in the enjoyments of a cbntented 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 3^ 
 
 marriage, nor did neglect that furtherance which 
 was to be obtained therein by constant prayers; 
 when he shall find himself bound fast to an un- 
 complying discord of nature, or, as it oft happens, 
 to an image of earth and phlegm, with whom he 
 looked to be the co-partner of a sweet and gladsome 
 society, and sees withal that his bondage is now 
 inevitable ; though he be almost the strongest chris- 
 tian, he will be ready to despair in virtue, and 
 mutiny against Divine Providence : and this doubt- 
 less is the reason of those lapses, and that melan- 
 choly despair, which we see in many wedded per- 
 sons, though they understand it not, or pretend 
 other causes, because they know no remedy, and 
 is of extreme danger : therefore when human frailty 
 surcharged is at such a loss, charity ought to ven- 
 ture much, and use bold physic, lest an overtossed 
 faith endanger to shipwreck. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 The fourth renton of this latOy that God regards, hve and 
 peace in the family , more than a compulsive performance of 
 marriage, which is more broke by a grievous continuance, 
 than by a needful divorce. 
 
 Fourthly; Marriage is a covenant, the very 
 being whereof consists not in a forced cohabitation, 
 and counterfeit performance of duties, but in un- 
 feigned love and peace : and of matrimonial love, 
 
SR THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 no doubt but that was chiefly meant, which by 
 the ancient sages was thus parabled ; that Love,, 
 if he be not twin-born yet hath a brother won- 
 drous hke him, called Anteros ; whom while he 
 seeks all about, his chance is to meet with many 
 false and feigning desires, that wander siiigly up 
 and down in his likeness ; by them in their bar.? 
 , rowed garb, Love, though not wholly blind, as poets 
 wrong him, yet having but one eye, as being born 
 an archer aiming, and that eye not the quickest in 
 this dark region here below, which is not Love's 
 proper sphere, partly out of the simplicity and CFe- 
 duhty which is native to him, often deceived, emr 
 braces and consorts him with these obvious and 
 suborned striplings, as if they were his mother's 
 own sons ; for so he thinks them, while they sub- 
 tilly keep themselves most on his blind side. But 
 after a while, as his manner, when soaring up into 
 the high tower of his Apogaeum, above the shadow 
 of the earth, he darts out of the direct rays of his 
 then most piercing eye-sight upon the impostures, 
 and trim disguises, that were used with him, and 
 discerns that this is not his genuine brother as he 
 imagined; he has no longer the power to hold 
 fellowship with such a personated mate; for straight 
 his arrows lose their golden heads, and shed their 
 purple feathers, his silken braids untwine, and slip 
 their knots, and that original and fiery virtue given 
 him by fate all on a sudden goes out, and leaves 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 39 
 
 him undeified and despoiled of all his force ; till 
 finding Anteros at last, he kindles and repairs the 
 almost faded ammunition of his deity by the reflec- 
 tion of a co-equal and homogeneal fire. Thus 
 mine author sung it to me : and by the leave of those 
 who would be counted the only grave ones, this is 
 no mere amatorious novel, (though to be wise and 
 skilful in these matters men heretofore of greatest 
 name in virtue have esteemed it one of the highest 
 arcs that human contemplation circling upwards can 
 make from the globy sea whereon she stands :) but 
 this is a deep and serious verity, showing us that 
 love in marriage cannot live nor subsist unless it be 
 mutual ; and where love cannot be, there can be left 
 of wedlock nothing but the empty husk of an out- 
 side matrimony, as undelightful and unpleasing to 
 God as any other kind of hypocrisy. So far is his 
 command from tying men to the observance of du- 
 ties which there is no help for, but they must be 
 dissembled . I f Solomon's advice be not over-frolic, 
 " live joyfully,'' saith he, " with the wife whom thou 
 lovest, all thy days, for that is thy portion.'^ How 
 then, where we find it impossible to rejoice or to 
 love, can we obey this precept ? How miserably do we . 
 defraud ourselves of that comfortable portion, which 
 God gives us, by striving vainly to glue an error to- 
 gether, which God and nature will not join, adding 
 but more vexation and violence to that bhssful so- 
 ciety by our importunate superstition, that will not 
 
40 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 hearken to St. Paul, I Cor.vii. who, speaking of marri- 
 age and divorce, determines plain enough in general, 
 that God therein " hath called us to peace, and not to 
 bondage." Yea, God himself commands in his law 
 more than once, and by his Prophet Malachi, as 
 Calvin and the best translations read, that " he who 
 hates, let him divorce,'^ that is, he who cannot love. 
 Hence it is that the rabbins, and Maimonides fa- 
 mous among the rest in a book of his set forth by 
 Buxtorfius, tells us, that " divorce was permitted by 
 Moses to preserve peace in marriage, and quiet in 
 the family." Surely the Jews had their saving peace 
 about them as well as we, yet care was taken that this 
 wholesome provision for household peace should also 
 be allowed them : and this must be denied to chris- 
 tians ? O perverseness ! that the law should be made 
 more provident of peace-making than the gospel I that 
 the gospel should be put to beg a most necessary 
 help of mercy from the law, but must not have it ; 
 and that to grind in the mill of an undelighted and 
 servile copulation, must be the only forced work 
 of a christian marriage, oft times with such a yoke- 
 fellow, from whom both love and peace, both na- 
 ture and religion mourns to be separated. I can- 
 not therefore be so diffident, as not securely to 
 conclude, that he who can receive nothing of the 
 most important helps in marriage, being thereby 
 disenabled to return that duty which is his, with a 
 clear and hearty countenance, and thus continues 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 41 
 
 to grieve whom he would not, and is no less 
 grieved ; that man ought even for love's sake and 
 peace to move divorce upon good and liberal con- 
 ditions to the divorced. And it is less a breach 
 of wedlock to part with wise and quiet consent 
 betimes, than still to foil and prophane that mys- 
 tery of joy and union with a polluting sadness and 
 perpetual distemper : for it is not the outward con- 
 tinuing of marriage that keeps whole that cove- 
 nant, but whatsoever does most according to peace 
 and love, whether in marriage or in divorce, he it 
 is that breaks marriage least ; it being so often 
 written, that " Love only is the fulfiUing of every 
 commandment." 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 Theffth reason, that nothing more hinders and disturbs the 
 whole life of a christian^ than a matrimony found to be in- 
 curably unfit, and doth the same in effect that an idolatrous 
 match. 
 
 Fifthly ; As those priests of old were not to be 
 long in sorrow, or if they were, they could not 
 rightly execute their function ; so every true chris- 
 tian in a higher order of priesthood is a person 
 dedicate to joy and peace, offering himself a lively 
 sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and there is no 
 christian duty that is not to be seasoned and set off 
 with cheerishness ; which in a thousand outward 
 
4t% THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 and intermitting crosses may yet be done well, as 
 in this vale of tears : but in such a bosom afflic- 
 tion as this, crushing the very foundation of his 
 inmost nature, when he shall be forced to love 
 against a possibility, and to use a dissimulation 
 against his soul in the perpetual and ceaseless duties 
 of a husband ; doubtless his whole duty of serving 
 God must needs be blurred and tainted with a sad 
 unpreparedness and dejection of spirit wherein God 
 has no delight. Who sees not therefore how much 
 more Christianity it would be to break by divorce, 
 that which is more broken by undue and forcible 
 keeping, rather than " to cover the altar of the 
 Lord with continual tears, so that he regardeth not 
 the offering any more,^^ rather than that the whole 
 worship of a christian man's life should languish 
 and fade away beneath the weight of an immeasur- 
 able grief and discouragement ? And because some 
 think the children of a second matrimony succeed- 
 ing a divorce would not be a holy seed, it hindered 
 not the Jews from being so ; and why should we 
 not think them more holy than the offspring of a 
 former ill-twisted wedlock, begotten only out of a 
 bestial necessity, without any true love or content-! 
 ment, or joy to their parents? So that in some 
 sense we may call them the " children of wrath" 
 and anguish, which will as little conduce to their 
 sanctifying, as if they had been bastards : for 
 nothing more than disturbance of mind suspends 
 us from approaching to God ; such a disturbance 
 especially, as both assaults our feith and trust i^ 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 43 
 
 God's providence, and ends, if there be not a mira- 
 cle of virtue on either side, not only in bitterness 
 and wrath, the canker of devotion, but in a des- 
 perate and vicious carelessness, when he sees him- 
 self, without fault of his, trained by a deceitful 
 bait into a snare of misery^ betrayed by an alluring 
 ordinance, and then made the thrall of heaviness 
 and discomfort by an undivorcing law of God, as 
 he erroneously thinks, but of man's iniquity, as 
 the truth is : for that God prefers the free and 
 cheerful worship of a christian, before the grievance 
 and exacted observance of an unhappy marriage, 
 besides that the general maxims of religion assure 
 us, will be more manifest by drawing a parallel 
 argument from the ground of divorcing an idolatress, 
 which was, lest he should alienate his heart from 
 the true worship of God : and what difference is^ 
 there whether she pervert him to superstition by 
 her enticing sorcery, or disenable him in the whole 
 service of God through the disturbance of her 
 unhelpful and unfit society ; and so drive him at 
 last, through murmuring and despair, to thoughts' 
 of atheism ? Neither doth it lessen the cause of 
 separating, in that the one wilhngly allures him 
 from the faiths the other perhaps unwillingly drives 
 him ; for in the account of God it comes all to one, 
 that the wife loosea him a servant : and therefore 
 by all the united force of the Decalogue she ought 
 to be disbanded, unless we must set marriage above 
 God and Charity, which is the doctrine of devils, 
 no less than forbidding to marry. i 
 
44 THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 CHAP. VIII. 
 
 That an idolatrous heretic ought to he divorced, after a coit' 
 venient space given to hope of conversion. That place of 
 1 Cor. vii. restored from a twofold erroneous exposition; 
 and that the common expositors flatly contradict the moral 
 law. 
 
 And here by the way, to illustrate the whole ques- 
 tion of divorce, ere this treatise end, I shall not be 
 loth to spend a few lines in hope to give a full re- 
 solve of that which is yet so much controverted ; 
 whether an idolatrous heretic ought to be divorced. 
 To the resolving whereof we must first know, that 
 the Jews were commanded to divorce an unbelieving 
 Gentile for two causes : First, because all other na- 
 tions, especially the Canaanites, were to them un- 
 clean. Secondly, to avoid seducement. That other 
 nations were to the Jews impure, even to the sepa- 
 rating of marriage, will appear out of Exod. xxxiv. 
 16. Deut. vii. 3, (), compared with Ezra ix. 2. also 
 chap. X. 10, II. Nehem. xiii. 30. This was the 
 ground of that doubt raised among the Corinthians 
 by some of the circumsicion ; whether an unbeliever 
 were not still to be counted an unclean thing, so as 
 that they ought to divorce from such a person. This 
 doubt of theirs, St. Paul removes by an evangelical 
 reason, having respect to that vision of St. Peter, 
 wherein the distinction of clean an unclean being 
 abolished, all living creatures were sanctified to a 
 pure and Christian use, and mankind especially, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 4& 
 
 now invited by a general call to the covenant of 
 grace. Therefore saith St. Paul, " The unbelieving 
 wife is sanctified by the husband ;" that is, made 
 pure and lawful to his use, so that he need not put 
 her away for fear lest her unbelief should defile him ; 
 but that if he found her love still towards him, he 
 might rather hope to win her. The second reason 
 of that divorce was to avoid seducement, as is proved 
 by comparing those two places of the law to that 
 which Ezra and Nehemiah did by divine warrant in 
 compelling the Jews to forego their wives. And 
 this reason is moral and perpetual in the rule of 
 Christian faith without evasion ; therefore saith the 
 apostle, 2 Cor. vi. "Misyoke not together with in- 
 fidels,'* which is interpreted of marriage in the first 
 place. And although the former legal pollution be 
 now done off, yet there is a spiritual contagion in 
 idolatry as much to be shunned ; and though seduce- 
 ment were not to be feared, yet where there is no 
 hope of converting, there always ought to be a cer- 
 tain religious aversation and abhorring, which can no 
 way sort with marriage : Therefore saith St. Paul, 
 *' What fellowship hath righteousness with unrighte- 
 ousness ? What communion hath light with dark- 
 ness ? What concord hath Christ with Belial ? What 
 part hath he that believeth with an infidel ?" And 
 in the next verse but one he moralizes, and makes 
 us liable to that command of Isaiah ; " Wherefore, 
 come out from among them, and be ye separate, 
 saith the Lord ; touch not the unclean thing, and 1 
 will receive ye." And this command thus gospel- 
 
46 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 lized to us, hath the same force with that whereon 
 Ezra grounded the pious necessity of divorcing. 
 Neither had he other commission for what he did, 
 than such a general command in Deut. as this, nay 
 not so direct ; for he is bid there not to marry, but not 
 bid to divorce, and yet we see with what a zeal and 
 confidence he was the author of a general divorce 
 between the faithful and unfaithful seed. The gos- 
 pel is more plainly on his side, according to three of 
 the Evangelists, than the words of the law; for 
 where the case of divorce is handled with such seve- 
 rity, as was fittest to aggravate the fault of unbounded 
 licence ; yet still in the same chapter, when it comes 
 into question afterwards, whether any civil respect, 
 or natural relation which is dearest, may be our plea 
 to divide, or hinder or but delay our duty to religion, 
 we hear it determined that father, and mother, and 
 wife also, is not only to be hated, but forsaken, if 
 we mean to inherit the great reward there promised. 
 Nor will it suffice to be put oflP by saying we must 
 forsake them only by not consenting or not com- 
 plying with them, for that were to be done, and 
 roundly too, though being of the same faith they 
 should but seek out of a fleshly tenderness to weaken 
 our Christian fortitude with worldly persuasions, or 
 but to unsettle our constancy with timorous and 
 softening suggestions ; as we may read with what a 
 vehemence Job, the patientest of men rejected the 
 desperate counsels of his wife ; and Moses, the 
 meekest, being thoroughly offended with the pro- 
 phane speeches of Zippora, sent her back to her 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 47 
 
 father. But if they shall perpetually, at our elbow, 
 seduce us from the true worship of God, or defik 
 and daily scandalize our conscience by their hope- 
 less continuance in misbelief; then even in the due 
 progress of reason, and that ever equal proportion 
 which justice proceeds by, it cannot be imagined 
 that this cited place commands less than a total and 
 final separation from such an adherent ; at least that 
 no force should be used to keep them together: 
 while we remember that God commanded Abraham 
 to send away his irreligious wife and her son for 
 the offences which they gave in a pious family. 
 And it may be guessed that David for the like 
 cause disposed of Michal in such a sort, as little 
 differed from a dismission. Therefore against reite- 
 rated scandals and seducements, which never cease, 
 much more can no other remedy or retirement be 
 found but absolute departure. For what kind of 
 matrimony can that remain to be, what one duty 
 between such can be performed as it should be from 
 the heart, when their thoughts and spirits fly asunder 
 as far as Heaven from Hell ; especially if the time 
 that Hope should send forth her expected blossoms, 
 be past in vain ? It will easily be true, that a father 
 or a brother may be hated zealously, and loved 
 civilly or naturally ; for those duties may be per- 
 formed at distance, and do admit of any long 
 absence : biit how the peace and perpetual co- 
 habitation of marriage can be kept, how that bene- 
 
48 THE DOCTRINE ANU 
 
 volent and intimate communion of body can be 
 held with one that must be hated with a most ope- 
 rative hatred, must be forsaken and yet continually 
 dwelt with and accompanied ; he who can distin- 
 guish, hath the gift of an affection very oddly 
 divided and contrived : while others both just and 
 wise, and Solomon among the rest, if they may not 
 hate and forsake as Moses enjoins, and the gospel 
 imports, will find it impossible not to love other- 
 wise than will sort with the love of God, whose 
 jealousy brooks no corrival. And whether is more 
 likely, that Christ bidding to forsake wife for reli- 
 gion, meant it by divorce as Moses meant it, whose 
 law, grounded on moral reason, was both his office 
 and his essence to maintain ; or that he should bring 
 a new morality into religon, not only new, but con- 
 trary to an unchangeable command, and danger- 
 ously derogating from our love and worship of God ? 
 As if when Moses had bid divorce absolutely, and 
 Christ had said, hate and forsake, and his Apostle 
 had said, no communication with Christ and Belial ; 
 yet that Christ after all this could be understood to 
 say, divorce not, no not for religion, seduce, or 
 seduce not. What mighty and invisible remora 
 is this in matrimony, able to demur and to contemn 
 all the divorcive engines in Heaven or earth ! both 
 which may now pass away, if this be true, for more 
 than many jots or tittles, a whole moral law is abo- 
 lished. But if we dare believe it is not, then in 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 49 
 
 the tnetliod of religion, aod to save the honour and 
 dignity of our faith, we are to retreat and gather up 
 ourselves from the observance of an inferior and civil 
 ordinance to the strict maintaining of a general and 
 religious command, which is written, ' Thou shalt 
 make no covenant with them,' Deut. vii. 2, 3 : and 
 that covenant which cannot be lawfully made, we 
 have directions and examples lawfully to dissolve. 
 Also 2 Chron. ii. 19, ' Shouldest thou love them 
 that hate the Lord V No, doutless : for there is a 
 certain scale of duties, there is a certain hierarchy of 
 upper and lower commands, which for want of study- 
 ing in right order, all the world is in confusion. 
 
 Upon these principles I answer, that a right be- 
 liever ought to divorce an idolatrous heretic, unless 
 upon better hopes ; however, that it is in the be* 
 liever's choice to divorce or not. 
 
 The former part will be manifest thus first, that an 
 apostate idolater, whether husband or wife seducing, 
 was to die by the decree of God, Deut. xiii; 6, 9 ; 
 that marriage therefore God himself disjoins : for 
 others born idolaters, the moral reason of their dan- 
 gerous keeping, and the incommunicable antagony 
 that is between Christ and Belial, will be sufficient 
 to enforce the commandment of those two inspired 
 reformers Ezra and Nehemiah, to put an idolater 
 away as well under the gospel. 
 
 The latter part, that although there be no seduce-* 
 ment feared, yet if there be no hope given, the 
 
 E 
 
60 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 divorce is lawful, will appear by this ; that idolatrous 
 marriage is still hateful to God, therefore still it may- 
 be divorced by the pattern of that warrant that Ezra 
 had, and by the same everlasting reason : Neither 
 can any man give an account wherefore, if those 
 wfcom God joins no man can separate, it should not 
 foUow, that whom he joins not, but hates to join, 
 those men ought to separate. But saith the lawyer, 
 " That which ought not to have been done, once 
 done, avails/^ I answer, " this is but a crotchet of 
 the law, but that brought against it is plain Scrip- 
 ture." As for what Christ spake concerning divorce, 
 it is confessed by all knowing men, he meant only 
 between them of the same faith. But what shall 
 we say then to St. Paul, who seems to bid us not 
 divorce an infidel willing to stay ? We may safely say 
 thus, that wrong collections have been hitherto made 
 out of those words by modern divines. His drift, 
 as was heard before, is plain ; not to command our 
 stay in marriage with an infidel, that had been a flat 
 renouncing of the religious and moral law ; but to 
 inform the Cornithians, that the body of an unbe- 
 liever was not defihng, if his desire to live in Christian 
 wedlock showed any hkelihood that his heart was 
 opening to the faith ; and therefore advises to forbear 
 departure so long till nothing have been neglected 
 to set forward a conversion : this I say he advises, 
 and that with certain cautions, not commands, if we 
 can take up so much credit for him, as to get him 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOfiCE. ol 
 
 believed upon Iiis own word : for what is this else 
 but his counsel in a thing indifferent, " to the rest 
 speak I, not the Lord ?'^ for though it be true, that 
 tlie Lord never spake it, yet from St. Paul's mouth 
 we should have took it as a command, had not him- 
 self forewarned us, and disclaimed ; which notwith- 
 standing if we shall still avouch to be a command, 
 he palpably denying it, this is not to expound St. 
 Paul, but to outface him. Neither doth it follow, 
 that the Apostle may interpose his judgment in a 
 case of Christian liberty, without the guilt of adding 
 to God^s word. How do we know marriage or sin- 
 gle life to be of choice, but by such like words as 
 these, *'I speak this by permission, not of command- 
 ment ; I have no command of the Lord, yet I give 
 ttiy judgment." Why shall not the like words hare 
 leave to signify a freedom in this our present ques- 
 tion, though Beza deny? Neither is the Scripture 
 hereby less inspired, because St. Paul confesses 
 to have written there in what he bad not of com- 
 mand ! for we grant that the spirit of God led him 
 thus to express himself to Christian prudence, in a 
 matter which God thought best to leave uncom- 
 manded. Beza therefore must be warily read, when 
 he taxes St. Austin of blasphemy, for holding that 
 St. Paul spake here as of a thing indifferent. But 
 if it must be a command, I shall yet the more evince 
 it to be a command that we should herein be left 
 free ; and that out of the Greek word used in tlie 
 
 E 2 
 
62- THE DOCTRINE AN0 
 
 12 ver. which instructs us plainly, there must be s 
 joint assent and good liking on both sides : he that 
 will not deprave the text must thus render it ; " If 
 a brother have an unbelieving wife, and she join 
 in consent to dwelt with him ^^ (which cannot utter 
 less to us than a mutual agreement) let him not 
 put her away from the mere surmise of judaical un- 
 cleanness : and the reason follows, for the body of 
 an infidel is not polluted, neither to benevolence, 
 nor to procreation. Moreover, this note of mutual 
 complacency forbids all offer of seducement, which 
 to a person of zeal cannot be attempted without 
 o^reat offence : if therefore seducement be feared, 
 this place hinders not divorce. Another caution 
 was put in this supposed command, of not bringing 
 the believer into ' bondage ' hereby, which doubt- 
 less might prove extreme, if Christian liberty and 
 conscience were left to the humour of a pagan 
 slaying at pleasure to play with, and to vex and 
 wound with a thousand scandals and burdens, 
 above strength to bear : If therefore the conceived 
 hope of gaining a soul come to nothing, the.n 
 charity commands that the believer be not wearied 
 out with endless waiting under many grievances 
 sore to his spirit ; but that respect be had rather to 
 ' the present suffering of a true Christian, than the 
 uncertain winning of an obdurate heretic. The 
 counsel we have from St. Paul to hope, cannot 
 countermand the moral and evangelic charge we 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 58 
 
 have from God to fear seducement, to separate from 
 the misbeliever, the unclean, the obdurate. The 
 Apostle wisheth us to hope, but does not send us a 
 wool-gathering after vain hope ; he saith, *' How 
 knowest thou, O man, whether thou shalt save thy 
 wife ?" that is, till he try all due means, and set 
 some reasonable time to himself, after which he 
 may give over washing an Ethiop, if he will hear 
 the advice of the gospel ; " Cast not pearls before 
 swine/' saith Christ himself. " Let him be to thee 
 as a heathen. Shake the dust off thy feet." If 
 this be not enough, " hate and forsake" what rela- 
 tion soever. And this also that follows must ap- 
 pertain to the precept, " Let every man wherein 
 he is called, therein abide with God," v. 24, that 
 is, so walking in his inferior calling of marriage, as 
 not by dangerous subjection to that ordinance to 
 hinder and disturb the higher calling of his Chris- 
 tianity. Last, and never too oft remembered, 
 whether this be a command, or an advice, we must 
 look that it be so understood as not to contradict 
 the least point of moral religion that God hath 
 formerly commanded ; otherwise what do we but 
 set the moral la\V and the gospel at civil war toge- 
 ther ? and who then shall be able to serve these 
 two masters ! 
 
94 TUB BOCTHIVE AND 
 
 €HAP. IX. 
 
 That adultery is- not the greatest breach of matrimony : that 
 there may be other violations as great. 
 
 Now whether idolatry or adultery be the greatest 
 violation of marriage, i£ a»ay <ikmai%d let him thm 
 eonsider ; that amoag Christian writers touching 
 jQiatrimony, there be three chief ends thereof agreed 
 on : godly society ; next civil ; and thi'rdly, that of 
 the marriage bed. Of these the first m name to 
 be the highest and' most excellent, no baptized man 
 caa d&ny, nor that idolatry smites directly again-st 
 this prime end ; nor that such as the violated end 
 is, such is the violation ; but he who. affira^is adul- 
 tery to. be the highest breach, affirms the bed to be 
 the highest of marriage, which is in truth a gross 
 ^uj.d boorish opinion, how common soever ; as fur 
 fyQm< the countenance of Scripture, as from the 
 li^kt of all clean philosophy or civil nature. And 
 oiiiit of question the cheerfui helip that may be in 
 marriage tow^ard sanctity of life, is the purest, and 
 so the noblest end of that contract : but if the par- 
 ticular of each person be considered, then of those 
 three ends which God appointed, that to him is 
 greatest which is most necessary ; and marriage is 
 then most broken to him, when he utterly wants 
 the fruition of that which he most sought therein, 
 whether it were religious, civil, or corporal society, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. $4f 
 
 Of which wants to do him right by divorce only 
 for the last and meanest is a perverse injury, and 
 the pretended reason of it as frigid as frigidity 
 itself, which the code and canon are only sensible 
 of. Thus much of this controversy. I now return 
 to the former argument. And having shown that 
 disproportion, contrariety, or numbness of mind 
 may justly be divorced by proving already the pro- 
 hibition thereof opposes the express end of God's 
 institution, suffers not marriage to satisfy that 
 intellectual and innocent desire which God himself 
 kindled in man to be the bond of wedlock, but 
 only to remedy a sublunary and bestial burning, 
 which frugal diet, without marriage, would easily 
 chasten. Next, that it drives many to transgress 
 the conjugal bed, while the soul wanders after that 
 satisfaction which it had hope to find at home, but 
 hath missed ; or else it sits repining, even to 
 atheism, finding itself hardly dealt with, but mis- 
 deeming the cause to be in God's law, which is in 
 man's unrighteous ignorance. I have shown also 
 how it unties the inward knot of marriage, which 
 is peace and love (if that can be untied which was 
 never knit) while it aims to keep fast the outward 
 formality : how it lets perish the Christian man, to . 
 compel impossibly the married man. 
 
66 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 CHAP. X. 
 
 The ^ixth reason of this law ; that to prohibit divorce sought for 
 natural cases, is against nature. 
 
 The sixth place declares this prohibition to 
 be as respectless of human nature, as it is of re- 
 ligion, and therefore is not of God. Hp teaches, 
 that an unlawful marriage may be lawfully divorced : 
 and that those who have thoroughly discerned each 
 other's disposition, which ofttimes cannot be till 
 after matrimony, shall then find a powerful reluc- 
 tance and recoil of nature on either side, blasting 
 all the content of their mutual society, that such 
 persons are not lawfully married, (to use the apostle's 
 words) " Say I these things as a man, or saith not 
 the law also the same ? For it is written, Deut, 
 xxii. Thou shalt not sow thy vineyard with different 
 seeds, lest thou defile both. Thou shalt not plough 
 with an ox and an ass together ;" and the like. I 
 follow the pattern of St. Paul's reasoning ; " Doth 
 God care for asses and oxen," how ill they yoke to- 
 gether, " or is it not said altogether for our sakes ? 
 for our sakes no doubt this is written.'' Yea the 
 apostle himself, in the forecited 2 Cor. vi. 14, alludes 
 from that place of Deut. to forbid misyoking mar- 
 riage, as by the Greek word is evident ; though he 
 instance but in one example of mismatching w^ith an 
 infidelj yet next to that, what can be a fouler incon- 
 gruity, a greater violence to the reverend secret of 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 57 
 
 nature, than to force a mixture of minds that can- 
 not unite, and to sow the sorrow of man's nativity 
 with seed of two incoherent and incombining dispo- 
 sitions ? which act being kindly and voluntary, as 
 it ought, the apostle, in the language he wrote, called 
 eiinoia, and the Latins, benevolence, intimating the 
 original thereof to be in the understanding, and the 
 will ; if not, surely there is nothing which might 
 more properly be called a malevolence rather ; and 
 is the most injurious and unnatural tribute that can 
 be extorted from a person endued with reason, to be 
 made pay out the best substance of his body, and 
 of his soul too, as some think, when either for just 
 and powerful causes he cannot like, or from unequal 
 causes finds not recompense. And that there is a 
 hidden efficacy of love and hatred in man, as well 
 as in other kinds, not moral but natural, which 
 though not always in the choice, yet in the success 
 of marriage will ever be most predominant ; besides 
 daily experience, the author of Ecclesiasticus, whose 
 wisdom hath set him next the Bible, acknowledges, 
 xiii. 16, "A man, saith he, will cleave to his hke." 
 But what might be the cause, whether each one's 
 allotted genius or proper star, or whether the super- 
 nal • influence of schemes and angular aspects, or 
 this elemental crasis here below ; whether all these 
 jointly or singly meeting friendly, or unfriendly in 
 either party, 1 dare not, with the men I am like to 
 
 ♦ The first edition has supernatural. 
 
59 THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 ehsk, appear so much a philosopher as to coiijec- 
 tupe. The ancient proverb in Homer less abstruse, 
 entitles this work of leading each like person to his 
 like, pecuharly to God himself: which is plain 
 enough also by his naming of a meet or like help 
 in the first espousal instituted ; and that every wo- 
 man is meet for every man, none so absurd as to 
 affirm. Seeing then there is a two-fold seminary, or 
 stock in nature, from whence are derived the issues 
 of love and hatred, distinctly flowing through the 
 whole mass of created things, and that God's doing 
 ever is to bring the due likenesses and harmonies of 
 his works together, except when out of two contra- 
 ries met to their own destruction, he moulds a third 
 existence ; and that it is error, or some evil angel 
 which either blindly or maliciously hath drawn to- 
 gether, in two persons ill embarked in wedlock, the 
 sleeping discords and enmities of nature, lulled on 
 purpose with some false bait, that they may wake 
 to agony and strife, later than prevention could have 
 wished, if from the bent of just and honest inten- 
 tions beginning what was begun and so continu- 
 ing, all that is equal, all that is fair and possible 
 hath been tried, and no accommodation likely to 
 succeed ; what folly is it still to stand combating and 
 battering against invincible causes and effects, with 
 evil upon evil, till either the best of our days be lin- 
 gered out, or ended with some speeding sorrow ? 
 The wise Ecclesiasticus advises rather, xxxvii. 27, 
 ' My son prove thy soul in thy life, see what is evil 
 for it, and give not that unto it.' Reason he had 
 
DTS«PLI»1» OF DIV«>ftCE. d>9 
 
 to say so ; for if the noisomeness or disfigurement 
 of body can soon destroy the sympathy of mind to 
 wedlock duties, much more will the annoyance and 
 trouble of mind infuse itself into all the faculties 
 aad acts of the body, to render them invalid^ un- 
 kindly, and even unholy against the fundamental 
 law book of nature, which Moses never thwarts, 
 but reverences : therefore he commands us to force 
 nothing against sympathy or natural order, no not 
 upon the most abject creatures ; to shew that such 
 an rndignity cannot be offered to man without an 
 impious crime. And certainly those divine medi- 
 tatmg words of finding out a meet and like help to 
 man, have in them a consideration of more than the 
 indefinite likeness of womanhood ; nor are they to 
 be made waste paper on, for the dulness of canon 
 divinity : no, nor those other allegoric precepts of 
 beneficence fetched out of the closet of nature, to 
 teach us goodness and compassion in not compelling 
 together unmatchable societies ; or if they meet 
 through mischance, by all consequence to disjoin 
 them, as God and nature signifies, and lectures to 
 us not only by those recited decrees, but even by 
 the first and last of all his visible works ; when by 
 his divorcing command the world first rose out of 
 cheo9, nor can be renewed again out of confusion, 
 but by the separating of unmeet consorts. 
 
60 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 CHAP. XI. 
 
 The seventh reasouy that sometimes continuance in marriage may 
 be evidently the shortening or endangering of life to either 
 party ; both law and divinity concluding^ that life is to be 
 •preferred before marriage^ the intended solace of life. 
 
 Seventhly ; the canon law and divines consent, 
 that if either party be found contriving against ano- 
 ther's life, they may be severed by divorce : for a 
 sin against the life of marriage, is greater than a sin 
 against the bed ; the one destroys, the other but 
 defiles. The same may be said touching those per- 
 sons, who, being of a pensive nature and course of 
 life, have summed up all their solace in that free and 
 lightsome conversation which God and man intends 
 in marriage ; whereof when they see themselves de- 
 prived by meeting an unsociable consort, they oft- 
 times resent one another's mistake so deeply, that 
 long it is not ere grief end one of them. When 
 therefore this danger is foreseen, that the life is in 
 peril by living together, what matter is it whether 
 helpless grief or wilful practice be the cause ? This 
 is certain, that the preservation of life is more worth 
 than the compulsatory keeping of marriage ; and it 
 is no less than cruelty to force a man to remain in 
 that state as the solace of his life, which he and his 
 friends know will be either the undoing or the dis- 
 heartening of his life. And what is life without the 
 vigour and spiritual exercise of life ? How can it 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 6l 
 
 be useful either to private or public employment ? 
 Shall it therefore be quite dejected, though never so 
 valuable, and left to moulder away in heaviness, for 
 the superstitious and impossible performance of an 
 ill-driven bargain ? Nothing more inviolable than 
 vows made to God ; yet we read in Numbers, that 
 if a wife had made such a vow, the mere will and 
 authority of her husband might break it : how much 
 more then may he break the error of his own bonds 
 with an unfit and mistaken wife, to the saving of 
 his welfare, his life, yea his faith and virtue, from 
 the hazard of overstrong temptation ? For if man 
 be lord of the Sabbath, to the curing of a fever, can 
 he be less than lord of marriage in such important 
 causes as these ? 
 
 CHAP. XII 
 
 The eighth reason^ It is probable, or rather certain, that every 
 one who happens to marry, hath not the calling ; and there-' 
 fore upon unfitness found and considered, force ought not to 
 he used. 
 
 Eighthly ; It is most sure that some even of 
 those who are not plainly defective in body, yet are 
 destitute of all other marriageable gifts, and conse- 
 quently have not the calling to marry, unless nothing 
 be requisite thereto but a mere instrumental body ; 
 which to affirm, is to that unanimous covenant a 
 
let THfi DOCRTRINE AND 
 
 re^woaoh : yet it is as sure that many siach, not (d 
 l^ieir own desire, but by the persuasion of friends, 
 or not knowing themselves, do often entet into wed- 
 lock ; where finding the difference at length between 
 tfee duties of a married life, and the gifts of a sin- 
 gle life, what unfitness of mind^ what wearisome^ 
 ness, scruples and doubts to an incredible offence 
 and displeasure are like to follow between, may be 
 soon imagined ; whom thus to shut up, and immure, 
 and shut up together, the one with a mischosen 
 mate, the other in a mistaken calling, is not a course 
 that Christian wisdom and tenderness ought to use. 
 As for the custom that some parents and guardians 
 have of forcing marriages, it will be better to say 
 nothing of such a savage inhumanity, but only thus ; 
 that the law which gives not all freedom of divorce 
 to any creature endued with reason so assassinated, 
 is next in cruelty. 
 
 CHAP. XIIL 
 
 The ninth reason ; because marriage is not a mere carnal coi- 
 tionf but a human society : where that cmmat reasonably be 
 had, there can be no true matrimony. Marriage compared 
 with all other covenants and vows warrantably broken for the. 
 good of man. Marriage the Papists sacrament, and unfit 
 marriage the Protestants idol. 
 
 Ninthly; I suppose it will be allowed us that 
 marriage is a human society, and that all human 
 society must proceed from the mind rather than the 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ^ 
 
 body, else it would be but a kind of animal or beast- 
 ish meeting : if the mind therefore cannot have tiiat 
 due company by marriage that it may reasonably 
 and humanly desire, that marriage can be no human 
 society, but a certain formality ; or gilding over of 
 little better than a brutish congress, and so in very 
 wisdom and pureness to be dissolved. 
 
 But marriage is more than human, " the cove- 
 nant of God,'^ Prov. ii. 17, therefore man cannot 
 dissolve it. I answer, if it be more than human, 
 so much the more it argues the chief society thereof 
 to be in the soul rather than in the body, and the 
 greatest breach thereof to be unfitness of mind ra- 
 ther than defect of body : for the body can have least 
 affinity in a covenant more than human, so that the 
 reason of dissolving holds good the rather. Again, 
 I answer, that the Sabbath is a higher institution, a 
 command of the first table, for the breach whereof 
 Grod hath far more and oftener testified his anger 
 than for divorces, which from Moses to Malachi he 
 never took displeasure at, nor then neither if we 
 mark the text ; and yet, as oft as the good of man 
 is concerned, he not only permits, but commands 
 to break the Sabbath. What covenant more con- 
 tracted with God and less in man's power, than the 
 vow which hath once passed his lips ? yet if it be 
 found rash, if offensive, if unfruitful either to God's 
 glory or the good of man, our doctrine forces not 
 error and unwillingness irksomely to keep it, but 
 counsels wisdom and better thoughts boldly to break 
 
64 THE DOCTRINE ANf) 
 
 it ; therefore to enjoin the indissoluble keeping of a^ 
 marriage found unfit against the good of man both 
 soul and body, as hath been evidenced, is to make 
 an idol of marriage, to advance it above the worship 
 of God and the good of man, to make it a trans- 
 cendent command, above both the second and first 
 table ; w^hich is a most prodigious doctrine. 
 
 Next whereas they cite out of the Proverbs, that 
 it is the covenant of God, and therefore more than 
 human, that consequence is manifestly false : for 
 so the covenant which Zedekiah made with the 
 infidel king of Babel, is called the Covenant of 
 God, Ezek. xvii. 19, which w^ould be strange to 
 hear counted more than a human covenant. So 
 every covenant between man and man, bound by 
 oath, may be called the covenant of God, because 
 God therein is attested. So of marriage he is the 
 author and the witness ; yet hence will not follow 
 any divine astriction more than what is subordi- 
 nate to the glory of God, and the main good of 
 either party : for as the glory of God and their es^ 
 teemed fitness one for the other, was the motive 
 which led them both at first to think without other 
 revelation that God had joined them together ; so 
 when it shall be found by their apparent unfitness, 
 that their continuing to be man and wife is against 
 the glory of God and their mutual happiness, it 
 may assure them that God never joined them; 
 who hath revealed his gracious will not to set the 
 ordinance above the man for whom it was ordained ; 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 65 
 
 not to canonize marrifige either as a tyranness or a 
 o-oddess over the enfranchised life and soul of man ; 
 
 o 
 
 for wherein can God delight, wherein be wor- 
 shipped, wherein be glorified by the forcible con- 
 tinuing of an improper and ill-yoking couple ? He 
 that loved not to see the disparity of several cattle 
 at the plough, cannot be pleased with vast unmeet- 
 ness in marriage. Where can be the peace and 
 love which must invite God to such a house ? May 
 it not be feared that the not divorcing of such a 
 helpless disagreement will be the divorcing of God 
 finally from such a place ? But it is a trial of our 
 patience, say they : I grant it ; but which of Job's 
 afflictions were sent him with that law, that he 
 might not use means to remove anv of them if he 
 could ? And what if it subvert pur patience and 
 our faith too ? Who shall answer for the perishing 
 of all those souls, perishing by stubborn exposi- 
 tions of particular and inferior precepts against the 
 general and supreme rule of charity ? They dare 
 not affirm that marriage is either a sacrament or a 
 mystery, though all those sacred things give place 
 to man ; and yet they invest it with such an 
 awful sanctity, and give it such adamantine chains 
 to bind with, as if it were to be worshipped like 
 some Indian deity, when it can confer no blessing 
 upon us, but works more and more to our misery. 
 To such teachers the saying of St.' Peter at the 
 council of Jerusalem will do well to be applied : 
 " Why tempt ye God to put a yoke upon the necks 
 
6^ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 of" christian men, which neither the Jews, God's 
 ancient people, " nOr we are able to bear ;" and 
 nothing but unwary expounding hath brought 
 upon us ? 
 
 CHAP. XIV. 
 
 Considerations concerning Familismy Antinomianism ; and 
 why it may he thought that such opinions may proceed from 
 the undue restraint 0/ some just liberty, than ichich no greater 
 causae to contemn discipline. 
 
 To these considerations this also may be added 
 as no improbable conjecture, seeing that sort of 
 tnen who follow Anabaptism, Familism, Antino- 
 mianism, and other fanatic dreams (if we under- 
 stand them not amiss) be such most commonly as 
 are by nature addicted to religion, of life also not 
 debauched, and that their opinions having full 
 swing, do end in satisfaction of the flesh ; it may 
 be come with reason into the thoughts of a wise 
 man, whether all this proceed not partly, if not 
 chiefly, from the restraint of some lawful liberty, 
 which ought to be given men, and is denied them ? 
 As by physic we learn in menstruous bodies, where 
 natures's current hath been stopped, that the 
 suffocation and upward forcing of some lower 
 part affects the head and inward sense with dotage 
 
DISCIPLINE or DIVORCE. H 
 
 and idle fancies. And on the other hand, whe- 
 ther the rest of vulgar men not so religiously pro- 
 fessing, do not give themselves much the more to 
 whoredom and adulteries, loving the corrupt and 
 venial discipline of clei^y-courts, but hating to hear 
 of perfect reformation ; when as tiiey foresee that 
 then fornication shall be austerely censured, adul- 
 tery punished ; and marriage the appointed refuge 
 of nature, though it hap to be never so incongruous 
 and displeasing, must yet of force be worn out, 
 when it can be to no other purpose but of strife and 
 hatred, a thing odious to God ? This may be worth 
 the study of skilful men in theology, and the reason 
 of things. And lastly, to examine whether some 
 undue and ill-grounded strictness upon the blame- 
 less nature of man, be not the cause in those places 
 where already reformation is, that the discipline of 
 the Church, so often, and so unavoidably broken, 
 is brought into contempt and derision ? And if it 
 be thus, let those who are still bent to hold this ob- 
 stinate literality, so prepare themselves, as to share 
 in the account for all these transgressions, when it 
 shall be demanded at the last day, by one who will 
 scan and sift things with more than a literal wisdom 
 of equity : for if these reasons be duly pondered, 
 and that the gospel is more jealous of laying on ex- 
 cessive burdens than ever the law was, lest tlie soul 
 of a Christian, which is inestimable, should be over- 
 tempted and cast away ; considering also that many 
 
 f9 
 
G8 THE DOCTRINE, &C. 
 
 properties of nature, which the power of regenera- 
 tion itself never alters, may cause dislike of con- 
 versing, even between the most sanctified ; which 
 continually grating in harsh tune together, may 
 breed some jar and discord, and that end in rancour 
 and strife, a thing so opposite both to marriage and 
 to Christianity, it would perhaps be less scandal to 
 divorce a natural disparity, than to link violently to- 
 gether an unchristian dissention, committing two 
 insnared souls inevitably to kindle one another, not 
 with the fire of love, but with a hatred irreconcile- 
 able ; who, were they dissevered, would be straight 
 friends in any other relation. But if an alphabetical 
 servility must be still urged, it may so fall out, that 
 the true church may unwittingly use as much cruelty 
 in forbidding to divorce, as the church of Anti- 
 christ doth wilfully in forbidding to marry. 
 
THE 
 
 DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE 
 
 OF 
 
 DIVORCE. 
 
 BOOK II 
 
 CHAP. I 
 
 The ordinance of sabbath and marriage compared. Hyper- 
 bole no unjrequent figure in the gospel. Excess cured by 
 contrary excess, Christ neither did nor could abrogate the 
 law of divorce, but only reprieve the abuse thereof. 
 
 Hitherto the position undertaken has been 
 declared, and proved by a law of God, that law 
 proved to be moral, and unabolishable, for many 
 reasons equal, honest, charitable, just, annexed 
 thereto. It follows now, that those places of scrip- 
 ture, which have a seeming to revoke the prudence 
 of Moses, or rather that merciful decree of God, be 
 forthwith explained and reconciled. For what are 
 all these reasonings worth, will some reply, whenas 
 the words of Christ are plainly against all divorce, 
 " except in case of fornication ?*' to whom he whose 
 mind were to answer no more but this, " except 
 also in case of charity,*' might safely appeal to the 
 more plain words of Christ in defence of so ex- 
 cepting. *^Thou shalt do no manner of work," 
 
70 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 saith the commandment of the sabbath. Yes, saitb 
 Christ, works of charity. And shall we be more 
 severe in paraphrasing the considerate and tender 
 gospel, than he was in expounding the rigid and 
 peremptory law ? What was ever in all appearance 
 less made for man, and more for God alone, than 
 the sabbath ? yet when the good of man comes 
 into the scales, we hear that voice of infinite good- 
 ness and benignity, that '* sabbath was made for 
 man, not man for sabbath.*' What thing ever was 
 more made for man alone, and less for God, than 
 marriage ? And shall we load it with a cruel and 
 senseless bondage utterly against both the good of 
 man, and the glory of God ? Let whoso will now 
 listen, I want neither pall nor mitre, I stay neither 
 for ordination nor induction ; but in the firm faith 
 of a knowing christian, which is the best and truest 
 endowment of the keys, I pronounce, the man, 
 who shall bind so cruelly a good and gracious ordi- 
 nance of God, hath not in that the spirit of Christ. 
 Yet that every text of scripture seeming opposite 
 may be attended with a due exposition, this other 
 part ensues, and makes account to find no slender 
 arguments for this assertion, out of those very 
 scriptures, which are commonly urged against it. 
 
 First therefore let us remember, as a thing not to 
 be denied, that all places of scripture, wherein just 
 reason of doubt arises from thje letter, are to be 
 expounded by considering upon what occasion 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 71 
 
 every thing is set down, and by comparing other 
 texts. The occasion, which induced our Saviour 
 to speak of divorce, was either to convince the ex- 
 travagance of the pharisees in that point, or to give 
 a sharp and vehement answer to a tempting ques- 
 tion. And in such cases, that we are not to repose 
 all upon the literal terms of so many words, many 
 instances will teach us: wherein we may plainly 
 discover how Christ meant not to be taken word 
 for word, but like a wise physician, administering 
 one excess against another, to reduce us to a per- 
 miss ; where they were too remiss, he saw it need- 
 ful to seem most severe : in one place he censures 
 an unchaste look to be adultery already committed^ 
 another time he passes over actual adultery with 
 less reproof than for an unchaste look ; not so 
 heavily condemning secret weakness, as open ma- 
 lice : 90 here he may be justly thought to have 
 giv^n this rigid sentence against divorce, not to cut 
 off all remedy from a good man, who finds himself 
 consuming away in a disconsolate and uninjoined 
 matrimony, but to lay a bridle upon the bold abuses 
 of those overweening rabbies ; which he could not 
 more effectually do, than by a counters way of re- 
 straint curbing their wild exorbitance almost in the 
 other extreme ; as when we bow things the con- 
 trary way, to make them come to their natural 
 straightoess. And this was the only intention of 
 Christ is most evident, if we attend but to his own 
 
72 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 words and protestation made in the same sermon, 
 not many verses before he treats of divorcing, that he 
 came not to abrogate from the law 'one jot or tittle,' 
 and denounces against them that shall so teach. 
 
 But St. Luke, the verse immediately foregoing 
 that of divorce, inserts the same caveat, as if the 
 latter could not be understood without the former ; 
 and as a witness to produce against this our wilful 
 mistake of abrogating, which must needs confirm 
 us, that whatever else in the political law of more 
 special relation to the Jews might cease to us ; yet 
 that of those precepts concerning divorce, not one 
 of them was repealed by the doctrine of Christ/ 
 unless we have vowed not to believe his own cau- 
 tious and immediate profession ; for if these our 
 Saviour's words inveigh against all divorce, and 
 condemn it as adultery, except it be for adultery, 
 and be not rather understood against the abuse of 
 those divorces permitted in the law, then is that law 
 of Moses, Deut. xxiv. 1, not only repealed and 
 wholly annulled against the promise of Christ, and 
 his known profession not to meddle in matters judi- 
 cial ; but that which is more strange, the very sub- 
 stance and purpose of that law is contradicted, and 
 convinced both of injustice and impurity, as having 
 authorized and maintained legal adultery by statute. 
 Moses also cannot scape to be guilty of unequal 
 and unwise decrees, punishing one act of secret 
 adultery by death, and permitting a whole life of 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 73 
 
 open adultery by law. And albeit lawyers write, 
 that some political edicts, though not approved, are 
 yet allowed to the scum of the people, and the ne- 
 cessity of the times ; these excuses have but a weak 
 pulse : for first, we read, not that the scoundrel 
 people, but the choicest, the wisest, the holiest of 
 that nation have frequently Used these laws, or such 
 as these, in the best and holiest times. Secondly, 
 be it yielded, that in matters not very bad or im- 
 pure, a human law-giver may slacken something of 
 that which is exactly good, to the disposition of the 
 people and the times: but if the perfect, the pure, 
 the righteous law of God, (for so are all his statutes 
 and his judgments,) be found to have allowed 
 smoothly, without any certain reprehension, that 
 which Christ afterward declares to be adultery, how 
 can we free this law from the horrible indictment of 
 being both impure, unjust, and fallacious ? 
 
 CHAP. II. 
 
 How divorce was permitted for hardness of hearty cannot be- 
 understood by the common exposition. That the law cannot 
 permit, much less enact a permission of sin» 
 
 Neither will it serve to say this was permitted 
 for the hardness of their hearts, in that sense as it is 
 Visually explained : for the law were then but a cor- 
 
74 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 rupt and erroneous schoolmaster, teaching us to 
 dash against a vital maxim of religion, by doing 
 foul evil in hope of some certain good. 
 
 This only text is not to be matched again through^ 
 out the v^hole scripture, whereby God in his perfect 
 law should seem to have granted to the hard hearts 
 of his holy people, under his own hand, a civil 
 immunity and free charter to live and die in a long 
 successive adultery, under a covenant of works, 
 till the Messiah, and then that indulgent permission 
 to be strictly denied by a covenant of grace ; be- 
 sides, the incoherence of such a doctrine cannot, 
 must not be thus interpreted, to the raising of a 
 paradox never known till then, only hanging by the 
 twined thread of one doubtful scripture, against so 
 many other rules and leading principles of religion, 
 of justice, and purity of life. For what could be 
 granted more either to the fear, or to the lust of 
 any tyrant or politician, than this authority of 
 Moses thus expounded ; which opens him a way 
 at will to dam up justice, and not only to admit of 
 any Romish or Austrian dispenses, but to enact a 
 statute of that which he dares not seem to approve, 
 even to legitimate vice, to make sin itself, the ever 
 alien and vassal sin, a free citizen of the common- 
 wealth, pretending only these or similar plausible rea- 
 sons ? And well he might, all the while that Moses 
 shall be alledged to have done as much without 
 showing any reason at all. Yet this could not 
 
DISCIPLINE Of DIVORCE. 75 
 
 enter into the heart of David, Psal. xciv. 20, how 
 any such authority, as endeavours to ' fashion wick- 
 edness by a law,* should derive itself from God. 
 And Isaiah says ' woe unto them that decree un- 
 lighteous decree,^ chap. x. 1. Now which of these 
 two is the better law-giver, and which deserves 
 most a wo, he that gives out an edict singly unjust, 
 or he that confirms to generations a fixed and 
 unmolested impunity of that which is not only 
 held to be unjust, but also unclean, and both in a 
 high degree ; not only as they themselves affirm, 
 an injurious expulsion of one wife, but also an 
 unclean freedom by more than a patent to wed 
 another adulterously ? How can we therefore with 
 safety thus dangerously confine the free simplicity 
 of our Saviour^s meaning to that which merely 
 amounts from so many letters, whenas it can con- 
 sist neither with its former and cautionary words, 
 nor with other more pure and holy principles, nor 
 finally with a scope of charity, commanding by 
 his express commission in a higher strain ? But 
 all rather of necessity must be understood as only 
 against the abuse of that wise and ingenuous liberty, 
 which Moses gave, and to terrify a roving conscience 
 from sinning under that pretext. 
 
76 THE DOCTRINE ANH 
 
 %nB <^HAP. III. 
 
 That to allow sin by law, is against the nature of law, the end 
 of the law-giver, and the good of the people. Impossible 
 therefore in the law of God, That it makes God the author 
 of sin more than any thing objected by the Jesuits or Armi- 
 nians against predestination. 
 
 But let us yet further examine upon what con- 
 sideration a law of licence could be thus given to a 
 holy people for the hardness of heart. I suppose 
 all will answer, that for some good end or other. 
 But here the contrary shall be proved. First, that 
 many ill effects, but no good end of such a suff*er- 
 ance can be shewn ; next, that a thing unlawful 
 can for no good end whatever, be either done or 
 allowed by a positive law. If there were any good 
 end aimed at, that end was then good either to the 
 law or to the law-giver licensing ; or as to the per- 
 son licensed. That it could not be the end of the 
 law, whether moral or judicial, to licence a sin, I 
 prove easily out of Rom. v. 20: * The law entered, 
 that the offence might abound,^ that is, that sin. 
 might be made abundantly manifest to be heinous 
 and displeasing to God, that so his offered grace 
 might be the more esteemed. Now if the law, 
 instead of aggravating and terrifying sin, shall give 
 out licence, it foils itself, and turns recreant from its 
 
DIlSCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 77 
 
 own end ; it forestalls the pure grace of Christ, 
 which is through righteousness, with impure indul- 
 gencies, which are through sin. And instead of dis- 
 covering sin, for ' by the law is the knowledge 
 thereof,' saith St. Paul ; and that by certain and 
 true light for men to walk in safety, it holds out 
 false and dazzling fires to stumble men ; or, like 
 those miserable flies, to run into with delight and 
 be burnt : for how many souls might easily think 
 that to be lawful which the law and magistrate allowed 
 them ? Again, we read, 1 Tim. i. 5, ' The end of the 
 commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and 
 of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.* But 
 never could that be charity, to allow a people what 
 they could not use with a pure heart, but with con- 
 science and faith both deceived, or else despised. 
 The more particular end of the judicial law is set 
 forth to us clearly, Rom. xiii. That God hath given 
 to that law, ' a sword not in vain, but to be a terror 
 to evil works, a revenge to execute wrath upon him 
 that doth evil.* If this terrible commission should 
 but forbear to punish wickedness, where it other 
 to be accounted than partial and unjust ? but if it 
 begin to write indulgence to vulgar uncleanness, can 
 it do more to corrupt and shame the end of its own 
 being ? Lastly, if the law allow sin, it enters into a 
 kind of covenant with sin; and if it do, there is not 
 a greater sinner in the world than the law itself. 
 The law, to use an allegory something different 
 
W THE DOCTRrNE ANB 
 
 from that in PhiloJudaeus concerning Amalek^ 
 though haply more significant, the law ia the 
 Israelite, and hath this absolute charge given it, 
 Deut. XXV. ' To blot out the memory of sin, the 
 Amalekite, from under heaven, not to forget it.^ 
 Again the law is the Israelite, and hath this express 
 repeated command ' to make no covenant with sin, 
 the Canaanite,' but to expel him lest he prove a 
 snare. And to say truth, it were too rigid and 
 reasonless to proclaim such an enmity between man 
 and man, were it not the type of a greater enmity 
 between law and sin. I speak even now, as if sin 
 were condemned in a perpetual villanage never to 
 be free by law, never to be manumitted : but sure 
 sin can have no tenure by law at all, but is rather 
 an eternal out-law, and in hostility with law past all 
 atonement: both diagonal contraries, as much allow- 
 ing one another, as day and night together in one 
 hemisphere. Or if it be possible, that sin with his 
 darkness may come to composition, it cannot be 
 without a foul echpse and twilight to the law, whose 
 brightness ought to surpass the noon. Thus we see 
 how this unclean permittance defeats the sacred 
 and glorious end both of the moral and judicial 
 law. 
 
 As little good can the law-giver propose to equity 
 by such a lavish remissness as this : if to remedy hard- 
 ness of heart, Paraeus and other divines confess it 
 more increases by this liberty, than is lessened : and 
 
DISCIPLIHE OF DIVORCE. 19 
 
 how is it probable, that their hearts were more hard in 
 this, that it should be yielded to, than in any othcf 
 crime ? Their hearts were set upon usury, and are 
 to this day, no nation more ; yet that which was 
 the endamaging only of their estates was narrowly 
 forbid ; this which is thought the extreme injury 
 and dishonour of their wives and daughters, with 
 the defilement also of themselves, is bounteously 
 allowed. Their hearts were as hard under their 
 best kings to offer in high places, though to the 
 true God : yet that, but a small thing, is strictly 
 fore-warned ; this, accounted a high offence against 
 one of the greatest moral duties, is calmly permitted 
 and established. How can it be evaded, but that 
 the heavy censure of Christ should fall worse upon 
 this law-giver of theirs, than upon all the Scribes and 
 Pharisees ? For they did but omit judgment and 
 mercy to trifle in mint and cummin, yet all according 
 to law ; but this their law-giver, altogether as punc* 
 tual in such niceties, goes marching on to adulte- 
 ries, through the violence of divorce by law against 
 law. If it were such a cursed act of Pilate a sub- 
 ordinate judge to Caesar, overs way ed by those hard 
 hearts, with much ado to suffer one transgression of 
 law but once, what is it then with less ado to pub- 
 lish a law of transgression for many ages > Did 
 God for this come down and cover the mount of 
 Sinai with his glory, uttering in thunder those his 
 iacred ordinances out of the bottomless treasures 
 
80 THE DOCTRINE A^D ^ 
 
 of his wisdom and infinite pureness, to patch up 
 an ulcerous and rotten comnnonwealth with strict 
 and stern injunctions, to wash the skin and garments 
 for every unclean touch ; and such easy permission 
 given to pollute the soul with adulteries by public 
 authority, without disgrace or question ? No, it 
 had been better that man had never known law or 
 matrimony, than that such foul iniquity should be 
 fastened upon the holy one of Israel, the judge of 
 all the earth ; and such a piece of folly as Belzebub 
 would not commit, to divide against himself, and 
 prevent his own ends : or if he, to compass more 
 certain mischief, might yield perhaps to feign some 
 good deed, yet that God should enact a licence of 
 certain evil for uncertain good against his own glory 
 and pureness, is abominable to conceive. And as 
 it is destructive to the end of law, and blasphemous 
 to the honour of the law-giver licensing, so is it as 
 pernicious to the person licensed. If a private 
 friend admonish not, the scripture saith, ' he hates 
 his brother, and lets him perish ;' but if he soothe 
 him and allow him in his faults, the Proverbs teach 
 us, ' he spreads a net for his neighbour's feet, and 
 worketh ruin.^ If the magistrate or prince forget 
 to administer due justice, and restrain not sin ; Eli 
 himself could say, ' it made the Lord's people to 
 transgress.* But if he countenance them against 
 law by his own example, what havoc it makes both 
 in religion and virtue among the people may be 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 81 
 
 guessed, by the anger it brought upon Hophni and 
 Phineas not to be appeased ' with sacrifice nor offer- 
 ing for ever.' If the law be silent to declare sin, 
 the people must needs generally go astray, for the 
 apostle himself saith, ' he had not known lust but 
 by the law ;' and surely such a nation seems not to 
 be under the illuminating guidance of God^s law, 
 but under the horrible doom rather of such as de- 
 spise the Gospel ; ' he that is filthy, let him be 
 filthy still/ But where the law itself gives a war- 
 rant for sin, I know not what condition of misery 
 to imagine miserable enough for such a people, 
 unless that portion of the wicked, or rather the 
 damned on whom God threatens, in Psalm, xi. ' to 
 rain snares; but that questionless cannot be by any 
 law, which the apostle saith is ' a ministry ordained 
 of God for our good,* and not so many ways and 
 in so high a degree to our destruction, as we have 
 now been graduating. And this is all the good 
 can come to the person licensed in his hardness of 
 heart. 
 
 I am next to mention that, which because it is a 
 ground in divinity, Rom. iii. will save the labour of 
 demonstrating, unless her given axioms be more 
 doubted than in other hearts (although it be no les» 
 firm in the precepts of philosophy) that a thing un- 
 lawful can for no good whatsoever be done, much 
 less allowed by a positive law. And this is the 
 matter why interpreters upon that ptissage in Hosea 
 will not consent it to be a true story, that the pro- 
 phet took a harlot to wife : because God, being a 
 
 G 
 
82 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 pure spirit, could not command a thing repugnant to 
 his own nature, no not for so good an end as to ex- 
 hibit more to the life a wholesome and perhaps a 
 converting parable to many an Israelite. Yet that 
 he commanded the allowance of adulterous and in- 
 jurious divorces for hardness of heart, a reason ob- 
 scure and in a wrong sense, they can very favourably 
 persuade themselves ; so tenacious is the leaven of 
 an old conceit. But they shift it ; he permitted 
 only. Yet silence in the law is consent, and con- 
 sent is accessory : why then is not the law being 
 silent, or not active against a crime, accessary to its 
 own conviction, itself judging ? For though we 
 should grant, that it approves not, yet it mils ; and 
 the lawyers maxim is, that ' the will compelled is 
 yet the will.* And though Aristotle in his ethics 
 calls this a ' mixed action,^ yet he concludes it to 
 be voluntary and inexcusable, if it be evil. How 
 justly then might human law and philosophy rise 
 up against the righteousness of Moses, if this be 
 true which our vulgar divinity fathers upon him, 
 yea, upon God himself, not silently, and only nega- 
 tively to permit, but in his law to divulge a written 
 and general privilege to commit and persist in un- 
 lawful divorces with a high hand, with security and 
 no ill fame ? for this is more than permitting and 
 contriving, this is maintaining : this is warranting, 
 this is protecting, yea this is doing evil, and such an 
 evil as that reprobate law-giver did, whose lasting in- 
 famy is engraven upon him like a surname, ' he who 
 made Israel to sin/ This is the lowest pitch con- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOHCfi. 88 
 
 trary to God that public fraud and injustice can 
 <lescend. 
 
 M il^ be affirmed, that God, as being Lord, may 
 do \i^at he will, yet we must know, that God hath 
 not two wills, but one will, nmch less two contrary. 
 If he once willed adultery should be sinful, and to 
 be punished with death, all his omnipotence will 
 not allow him, to will the allowance that his holiest 
 people might as it were by his own antinomy, or 
 counter-statute, live un reproved in the same fact as 
 he himself esteemed it, according to our common 
 explainers. The hidden ways of his providence we 
 adore and search not, but the law is his revealed 
 will, his complete, his evident and certain will : 
 herein he appears to us as it were in human shape, 
 entetSf into covenant with uis, swears to keep it, 
 binds himself like a just law-giver to his own pre- 
 scriptions, gives himself to be understood by men, 
 judges and is judged, measures and is commensu- 
 rate to right reason ; cannot require less of us in 
 one cantle of his law than in another, his legal jus- 
 tice cannot be so fickle and so variable, sometimes 
 like a devouring fire, and by and by connivent in 
 the embers, or, if I may so say, oscitant and supine. 
 The vigour of his law could no more remit, than 
 the hallowed fire upon his altar could be let go out. 
 The lamps that burned before him might need 
 tnuffing, but the light of his law never. Of this 
 
 G 2 
 
S4 , THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 also more beneath, in discussing a solution of 
 Rivetus. ^, 
 
 The Jesuits, and that sect among us which is 
 named of Arminius, are wont to charge us of mak- 
 ing God the author of sin, in two degrees especially, 
 not to speak of his permission : 1. because we hold, 
 that he hath decreed some to damnation, and con- 
 sequently to sin, say they ; next, because those 
 means, which are of saving knowledge to others, he 
 makes to them an occasion of greater sin. Yet 
 considering the perfection wherein man was cre- 
 ated, and might have stood, no degree necessitating 
 his free will, but subsequent, though not in time, 
 yet in order to causes, which were in his own 
 power ; they might methinks be persuaded to ab- 
 solve both God and us. When as the doctrine of 
 Plato and Chrysippus, with their followers, the 
 Academics and the Stoics, who knew not what a 
 consummate and most adorned Pandora was be- 
 stowed upon Adam, to be the nurse and guide of 
 his arbitrary happiness and perseverance, I mean his 
 native innocence and perfection, which might have 
 kept him from being our true Epimetheus ; and 
 though they taught of virtue and vice to be both the 
 gift of divine destiny, they could yet give reasons 
 not invalid, to justify the councils of God and fate 
 frpm the insulsity of mortal tongues: that man^s 
 own free will self-corrupted, is the adequate and 
 
DISCIPLINE OF BIVORCE. 86 
 
 sufficient cause of his disobedience besides fate ; as 
 Homer also wanted not to express, both in his 
 Ihad and Odyssee. And Manihus the poet, al- 
 though in his fourth book he tells of some " created 
 ^th to sin and punishment;'^ yet without mur- 
 muring, and with an industrious cheerfulness he 
 acquits the deity. They were not ignorant in their 
 heathen lore, that it is mostgodhke to punish those 
 who of his creatures became his enemies with the 
 greatest punishment ; and they could attain also to 
 think, that the greatest, when God himself throws 
 a man farthest from him ; which then they held he 
 did, when he blinded, hardened, and stirred iip his 
 offenders, to finish and pile up their desperate work 
 since they had undertaken it. To banish for ever 
 into a local hell, whether in the air or in the centre, 
 or in that uttermost and bottomless gulf of Chaos, 
 deeper from holy bhss than the world's diameter 
 multiplied ; they thought not a punishing so pro- 
 per and proportionate for God to inflict, as to punish 
 sin with sin. Thus were the common sort of Gen- 
 tiles wont to think, without any wry thoughts cast 
 upon divine governance. And therefore Cicero, 
 not in his Tusculan or Campanian retirements 
 among the learned wits of that age, but even in the 
 senate to a mixed auditory, (though he were spar- 
 ing otherwise to broach his philosophy among 
 statists and lawyers) yet as to this point, both in 
 his oration against Piso, and in that which is about 
 
86 THB DOCTRINE AND 
 
 the answers of this soothsayers against Clodius, he 
 declares it publicly as no paradox to common ears, 
 that God cannot pqni§h man more, nor make him 
 more miserable, jthan still by making him more sin- 
 ful. Thus we see how in this controversy the jus- 
 tice of God stood upright even among heathen dis- 
 puters. But if any one be truly, and not pretend.- 
 edly zealous for God's honour, here I call him forth 
 before men and angels, to use his best and most 
 advised skill, lest God more unavoidably than ever 
 yet, and in the guiltiest manner, be made the author 
 of sin : if he shall not only deliver over and incite 
 his enemies by rebuke to sin as a punishment, but 
 shall by patent under his own broad seal allow his 
 friends whom he would sanctify and save, whom he 
 would unite to himself and not disjoin, whom he 
 would correct by wholesome chastening, and not 
 punish as he doth the damned by lewd sin- 
 ning ; if he shall allow these in his law, the perfect 
 rule of his own purest will, and our most edified 
 conscience, the perpetrating of an odious and ma- 
 nifold sin without the least contesting. It is 
 wondered how there can be in God a secret and 
 revealed will ; and yet what wonder, if there be in 
 man two answerable causes. But here there must 
 be two revealed wills grapjing in a fraternal war 
 with one another without any reasonable cause 
 apprehended. This cannot be less, than to ingraft 
 sin into the substance of the law, which law is to 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. fiff 
 
 provoke sin by crossing and forbidding, not by com- 
 plying with it. Nay this is, vehich I tremble in 
 uttering, to incarnate sin into the unpunishing and 
 well-pleased will of God. To avoid these dreadful 
 consequences, that tread upon the heels of those 
 allowances to sin, will be a task of far more diffi- 
 culty, than to appease those minds, which perhaps 
 out of a vigilant and wary conscience except against 
 predestination. Thus finally we may conclude, 
 that a law wholly giving licence cannot upon any 
 good consideration be given to a holy people, fco* 
 hardness of heart in the vulgar sense. 
 
 CHAP. IV. 
 
 That if divorce be no command, no more is marriage. That 
 divorce could be no dispensation, if it were sinful. The 
 solution of Rivetus, that God dispensed by some unknown 
 way, ought not to satisfy a christian mind. 
 
 Others think to evade the matter by not grant- 
 ing any law of divorce, but only a dispensation, 
 which is contrary to the words of Christ, who him- 
 self calls it a ' Law,' Mark x. 5: or if we speak 
 of a command in the strictest definition, then mar- 
 riage itself is no more a command than divorce, 
 but only a free permission to him who cannot 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 contain. But as to dispensation I affirm the same 
 as before of the law, that it can never be given to 
 the allowance of sin : God cannot give it, neither 
 in respect of himself, nor in respect of man ; not 
 in respect of himself, being a most pure essence, 
 the just avenger of sin ; neither cian he make that 
 cease to be a sin^ which is in itself unjust and 
 impure, as all divorces they say were, which were 
 not for adultery. Not in respect of man, for then 
 it must be either to his good, or to his evil. Not 
 to his good ; for how can that be imagined any 
 good to a sinner, whom nothing but rebuke and 
 due correction can save, to hear the determinate 
 oracle of divine law louder than any reproof dis- 
 pensing and providing for the impunity, and con- 
 venience of sin ; to make that doubtful, or rather 
 lawful, which the end of the law was to make most 
 evidently hateful ? Nor to the evil of man can a 
 dispense be given ; for if ' the law were ordained 
 unto life,' Rom. vii. 10, how can the same God 
 publish dispenses against that law, which must 
 needs be unto death ? Absurd and monstrous 
 would that dispense be, if any judge or law should 
 give it a man to cut his own throat, or to damn 
 himself. Dispense therefore pre-supposes full pardon, 
 or else it is not a dispense, but a most baneful and 
 bloody snare. And why should God enter cove- 
 nant with a people to be holy, as ' the command is 
 holy and just, and good,' Rom. vii. 12, and yet 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 89 
 
 suffer an impure and treacherous dispense, to mis- 
 lead and betray them under the vizard of law to a 
 legitimate practice of uncleanness ? God is no 
 covenant-breaker ; he cannot do this. 
 
 Rivetus, a diligent and learned writer, having 
 well weighed what hath been written by those 
 founders of dispense, and finding the small agree- 
 ment among them, would fain work himself aloof 
 these rocks and quicksands, and thinks it best to 
 conclude, that God certainly did dispense, but by 
 «orae way to us unknown, and so to leave it. But 
 to this I oppose, that a christian by no means ought 
 to rest himself in such an ignorance ; whereby so 
 many absurdities will straight reflect both against 
 the purity, justice, and wisdom of God, the end 
 also both of law and gospel, and the comparison of 
 them both together. God indeed in some ways of 
 his providence is high and secret, past finding out : 
 but in the delivery and execution of his law, especi- 
 ally in the managing of a duty so daily and so fami- 
 liar as this is whereof we reason, hath plainly enough 
 revealed himself, and requires the observance there- 
 of not otherwise, than to the law of nature and 
 equity imprinted in us seems correspondent. And 
 he hath taught us to love and extol his laws, not 
 only as they are his, but as they are just and good to 
 every wise and sober understanding. Therefore 
 Abraham, even to the face of God himself, seemed 
 to doubt of divine justice, if it sliould swerve from 
 
90 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 the irradiation wherewith it had enlightened the 
 mind of man, and bound itself to observe its own 
 rule ; ' wilt thou destroy the righteous with the 
 wicked ? that be far from thee ; shall not the judge 
 of the earth do right ? Thereby declaring, that God 
 hath created a righteousness in right itself, against 
 which he cannot do. So David, Psalm cxix. ' the 
 testimonies which thou hast commanded are righ- 
 teous and very faithful ; thy word is very pure, 
 therefore thy servant loveth it/ Not only then for 
 the author's sake, but for its own purity. ' He is 
 faithful,' saith St. Paul, * he cannot deny himself;' 
 that is, cannot deny his own promises, cannot but 
 be true to his own rules. He often pleads with 
 men the uprightness of his ways by their own 
 principles. How should we imitate him else, to 
 ' be perfect as he is perfect ?' If at pleasure he can 
 dispense with golden poetic ages of such pleasing 
 licence, as in the fabled reign of old Saturn, and 
 this perhaps before the law might have some covert ; 
 but under such an undispensing covenant as Moses 
 made with them, and not to tell us why and where- 
 fore, indulgence cannot give quiet to the breast of 
 an intelligent man ? We must be resolved how the 
 law can be pure and perspicuous, and yet throw a 
 polluted skirt over these Eleusinian mysteries, that 
 no man can utter what they mean : worse in this than 
 the worst obscenities of heathen superstition ; for 
 Iheir filthiness was hid, but the mystic reason thereof 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 91 
 
 kaowfl to their sages. But this Jewish imputed 
 filthiness was daily and open, but the reason of it 
 is not known to our divines. We know of no design 
 the gospel can have to impose new righteousness 
 upon works, but to remit the old by faith with- 
 out works, if we mean justifying works : we know 
 no mystery our Saviour could have to lay new 
 bonds upon marriage in the covenant of grace which 
 himself had looseped to the severity of law. So 
 that Rivetus may pardon us, if we cannot be 
 contented with his non-solution, to remain in such 
 a peck of uncertainties and doubts, so dangerous 
 and ghastly to the fundamentals of our faith. 
 
 CHAP, V. 
 
 What a dispensation is. 
 
 Therefore to get some better satisfaction, we 
 must proceed to inquire as diligently as we can 
 what a dispensation is, which I find to be either 
 properly so called, or improperly. Improperly so 
 called, is rather a particular and exceptive law, 
 absolving and disobliging from a more general com- 
 mand for some just and reasonable cause. As 
 Numb. ix. they who were unclean, or in a journey, 
 had leave to keep the passover in the second month, 
 but otherwise ever in the first. As for that in Levi- 
 ticus of marrying the brother's wife, it was a penal 
 
92 THE DOCTRINE AUTX 
 
 statute rather than a dispense ; and commands 
 nothing injurious or in itself unclean, only prefers 
 a special reason of charity before an institutive 
 decency, and perhaps is meant for life-time only, as 
 is expressed beneath in the prohibition of taking 
 two sisters. What other edict of Moses, carrying 
 but the semblance of a law in any other kind, may 
 bear the name of a dispense, I have not readily to 
 instance. But a dispensation most properly is some 
 particular accident rarely happening, and therefore 
 not specified in the law, but left to the decision of 
 charity, even under the bondage of Jewish rites, 
 much more under the liberty of the gospel. Thus 
 did ' David enter into the house of God, and did 
 eat the showbread, he and his followers, which was' 
 ceremonially ' unlawful.' Of such dispenses as 
 these it was that Verdune the French divine so 
 gravely disputed in the council of Trent against 
 friar Adrian, who held that the pope might dispense 
 with any thing. " It is a fond persuasion," saith 
 Verdune, " that dispensing is a favour ; nay, it is 
 as good distributive justice as what is most, and the 
 priest sins if he gives it not, for it is nothing else 
 but a right interpretation of law." Thus far that 1 
 can learn touching this matter wholesomely decreed. 
 But that God, who is the giver of every good and 
 perfect gift, Jam. 1, should give out a rule and 
 directory to sin by, should enact a dispensation as 
 long-lived as a law, whereby to live in privileged 
 adultery for hardness of heart ; (and this obdurate 
 disease cannot be conceived how it was the more 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 9S 
 
 amended by this unclean remedy,) is the most deadly 
 and scorpion-like gift, that the enemy of mankind 
 could have given to any miserable sinner, and is ra- 
 ther such a dispense as that was, which the serpent 
 gave to our first parents. Grod gave quails in his 
 wrath, and kings in his wrath, yet neither of 
 these things evil in themselves : but that he whose 
 eyes cannot behold impurity, should in the book of 
 his holy covenant, his most unpassionate law, give 
 licence and statute for uncontrolled adultery, al- 
 though it go for the received opinion, I shall ever 
 dissuade my soul from such a creed, such an in- 
 dulgence as the shop of Antichrist never forged a 
 baser. 
 
 CHAP. VI. 
 
 That the Jew had no more right to this supposed dispense than 
 the Christian hath, and rather not so much. 
 
 But if we must needs dispense, let us for a while 
 so far dispense with truth, as to grant that sin may 
 be dispensed ; yet there will be copious reason found 
 to prove, that the Jew had no more right to such a 
 supposed indulgence than the Christian ; whether 
 we look at the clear knowledge wherein he lived, or 
 the strict performance of works whereto he was 
 bound. Besides visions and prophecies, they had 
 
94 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 the law of God, which in the Psalms and Proverbs' 
 is chiefly praised for sureness and certainty, both 
 easy and perfect to the enhghtening of the simple. 
 How could it be so obscure then, or they so sottishly 
 blind in this plain^ morale and household duty? 
 They had the same precepts about marriage ; Christ 
 added nothing to their clearness, for that had argued 
 them imperfect ; he opens not the law, but removes 
 the pharisaic mists raised between the law and the 
 people's eyes : the only sentence which he adds, 
 * What God hath joined let no man put asunder,^ is 
 as obscure as any clause fetched out of Genesis, and 
 hath increased a yet undecided controversy of clan- 
 destine marriages. If we examine over all his say- 
 ings, we shall find him not so much interpreting the 
 law with his words, as referring his own words to 
 be interpreted by the law, and oftener obscures his 
 mind in short, and vehement, and compact sentences, 
 to blind and puzzle them the more, who would not 
 understand the law. The Jews therefore were as 
 little to be dispensed with for lack of moral know- 
 ledge as we. 
 
 Next, none I think will deny, but that they were 
 as much bound to perform the law as any Christian. 
 That severe and rigorous knife not sparing the ten- 
 der foreskin of any male infant, to carve upon his 
 flesh the mark of that strict and pure covenant 
 whereinto he entered, might give us to understand 
 enough against the fancy of dispensing. St. Paul 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 95 
 
 testifies, that every ' circumcised man is a debtor to 
 the whole law,' Gal. v. or else 'circumcision is in 
 vain/ Rom. ii. 25. How vain then, and how pre- 
 posterous must it needs be to exact a circumcision 
 of the flesh from an infant into an outward sign of 
 purity, and to dispense an uncircumcision in the 
 soul of a grown man to an inward and real impu- 
 rity ? How vain again was that law, to impose te- 
 dious expiations for every slight sin of ignorance 
 and error, and to privilege without penance or dis- 
 turbance an odious crime whether of ignorance or 
 obstinacy ? How unjust also inflicting death and 
 extirpation for the mark of circumstantial pureness 
 omitted, and proclaiming all honest and liberal in- 
 demnity to the act of a substantial impureness com- 
 mitted, making void the covenant that was made 
 against it ? Thus if we consider the tenour of the 
 law, to be circumcised and to perform all, not par- 
 doning so much as the scapes of error and igno- 
 rance, and compare this with the condition of the 
 gospel, 'believe and be baptized,' I suppose it cannot 
 be long ere we grant, that the Jew was bound as 
 strictly to the performance of every duty, as was 
 possible : and therefore could not be dispensed with 
 more than the Christian, perhaps not so much. 
 
96 THE DOCTRINE ANB^ 
 
 CHAP. VII. 
 
 That the Gospel is apter to dispense than the Laiv. Farceur 
 answered. 
 
 If then the law will afford no reason, why the 
 Jew should be more gently dealt with than the 
 Christian, then surely the gospel can afford as little^ 
 why the Christian should be less gently dealt with 
 than the Jew. The gospel indeed exhorts to highest 
 perfection, but bears with weakest infirmity more 
 than the law. Hence those indulgencies, ' all cannot 
 receive this saying, every man hath his proper gift,* 
 with express charges not to ' lay on yokes, which 
 our fathers could not bear.' The nature of man still 
 is as weak, and yet as hard ; and that weakness and 
 hardness as unfit and as un teachable to be harshly 
 used as ever. Ay but, saith Paraeus, there is a 
 greater portion of spirit poured upon the gospel y 
 which requires from us perfecter obedience. I an- 
 swer, this does not prove, that the law might give 
 allowance to sin more than the gospel ; and if it were 
 no sin, we know it were the work of the spirit to 
 'mortify our corrupt desires and evil concupiscence ;' 
 but not to root up our natural affections and disaf- 
 fections, moving to and fro even in wisest men 
 upon just and necessary reasons, which were the 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ^1 
 
 true grouDtl of tliat Mosaic dispense, and is the ut- 
 most extent of our pleading. What is more or less 
 perfect we dispute not, but what is sin or no sin. 
 And in that I still affirm, the law required as perfect 
 obediience as the gospel : besides that the prime end 
 of the gospel is not so much to exact our obedience, 
 as to reveal grace, and the satisfaction of our dis- 
 obedience. What is now exacted from us, it is the 
 accusing law that does itj even yet under the gos- 
 pel ; but cannot be more extreme to us now than 
 to the Jews of old ; for the law ever was of works, 
 and the gospel ever was of grace. 
 
 Either then the law by harmless and needful 
 dispenses, which the gospel is now made to deny, 
 must have anticipated and exceeded the grace of 
 the gospelj or else must be found to have given 
 politic and superficial graces without real pardon, 
 saying in general 'do this and live/ and yet 
 deceiving and damning underhand with unsound 
 and hollow permissions ; which is utterly ab- 
 horring from the end of all law, as hath been 
 showed. But if those indulgencies were safe and 
 sinless, out of tenderness and compassion, as in- 
 deed they were, and yet shall be abrogated by the 
 gospel ; then the law, whose end is by rigour to 
 magnify grace, shall itself give grace, and pluck a 
 feir plume from the gospel ; instead of hastening us 
 thither, alluring us from it. And whereas the terror 
 
 H 
 
^8 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 of the law was a servant to amplify and illustrate the 
 mildness of grace ; now the unmildness of evange- 
 lic grace shall turn servant, to declare the grace and 
 mildness of the rigorous law. The law was harsh 
 to extol the grace of the gospel, and now the gos- 
 pel, by a new affected strictness of her own, shall 
 extenuate the grace which herself offers. IW by 
 exacting a duty which the law dispensed, if we per- 
 form it, then is grace diminished, by how much 
 performance advances, unless the apostle argue 
 wrong : if we perform it not, and perish for not 
 performing, then are the conditions of grace harder 
 than those of rigour. If through faith and repent- 
 ance we perish not, yet grace still remains the less, 
 by requiring that which rigour did not require, or at 
 least not so strictly. Thus much therefore to Pa- 
 iraeus ; that if the gospel require perfecter obedience 
 than the law as a duty, it exalts the law, and de- 
 bases itself, which is dishonourable to the work 
 of our redemption. Seeing therefore that all the 
 causes of any allowance, that the Jews might have, 
 remain as well to the Christians ; this is a certain 
 rule, that so long as the causes remain, the allowance 
 ought. And having thus at length inquired the 
 truth concerning law and dispense, their ends, their 
 uses, their limits, and in what manner both Jew 
 and Christian stand liable to the one, or capable of 
 the other ; we may safely conclude, that, to affirm 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ^ 
 
 the giving of any law, or law-like dispense to sin for 
 hardness of heart, is a doctrine of that extravagance 
 from the sage principles of piety^ that whoso consi- 
 ders thoroughly, cannot but admire how this hath 
 been digested all the whiles 
 
 CHAP. VIIL 
 
 ^he true sense how Moses suffered divorce /or hardness of 
 heart. 
 
 What may we do then to salve this seeming in- 
 consistence ? .1 mu3t not dissemble, that I am con- 
 fident it can be done no other way than this : 
 
 Moses, Deut. xxiv. 1 , established a grave and pru- 
 dent law, full of moral equity, full of due consider- 
 ation towards nature, that cannot be resisted, a law 
 consenting with the laws of wisest men and civil- 
 est nations ; that when a man hath married a wife, 
 if it come to pass that he cannot love her, by reason 
 of some displeasing natural quality or unfitness in 
 her, let him write her a bill pf divorce. The intent 
 of which law undoubtedly was this, that if any good 
 ^d peaceable man should discover some helpless 
 disagreement or dislike either of mind or body, 
 whereby he could not cheerfully perform the duty of 
 a husband without the perpetual dissembling of of- 
 H 2 
 
100 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 fence and disturbance to his spirit ; rather than to 
 live uncomfortably and unhappily both to himself 
 and to his wife ; rather than to continue undertaking 
 a duty, which he could not possibly discharge, he 
 might dismiss her whom he could not tolerably and 
 so not conscionably retain. And this law the Spi- 
 rit of God by the mouth of Solomon, Prov. xxx. 
 21, 23, testifies to be a good and a necessary law, 
 by granting it that ' a hated woman' (for so the He- 
 brew word signifies rather than ' odious,' though it 
 come all to onej that ' a hated woman, when she is 
 married, is a thing that the earth cannot bear.' What 
 follows then, but that the charitable law must re- 
 medy what nature cannot undergo? Now that 
 'many licentious and hard-hearted men took hold of 
 this law to cloke their bad purposes, is nothing 
 strange to believe. And these were they, not for 
 whom Moses made the law, fGod forbid !) but 
 whose hardness of heart taking ill-advantage by this 
 law he held it better to suffer as by accident, where 
 it could not be detected, rather than good men should 
 lose their just and lawful privilege of remedy; Christ 
 therefore having to answer these tempting Pharisees, 
 according as his custom was, not meaning to inform* 
 their proud ignorance what Moses did in the true 
 intent of the law, which they had ill-cited, sup- 
 pressing the true cause for which Moses gave it, and 
 extending it to every slight matter, tells them their 
 own, what Moses was forced to suffer by their abuse 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 101 
 
 of his law. Which is yet more plain, if we mark 
 that our Saviour, in Matt. v. cites not the law of 
 Moses, but the pharisaical tradition falsely grounded 
 upon that law. And in those other places, chap. 
 xix. and Mark x. the Pharisees cite the law, but 
 conceal the wise and humane reason there expressed ; 
 which our Saviour corrects not in them, whose pride 
 deserved not his instruction, only returns them what 
 is proper to them : ' Moses for the hardness of your 
 heart suffered you,* that is such as you, ' to put away 
 your wives ; and to you he wrote this precept for 
 that cause,' which (' to you') must be read with an 
 impression, and understood limitedly of such as 
 covered ill-purposes under that law : for it was sea- 
 sonable, that they should hear their own unbounded 
 licence rebuked, but not seasonable for them to hear 
 a good man's requisite libe^y explained. But us he 
 hath taught better, if we have ears to hear. He 
 himself acknowledged it to be a law, Mark x. and 
 being a law of God, it must have an undoubted 
 *' end of charity, which may be used with a pure 
 heart, a good conscience, and faith unfeigned,^* as 
 was heard : it cannot allow sin, but is purposely to 
 resist sin, as by the same chapter to Timothy ap- 
 pears. There we learn also, '' that the law is good, 
 if a man use it lawfully." Out of doubt then there 
 must be a certain good in this law, which Moses 
 willingly allowed, and there might be an unlawful 
 use made thereof by hypocrites ; and that was it 
 
lii^ fTrfE tJOCTRINE iNii 
 
 which was unwillingly suffered, foreseeing it iii ge- 
 neral, but not able to discern it in particulars. Christ 
 therefore mentions not here what Moses and the law 
 intended ; for good men might know that by riiaiiy 
 other rules : and the scornful Pharisees were not fit 
 to be told, until they could employ that knowledge 
 they had less abusively. Only he acquaints thenq( 
 with what Moses by theth was put td suffer, 
 
 CHAP. IX, 
 
 The Words of the Inslituiiofi hoio to be understood; ctnd of our 
 Saviour's ansiver to his Disciples. 
 
 And to entertain a little their overweening arro* 
 gance as best befitted, and to amaze them yet fur- 
 ther, because they thought it no hard matter to 
 fulfil the law, he draws thehi up to that unsepara- 
 ble institution, which God ordaiiied in the begin^ 
 ning before the fall, when man and woman were 
 both perfect, and could hav^e no cause to separate : 
 just as in the same chapter \ie stands not to con- 
 tend with the arrogant young man, who boasted 
 his observance of the whole law, whether he had 
 indeed kept it or not, but screws him up higher to 
 a task of that perfection, which no man is bound 
 to imitate. And in like manner, that pattern of 
 the 'first institutrbh he iSet before the opinionative 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 108 
 
 Pharisees, to dazzle them, and not to bind us. 
 For this is a sohd rule, that every command, given 
 with a reason, binds our obedience no otherwise 
 than that reason holds. Of this sort was that comr 
 mand in Eden ; ' therefore shall a man cleave to his 
 wife, and they shall be one flesh ;^ which we see is 
 no absolute command, but with an inference ' there- 
 fore:* the reason then must first be considered, 
 that our obedience be not misobedience. The first 
 is, for it is not single, because the wife is to the 
 husband ' flesh of his flesh,* as in the verse going 
 before. But this reason cannot be sufficient of it- 
 sfelf ; for why then should he for his wife leave his 
 father and mother, with whom he is far more 
 * flesh of flesh, and bone of bone,' as being made 
 of their substance ? and besides, it can be but a 
 3prry and ignoble society of life, whose inseparable 
 ipjunction depends merely upon flesh and boneg. 
 Therefore we must look higher, since Christ him- 
 self recalls us to the beginning, and we shall find, 
 that the primitive reason of never divorcing was 
 that sacred and not vain promise of God to remedy 
 man's loneliness by ' making him a meet help for 
 him,' though not now in perfection, as at first ; yet 
 still in proportion as things now are. And this is 
 repeated, verse 20, when all other creatures were 
 fitly associated and brought to Adam, as if th^ 
 Divine Power had been in some care and deep 
 thought, because * there was not yet found any 
 
J04 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 helpmeet for man/ And can we so slightly de- 
 press the all- wise purpose of a deliberating God, as 
 if his consultation had produced no other good for 
 man, but to join him with an accidental companion 
 of propagation, which his sudden word had already 
 made for every beast ? nay a far less good to man, 
 it will be found, if she must at all adventures be 
 fastened upon him individually. And therefore 
 even plain sense and equity, and, which is above 
 them both, the all-interpreting voice of charity her- 
 self cries aloud, that this primitive reason, this 
 consulted promise of God, ' to make a meet help,' 
 is the only cause that gives authority to this com- 
 mand of not divorcing to be a command. And it 
 might be further added, that if the true definition 
 of a wife were asked at good earnest, this clause 
 of being ' a meet help' would show itself so ne* 
 cessary and so essential, in that demonstrative argu- 
 ment, that it might be logically concluded : there- 
 fore she who naturally and perpetually is no ' meet 
 help,' can be no wife; which clearly takes away 
 the difficulty of dismissing such a one. If this be 
 not thought enough, I answer yet further, that 
 marriage, unless it mean a fit and tolerable mar- 
 riage, is not inseparable neither by nature nor insti- 
 tution. Not by nature, for then Mosaic divorces 
 had been against nature, if separable and insepara- 
 ble be contraries, as who doubts they be f^ and what 
 is against nature is against law, if soundest philosOr» 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 105 
 
 phy abuse us not : by this reckoning Moses should 
 be most unmosaic, that is most illegal, not to say 
 most unnatural. Nor is it inseparable by the first 
 institution : for then no second institution of the 
 same law for so many causes could dissolve it ; it 
 being most unworthy a human, (as Plato's judg- 
 ment is in the fourth book of his laws) much more 
 a divine law-giver, to write two several decrees 
 upon the same thing. But what would Plato have 
 deemed, if one of these were good and the other 
 evil to be done ? Lastly, suppose it to be insepa- 
 rable by institution, yet in competition with higher 
 things, as religion and charity in mainest matters, 
 and when the chief end is frustrate for which it was 
 ordained as hath been shown ; if still it must re- 
 main inseparable, it holds a strange and lawless 
 propriety from all other works of God under Hea- 
 ven. From these many considerations, we may 
 safely gather, that so much of the first institution 
 as our Saviour mentions, for he mentions not all, 
 was but to quell and put to non-plus the tempting 
 Pharisees, and to lay open their ignorance and 
 shallow understanding of the scriptures. For, saith 
 he, ' have ye not read that he which made them at 
 the beginning, made them male and female, and 
 said, for this cause shall a man cleave to his wife ?' 
 which these blind usurpers of Moses's chair could 
 not gainsay : as if this single respect of male and 
 female were sufficient against a thousand inconve- 
 niences and mischiefs, to clog a rational creature 
 to his endless sorrow unrelinquishably, under the 
 
1^ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 guileful superscription of his intended solace and. 
 comfort. What if they had thus answered ? mas- 
 ter, if thou mean to make wedlock as inseparable 
 as it was from the beginning, let it be made also a 
 fit society, as God meant it, which we shall soon 
 understand it ought to be, if thou recite the whole 
 reason of the law. Doubtless our Saviour had ap- 
 plauded their just answer. For then they had exr 
 pounded his command of Paradise, even as Moses 
 himself expounds it by the laws of divorce, that is, 
 with due and wise regard to the premises and rea- 
 sons of the first command ; according to which, 
 without unclean and temporizing permissions, he 
 instructs us in this imperfect state what we may 
 lawfully do about divorce. 
 
 But if it be thought, that the disciples, offended 
 at the rigour of Christ's answer, could yet obtain no 
 mitigation of the former sentence pronounced to 
 the Pharisees, it may be fully answered, that our 
 Saviour continues the same reply to his disciples, 
 as men leavened with the same customary licence 
 which the Pharisees maintained, and dipleased at 
 the removing of a traditional abuse, whereto they 
 had so long not unwillingly been used : it was no 
 time then to contend with their slow and prejudi- 
 cial belief in a thing wherein an ordinary measure 
 of light in scripture, with some attention, might 
 afterwards inform them well enough. And yet ere 
 Christ had finished this argument, they might have 
 picked out of his own concluding words an answer 
 more to their minds, and in effect the same'^vith 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. lO^ 
 
 that whicli hath been all this while intreating audi- 
 ence : ' all men,' saith he, ' eannot receive this say- 
 ing, save they to whom it is given ; he that is able 
 to receive it, let him receive it/ What saying ig 
 this which is left to a man^s choice to receive, or 
 not receive ? what but the married life ? Was our 
 Saviour so mild and so favourable to the weakness 
 of a single man, and is he turned on the sudden So 
 rigorous and inexorable, to the distresses and ex- 
 tremities of art ill- wedded man ? Did he so gra- 
 ciously give leave to change the better single life 
 for the worse tnarried life ? Did he open so to U6 
 this hazardous and accidental door of marriage, to 
 shut upon us like the gate of death, without retract- 
 ing or returning, without permitting to change the 
 Worst, most insupportable, most unchristian mis- 
 chance of marriage, for all the mischiefs and sorrows 
 that can ensue, being an ordinance which was espe- 
 cially given as a cordial and exhilarating cup of so- 
 lace, the better to bear out other crosses and afflic* 
 tion^ ? Questionless thi^ was a hard-heart edness of 
 divorcing, worse than that in the Jews, which they 
 say extorted the allowance from Moses, and is ut- 
 terly dissonant from all the doctrine of our Saviour. 
 After these considerations therefore, to take a law out 
 of Paradise given in time of original perfection, and 
 to take it barely without those just and equal infer- 
 ences and reasons which mainly establish it, nor so 
 much as admitting those needful and safe allowances, 
 wherewith Moses himself interprets it to the fallen 
 condition of man ; argues nothing in us but rash- 
 
108 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 ness and contempt of those means that God left us 
 in his pure and chaste law, without which it will not 
 be possible for us to perform the strict imposition of 
 this command : or if we strive beyond our strength, 
 we shall strive to obey it otherwise than God com- 
 mands it. And lamented experience daily teaches 
 the bitter and vain fruits of this our presumption, 
 forcing men in a thing wherein we are not able to 
 judge either of their strength or their sufferance. 
 Whom neither one voice nor other by natural addic- 
 tion, but only marriage ruins, which doubtless is not 
 the fault of that ordinance, for God gave it as a 
 blessing, nor always of man's mis-choosing, it being 
 an error above wisdom to prevent, as examples of 
 wisest men so mistaken manifest : it is the fault 
 therefore of a perverse opinion, that will have it 
 continued in despite of nature and reason, when 
 indeed it was never so truly joined. All those ex- 
 positors upon the fifth of Matthew confess the law of 
 Moses to be the law of the Lord, wherein no addi- 
 tion or diminution hath place ; yet coming to the 
 point of divorce, as if they feared not to be called 
 least in the kingdom of Heaven, any slight evasion 
 will content them, to reconcile those contradictions, 
 which they make between Christ and Moses, be^ 
 tween Christ and Christ. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 109 
 
 CHAP. X, 
 
 The vain shift of those who make the law of Divorce to be only 
 the premises of a succeeding law. 
 
 Some will have it no law, but the granted pre- 
 mises of another law following, contrary to the 
 words of Christ, Mark x. 5, and all other transla- 
 tions of gravest authority, who render it in form of 
 a law, agreeably to Mai. ii. l6, as it is most 
 anciently and modernly expounded. Besides, the 
 bill of divorce, and the particular occasion therein 
 mentioned, declares it to be orderly and legal. 
 And what avails this to make the matter more 
 righteous, if such an adulterous condition shall be 
 mentioned to build a law upon without either 
 punishment or so much as forbidding ? They pre- 
 tend it is implicitly reproved in these words, Deut. 
 xxiv. 4, ' after she is defiled ;* but who sees not 
 that this defilement is only in respect of returning 
 ' to her former husband after an intermixed marriage ? 
 ' else why was not the defiling condition first forbid- 
 den, which would have saved the labour of this 
 after-law ? Nor is it seemly or piously attributed to 
 ' the justice of God and his known hatred of sin, that 
 such a heinous fault as this through all the law 
 should be only wiped with an implicit and oblique 
 touch, (which yet is falsely supposed) and that his 
 peculiar people should be let wallow in adulterous 
 marriages almost two thousand years, for want of a 
 
iW THE DOCTRINE ANP 
 
 direct law to prohibit them ; it is rather to be confi- 
 dently assumed, that this was granted to apparent 
 necessities, as being of unquestionable right and 
 reason in the law of nature^ in that it still passes 
 without inhibition, even when the greatest cause is 
 given to us to expect it should be directly for- 
 bidden. 
 
 CHAP. XL 
 
 The other shift of saying Divorce was permitted by taw^ hut 
 not approved. More of the institution » 
 
 But it was not approved. So much the worse 
 that it was allowed ; as if sin had over-mastered the 
 word of God, to conform her steady and straight 
 rule to sin's crookedness, which is impossible* Be- 
 iSideSj what needed a positive grant of that which 
 was not approved ? It restrained no liberty to him 
 that could but use a little fraud ; it had been better 
 silenced, unless it were approved in some case or 
 other. But still it was not approved. Miserable 
 excusers ! he who doth evil, that good may come 
 thereby, approves not what he doth ; and yet the 
 grand rule forbids him, and counts his damnation 
 just if he do it. The sorceress Medea did npt ap- 
 prove her own evil doings, yet looked not to be ex- 
 cused for that : and it is the constant opinion of 
 I;lato in Protagoras, and other of his dialogues? 
 
DISCtPLINE OF DIVORCE. Hi 
 
 agreeing with that proverbial sentence among the 
 Greeks, * that no man is wicked willingly.' Which 
 also the Peripatetics do rather distinguish than 
 deny. What great thank then if any man, reputed 
 wise and constant, will neither do, nor permit others 
 under his charge to do that which he approves not, 
 especially in matter of sin ? but for a judge, but for 
 a magistrate, the shepherd of his people, to surren- 
 der up his approbation against law, and his own 
 judgment, to the obstinacy of his herd ; what more 
 unjudge-hke, unmagistrate-like, and in war more 
 uncommander-like ? Twice in a short time it was 
 the undoing of the Roman state, fet when Pom- 
 pey, next when Marcus Brutus, had not magnani- 
 mity enough but to make so poor a resignation of 
 what they approved, to what the boisterous tribunes 
 and soldiers bawled for. Twice it was the saving 
 of two of the greatest commonwealths in the world, 
 of Athens by Themistocles at the sea-fight of Sala- 
 mis, of Rome by Fabius Maximus in the Punic war ; 
 for that these two matchless generals had the forti- 
 tude at home against the rashness and the clamours 
 of their own captains and confederates, to withstand 
 the doing or permitting of what they could not. ap- 
 prove in their duty of their great command. Thus 
 far of civil prudence. But when we speak of^in, Jet 
 us look again upon the old reverend Eli ; who in his 
 heavy punishment found «o difference between the 
 doing and permitting of what he did not approve. 
 If hardness of heart in the people may be an ex- 
 cuse, why then is Pilate branded tlirough all me- 
 
Il2 THE DOCTRINE AND- 
 
 mory ? He approved not what he did, he openly 
 protested,, he washed his hands, and laboured not a 
 httle ere he would yield to the hard hearts of a 
 whole people, both princes and plebians, impor- 
 tuning and tumulting even to the fear of a revolt. 
 Yet is there any will undertake his cause? If 
 therefore Pilate for suffering but one act of cruelty 
 - against law, though with much unwillingness tes- 
 tified, at the violent demand of a whole nation, 
 shall stand so black upon record to all posterity ; 
 alas for Moses ! what shall we say for him, while 
 we are taught to believe he suffered not one act 
 .only both of cruelty and uncleanliness in one di- 
 .vorce, but made it a plain and lasting law against 
 law, whereby ten thousand acts accounted both 
 cruel and unclean might be daily committed, and 
 this without the least suit or petition of the people, 
 that we can read of? 
 
 And can we conceive without vile thoughts, that 
 the majesty and holiness of God could endure so 
 many ages to gratify a stubborn people in the prac- 
 tice of a foul polluting sin ? and could he expect 
 they should abstain, he not signifying his mind in a 
 plain command, at such time especially when he 
 was framing their laws and them to all possible 
 perfection ? But they were to look back to the 
 first institution ; nay rather why was not that indi- 
 vidual institution brought out of Paradise, as was 
 that of the sabbath, and repeated in the body of the 
 law, that men might have understood it to be a 
 command ? For that any sentence that bears the 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 113 
 
 resemblance of a precept, set tliere so out of 
 place in another world, at such a distance from 
 the whole law, and not once mentioned there, 
 should be an obliging command to us, is very dis- 
 putable ; and perhaps it might be denied to be a 
 command without further dispute: however, it 
 commands not absolutely, as hath been cleared, but 
 only with reference to that precedent promise of 
 God, which is the very ground of his institution : if 
 that appear not in some tolerable sort, how can we 
 affirm such a matrimony to be the same which God 
 instituted ? in such an accident it will best behoove 
 our soberness to follow rather what moral Sinai pre- 
 scribes equal to our strength, than fondly to think 
 within our strength all that lost Paradise relates. 
 
 CHAP. XII. 
 
 The third shifi of them who esteem it a mere judicial law* 
 Proved again to be a law of moral equity. 
 
 Another while it shall suffice them, that it was 
 not a moral but a judicial law^ and so was abrogated 2 
 nay rather not abrogated because judicial ; which 
 law the ministry of Christ came not to deal with. 
 And who put it in man's power to exempt, where 
 Christ speaks in general of not abrogating 'the 
 least jot or tittle,' and in special not that of divorce, 
 because it follows among those laws which he pro- 
 
ilv4i THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 mised expressly not to abrogate, but tp vindicate 
 from abusive traditions ? which is most evidently 
 tpbe seen in the l6th of Luke, where this caution 
 of not abrogating is inserted immediately, and not 
 otherwise than purposely, when no other point of 
 the law is touched but that of divorce. And if we 
 mark the 3l8t verse of Matt. v. he there cites not 
 the law of Moses, but the licentious gloss which 
 traduced the law ; that therefore which he cited, 
 that he abrogated, and not only abrogated, but dis- 
 allowed and flatly condemned ; which could not be 
 the law of Moses, for that had been foully to the 
 rebuke of his great servant. To abrogate a law 
 made with God^s allowance, had been, to tell us 
 only that such a law was now to cease : but to 
 refute it with an ignominious note of civihzing 
 adultery, casts the reproof, which was meant only 
 to the Pharisees, even upon him that made the law. 
 iBut yet, if that be judicial, which belongs to a civil 
 court, this law is less judicial than nine of the ten 
 commandments : for antiquaries affirm, that divorces 
 proceeded among the Jews without knowledge of 
 the magistrate, only with hands and seals under the 
 testimony of some rabbies to be then present. Per- 
 kins, 'in a Treatise of Conscience,^ grants, that 
 what in the judicial law is of common equity binds 
 also the Christian: and how to judge of this, pre- 
 scribes two ways : if wise nations have enacted the 
 like decree : or if it maintain the good of family, 
 church, or commonwealth. This therefore is a pure 
 moral economical law, too hastily imputed of tble^ 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 115 
 
 rating sin ; being rather so clear in nature and 
 reason, that it was left to a man^s own arbitra- 
 ment to be determined between God and his own 
 conscience ; not only among the Jews, but in every 
 wise nation : the restraint whereof, Vvho is not too 
 thick-sighted, may see how hurtful and distractive 
 it is to the house, the church, and commonwealth. 
 And that power which Christ never took from the 
 master of a family, but rectified only to a right and 
 wary use at home ; that power the undi seeming 
 canonist hath improperly usurped in his court-leet, 
 and bescribbled with a thousand trifling imperti- 
 nences, which yet have filled the lite of man with 
 serious trouble and calamity. Yet grant it were of 
 old a judicial law, it need not be the less moral for 
 that, being conversant as it is about virtue or vice. 
 And our Saviour disputes not here the judicature, 
 for that was not his office, but the morality of di- 
 vorce, whether it be adultery or no ; if therefore he 
 touch the law of Moses at all, he touches the moral 
 part thereof, which is absurd to imagine, that the 
 covenant of grace should reform the exact and per- 
 fect law of works, eternal and immutable ; or if he 
 touch not the law at all, then is not the nllowance 
 thereof disallowed to us. 
 
 1 ^ 
 
116 THE DOCTRINE ANI? 
 
 CHAP. XIII. 
 
 The ridiculous opinion, that divorce was permitted from the 
 custom in Egypt. That Moses gave not this law unwillingly, 
 Perkins confesses this laiv was not abrogated. 
 
 Others are so ridiculous as to allege, that this 
 licence of divorcing was given them because they 
 were so accustomed in Egypt. As if an ill custom 
 were to be kept to all posterity ; for the dispensa- 
 tion is both universal and of time unlimited, and so 
 indeed no dispensation at all : for the over-dated dis- 
 pensation of a thing unlawful, serves for nothing 
 but to increase hardness of heart, and makes men 
 but wax more incorrigible ; which were a great re- 
 proach to be said of any law or allowance that God 
 should give us. In these opinions it would be more 
 religion to advise well, lest we make ourselves juster 
 than God, by censuring rashly' that for sin, which 
 his unspotted law without rebuke allows, and his 
 people without being conscious of displeasing him 
 have used : and if we can think so of Moses, as 
 that the Jewish obstinacy could compel him to 
 write such impure permissions against the word of 
 God and his own judgment ; doubtless it was his 
 part to have protested publicly what straits he was 
 driven to, and to have declared his conscience when 
 he gave any law against his mind : for the law is the 
 touchstone of sin and of conscience, and must not 
 be intermixed with corrupt indulgencies ; for then 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 117 
 
 tt loses the greatest praise it has of being certain; 
 and infallible, not leading into error as the Jews 
 were led by this connivance of Moses, if it were a 
 connivance. But still they flyback to the primitive 
 institution, and would have us re-enter Paradise 
 against the sword that guards it. Whom I again 
 thus reply to, that the place in Genesis contains the 
 description of a fit and perfect marriage, with an 
 interdict of ever divorcing such a union : but where 
 nature is discovered to have never joined indeed, 
 but vehemently seeks to part, it cannot be there 
 conceived that God forbids it ; nay, he commands 
 it both in the law and in the prophet Malachi, 
 which is to be our rule. And Perkins upon this 
 chapter of Matthew deals plainly, that our Saviour 
 here confutes not Moses' law, but the false glosses 
 that depraved the law ; which being true, Perkins 
 must needs grant, that something then is left to that 
 law which Christ found no fault with ; and what 
 can that be but the conscionable use of such liberty, 
 as the plain words import ? So that by his own 
 inference, Christ did not absolutely intend to re- 
 strain all divorces to the only cause of adultery. 
 This therefore is the true scope of our Saviour's 
 will, that he who looks upon the law concerning 
 divorce, should also look back upon the institution, 
 that he may endeavour what is perfectest : and he 
 that looks upon the institution, shall not refuse as 
 sinful and unlawful those allowances, which God 
 affords him in his following law, lest he make him- 
 self purer than his maker, and presuming above 
 
^16 THE DOCRTRINE AND 
 
 Strength, slip into temptations irrecoverably. For 
 this is wonderful, that in all those decrees concern- 
 ing marriage, God should never once mention the 
 prime institution to dissuade them from divorcing, 
 and that he should forbid smaller sins as opposite to 
 the hardness of their hearts, and let this adulterous 
 matter of divorce pass ever unreproved. 
 
 This is also to be marvelled, that seeing Christ did 
 not condemn whatever it was that Moses suffered, 
 and that thereupon the Christian magistrate permits 
 usury and open stews, and here with us adultery to 
 be so slightly punished, which was punished by death 
 to these hard-hearted Jews ; why we should strain 
 thus at the matter of divorce, which may stand so 
 much with charity to permit, and make no scruple 
 to allow usury esteemed to be so much against cha^ 
 rity ? But this it is to embroil ourselves against the 
 righteous and all-wise judgments and statutes of 
 God ; which are not variable and contrarious as we 
 would make them, one while permitting, and ano* 
 ther while forbidding, but are most constant and 
 most harmonious each to other. For how can the 
 uncorrupt and majestic law of God, bearing in her 
 hand the wages of life and death, harbour such a re*- 
 pugnance within herself, as to require an unexempt- 
 ed and impartial obedience to all her decrees, either 
 from us or from our Mediator, and vet debase her- 
 self to faulter so many ages with circumcised adul- 
 teries by unclean and slubbering permissions ? 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 119 
 
 CHAP. XIV, 
 
 That Beta's opinion of regulating sin by apostolic lata cannot 
 he found. 
 
 Yet Beza^s opinion is, that a politic law, (but 
 what politic law, I know not, unless one of Machi- 
 avel's) may regulate sin ; may bear indeed, I grant, 
 with imperfection for a time, as those canons of the 
 apostles did in ceremonial things : but as for sin, 
 the essence of it cannot consist with rule ; and if 
 the law fail to regulate sin, and not to take it utterly 
 away, it necessarily confirms and establishes sin. To 
 make a regularity of sin by law, eitheir the law must 
 straighten sin into no sin, or sin must crook the law 
 into no law. The judicial law can serve to no other 
 end than to be the protector and champion of reli- 
 gion and honest civility, as is set down plamly Rom. 
 xiii. and is but the arm of moral law, which can no 
 more be separate from justice, than justice from vir- 
 tue. Their office also, in a different manner, steers 
 the same course ; the one teaches what is good by 
 precept, the other unteaches what is bad by punish- 
 ment. But if we give way to politic dispensations 
 of lewd uncleanness, the first good consequence of 
 such a relax will be the justifying of papal stews, 
 joined with a toleration of epidemic whoredom. Jus- 
 tice must revolt from the end of her authority, and 
 
120 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 become the patron of that whereof she was created 
 the punisher. The example of usury, which is com- 
 monly alledged, makes against the allegation which 
 it brings, as I touched before. Besides that usury, 
 so much as is permitted by the magistrate, and de- 
 manded with common equity, is neither against the 
 word of God nor the rule of charity ; as hath been 
 often discussed by men of eminent learning and 
 judgment. There must be therefore some other ex- 
 ample found out to shew us wherein civil policy 
 may with warrant from God settle wickedness by law, 
 and make that lawful which is lawless. Although 
 I doubt not but upon deeper consideration, that 
 which is true in physic will be found as true in 
 policy, that as of bad pulses those that beat most in 
 order, are much worse than those that keep the most 
 inordinate circuit ; so of popular vices those that 
 may be commited legally will be more pernicious, 
 than those that are left to their own course at peril, 
 not under a stinted privilege to sin orderly and regu- 
 larly, which is an implicit contradiction, but under 
 due and fearless execution of punishment. 
 
 The political law, since it cannot regulate vice, is 
 to restrain it by using all means to root it out. 
 But if it suffer the weed to grow up to any pleasure- 
 able or contented height upon what pretext soever, 
 it fastens the root, it prunes and dresses vice, as if 
 it were a good plant. Let no man doubt therefore 
 to affirrpj that it is not so hurtful or dishonourable 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 121 
 
 to a commonwealth, nor so much to the hardening 
 of hearts, when those worse faults pretended to be 
 feared are committed, by who so dares under strict 
 and executed penalty, as when those less faults tole- 
 rated for fear of greater harden their faces, not their 
 hearts only, under the protection of public authority. 
 For what less indignity were this, than as if justice 
 herself, the queen of virtues (descending from her 
 sceptred royalty), instead of conquering, should 
 compound and treat with sin, her eternal adversary 
 and rebel, upon ignoble terms? or as if the judicial 
 law were like that untrusty steward in the gospel, 
 and instead of calling in the debts of his moral master, 
 should give out subtile and sly acquittances to keep 
 himself from begging } or let us person him like 
 some wretched itinerary judge, who to gratify his 
 delinquents before him, would let them basely break 
 his head, lest they should pull him from the bench, 
 and throw him over the bar. Unless we had rather 
 think both moral and judicial, full of malice and 
 deadly purpose, conspired to let the debtor Israelite, 
 the seed of Abraham, run on upon a bankrupt score, 
 flattered with insufficient and ensnaring discharges, 
 that so he might be hailed to a more cruel forfeit 
 for all the indulgent arrears, which those judicial 
 acquittances had engaged him in. No, no, this 
 cannot be, that the law, whose integrity and faith- 
 fulness is next to God, should be either the shame- 
 less broker of our impunities, or the intended instru- 
 ment of our destruction. The method of holy 
 correction, such as became the commonwealth of 
 
If^ THB DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Israel, i^ not to bribe sin with sin, to capitulate and 
 hire out one crime with another ; but with more 
 noble and graceful severity than Pompilius the Ro- 
 man legate used with Antiochus, to limit and level 
 x)ut the direct way from vice to virtue, with straightest 
 and exactest lines on either side, not winding or 
 indenting so much as to the right hand of fair pre- 
 tences. Violence indeed and insurrection may 
 force the law to suffer what it cannot mend ; but 
 to write a decree in allowance of sin, as soon can the 
 hand of justice rot off. Let this be ever concluded 
 as a truth that will out-live the faith of those that seek 
 to bear it down. 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 That divorce ivas not given for ivives only, as Beza, andParceus 
 write, More oj" the Institution. 
 
 Lastly ; if divorce were granted, as Beza and 
 others say, not for men, but to release afflicted wives ; 
 certainly, it is not only a dispensation, but a most 
 merciful law ; and why it should not yet be in 
 force, being wholly as needful, I know not what can 
 be in cause but senseless cruelty. But yet to say, 
 divorce was granted for relief of wives rather than 
 of husbands, is but weakly conjectured, and is mani- 
 festly the extreme shift of a huddled exposition. 
 Whenas it could not be found how hardness of 
 heart should be lessened by liberty of divorce, a 
 
DISCTPLINK OF DIVOaCE. 123 
 
 fancy was devised to hide the flaw, by commenting 
 that divorce was permitted only for the help of 
 •wives. Palpably uxorious ! who can be ignorant, 
 that woman was created for man, and not man for 
 woman, and that a husband may be injured as in- 
 sufferably in marriage as a wife ? What an injury is 
 it after wedlock not to be beloved ? what to be 
 slighted ? what to be contended with in point of 
 house-rule who shall be the head ; not for any parity 
 of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but 
 out of a female pride ? ' I suffer not,' saith St. 
 Paul, ' the woman to usurp authority over theman/ 
 If the apostle could not suffer it, into what mould 
 is he mortified that can ? Solomon saith, * that a 
 bad wife is to her husband as rottenness to his bones, 
 a continual dropping. Better dwell in the corner of 
 a house-top, or in the wilderness,' than with such a 
 one. ' Whoso hideth her, hideth the wind, and one 
 of the four mischiefs which the earth cannot bear.* 
 If the spirit of God wrote such aggravations as these, 
 and (as may be guessed by these similitudes) coun- 
 sels the man ratlier to divorce than to live with such 
 a colleague ; and yet on the other side expresses 
 nothing of the wife's suffering with a bad husband : 
 is it not most likely that God in his law had more 
 pity towards man thus wedlocked, than towards the 
 woman that was created for another ? The same 
 spirit relates to us the course, which the Medes 
 and Persians took by occasion of Vashti, whose 
 mere denial to come at her husband's sending, lost 
 her the being cjueen any longer, and set up a whole- 
 
134 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 some law, " that every man should bear rule in his 
 own house." And the divine relater shews us not 
 the least sign of disliking what was done ; how should 
 he, if Moses long before was nothing less mindful 
 of the honour and pre-eminence due to man ? So 
 that to say divorce was granted for woman rather 
 than man, was but fondly invented. Esteeming 
 therefore to have asserted thus an injured law of 
 Moses, from the unwarranted and guilty name of 
 a dispensation, to be again a most equal and requi- 
 site law, we have the word of Christ himself, that 
 he came not to alter the least tittle of it ; and signi- 
 fies no small displeasure against him that shall teach 
 to do so. On which relying, I shall not much 
 waver to affirm, that those words, which are made 
 to intimate as if they forbad all divorce, but for 
 adultery, (though Moses have constituted otherwise ) 
 those words taken circumscriptly, without regard to 
 any precedent law of Moses, or attestation of Christ 
 himself, or without care to preserve those his funda- 
 mental and superior laws of nature and charity, to 
 which all other ordinances give up their seal, are as 
 much against plain equity and the mercy of religion, 
 as those words of ' Take, eat, this is my body,^ ele- 
 mentally understood, are against nature and sense. 
 
 And surely the restoring of this degraded law 
 hath well recompensed the diligence was used by 
 enlightening us further to find out wherefore Christ 
 took off the Pharisees from alleging the law, and 
 referred them to the first institution ; not condemn- 
 ing, altering, or abolishing this precept of divorce, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 125 
 
 which is plainly moral, for that were against his 
 truth, his promise, and his prophetic office ; but 
 knowing how fallaciously they had cited and con- 
 cealed the particular and natural reason of the law, 
 that they might justify any froward reason of their 
 own, he lets go that sophistry unconvinced ; for 
 that had been to teach them else, which his purpose 
 was not. And since they had taken a liberty which 
 the law gave not, he amuses and repels their tempt- 
 ing pride with a perfection of Paradise, which the 
 law required not ; not whereby to oblige our per- 
 formance to that whereto the law never enjoined 
 the fallen estate of man: for if the first institution 
 must make wedlock, whatever happen, inseparable 
 to us, it must make it also as perfect, as meetly 
 helpful, and as comfortable as God promised it 
 should be, at least in some degree ; otherwise it is 
 not equal or proportionable to the strength of man, 
 that he should be reduced into such indissoluble 
 bonds to his assured misery, if all the other condi- 
 tions of that covenant be manifestly altered. 
 
 CHAP. XVL 
 
 How to be understood, that they must he one flesh ; and how 
 that those whom God hath joined, Man should not sunder. 
 
 Next he saith, * they must be one flesh;* which, 
 when all conjecturing is done, will be found to im- 
 port no more but to make legitimate and good the 
 
X26 THE POCTRINK AND 
 
 carnal act, which else might seem to have some- 
 thing of pollution in it ; and infers thus much over, 
 that the fit union of their souls be such as may even 
 incorporate them to love and amity : but that can 
 never be vi^here no correspondence is of the mind ; 
 nay, instead of being one flesh, they will be rather 
 two carcasses chained unnaturally together ; or, as 
 it may happen, a living soul bound to a dead corpse; 
 a punishment too like that inflicted by the tyrant 
 Mezentius, so little worthy to be received as that 
 Femedyof loneliness, which God meant us. Since we 
 know it is not the joining of another body will remove 
 loneliness, but the uniting of another compliable 
 mind ; and that it is no blessing but a torment, nay 
 a base and brutish condition to be one flesh, unless^ 
 where nature can in some measure fix a unity of 
 disposition. The meaning therefore of these words, 
 ' For this cause shall a man leave his father and his 
 mother, and shall cleave to his wife,* was first to 
 shew us the dear affection which naturally grows 
 in every. not unnatural marriage, even to the leaving 
 of parents, or other familiarity whatsoever. Next, 
 it justifies a man in so doing, that nothing is done 
 undutifully to father or mother. But he that should 
 be here sternly commanded to cleave to his error, 
 a disposition which to his he finds will never cement, 
 a quotidian of sorrow and discontent in his house ; 
 let us be excused to pause a little, and bethink us 
 every way round ere we lay such a flat solecism 
 upon the gracious, and certainly not inexorable, 
 not ruthless and flinty ordinance of marriage. Fw 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 127 
 
 if the meaning of these words must be thus blocked 
 up within their own letters from all equity and fair de- 
 duction, they will serve then well indeed their turn, 
 who affirm divorce to have been granted only for 
 wives: whenas we see no word of this text binds 
 women, but men only, what it binds. No marvel 
 then if Salomith (sister to Herod) sent a writ of 
 case to Costobarus her husband, which (as Josephus 
 there attests) was lawful only to men. No marvel 
 though Placidia, the sister of Honorius, threatened 
 the like to earl Constantius for a trivial cause, as 
 Photius relates from Olympiodorus. No marvel 
 any thing, if letters must be turned into palisadoes, 
 to stake out all requisite sense from entering to their 
 due enlargement. 
 
 Lastly, Christ himself tells who should not be 
 put asunder, namely, those whom God hathjoined. 
 A plain solution of this great controversy, if men 
 would but use their eyes ; for when is it that God 
 may be said to join ? when the parties and their 
 firiends consent ? No surely, for that may concur 
 to lewdest ends. Or is it when church rites are 
 finished ? Neither ; for the efficacy of those de- 
 pends upon the pre- supposed fitness pfTeither party. 
 Perhaps after carnal knowledge : leaist of all ; for 
 that may join persons whom neither law nor nature 
 dares join. It is left, that only then when the 
 minds are fitly disposed and enabled to maintain a 
 cheerful conversation, to the solace and love of each 
 other, according as God intended and promised in 
 the very first foimdation of matrimony, ' I will 
 
128 , THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 make him a helpmeet for him ;' for surely what 
 God intended and promised, that only can be 
 thought to be his joining, and not the contrary. Sa 
 likewise the apostle witnesseth, I Cor. vii. 16, that 
 in marriage ' God hath called us to peace.* And 
 doubtless in what respect he hath called us to mar- 
 riage, in that also he hath joined us. The rest, 
 whom either disproportion or deadness of spirit, or 
 something distasteful and averse in the immutable 
 bent of nature renders conjugal, error may have 
 joined, but God never joined against the meaning 
 of his own ordinance. And if he joined them 
 not, then is there no power above their own consent 
 to hinder them from unjoining, when they cannot 
 reap the soberest ends of being together in any tole- 
 rable sort. Neither can it be said properly that such 
 twain were ever divorced, but only parted from each 
 other, as two persons unconjuctive are unmarriable 
 together. But if, whom God hath made a fit help, 
 frowardness or private injuries hath made unfit, that 
 being the secret of marriage, God can better judge 
 than man, neither is man indeed fit or able to decide 
 this matter : however it be, undoubtedly a peace- 
 ful divorce is a less evil, and less in scandal than 
 hateful, hard-hearted, and destructive continuance 
 of marriage in the judgment of Moses and of Christ, 
 that justifies him in choosing the less evil ; which 
 if it were an honest and civil prudence in the law, 
 what is there in the gospel forbidding such a kind 
 of legal wisdom, though we should ^dmit the 
 common expositors ? 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCiE. 129 
 
 CHAP. XVII. 
 
 The sentence of Christ concerning divorce how to he expounded* 
 What Grotius hath observed. Other Additions. 
 
 Having thus unfolded those ambiguous reasons, 
 wherewith Christ (as his wont was) gave to the 
 Pharisees that came to sound him, such an answer 
 as they deserved, it will not be uneasy to explain 
 the sentence itself that now follows ; ' Whosoever 
 shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, 
 and shall marry another, committeth adultery.' 
 First therefore I will set down what is observed by 
 Grotius upon this point, a man of general learning. 
 Next, I produce what mine own thoughts gave me 
 before I had seen his annotations. Origen, saith 
 he, notes that Christ named adultery rather as one 
 example of other like cases, than as one only excep- 
 tion ; and that is frequent not only in human but in 
 divine laws, to express one kind of fact, whereby 
 other causes of like nature may have the like plea, 
 as Exod. xxi. 18, 19, 20, 26; Deut. xix. 5. And 
 from the maxims of civil law he shews, that even 
 in sharpest penal laws the same reason hath the 
 same right ; and in gentler laws, that from like 
 causes to like the law interprets rightly. But it 
 may be objected, saith he, that nothing destroys 
 the end of wedlock so much as adultery. To which 
 he answers, that marriage was not ordained only for 
 copulation, but for mutual help and comfort of life : 
 
130 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 and if we mark diligently the nature of our Saviour's 
 commands, we shall find that both their beginning 
 and their end consists in charity ; whose will is, 
 that we should so be good to others, as that we 
 be not cruel to ourselves : and hence it appears why 
 Mark and Luke, and St. Paul to the Corinthians, 
 ipentioning this precept of Christ, add no excep- 
 tion, because exceptions that arise from natural 
 equity are included silently under general terms : it 
 would be considered therefore, whether the same 
 equity may not have place in other cases less fre- 
 quent. Thus far he. From hence is what I add : 
 First, that this saying of Christ, as it is usually ex- 
 pounded, can be no law at all, that a man for no 
 cause should separate but for adultery, except it be 
 a supernatural law, not binding us as we now are ; 
 had it been the law of nature, either the Jews, or 
 some other wise and civil nation would have press- 
 ed it: or let it be so, yet that law, Deut. xxiv. 1, 
 whereby a man hath leave to part, whenas for just 
 and natural cause discovered he cannot love, is a 
 law ancienter and deeper engraven in blameless na- 
 ture than the other : therefore tlie inspired law-giver 
 Moses took care, that this should be specified and 
 allowed; the other he let vanish in silence, not 
 once repeated in the volume of his law, even as the 
 reason of it vanished with Paradise. Secondly, this 
 can be no new command, for the gospel enjoins no 
 new morality, save only the infinite enlargement of 
 charity, which in this respect is called the new 
 commandment by St. John, as being the accom- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. iSl 
 
 plishment of every command. Thirdly^ it is no 
 command of perfection further than it partakes qi 
 charity, which is, ' the bond of perfection.' Those' 
 commands therefore, which compel us to self-cruelty 
 above our strength, so hardly will help forward to 
 perfection, that they hinder and set backward in all 
 the common rudiments of Christianity, as was 
 proved. It being thus clear, that the words of^ 
 Christ can be no kind of command as they are 
 vulgarly taken, we shall now see in what sense they 
 may be a command, and that an excellent one, the 
 same with that of Moses, and no other. Moses had 
 granted, that only for a natural annoyance, defect, 
 or dislike, whether in body or mind, (for so the He- 
 brew word plainly notes) which a man could not 
 force himself to live with, he might give a bill of 
 divorce, thereby forbidding any other cause, where- 
 in amendment or reconciliation might have place. 
 This law the Pharisees depraving extended to any 
 slight contentious cause whatsoever. Christ there- 
 fore seeing where they halted, urges the negative 
 part of the law, which is necessarily understood (for 
 the determinate permission of Moses binds them 
 from further licence) and checking their supercilious 
 drift, declares that no accidental, temporary, or re- 
 concilable offence (except fornication) can justify a 
 divorce. He touches not here those natural and 
 perpetual hinderances of society, whether in body 
 or mind, which are not to be removed ; for such as 
 they are aptest to cause an unchangeable offence, 
 so ar^ they not capable of reconcilement, because 
 
 K 2 
 
1S2 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 not of amendment ; they do not break indeed, but. 
 they annihilate the bands of marriage more than 
 adultery. For that fault committed argues not 
 always a hatred either natural or incidental against 
 whom it is committed ; neither does it infer a dis- 
 ability of all future helpfulness, or loyalty, or loving 
 agreement, being once past and pardoned, where it 
 can be pardoned : but that which naturally dis- 
 tastes, and 'finds no favour in the eyes' of matri- 
 mony, can never be concealed, never appeased, 
 never intermitted, but proves a perpetual nullity of 
 love and contentment, a solitude and dead vacation 
 of all acceptable conversing. Moses therefore per- 
 mits divorce, but in cases only that have no hands 
 to join, and more need separating than adultery. 
 Christ forbids it, but in matter only that may ac- 
 cord, and those less than fornication. Thus is 
 Moses' law here plainly confirmed, and those 
 causes which he permitted not a jot gainsaid. And 
 that this is the true meaning of this place, I prove 
 by no less an author than St. Paul himself, 1 Cor. 
 vii. 10, 11; upon which text interpreters agree, 
 the apostle only repeats the precept of Christ : 
 where while he speaks of the ' wife's reconcilement 
 to her husband,' he puts it out of controversy, that 
 our Saviour meant chiefly matters of strife and re- 
 concilement ; of which sought he would not that 
 any difference should be the occasion of divorce, 
 except fornication. And that we may learn better 
 how to value a grave and prudent law of Moses, and, 
 how unadvisedly we smatter with our lips, when 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 1S3 
 
 we talk of Christ's abolishing any judicial law of 
 his great Father, except in some circumstances 
 which are judaical rather than judicial, and need no 
 abolishing, but cease of themselves ; I say again, 
 that this recited law of Moses contains a cause of 
 divorce greater beyond compare than that for adul- 
 tery; and whoso cannot so conceive it, errs and 
 wrongs 'exceedingly a law of deep wisdom for want 
 of well fathoming. For let him mark, no man 
 urges the just divorcing of adultery as it is a sin, 
 but as it is an injury to marriage ; and though it be 
 but once committed, and 'that without malice, whe- 
 ther through importunity or opportunity, the gospel 
 does not therefore dissuade him who would there- 
 fore divorce ; but that natural hatred whenever it 
 arises, is a greater evil in marriage than the acci- 
 dent of adultery, a greater defrauding, a greater in- 
 justice, and yet not blamable, he who understands 
 not after all this representing, I doubt his will like a 
 hard spleen draws faster than his understanding can 
 well sanguify ; nor did that man ever know or feel 
 what it is to love truly, nor ever yet comprehend 
 in his thoughts what the tru^ intent of marriage is 
 And this also will be somewhat above his reach, 
 but yet no less a truth for lack of his perspective, 
 that as no man apprehends what vice is so well as 
 he who is truly virtuous, no man knows Hell like 
 him who converses most in Heaven ; so there is 
 none that can estimate the evil and the affliction of a 
 natural hatred in matrimony, unless he have a soul 
 
134 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 gentle enough and spacious enough to contemplate 
 what is true love.. 
 
 And the reason why men so dis-esteem this wise- 
 judging law of God, and count hate, or ' the not 
 finding of favour,* as it is there termed, a humorous, 
 a dishonest, and slight cause of divorce, is because 
 themselves apprehend so little of what true concord 
 means : for if they did, they would be juster in their 
 balancing between natural hatred and casual adul- 
 tery ; this being but a transient injury, and soon 
 amended, I mean as to the party against whom the 
 trespass is : but that other being an unspeakable 
 and unremitting sorrow and offence, whereof no 
 amends can be made, no cure, no ceasing but by 
 divorce, which like a divine touch in one moment 
 heals all, and (like the word of God) in one instant 
 hushes outrageous tempests into a sudden stillness 
 and peaceful calm. Yet all this so great a good of 
 God's own enlarging to us is, by the hard reins of 
 them that sit us, wholly diverted and embezzled 
 from us. Malign ers of mankind ! But who hath 
 taught you to mangle thus, and make more gashes 
 in the miseries of a blameless creature,with the leaden 
 daggers of your literal decrees, to whose ease you 
 cannot add the tithe of one small atom, but by let- 
 tino; alone your unhelpful surgery. As for such as 
 thinly wandering concupiscence to be here newly 
 and more precisely forbidden than it was before ; 
 if the apostle can convince them, we know that we 
 are to * know lust by the law,' and not by ^ny new 
 discovery of the gospel. The law of Moses knew 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 135 
 
 what it permitted, and the gospel knew what it for- 
 bid ; he that under a peevish conceit of debarring 
 concupiscence, shall go about to make a novice of 
 MoSes, (not to say a worse thing, for reverence 
 sake) and such a one of God himself, as is a hor- 
 ror to think, to bind our Saviour in the default of a 
 downright promise-breaking ; and to bind the dis- 
 unions of complaining nature in chains together; 
 and ciirb them with a carion bit ; it is he that com- 
 mits all the whoredom and adultery which himself 
 adjudges, besides the former guilt so manifold that 
 lies upon him. And if hone of these considera- 
 tions, with all their weight and gravity, can avail to 
 the dispossessing hini of his precious literalism, let 
 some one or other entreat him but to read on in the 
 same 19th of Matth. till he come to tliat place that 
 says, ' some make themselves eunuchs for the king- 
 doth of Haven's sake.' And if then he please to 
 make tide of Origen's knife, he may do well to be 
 his own carver. 
 
 CHAP. XVIII. 
 
 Whether the wdrds of our Saviour be rightly expounded only 
 of actual fornication to be the cause of Divorce, The 
 opinion of Grotius, with other reasons. 
 
 But becauise we know that Christ never gave a 
 judicial law, and that the word Fornication is va- 
 riously significant in scripture, it will be much right 
 done to our Saviour's words, to consider dihgently 
 whether it be meant here, that nothing but actual 
 
136 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 fornication proved by witness can warrant a divorce :/ 
 for so our canon law judges. Nevertheless, as t 
 find that Grotius on this place hath observed the 
 Christian emperors, Theodosius the Second and 
 Justinian, men of high wisdom and reputed piety, 
 decreed it to be a divorcive fornication, if the wife 
 attempted either against the knowledge, or obsti- 
 nately against the will of her husband, such things 
 as gave open suspicion of adulterizing, as the wilful 
 haunting of feasts, and invitations with men not of 
 her near kindred, the lying forth of her house, with- 
 out probable cause, the frequenting of theatres 
 against her husband's mind, her endeavour to pre- 
 vent or destroy conception. Hence that of Jerom, 
 ' where fornication is suspected, the wife may law- 
 fully be divorced :' not that every motion of a jea- 
 lous mind should be regarded, but that it should 
 not be exacted to prove all things by the visibility 
 of law witnessing, or else to hoodwink the mind : 
 for the law is not able to judge of these things but 
 by the rule of equity, and by permittmg a wise 
 man to walk the middle way of prudent circum- 
 spection, neither wretchedly jealous, nor stupidly 
 and tamely patient. To this purpose hath Grotius 
 in his notes. He shews also, that fornication is 
 taken in scripture for such a continual headstrong 
 behaviour, as tends to plain contempt of the hus- 
 band, and proves it out of Judges xix. 2, where 
 the Levite's wife is said to have played the whore 
 against him ; which Josephus and the Septuagint, 
 with the Chaldean, interpret only of stubborn ness' 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. lit 
 
 and rebellion against her husband : and to this I 
 add, that Kimchi, and the two other rabbies who gloss 
 the text, are in the same opinion. Ben Gersom rea- 
 sons, that had it been whoredom, a Jew and a Levite 
 would have disdained to fetch her again. And this 
 I shall contribute, that had it been whoredom, she 
 would have chosen any other place to run to than to 
 her father's house, it being so infamous for a Hebrew 
 woman to play the harlot, and so opprobrious to 
 the parents. Fornication then in this place of the 
 Judges is understood for stubborn disobedience 
 against the husband, and not for adultery. A sin 
 of that sudden activity, as to be already committed 
 when no more is done, but only looked unchastely : 
 which yet I should be loth to judge worthy a 
 divorce, though in our Saviour's language it be 
 called adultery. Nevertheless when palpable and 
 frequent signs are given, the law of God, Numb. v. 
 so far gave way to the jealousy of a man, as that the 
 woman, set before the sanctuary with her head 
 uncovered, was adjured by the priest to swear whe- 
 ther she were false or no, and constrained to drink 
 that ' bitter water,' with an undoubted ' curse of 
 rottenness and tympany' to follow, unless she were 
 innocent. And the jealous man had not been 
 guiltless before God, as seems by the last verse, if 
 having such a suspicion in his head, he should neg- 
 lect his trial ; which if to this day it be not to be 
 used, or be thought as uncertain of effect as our 
 antiquated law of Ordalium, yet all equity will 
 judge^ that many adulterous demeanours^ which are. 
 
iS8 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 of lewd suspicion and example^ may he held suM* 
 cient to incur a divorce, though the act itself hath 
 not been proved. And seeing th^ generosity of 
 our nation is so, as to account no reproach more 
 abominable than to be nick-named the husband of 
 an adultress ; that our law should not be as ample 
 as the law of God, to vindicate a man from that 
 ignoble sujBTerance, is our barbarous unskilfulness, 
 not considering that the law should be exasperated 
 according to our estimation of the injury. And if 
 it must be suffered till the act be visibly proved, 
 Solomon himself, whose judgment will be granted 
 to surpass the acuteness of any canonist, confesses, 
 Prov. XXX. 19, 20, that for the act of adultery it is 
 as difficult to be found as the ' track of an eagle in 
 the air, or the way of a ship in the sea ;^ so that a 
 man may be put to unmanly indignities ere it be 
 found out. This therefore may he enough to inform 
 us^ that divorcive adultery is not limited hy our 
 Saviour to the utmost act, and that to he attested 
 always hy eye-witness^ hut may he extended also 
 to divers ohvious actions, which either plainly lead 
 to adultery, or give such presumption wherehy sen- 
 sible men may suspect the deed to he already done. 
 And this the rather may be thought, in that 
 our Saviour chose to use the word Fornication, 
 which word is found to signify other matrimonial 
 transgressions of main breach to that covenant be- 
 sides actual adultery. For that sin needed not the 
 riddance of divorce, but of death by the law, 
 which was active even till thien by the example of 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE* 139 
 
 the woman taken in adultery ; or if the law had 
 been dormant, our Saviour was more likely to have 
 told them of their neglect, than to have let a capital 
 crime silently scape into a divorce : or if it be said, 
 his business was not to tell them what was criminal 
 in the civil courts, but what was sinful at the bar of 
 conscience, how dare they then, having no other 
 ground than these our Saviour's words, draw that 
 into the trial of law, which both by Moses and our 
 Saviour was left to the jurisdiction of conscience ? 
 But we take from our Saviour, say they, only that 
 it was adultery, and our law of itself applies the 
 punishment. But by their leave that so argue, the 
 great Law-giver of all the world, who knew best 
 >vhat was adultery, both to the Jew and to the Gen- 
 tile, appointed no such applying, and never likes 
 whei) mortal men will be vainly presuming to out- 
 strip his Justice. 
 
 CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Christ's manner of ieaching. St, Paul adds to this matter of 
 divorce without command, to show the matter to be of equity^ 
 not of rigour. Thai the bondage of a Christian may be as 
 much, and his peace as little, in some other marriages besides 
 idolatrous. If those arguments therefore be good in that 
 one case, why not in those other. Therefore the Apostle 
 himself adds It roTq toibtok* 
 
 Thus at length we see both by this and other 
 places, that there is scarce any one saying in the 
 
140 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 gospel but must be read with limitations and dis- 
 tinctions to be rightly understood ; for Christ gives 
 no full comments or continued discourses, but (as 
 Demetrius the rhetorician phrases it) speaks oft in 
 monosyllables, like a master scattering the heavenly 
 grain of his doctrine like pearls here and there, 
 which requires a skilful and laborious gatherer, who 
 must compare the words he finds with other pre- 
 cepts, with the end of every ordinance, and with the 
 general analogy of evangelic doctrine: otherwise 
 many particular sayings would be but strange repug- 
 nant riddles, and the Church would offend in grant- 
 ing divorce for frigidity, which is not here excepted 
 with adultery, but by them added. And this was 
 it undoubtedly, which gave reason to St. Paul of 
 his own authority, as he professes, and without 
 command from the Lord, to enlarge the seeming 
 construction of those places in the gospel, by add- 
 ing a case wherein a person deserted, (which is 
 something less than divorced) may lawfully marry 
 again. And having declared his opinion in one 
 case, he leaves a further liberty for Christian pru- 
 dence to determine in cases of Hke importance, 
 using words so plain as not to be shifted off, ' that 
 a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such 
 cases ;* adding also, that ' God hath called us to 
 peace' in marriage. 
 
 Now if it be plain, that a christian may be brought 
 into unworthy bondage, and his religious peace not 
 only interrupted now and then, but perpetually and 
 finally hindered in wedlock, by mis-yoking with a 
 
DISjpiPLINR OF DIVORCE. Hi; 
 
 diversity of nature as well as of religion, the reasons 
 of St. Paul cannot be made special to that one 
 case of infidelity, but are of equal moment to a 
 divorce, vi^herever Christian liberty and peace are 
 without fault equally obstructed : that the ordinance 
 which God gave to our comfort may not be pinned 
 upon us to our undisturbed thraldom, to be cooped 
 up, as it were in mockery of wedlock, to a perpe- 
 tual betrothed loneliness and discontent, if nothing- 
 worse ensue. There being nought else of marriage 
 left between such, but a displeasing and forced 
 remedy against the sting of a brute desire : which 
 fleshly accustoming without the souPs union and 
 commixture of intellectual delight, as it is rather a 
 soiling than a fulfilling of marriage rites, so is it 
 enough to abase the mettle of a generous spirit, and 
 sinks him to a low and vulgar pitch of endeavour in 
 all his actions ; or, (which is worse) leaves him in a 
 despairing plight of abject and hardened thoughts : 
 which condition rather than a good man should fall 
 into, a man useful in the service of God and man- 
 kind, Christ himself hath taught us to dispense 
 with the most sacred ordinance of his worship, even 
 for a bodily healing to dispense with that holy and 
 speculative rest of sabbath, much more then with 
 the erroneous observance of an ill-knotted marriage, 
 for the sustaining of an overcharged faith and per- 
 severance. 
 
l^g THB DOCTRINE AffB" 
 
 GHAP. XX, 
 
 The meaning of St, Paul, that • charity believeih all things.* 
 What is to be said to the licence which is vainly feared will 
 grow hereby. What to those who never have done prescribing 
 patience in this case. The Papist most severe against divorce, 
 yet most easy to all licence. Of all the miseries in marriage 
 God is to be cleared, and the faults to be laid on >wa»** 
 unjust lawsi 
 
 And though bad causes? would take h'cence by 
 this pretext, if that cannot be remedied, upon their 
 conscience be it who shall so do. This was that 
 hardness of heart, and abuse of a good law, which 
 Moses was content to suffer, rather than good men 
 should not have it at all to use needfully. And he 
 who to run after one lost sheep left ninety-nine of 
 his own flock at random in the wilderness, would 
 little perplex his thoughts for the obduring of nine 
 hundred and ninety such as will daily take worse 
 liberties, whether they have permission or not. To 
 conclude, as without charity God hath given no 
 commandment to men, so without it neither can 
 men rightly believe any commandment given. For 
 every act of true faith, as well that whereby we 
 believe the law, is wrought in us by charity, 
 according to that in the divine hymn of St. Paul, 
 1 Cor. xiii. ' Charity believeth all things ;' not aS' 
 if she were so credulous, which is the exposition 
 hitherto current, for that were a trivial praise, but to 
 teach us that charity is the high governess of our 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. MS 
 
 belief, aud that we cannot safely assent to any pre- 
 cept written in the Bible, but as charity commends 
 it to us. Which agrees with that of the same 
 Apostle to the Eph. iv. 14, 15, where he tells us, 
 that the way to get a sure undoubted knowledge of^ 
 things, is to hold that for truth which accords most 
 with charity. Whose unerring guidance and con- 
 duct having followed as a load-star, with all dili- 
 gence and fidelity, in this question ; I trust (through 
 the help of that illuminating spirit which hath 
 favoured me) to have done no every day^s work, in: 
 asserting, after many the words of Christ, with 
 other scriptures of great concernment, from burden- 
 sojne and remorseless obscurity, tangled with mani- 
 fold repugnances, to their native lustre and consent^ 
 between each other ; hereby also dissolving tedious 
 and Gordian difficulties, which have hitherto mo- 
 lested the Church of God, and are now decided 
 not with the sword of Alexander, but with the 
 immaculate hands of charity, to the unspeakable 
 good of Christendom. And let the extreme liter- 
 alist sit down now, and revolve whether this in 
 all necessity be not the due result of our Saviour's 
 words, or if he persist to be otherwise opinioned, 
 let him well advise, lest thinking to gripe fast the 
 gospel, he be. found instead with the canon law in his 
 fist : whose boisterous edicts tyrannizing the blessed 
 ordinance of marriage into the quality of a most un- 
 natural and unchristianly yoke, hath given the flesh 
 thia, advantage to hate it, and turn aside, ofttimeg 
 unwillingly, to all disa^olute uncleannessy eveniititt 
 
i44 THE DOCTRINE AND ' 
 
 punishment itself is weary of and overcome by the in" 
 credible frequency of trading lust and uncontrolled 
 adulteries. Yet men whose creed is custom, I 
 doubt riot will be still endeavouring to hide the 
 sloth of their own timorous capacities with this pre- 
 text, that for all this it is better to endure with 
 patience and silence this affliction which God hatli 
 sent. And I agree it is true, if this be exhorted 
 and not enjoined ; but withal it will be wisely done 
 to be as sure as may be, that what man's iniquity 
 hath laid on be not imputed to God's sending, lest 
 under the colour of an affected patience we detain 
 ourselves at the gulf's mouth of many hideous 
 temptations, not to be withstood without proper 
 gifts, which (as Perkin well notes) God gives not 
 ordinarily, no not to most earnest prayers. There- 
 fore we pray, ' Lead us not into temptation ;' a 
 vain prayer, if, having led ourselves thither we 
 love to stay in that perilous condition. God sends 
 remedies as well as evils, under which he who lies 
 and groans, that may lawfully acquit himself, is 
 accessory to his own ruin ; nor will it excuse him 
 though he suffer through a sluggish fearfulness to 
 search thoroughly what is lawful, for fear of dis- 
 quieting the secure falsity of an old opinion. Who 
 doubts not but that it may be piously said, to him 
 who would dismiss his frigidity, bear your trialj 
 take it as if God would have vou Hve this life of 
 continence ? if he exhort this, I hear him as an 
 angel, though he speak without warrant ; but if he 
 would compel me, I know him for S^tan. Ta 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. |45 
 
 him who divorces an adulteress, piety might say, 
 pardon her; you may show much mercy, you may 
 win a soul : yet the law both of God and man 
 leaves it freely to him : for God loves not to plough 
 out the heart of our endeavours with overhard and 
 sad tasks. God delights not to make a drudge of 
 virtue, whose actions must be all elective and un- 
 constrained. Forced virtue is as a bolt over-shot, 
 it goes neither forward nor backward, and does no 
 good as it stands. Seeing therefore that neither 
 Scripture nor reason hath laid this unjust austerity 
 upon divorce, we may resolve that nothing else 
 hath wrought it but that letter-bound servility of 
 the canon doctors, supposing marriage to be a 
 sacrament, and out of the art they have to lay un- 
 necessary burdens upon all men, to make a fair 
 show in the fleshy observance of matrimony, though 
 peace and love with all other conjugal respects fare 
 never so ill. And indeed the papists, who are the 
 strictest forbidders of divorce, are the easiest liber- 
 tines to admit of grossest uncleannes* ; as if they 
 fcad a design by making wedlock a supportless yoke, 
 to violate it most, under colour of preserving it 
 most inviolable ; and withal delighting (as their 
 mystery is) to make men the day labourers of their 
 own afflictions, as if there were such a scarcity of 
 miseries from abroad, that we should be made to 
 melt our choicest home blessings, and coin them 
 into crosses, for want whereby to hold commerce 
 with patience. If any therefore who shall hap to 
 read this discourse, bath been through misadventure 
 
 L 
 
146 . THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 ill-engaged in this contracted evil here complained 
 of, and finds the fits and workings of a high impa- 
 tience frequently upon him ; of all those wild words 
 which men in misery think to ease themselves by 
 uttering, let him not open his lips against the pro- 
 vidence of Heaven, or tax the ways of God and his 
 divine truth : for they are equal, easy, and not bur- 
 densome: nor do they ever cross the just and 
 reasonable desires of men, nor involve this ou^ 
 portion of mortal life into a necessity of sadness 
 and male-content, by laws commanding over the 
 unreducible antipathies of nature, sooner or later 
 found, but allow us to remedy and shake off those 
 evils into which human error hath led us through 
 the midst of our best intentions, and to support our 
 incident extremities by that authentic precept of 
 sovereign charity, whose grand commission is to do 
 and to dispose over all the ordinances of God to man, 
 that love and truth may advance each other to ever- 
 lasting. While we, literally superstitious, through 
 customary faintness of heart, not venturing to pierce 
 with our free thoughts into the full latitude of 
 nature and religion, abandon ourselves to serve 
 under the tyranny of usurped opinions ; suffering 
 those ordinances which were allotted to our solace 
 and reviving, to trample over us, and hale us into 
 a multitude of sorrows, which God never meant 
 us. And where he sets us in a fair allowance of 
 way, with honest liberty and prudence to our guard, 
 we ever leave subtiHzing and casuisting till we 
 have straightened and pared that liberal path into a 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 147 
 
 1*0201-^8 edge to walk on ; between a precipice of 
 unnecessary mischief on either side, and starting at 
 every false alarm, we do not know which way to 
 set a foot forward with manly confidence and 
 Christian resolution, through the confused ringing 
 in our ears of panic scruples and amazements. 
 
 CHAP. XXI 
 
 Tliat the matter of divorce is not to be tried by law, hut by 
 conscience f as many other sins are. The magistrate can only 
 see that the condition of the divorce be just and equal. The 
 opinion of Fagius, and the reasons of this assertion, 
 
 x\nother act of papal encroachment it was, to 
 pluck the power and arbitrement of divorce from 
 the master of the family, into whose hands God and 
 the law of all nations had put it, and Christ so left 
 it, preaching only to the conscience, and not autho- 
 rizing a judicial court to toss about and divulge the 
 unaccountable and secret reason of disaffection 
 between man and wife, as a thing most improperly 
 answerable to any such kind of trial. But the popes 
 of Rome, perceiving the great revenue and high 
 authority it would give them even over princes, to 
 have the judging and deciding of such a main con- 
 sequence in the life of man as was divorce; wrought 
 so upon the superstition of those ages, as to divest 
 them of that right, which God from the beginning 
 had entrusted to the husband: by which means 
 
 L 2 
 
148 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 tfiey subjected that ancient and naturally domestic 
 prerogative to an external and unbefitting judicature. 
 For although differences in divorce about dowries, 
 jointures, and the like, besides the punishing of 
 adultery, ought not to pass without referring, if 
 need be, to the magistrate ; yet that the absolute 
 and final hindering of divorce cannot belong to any 
 civil or earthly power, against the will and consent 
 of both parties, or of the husband alone, some 
 reasons will be here urged as shall not need to 
 decline the touch. But first I shall recite what 
 hath been already yi:elded by others in favour of this 
 opinion. Grotius and many more agree, that not- 
 withstanding what Christ spake therein to the Con- 
 science, the magistrate is not thereby enjoined 
 aught against the preservation of civil peace, of 
 equity, and of convenience. And among these 
 Fagius is most remarkable, and gives the same 
 liberty of pronouncing divorce to the Christian 
 magistrate as the Mosaic had. ' For whatever, saith 
 he, Christ spake to the regenerate, the judge hath 
 to deal with the vulgar : if therefore any through 
 hardness of heart will not be a tolerable wife to her 
 husband, it will be lawful as well now as of old to 
 pass the bill of divorce, not by private but by public 
 authority. Nor doth man separate them then, but 
 God by his law of divorce given by Moses. What 
 can hinder the magistrate from so doing, to whose 
 government all outward things are subject, to sepa- 
 rate and remove from perpetual vexation, and no 
 small danger, those bodies whose minds are already 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 149 
 
 eparate; it being his office to procure peaceable 
 g^nd convenient living in the commonwealth ; and 
 being as certain also, that they so necessarily sepa- 
 rated cannot all receive a single life ?' And this I 
 observe, that our divines do generally condemn 
 separation of bed and board, without die liberty of 
 second choice : if that therefore in some cases be most 
 purely necessary, (as who so blockish to deny ?) 
 then is this also as needful. Thus far by others is 
 already well stepped, to inform us that divorce is 
 not a matter of law, but of charity : if there remain 
 a furlong yet to end the question, these following 
 reasons may serve to gain it with any apprehension 
 not too unlearned or too wayward. First, because 
 ofttimes the causes of seeking divorce reside so 
 deeply in the radical and innocent affections of 
 nature, as is not within the diocese of law to tamper 
 with. Other relations may aptly enough be held 
 together by a civil and virtuous love : but the duties 
 of man and wife are such as are chiefly conversant 
 in that love, which is most ancient and merely 
 natural, whose two prime statutes are to join itself 
 to that which is good, and acceptable, and friendly: 
 and to turn aside and depart from what is disagree- 
 able, displeasing, and unlike : of the two this latter 
 is the strongest, and most equal to be regarded : for 
 although a man may often be unjust in seeking that 
 which he loves, yet he can never be unjust or 
 blamable in retiring from his endless trouble and 
 distaste, when as his tarrying can redound to no 
 true content on either side. Hate is of all thiogs 
 
150 THE DOCTRINE ANP 
 
 the mightiest divider, nay is division itself. To 
 couple hatred therefore, though wedlock try all her 
 golden links, and borrow to her aid all the iron 
 manacles and fetters of law, it does but seek to 
 twist a rope of sand, wjiich was a task they say that 
 posed the devil: and that sluggish fiend in hell, 
 Ocnus, whom the poems tell of, brought his idle 
 cordage to as good effect, which never served to 
 bind with, but to feed the ass that stood at his 
 elbow. And that the restrictive law against divorce 
 attains as little to bind any thing truly in a disjointed 
 marriage, or to keep it bound, but serves only to 
 feed the ignorance and definitive impertinence of a 
 doltish canon, wer® no absurd allusion. To hinder 
 therefore those deep and serious regresses of nature 
 in a reasonable soul, parting from that mistaken 
 help, which he justly seeks in a person created for 
 him, recollecting himself from an unmeet help 
 which was never meant, and to detain him by com- 
 pulsion in such an unpredestined misery as this, is 
 in diameter against both nature and institution : but 
 to interpose a jurisdictive power over the inward 
 and irremediable disposition of man, to command 
 love and sympathy, to forbid dislike against the 
 guiltless instinct of nature, is not within the pro- 
 vince of any law to reach ; and were indeed an un- 
 commodious rudeness, not a just power : for that 
 law may bandy with nature, and traverse her sage 
 motions, was an error in Callicles the rhetorician, 
 whom Socrates from high principles confutes in 
 Plato^s Gorgias. If therefore divorce may be sq 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 151 
 
 natural, and that law and nature are not to go conr 
 trary ; then to forbid divorce compulsively, is not 
 only against nature, but against law. 
 
 Next, it must be remembered, that all law is for 
 some good, that may be frequently attained without 
 the admixture of a worse inconvenience ; and there- 
 fore many gross faults, as ingratitude and the like, 
 which are too far within the soul to be cured b}'^ con- 
 straint of law, are left only to be wrought on by con- 
 science and persuasion. Which made Aristotle, in 
 the 10th of his Ethics to Nicomachus, aim at a kind 
 of division of law into private or persuasive, and pub- 
 lic or compulsive. Hence it is, that the law forbid- 
 ing divorce never attains to any good end of such 
 prohibition, but rather multiplies evil. For if na- 
 ture's resistless sway in love or hate be once com- 
 pelled, it grows careless of itself, vicious, useless to 
 friends, unserviceable and spiritless to the common- 
 wealth. Which Moses rightly foresaw, and all wise 
 law-givers that ever knew man, what kind of creature 
 he was. The parliament also and clergy of England 
 were not ignorant of this, when they consented that 
 Harry the VHI. might put away his queen Anne of 
 Cleve, whom he could not like after he had been 
 wedded half a-year ; unless it were that, contrary to 
 the proverb, they made a necessity of that which 
 might have been a virtue in them to do : for even 
 the freedom and eminence of man's creation gives 
 him to be a law in this matter to himself, being the 
 head of the other sex which was made for him ; 
 whom therefore though he ought not to injure, yet 
 
162 THE DOCTRINE iiND 
 
 neither should he be forced to retain in society to 
 his own overthrow, nor to hear any judge therein 
 above himself. It being also an unseemly affront to 
 the sequestered and veiled modesty of that sex, to 
 have her unpleasingness and other concealments 
 bandied up and down, and aggravated in open court 
 by those hired masters of tongue-fence. Such un- 
 comely exigencies it befell no less a majesty than 
 Henry the VIII. to be reduced to, who, finding just 
 l^eason in his conscience to forego his brother's wife, 
 after many indignities of being deluded, and made a 
 boy of by those his two cardinal judges, was con- 
 strained at last, for want of other proof, that she 
 had been carnally known by prince Arthur, even to 
 uncover the nakedness of that virtuous lady, and to 
 recite openly the obscene evidence of his brother's 
 chamberlain. Yet it pleased God to make him see 
 all the tyranny of Rome, by discovering this which 
 they exercised over divorce, and to make him the 
 beginner of a reformation to this whole kingdom, by 
 iirst asserting into his familiary power the right of 
 just divorce. // is true, an adulteress cannot be 
 ashamed enough by any public proceeding ; but the 
 woman whose honor is not appeached is less injured 
 by a silent dismission, being otherwise not illiberally 
 dealt with, than to endure a clamouring debate of 
 utterless things, in a business of that civil secrecy 
 and difficult discerning, as not to be over-much ques- 
 tioned by nearest friends. Which drew that answer 
 from the greatest and worthiest Roman of his time, 
 J^aulus Emilus, being demanded why he would put 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 153 
 
 xway his wife for no visible reason ? ' This shoe/ 
 «aid he, and held it out on his foot, ' is a neat shoe, 
 -a new shoe, and yet none of you know where it 
 wrings me :* much less by the unfamiliar cognizance 
 of a feed gamester can such a private difference be 
 examined, neither ought it. 
 
 Again, if law aim at the firm establishment and 
 preservation of matrimonial faith, we know that 
 cannot thrive under violent means, but is the more 
 violated. It is not when two unfortunately met 
 are by the canon forced to draw in that yoke an un- 
 merciful day's work of sorrow till death unharness 
 them, that then the law keeps marriage most unvio- 
 lated and unbroken ; but when the law takes order 
 that marriage be accountant and responsible to per- 
 form that society, whether it be religious, civil or 
 corporal, which may be conscionably required and 
 claimed therein, or else to be dissolved if it cannot 
 be undergone. This is to make marriage most in- 
 dissoluble, by making it a just and equal dealer, a 
 performer of those due helps, which instituted the 
 covenant ; being otherwise a most unjust contract, 
 and no more to be maintained under tuition of law, 
 than the vilest fraud, or cheat, or theft that may be 
 committed. But because this is such a secret kind of 
 fraud or theft, as cannot be discerned by law but 
 only by the plaintiff himself ; therefore to divorce 
 was never counted a political or civil offence neither 
 to Jew nor Gentile, nor by any judicial intendment 
 of Christ, further than could be discerned to trans- 
 gress the allowance of Moses, which was of neces^ 
 
164 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 sity SO large, that it doth all one as if it sent back 
 the matter undeterminable at law, and intractable 
 by rough dealing, to have instructions and admonitions 
 bestowed about it by them whose spiritual office is 
 to adjure and to denounce, and so left to the consci- 
 ence. The law can only appoint the just and equal 
 conditions of divorce, and is to look how it is an in- 
 jury to the divorced, which in truth it can be none, 
 as a mere separation ; for if she consent, wherein 
 has the law to right her ? or consent not, then is it 
 either just, and so deserved ; or if unjust, such in 
 all likelihood was the divorcer : and to part from 
 an unjust man is a happiness, and no injury to be 
 lamented. But suppose it to be an injury, the law is 
 not able to amend it, unless she think it other than a 
 miserable redress, to return back from whence she 
 was expelled, or but intreated to be gone, or else to 
 live apart still married without marriage, a married 
 widow. Last, if it be to chasten the divorcer, 
 what law punishes a deed which is not moral but 
 natural, a deed which cannot certainly be found to 
 be an injury ? or how can it be punished by prohi- 
 biting the divorce, but that the innocent must equally 
 partake both in the shame and in the smart .^ So 
 that which way soever we look, the law can to no 
 rational purpose forbid divorce, it can only take 
 care that the conditions of divorce be not inju- 
 rious. Thus then we see the trial of law, how im- 
 pertinent it is to this question of divorce, how help- 
 less next, and then how hurtful. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 165 
 
 CHAP. XXIL 
 
 The last reason why divorce is not to be restrained by law, 
 it being against the law of nature and of nations. The 
 larger proof whereof referred to Mr, Selden's book, * De 
 Jure Naturali ^ Gentium,* An objection of Parceus an^ 
 swered» How it ought to be ordered by the church. That 
 this will not breed any worse inconvenience, nor so bad as is 
 now suffered. 
 
 Therefore the last reason, why it should not 
 be, is the example we have, not only from the no- 
 blest and wisest commonwealths, guided by the 
 clearest light of human knowledge, but also from 
 the divine testimonies of God himself, lawgiving in 
 person to a sanctified people. That all this is true^ 
 whoso desires to know at large with least pains, and 
 expects not here overlong rehearsals of that which 
 is by others already so judiciously gathered ; let 
 him hasten to be acquainted with that noble volume 
 written by our learned Selden, " Of the Law of Na- 
 ture and of Nations," a work more useful and more 
 worthy to be perused by whosoever studies to be a 
 great man in wisdom, equity, and justice, than all 
 those ' decretals and sumless sums,^ which the pon- 
 tifical clerks have doted on, ever since that unfor- 
 tunate mother famously sinned thrice, and died im- 
 penitent of her bringing into the world those two 
 misbegotten infants, and for ever infants, Lombard 
 and Gratian, him the compilei- of canon iniquity, 
 the other the Tubalcain of scholastic sophistry, 
 
156 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 whose overspreading barbarism hath not only in- 
 fused their own bastardy upon the fruitfullest part 
 of human learning, not only dissipated and dejected 
 the clear light of nature in us, and of nations, but 
 hath tainted also the fountains of divine doctrine, 
 and rendered the pure and solid law of God unbe- 
 neficial to us by their calumnious dunceries. Yet 
 this law, which their unskilfulness hath made liable 
 to all ignominy, the purity and wisdom of this law 
 shall be the buckler of our dispute. Liberty of 
 divorce we claim not, we think not but from this 
 law ; the dignity, the faith, the authority thereof, 
 is now grown among Christians, O astonishment I 
 a labour of no mean difficulty and envy to defend. 
 That it should not be counted a faultering dispense, 
 a flattering permission of sin, the bill of adultery, a 
 snare, is the expense of all this apology. And all 
 that we solicit is, that it may be suffered to stand 
 in the place where God set it, amidst the firmament 
 of his holy laws, to shine, as it was wont, upon the 
 weaknesses and errors of men, perishing else in 
 the sincerity of their honest purposes : for certain 
 there is no memory of whoredoms and adul- 
 teries left among us now, when this warranted 
 freedom of God^s own giving is mad, dangerous, 
 and discarded for a scroll of licence. It must be 
 your suffrages and votes, O Englishmen, that this 
 exploded decree of God and Moses may scape and 
 come off fair, without the censure of a shameful 
 abrogating : which, if yonder sun ride sure, and 
 means not to break word with us to-morrow, was 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 167 
 
 never yet abrogated by our Saviour. Give sentence if 
 you please, that the frivolous canon may reverse the 
 infallible judgment of Moses and his great director. 
 Or if it be the reformed writers, whose doctrine^ 
 persuades this rather, their reasons I dare affirm are 
 all silenced, unless it be only this. Paraeus on the 
 Corinthians would prove, that hardness of heart in 
 divorce is no more now to be permitted, but to be 
 amersed with fine and imprisonment. I am not 
 willing to discover the forgettings of reverend men, 
 yet here I must : what article or clause of the 
 whole new covenant can Paraeus bring, to exas- 
 perate the judicial law upon any infirmity under 
 the gospel ? I say infirmity, for if it were the 
 high hand of sin, the law as little would have 
 endured it as the gospel ; it would not stretch to the 
 dividing of an inheritance ; it refused to condemn 
 adultery, not that these things should not be done 
 at law, but to shew that the gospel hath not the 
 least influence upon judicial courts, much less to 
 make them sharper and more heavy, least of all to 
 arraign before a temporal judge that which the law 
 without summons acquitted. ' But,^ saith he, ' the 
 law was the time of youth, under violent affections ; 
 the gospel in us is mature age, and ought to subdue 
 affections.' True, and so ought the law too, if they 
 be found inordinate, and not merely natural and 
 blameless. Next I distinguish, that the time of the 
 law is compared to youth and pupilage in respect to 
 the ceremonial part, which led the Jews as children 
 through corporal and garish rudiments, until the ful- 
 
153 THE DOCTRINE ANI> 
 
 ness of time should reveal to them the higher lessons 
 of faith and redemption. This is not meant of the 
 moral part, therein it soberly concerned them not 
 to be babies, but to be men in good earnest : the 
 sad and awful majesty of that law was not to be 
 jested with : to bring a bearded nonage with las- 
 civious dispensations before that throne, had been 
 a lewd affront, as it is now a gross mistake. But 
 what discipline is this, Paraeus, to nourish violent 
 affections in youth, by cockering and wanton in- 
 dulgencies, and to chastise them in mature age with 
 a boyish rod of correction ? How much more co- 
 herent is it to Scripture, that the law as a strict 
 schoolmaster should have punished every tresspass 
 without indulgence so baneful to youth, and that 
 the gospel should now correct that by admonition 
 and reproof only, in free and mature age, which 
 was punished with stripes in the childhood and 
 bondage of the law? What therefore it allowed 
 then so fairly, much less is to be whipped now, 
 especially in penal courts : and if it ought now 
 to trouble the conscience, why did that angry 
 accuser and condemner law reprieve it ? So then, 
 neither from Moses nor from Christ hath the 
 magistrate any authority to proceed against it. 
 But what, shall then the disposal of that power re- 
 turn again to the master of a family ? Wherefore 
 not, since God there put it, and the presumptuous 
 canon thence bereft it ? This only must be pro- 
 vided, that the ancient manner be observed in the 
 presence of the minister and other grave selected 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 159 
 
 elders, who, after they shall have admonished and 
 pressed upon him the words of our Saviour, and he 
 shall have protested in the faith of the eternal gos- 
 pel, and the hope he has of happy resurrection, that 
 otherwise than thus he cannot do, and thinks him- 
 self and this his case not contained in that prohibi- 
 tion of divorce which Christ pronounced, the 
 matter not being of malice, but of nature, and so 
 not capable of reconciling ; to constrain him further 
 were to unchristen him, to unman him, to throw 
 the mountain of Sinai upon him, with the weight 
 of the whole law to boot, flat against the liberty 
 and essence of the gospel ; and yet nothing available 
 either to the sanctity of marriage, the good of hus- 
 band, wife, or children, nothing profitable either to 
 church or commonwealth, but hurtful and pernicious 
 in all these respects. But this will bring in confu- 
 sion : yet these cautious mis-trusters might consider, 
 that what they thus object lights not upon this book, 
 but upon that which I engage against them, the 
 book of God and Moses, with all the wisdom and 
 providence which had forecast the worst of confu- 
 sion that could succeed, and yet thought fit of such 
 a permission. But let them be of good cheer, it 
 wrought so little disorder among the Jews, that 
 from Moses till after the captivity, not one of the 
 prophets thought it worth the rebuking ; for that of 
 Malachi well looked into will appear to be not 
 against divorcing, but rather against keeping strange 
 concubines, to the vexation of their Hebrew wives. 
 If therefore we Christians may be thought as good 
 
160 THK DOCTRINE AND 
 
 and tractable as the Jews were, (and certainly the 
 prohibitors of divorce presume us to be better,) then 
 less confusion is to be feared for this among us than 
 was among them. If we be worse, or but as bad, 
 which lamentable examples confirm we are, then 
 have we more, or at least as much, need of this^ 
 permitted law, as they to whom God therefore gave 
 it (as they say) under a harsher covenant. Let not 
 therefore the frailty of man go on thus inventing 
 needless troubles to itself, to groan under the false 
 imagination of a strictness never imposed from above ; 
 enjoining that for duty, which is an impossible and 
 vain supererogating: ' Be not righteous overmuch,' 
 is the counsel of Ecclesiastes ; ' why shouldst thou 
 destroy thyself?' Let us not be thus over curious 
 to strain at atoms, and yet to stop every vent and 
 cranny of permissive liberty, lest nature wanting 
 those needful pores and breathing-places, which God 
 hath not debarred our weakness, either suddenly 
 break out into some wide rupture of open vice and 
 frantic heresy, or else inwardly fester with repining 
 and blasphemous thoughts, under an unreasonable 
 and fruitless rigour of unwarranted law. Against 
 which evils nothing can more beseem the religion 
 of the church, or the wisdom of the state, than to 
 consider timely and provide. And in so doing let 
 them not doubt but they shall vindicate the mis- 
 reputed honour of God and his great law-giver, by 
 suffering him to give his own laws according to the 
 condition of man's nature best known to him, with- 
 out the unsufferable imputation of dispensing legally 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 161 
 
 with many ages of ratified adultery. They shall 
 recover the mis-attended words of Christ to the sin- 
 cerity of their true sense from manifold contradic- 
 tions, and shall open them with the key of charity. 
 Many helpless Christians they shall raise from the 
 depth of sadness and distress, utterly unfitted as 
 they are to serve God and man : many they shall 
 reclaim from obscure and giddy sects, many regain 
 from dissolute and brutish licence, many from des- 
 perate hardness, if ever that were justly pleaded. 
 They shall set free many daughters of Israel, not 
 wanting much of her sad plight whom ' Satan had 
 bound eighteen years.* Man they shall restore to 
 his just dignity and prerogative in nature, preferring 
 the soul's free peace before the promiscuous drain- 
 ing of a carnal rage. Marriage, from a perilous ha- 
 zard and snare, they shall reduce to be a more cer- 
 tain haven and retirement qf happy society; when 
 they shall judge according to God and Moses (and 
 how not then according to Christ) when they shall 
 judge it more wisdom and goodness to break that 
 covenant seemingly, and keep it really, than by 
 compulsion of law to keep it seemingly, and b}?- 
 compulsion of blameless nature to break it really, 
 at least if it were ever truly joined. The vigour of 
 discipline they may then turn with better success 
 upon the prostitute looseness of the times, when 
 men, finding in themselves the infirmities of former 
 ages, shall not be constrained above the gift of God 
 in them to unprofitable and impossible observances, 
 never required from the civilest, the wisest, the ho- 
 
162 THE DOCTRINE ANP 
 
 liest nations, whose other excellencies in moral 
 virtue they never yet could equal. Last of all, to 
 those whose mind is still to maintain textual re- 
 strictions, whereof the bare sound cannot consist 
 sometimes with humanity, much less with charity ; 
 I would ever answer, by putting them in remem- 
 brance of a command above all commands, which 
 they seem to have forgot, and who spake it : in 
 comparison whereof, this w^hich they so exalt is but 
 a petty and subordinate precept. ' Let them go' 
 therefore with whom I am loth to couple them, yet 
 they will needs run into the same blindness with 
 the Pharisees ; ' let them go therefore/ and consider 
 well what this lesson means, ' I will have mercy and 
 not sacrifice ;' for on that ' saying all the law and 
 prophets depend,^ much more the gospel, whose 
 end and excellence is mercy and peace. Or if they 
 cannot learn that, how will they hear this ? which 
 yet I shall not doubt to leave with them as a con- 
 clusion. That God the Son hath put all other 
 things under his own feet, but his commandments 
 he hath left all under the feet of charity. 
 
THE JUDGMENT OF MARTIN BUCER, 
 
 CONCERNING 
 
 DIVORCE; 
 
 WRITTEN TO EDWARD THE SIXTH, IN HIS SECOND BOOK OF 
 THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST I AND NOW ENGLISHED. 
 
 WHEREIN A LATE BOOK, 
 
 Restoring the ' Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce^ is 
 here confirmed and justified by the authority of 
 
 MARTIN BUCER. 
 
 TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND. 
 
 ' Art thou a Teacher of Israel, and knowest not these things ?' — John Hi. 10. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY. 
 
 Testimonies of the high approbation which learned men have 
 giveji of Martin Bucer. 
 
 Simon GrincBus, 1533, 
 
 Among all the Germans, I give the palm to 
 Bucer, for excellence in the scriptures. Melanc- 
 thon in human learning is wonderous fluent ; but 
 greater knowledge in the scripture I attribute to 
 Bucer, and speak it unfeignedly. 
 M 2 
 
164 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 John Calvin^ 1539. 
 
 Martin Bucer, a most faithful doctor of the 
 church of Christ, besides his rare learning, and 
 copious knowledge of many things, besides his 
 clearness of wit, much reading, and other many 
 and various virtues, wherein he is almost by none 
 now living excelled, hath few equals, and excels 
 most ; hath this praise peculiar to himself, that none 
 in this age hath used exacter diligence in the expo- 
 sition of scripture. 
 
 And a little beneath, 
 
 Bucer is more large than to be read by overbusied 
 men, and too high to be easily understood by un- 
 attentive men, and of a low capacity. 
 
 Sir John Cheek, Tutor to King Edward VI. \55'\, 
 
 We have lost our master, than whom the world 
 scarce held a greater, whether we consider his know- 
 ledge of true religion, or his integrity and innocence 
 of life, or his incessant study of holy things, or his 
 matchless labour of promoting piety, or his autho- 
 rity and amplitude of teaching, or whatever else 
 was praise-worthy and glorious in him. Script, 
 Anglican, pag. 864. 
 
 John Sturmius of Strashurgh, 
 
 No man can be ignorant what a great and con- 
 stant opinion and estimation of Bucer there is in 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. l«5 
 
 Italy, France, and England. Whence the saying of 
 Quintihan hath oft come to my mind, that he hath 
 well profited in eloquence whom Cicero pleases. 
 The same say I of Bucer, that he hath made no 
 small progress in divinity, whom Bucer pleases ; 
 for in his volumes, which he wrote very many, 
 there is the plain impression to be discerned of many 
 great virtues, of diligence, of charity, of truth, of 
 acuteness, of judgment, of learning. Wherein he hath 
 a certain proper kind of writing, whereby he doth 
 not only teach the reader, but affects him with the 
 sweetness of his sentences, and with the manner 
 of his arguing, which is so teaching, and so logical, 
 that it may be perceived how learnedly he separates 
 probable reasons from necessary, how forcibly he 
 confirms what he has to prove, how subtilely he re» 
 futes, not with sharpness but with truth. 
 
 Theodore Beza, on the Portraiture of M. Bucer, 
 
 This is that countenance of Bucer, the mirror of 
 mildness tempered with gravity ; to whom the city 
 of Strasburgh owes the reformation of her church. 
 Whose singular learning, and eminent zeal, joined 
 with excellent wisdom, both his learned books, and 
 public disputations in the general diets of the em- 
 pire, shall witness to all ages. Him the German 
 persecution drove into England ; where honourably 
 entertained by Edward VI. he was for two years 
 chief professor of divinity in Cambridge, with greats 
 
166 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 est frequency and applause of all learned and pious 
 men until his death, 1551. Bezae Icones, 
 
 Mr, Fox's Book of Martyrs^ Vol. iii. p. 7^3. 
 
 Bucer, what by writing, but chiefly by reading 
 and preaching openly, wherein being painful in the 
 word of God, he never spared himself, nor regarded 
 his health, brought all men into such an admiration 
 of him, that neither his friends could sufficiently 
 praise him, nor his enemies in any point find fault 
 with his singular life, and sincere doctrine. A most 
 certain token whereof may be his sumptuous burial 
 at Cambridge, solemnized with so great an assist- 
 ance of all the university, that it was not possible 
 to devise more to the setting out and amplifying of 
 the same. 
 
 Dr. Pern, the Popish Vice-Chancellor of Cam- 
 bridge, his Adversary. 
 
 Cardinal Pool, about the fourth year of Queen 
 Mary, intending to reduce the university of Cam- 
 bridge to popery again, thought no way so effectual, 
 as to cause the bones of Martin Bucer and Paulus 
 Fagius, which had been four years in the grave, to 
 be taken up and burnt openly with their books, as 
 knowing that those two worthy men had been of 
 greatest moment to the reformation of that place from 
 popery, and had left such powerful seeds of their doc- 
 trine behind them, as would never die, unless the men 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 167 
 
 themselves were digged up, and openly condemned 
 for heretics by the university itself. This was put in 
 execution, and Doctor Pern, vice-chancellor, ap- 
 pointed to preach against Bucer : who, among other 
 things, laid to his charge the opinions, which he 
 held of the marriage of priests, of divorcement, and 
 of usury. But immediately after his sermon, or 
 somewhat before, as the Book of Martyrs for a truth 
 relates. Vol. iii. p. 770, the said Doctor Pern smit- 
 ing himself on the breast, and in manner weeping, 
 wished with all his heart, that God would grant his 
 soul might then presently depart, and remain with 
 Bucer's ; for he knew his life was such, that if any 
 man^s soul were worthy of Heaven, he thought 
 Bucer's in special to be most worthy. Histor. de 
 Combust. Buceri & Fagii. 
 
 Acworth^ the University Orator. 
 
 ' Soon after that Queen Elizabeth came to the 
 crown, this condemnation of Bucer and Fagius by 
 the cardinal and his doctors was solemnly repealed 
 by the university ; and the memory of those two 
 famous men celebrated in oration by Ac worth, the 
 university orator, which is yet extant in the Book 
 of Martyrs, Vol. iii. p. 773, and in Latin, Scripta 
 Anglican, p. 936. 
 
 Nicholas Carre, a learned man ; Walter H addon, 
 master of the requests to Queen Elizabeth ; Mat- 
 thew Parker, afterwards primate of England, with 
 
168 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Other eminent men, in their funeral orations and 
 sermons, express abundantly how great a man Mar- 
 tin Bucer was ; what an incredible loss England 
 sustained in his death ; and that with him died the 
 hope of a perfect reformation for that age. Ibid. 
 
 Jacobus Verheiden of Grave^ in his Elogies of 
 Famous Divines, 
 
 Though the name of Martin Luther be famous, 
 yet thou Martin Bucer for piety, learning, labour, 
 care, vigilance, and writing, art not to be held in- 
 ferior to Luther. Bucer was a singular instrument 
 of God, so was Luther. By the death of this most 
 learned and most faithful man, the church of Christ 
 sustained a heavy loss, as Calvin witnesseth ; and 
 they who are studious of Calvin are not ignorant 
 how much he ascribes to Bucer ; for thus he writes 
 in a letter to Viretus : " What a manifold loss befel 
 the church of God in the death of Bucer, as oft 
 as I call to mind, I feel my heart almost rent 
 asunder.^^ 
 
 Peter Martyr Epist. to Conradus Hubertus, 
 
 He is dead, who hath overcome in many battles 
 of the Lord. God lent us for a time this our fa- 
 ther, and our teacher, never enough praised. Death 
 hath divided me from a most unanimous friend, one 
 truly according to mine own heart. My mind is 
 overpressed with grief, insomuch that I have not 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. IQ$ 
 
 power to write more. I bid thee in Christ farewell, 
 and wish thou mayest be able to bear the loss of 
 Bucer, better than I can bear it. 
 
 Testimonies given hy learned men to Paulas Fagius, 
 who held the same opinion with Martin Bucer 
 concerning divorce. 
 
 Paulus Fagius, born in the Palatinate, became 
 most skilful in the Hebrew tongue. Being called 
 to the ministry at Isna, he published many ancient 
 and profitable Hebrew books, being aided in the ex- 
 penses by a senator of that city, as Origen some- 
 time was by a certain rich man called Ambrosius. 
 At length invited to Strasburgh, he there famously 
 discharged the office of a teacher ; until the same 
 persecution drove him and Bucer into England, 
 where he was preferred to a professor's place in 
 Cambridge, and soon after died. Bezae Icones. 
 
 Melchior Anamus writes his life among the fa- 
 mous German divines. 
 
 Sleidan and Thuanus mention him with honour 
 in their history : and Verheiden in his elegies. 
 
 TO THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 The book which, among other great and high 
 points of reformation, contains as a principal part 
 thereof, this treatise here presented, supreme court 
 of parliament ! was, by the famous author Martin 
 Bucer, dedicated to Edward Vf. whose incompa- 
 rable youth doubtless had brought forth to the 
 
iTO THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 church of England such a glorious manhood, had 
 his hfe reached it, as would have left in the affairs 
 of religion nothing without an excellent pattern for 
 us now to follow. But since the secret purpose of 
 Divine appointment hath reserved no less perhaps 
 than the just half of such a sacred work to be ac- 
 complished in this age, and principally, as we trust, 
 by your successful wisdom and authority, religious 
 lords and commons ! what wonder if I seek no 
 other, to whose exactest judgment and review I 
 may commend these last and worthiest labours of 
 this renowned teacher ; whom living all the pious 
 nobility of those reforming times, your truest and 
 best-imitated ancestors, reverenced and admired. 
 Nor was he wanting to a recompense as great as was 
 himself; when both at many times before, and es- 
 pecially among his last sighs and prayers, testifying 
 his dear and fatherly affection to the church and 
 realm of England, he sincerely wished in the hear- 
 ing of many devout men, *' that what he had in his 
 last book written to King Edward concerning disci- 
 pline might have place in this kingdom. His hope 
 was then, that no calamity, no confusion, or defor- 
 mity would happen to the commonwealth ; but 
 otherwise he feared, lest in the midst of all this 
 ardency to know God, yet by the neglect of dis- 
 cipline, our good endeavours would not succeed."* 
 These remarkable words of so godly and so emi- 
 
 ♦ Wicol, Car. de obitu Buceri. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 171 
 
 nent a man at his death, as they are related by a 
 sufficient and well-known witness, who heard them, 
 and inserted by Thuanus into his grave and serious 
 history ; so ought they to be chiefly considered by 
 that nation, for whose sake they were uttered, and 
 more especially by that general council, which 
 represents the body of that nation. If therefore 
 the book or this part thereof for necessary causes, 
 be now revived and recommended to the use of this 
 undisciplined age; it hence appears, that these 
 reasons have not erred in the choice of a fit patron- 
 age for a discourse of such importance. But why 
 the whole tractate is not here brought entire, but 
 this matter of divorcement selected in particular, to 
 prevent the full speed of some mis-interpreter, I 
 hasten to disclose. First, it will be soon manifest 
 to them who know what wise men should know, 
 that the constitution and reformation of a common- 
 wealth, if Ezra and Nehemiah did not mis-reform, 
 is, like a building, to begin orderly from the foun- 
 dation thereof, which is marriage and the family, to 
 set right first whatever is amiss therein. How can 
 there else grow up a race of warrantable men, 
 while the house and home that breeds them is trou- 
 bled and disquieted under a bondage not of God*s 
 constraining with a natureless constraint (if his most 
 righteous judgments may be our rule) but laid upon 
 us imperiously in the worst and weakest ages of 
 knowledge, by a canonical tyranny of stupid and 
 malicious monks ? who having rashly vowed them- 
 selves to a single life, which they could not undergo, 
 
nZ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 invented new fetters to throw on matrimony, that 
 the world thereby waxing more dissolute, they also 
 in a general looseness might sin with more favour. 
 Next, there being yet among many such a strange 
 iniquity and perverseness against all necessary 
 divorce, while they will needs expound the words 
 of our Saviour, not duly by comparing other places, 
 as they must do in the resolving of a hundred other 
 scriptures, but by persisting deafly in the abrupt 
 and papistical way of a literal apprehension against 
 the direct analogy of sense, reason, law, and gospel ; 
 it therefore may well seem more than time, to apply 
 the sound and holy persuasions of this apostolic 
 man to that part in us, which is not yet fully dis- 
 possessed of an error as absurd, as most that we 
 deplore in our blindest adversaries ; and to let his 
 authority and unanswerable reasons be vulgarly 
 known, that either his name, or the force of his 
 doctrine, may work a wholesome effect. Lastly, I 
 find it clear to be the author's intention, that this 
 point of divorcement should be held and received 
 as a most necessary and prime part of discipline in 
 every Christian government. And therefore having 
 reduced his model of reformation to fourteen heads, 
 he bestows almost as much time about this one point 
 of divorce, as about all the rest ; which also was the 
 judgment of his heirs and learned friends in Ger- 
 many, best acquainted with his meaning ; who first 
 published this his book by Oporinus at Basil, (a city 
 for learning and constancy in the true faith honour- 
 able among the first) added a special note in the title, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 173 
 
 ** that there the reader should find the doctrine of 
 divorce handled so solidly, and so fully, as scarce the 
 like in any writer of that age :" and with this par- 
 ticular commendation they doubted not to dedicate 
 the book, as a most profitable and exquisite dis- 
 course, to Christian III. a worthy and pious king of 
 Denmark, as the author himself had done before to 
 our Edward VI. Yet did not Bucer in that volume 
 only declare what his constant opinion was herein, 
 but also in his comment upon Matthew, written at 
 Strasburgh divers years before, he treats distinctly 
 and copiously the same argument in three several 
 places, touches it also upon the 7th to the Romans, 
 and promises the same solution more largely upon 
 the first to the Corinthians, omitting no occa- 
 sion to weed out this last and deepest mischief 
 of the canon-law, sown into the opinion of modern 
 men, against the laws and practice both of God's 
 chosen people, and the best primitive times. 
 Wherein his faithfulness and powerful evidence 
 prevailed so far with all the church of Stras- 
 burgh, that they published this doctrine of divorce 
 as an article of their confession, after they had 
 taught so eight and twenty years, through all those 
 times, when that city flourished, and excelled most, 
 both in religion, learning, and government, under 
 those first restorers of the gospel there, Zelius, He- 
 dio, Capito, Fagius, and those who incomparably 
 then governed the commonwealth, Farrerus and 
 
174 THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 Sturmius. If therefore God in the former age 
 found out a servant, and by whom he had converted 
 and reformed many a city, by him thought good to 
 restore the most needful doctrine of divorce from 
 rigorous and harmful mistakes on the right hand ; it 
 can be no strange thing, if in this age he stir up by 
 whatsoever means whom it pleases him, to take in 
 hand and maintain the same assertion. Certaicly 
 if it be in man's discerning to sever providence 
 from chance, I could allege many instances, wherein 
 there would appear cause to esteem of me no other 
 than a passive instrument under some powe'- and 
 counsel higher and better than can be human, work- 
 ing to a general good in the whole course of this 
 matter. For that I owe no hght, or leading received 
 from any man in the discovery of this truth, what 
 time I first undertook it in ' the Doctrine and Dis- 
 cipline of Divorce,* and had only the infallible 
 grounds of scripture to be my guide ; he who tries 
 the inmost heart, and saw with what severe industry 
 and examination of myself I set down every period, 
 will be my witness. When I had almost finished 
 the first edition, I chanced to read in the notes of 
 Hugo Grotius upon the 5th. of Matthew, whom I 
 straight understood inchning to reasonable terms in 
 this controversy : and something he whispered ra- 
 ther than disputed about the law of charity, and the 
 true end of wedlock. Glad therefore of such an 
 able assistant, however at much distance, I resolved 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 176 
 
 at length to put off into this wild and calumnious 
 world. For God, it seems, intended to prove me, 
 whether I durst alone take up a rightful cause against 
 a world of dis-esteem, and found I durst. My name 
 I did not publish, as not willing it should sway the 
 reader either for me or against me. But when I was 
 told that the style, which what it ails to be so soon 
 distinguishable, I cannot tell, was known by most 
 men, and that some of the clergy began to inveigh 
 and exclaim on what I was credibly informed they 
 had not read ; I took it then for my proper season, 
 both to show them a name that could easily con- 
 temn such an indiscreet kind of censure, and to 
 re-inforce the question with a more accurate dili- 
 gence : that if any of them would be so good as to 
 leave railing, and to let us hear so much of his learn- 
 ing and christian wisdom, as will be strictly de- 
 manded of him in his answering to this problem, 
 care was had he should not spend his preparations 
 against a nameless pamphlet. By this time I had 
 learned that Paulus Fagius, one of the chief divines 
 in Germany, sent for by Frederic the Palatine, to 
 reform his dominion, and after that invited hither in 
 King Edward's days, to be a professor of divinity in 
 Cambridge, was of the same opinion touching 
 divorce, which these men so lavishly traduced in 
 me. What I found, I inserted where fittest place 
 was, thinking sure they would respect so grave an 
 author, at least to the moderating of their odious 
 
176 THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 inferences. And having now perfected a second 
 edition, I referred the judging thereof to your high 
 and impartial sentence, honoured lords and com- 
 mons ! For I was confident, if any thing generousy 
 any thing noble, and above the multitude, were left 
 yet in the spirit of England ; it could be no where 
 sooner found, and no where sooner understood, than 
 in that house of justice and true liberty, where ye 
 sit in council. Nor doth the event hitherto, for 
 some reasons which I shall not here deliver, fail me 
 of what I conceived so highly. Nevertheless, being 
 far otherwise dealt with by some, of whose profes- 
 sion and supposed knowledge I had better hope, 
 and esteemed the deviser of a new and pernicious 
 paradox ; I felt no difference within me from that 
 peace and firmness of mind, which is of nearest 
 kin to patience and contentment : both for that I 
 knew I had divulged a truth linked inseparably with 
 the most fundamental rules of Christianity, to stand 
 or fall together, and was not uninformed, that divers 
 learned and judicious men testified their daily ap- 
 probation of the book. Yet at length it hath pleased 
 God, who had already given me satisfaction in my- 
 self, to afford me now a means whereby I may be 
 fully justified also in the eyes of men. When the 
 book had been now the second time set forth well- 
 nigh three months, as I best remember, I then first 
 came to hear that Martin Bucer had written much 
 concerning divorce : whom earnestly turning over. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 1771 
 
 I soon perceived, but not without amazement; in 
 the same opinion, confirmed with the same reasons 
 which in that pubhshed book, without the help or: 
 imitation of any precedent writer, I had laboured 
 out, and laid together. Not but that there is some 
 difference in the handling, in the order, and the num- 
 ber of arguments, but still agreeing in the same 
 conclusion* So as I may justly gratulate mine own 
 mind with due acknowledgment of assistance from 
 above, which led me, not as a learner, but as a coU 
 lateral teacher, to a sympathy of judgment with no 
 less a man than Martin Bucer. And he, if our 
 things here below arrive him where he is, does not 
 repent him to see that point of knowledge, which 
 he first and with an unchecked freedom preached 
 to those more knowing times of England, now 
 found so necessary, though what he admonished 
 ,were lost out of our memory ; yet that God doth 
 now again create the same doctrine in another un- 
 written table, and raises it up immediately out of 
 his pure oracle to the convincement of a perverse 
 age, eager in the reformation of names and ceremo- 
 nies, but in realities as traditional and as ignorant 
 as their forefathers. I would ask now the foremost 
 of my profound accusers, whether they dare affirm 
 that to be licentious, new, and dangerous, which 
 Martin Bucer so often, and so urgently avouched to 
 be most lawful, most necessary, and most christian, 
 without the least blemish to his good name, among 
 
 N 
 
178 ♦THE DOCTRFNE AND 
 
 all the worthy men of that age, and since, who tes^ 
 tify so highly of him ? If they dare, they must then 
 set up an arrogance of their own against all those 
 churches and saints who honoured him without thi& 
 exception : if they dare not, how can they now 
 make that licentious doctrine in another, which was 
 never blamed or confuted in Bucer, or in Fagius ? 
 The truth is, there will be due to them for this their 
 unadvised rashness the best donative that can be 
 given them; I mean, a round reproof; now that 
 where they thought to be most magisterial, they 
 have displayed their own want, both of readings 
 and of judgment. First, to be so unacquainted in 
 the writings of Bucer, which are so obvious and so 
 useful in their own faculty ; next, to be so caught 
 in a prejudicating weakness, as to condemn that for 
 lewd, which (whether they knew or not) these elect 
 servants of Christ commended for lawful ; and for 
 new, that which was taught by these almost the 
 first and greatest authors of reformation, who were 
 never taxed for so teaching ; and dedicated without 
 scruple to a royal pair of the first reforming kings 
 in Christendom, and confessed in the public 
 confession of a most orthodoxical church and state 
 in Germany. This is also another fault which I 
 must tell them ; that they have stood now almost 
 this whole year clamouring afar off, while the book 
 hath been twice printed, twice brought up, and 
 never once vouchsafed a friendly conference with 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 179 
 
 the autlior, who would be glad and thankful to be 
 shown an error, either by private dispute, or public 
 answer, and could retract, as well as wise men be- 
 fore him ; might also be worth the gaining, as one 
 who heretofore hath done good service to the church 
 by their own confession. Or if he be obstinate, 
 their confutation would have rendered him without 
 excuse, and reclaimed others of no mean parts, who 
 incline to his opinion. But now their work is more 
 than doubled ; and how they will hold up their 
 heads against the sudden aspect of these two great 
 and reverend saints, whom they have defamed, how 
 they will make good the censuring of that, for a 
 novelty of licence, which Bucer constantly taught 
 to be a pure and holy law of Christ^s kingdom, let 
 them advise. For against these my adversaries, who, 
 before the examining of £l propounded truth in a 
 fit time of reformation, have had the conscience to 
 oppose nought else but their blind reproaches and 
 surmises, that a single innocence might not be op- 
 pressed and overborne by a crew of mouths, for the 
 restoring of a law and doctrine falsely and unlearn- 
 edly reputed new and scandalous ; God, that I 
 may ever magnify and record this his good- 
 ness, hath unexpectedly raised up as it were 
 from the dead more than one famous light of the • 
 first reformation, to bear witness with me, and to 
 do me honour in that very thing, wherein these 
 men thought to have blotted me ; and hath given 
 
 N Q 
 
180 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 them the proof of a capacity, which they despised, 
 running equal, and authentic with some of their 
 chiefest masters unthought of, and in a point of 
 sagest moment. However, if we know at all when 
 to ascribe the occurrences of this life to the work 
 of a Special Providence, as nothing is more usual 
 in the talk of good men, what can be more like to a 
 special Providence of God, that in the first refor- 
 mation of England, that this question of divorce, as 
 a main thing to be restored to just freedom, was 
 written, and seriously commended to Edward the 
 Vlth, by a man called from another country to be 
 the instructor of our nation ; and now in this pre- 
 sent renewing of the church and commonwealth, 
 which we pray may be more lasting, that the same 
 question should be again treated and presented to 
 this parliament, by one enabled to use the same rea- 
 sons without the least sight or knowledge of what 
 was done before ? It were no trespass, lords and 
 commons ! though something of less note were 
 attributed to the ordering of a heavenly power ; this 
 question therefore of such prime concernment both 
 to x^hristian and civil welfare, in such an extraordi- 
 nary manner, not recovered, but plainly twice borne 
 to these latter ages, as from a divine hand I tender to 
 your acceptance, and most considerate thoughts. 
 Think not that God raised up in vain a man of 
 greatest authority in the church, to tell a trivial and 
 licentious tale in the ears of that good prince, and 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ISl 
 
 to bequeath it as his last will and testament, nay 
 rather as the testament and royal law of Christ to 
 this nation ; or that it should of itself, after so many 
 years, as it were in a new field where it was never 
 sown, grow up again as a vicious plant in the mind 
 of another, who had spoke honestest things to the 
 nation ; though he knew not that what his youth 
 then reasoned without a pattern had been heard 
 already, and well allowed from the gravity and worth 
 of Martin Bucer : till meeting with the envy of men 
 ignorant in their own undertaken caUing, God di- 
 rected him to the forgotten writing of this faithful 
 evangelist, to be his defence and warrant against the 
 gross imputation of broaching licence. Ye are now 
 in the glorious way to high virtue, and matchless 
 deeds, trusted with a most inestimable trust, the 
 asserting of our just liberties. Ye have a nation 
 that expects now, and from mighty sufferings 
 aspires to be the example of all Christendom to a 
 perfectest reforming. Dare to be as great, as ample, 
 and as eminent in the fair progress of your noble 
 designs, as the full and goodly stature of truth 
 and excellence itself; as unlimited by petty pre- 
 cedents and copies, as your unquestionable calling 
 from Heaven gives ye power to be. What are all 
 our public immunities and privileges worth, and 
 how shall it be judged, that we fight for them with 
 minds worthy to enjoy them, if we suffer ourselves 
 in the mean while not to understand the most im» 
 
182 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 portant freedom, that God and nature hath given us 
 in the family ; which no wise nation ever wanted, 
 till the popery and superstition of some former ages 
 attempted to remove and alter divine and most pru- 
 dent laws for human and most imprudent canons: 
 whereby good men in the best portion of their lives, 
 and in that ordinance of God, which entitles them 
 from the beginning to most just and requisite con- 
 tentments, are compelled to civil indignities, which 
 by the law of Moses bad men were not compelled 
 to ? Be not bound about, and straitened in the 
 spacious wisdom of your free spirits, by the scanty 
 and unadequate and inconsistent principles of such 
 as condemn others for adhering to traditions, and 
 are themselves the prostrate worshippers of cus- 
 tom ; and of such a tradition as they can deduce 
 from no antiquity, but from the rudest and thickest 
 barbarism of antichristian times. But why do I 
 anticipate the more acceptable and prevailing voice 
 of learned Bucer himself, the pastor of nations ? 
 And O that I could set him living before ye in that 
 doctoral chair, where once the learnedest of Eng- 
 land thought it no disparagement to sit at his feet ! 
 He would be such a pilot, and such a father to ye, 
 as ye would soon find the difference of his hand 
 and skill upon the helm of reformation. Nor do I 
 forget that faithful associate of his labours, Paulus 
 Fagius ; for these their great names and merits, 
 how precious soever, God hath now joined with me 
 
DISCIPLINE OV DIVORCE. IBS 
 
 wecessarily, in the good or evil report of this doc- 
 trine, which I leave for you. It was written to a 
 religious king of this land ; written earnestly, as a 
 main matter wherein this kingdom needed a reform, 
 if it purposed to be the kingdom of Christ : written 
 by him, who if any, since the days of Luther, 
 merits to be counted the Apostle of our Church : 
 whose unwearied pains and watching for our sakes, 
 as they spent him quickly here among us, so did 
 they, during the shortness of his life, incredibly 
 promote the gospel throughout this realm. The 
 authority, the learning, the godliness of this man 
 consulted with, is able to out-balance all that the 
 lightness of a vulgar opposition can bring to coun- 
 terpoise. I leave him also as my complete surety 
 and testimonial, if truth be not the best witness to 
 itself, that what I formerly presented to your read- 
 ing on this subject was good, and just, and honest, 
 not licentious. Not that I have now more confi- 
 dence by the addition of these great authors to my 
 party: for what I wrote was not my opinion, but 
 my knowledge ; even then when I could trace no 
 footstep in the way I went : nor that I think to win 
 upon your apprehensions with numbers and with 
 names, rather than with reasons ; yet certainly the 
 worst of my detractors will not except against so good 
 bail of my integrity and judgment, as now appears 
 for me. They must else put in the fame of Bucer 
 
184 . THE DOCTRINE. AND 
 
 and of Fagius, as my accomplices and confederates, 
 into the same indictment; they must dig up the 
 good name of these prime worthies (if their names 
 could be ever buried) they must dig them up and 
 brand them as the papists did their bodies; and 
 those their pure unblamable spirits, which live not 
 only in Heaven, but in their writings, they must 
 attaint with new attaintures, which no protestant 
 ever before aspersed them with. Or if perhaps we 
 may obtain to get our appeachment new drawn a 
 writ of error, not of libertinism, that those two prin- 
 cipal leaders of reformation may not now come to 
 be sued in a bill of licence, to the scandal of our 
 church ; the brief result will be, that for the error, 
 if their own works be not thought sufficient to de- 
 fend them, their lives yet, who will be ready, in a 
 fair and christianly discussive way, to debate and 
 sift this matter to the utmost ounce of learning and 
 religion, in him that shall lay it as an error, either 
 upon Martin Bucer, or any other of his opinion. 
 If this be not enough to qualify my traducers, and 
 that they think it more for the wisdom of their viru- 
 lence, not to recant the injuries they have bespoke 
 me, I shall not, for much more disturbance than 
 they can bring me, intermit the prosecution of those 
 thoughts, which may render me best serviceable, 
 either to this agCi or if it so happen, to posterity; 
 following the fair path, which your illustrious ex- 
 
DISCIPLINE OP DIVORCE. 185 
 
 ploits, honoured lords and commons ! against the 
 breast of tyranny have opened ; and depending so 
 on your happy successes in the hopes that I have 
 conceived either of myself, or of the nation, as must 
 needs conclude me one v^^ho most affectionately 
 wishes and awaits the prosperous issue of your 
 jjoble and valorous counsels, 
 
 John Milton, 
 
THE 
 
 JUDGIVIENT OF MARTIN BUCER, 
 
 TOUCHING 
 
 DIVORCE: 
 
 Taken out of the Second Book, entitled, " Of the 
 Kingdom of Christ;" written by Martin Bucer to 
 Edward the Sixth, King of England. 
 
 CHAP. XV. 
 
 The seventh law of the sanctifying and ordering of marriage. 
 That the ordering of marriage belongs to the civil power. 
 That the Popes have evaded by fraud and force the ordering 
 of marriage. 
 
 Besides these things, Christ our king, and his 
 churches require from your sacred majesty, that 
 you would take upon you the just care of marriages. 
 For it is unspeakable how many good consciences 
 are hereby entangled, afflicted, and in danger, be- 
 cause there are no just laws, no speedy way consti- 
 tuted according to God's word, touching this holy 
 society and fountain of mankind. For seeing matri- 
 mony is a civil thing, men, that they may rightly 
 contract, inviolably keep, and not without extreme 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ]87 
 
 necessity dissolve marriage, are not only to be 
 taught by the doctrine and discipline of the church, 
 but also are to be acquitted, aided and compelled 
 by laws and judicature of the commonwealth. 
 Which thing pious, emperors acknowledging, and 
 therein framing themselves to the law of nations, 
 gave laws both of contracting and preserving, and 
 also where an unhappy need required, of divorcing 
 marriages. As may be seen in the Code of Jus- 
 tinian, the 5th book, from the beginning through 
 twenty-four titles. And in the authentic of Jus- 
 tinian the 22d, and some others. 
 
 But the Antichrist of Rome, to get the imperial 
 power into their own hands, first by fraudulent 
 persuasion, afterwards by force drew to themselves 
 the whole authority of determining and judging as 
 well in matrimonial causes as in most other matters. 
 Therefore it has been long believed, that the care 
 and government thereof doth not belong to the civil 
 magistrate.. Yet where the gospel of Christ is re- 
 ceived, the laws of Antichrist should be rejected. 
 If therefore kings and governors take not this care, 
 by the power of law and justice to provide that 
 marriages be piously contracted, religiously kept, 
 and lawfully dissolved, if need require, who sees 
 not what confusion and trouble is brought upon this 
 holy society : and what a rack is prepared, even for 
 many of the best consciences, while they have no 
 certain laws to follow, no justice to implore, if any 
 
188 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 intolerable thing happen ? And haw much it con- 
 cerns the honour and safety of the commonwealth^ 
 that marriages according to the will of Christ, be 
 made, maintained, and not without just cause dis- 
 solved, who understands not ? For unless that first 
 and holiest society of man and woman be purely 
 constituted, that household discipline may be up- 
 held by them according to God's law, how can we 
 expect a race of good men ? Let your majesty 
 therefore know, that this is your duty, and in the 
 first place, to re-assume to yourself the just ordering 
 of matrimony, and by firm laws to establish and 
 defend the religion of this first and divine society 
 among men, as all wise law-givers of old, and chris- 
 tian emperors have carefully done. 
 
 The two next chapters^ because they chiefiy treat about 
 the degrees of consanguinity and affinity ^ I omit; only 
 setting down a passage or two concerning the judicial 
 laws of Mosesy how fit they be for Christians to imi- 
 tate rather than any other. 
 
 CHAP.XVIII. 
 
 Towards the end. 
 
 1 CONFESS that we, being free in Christ, are 
 not bound to the civil laws of Moses in every 
 circumstance; yet seeing no laws can be more 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 189 
 
 honest, just, and wholesome, than those which 
 God himself gave, who is eternal wisdom and good- 
 ness, I see not why Christians, in things which no 
 less appertain to them, ought not to follow the 
 laws of God, rather than of any men. We are not 
 to use circumcision, sacrifice, and those bodily 
 washings prescribed to the Jews; yet by these 
 things we may rightly learn, with what purity and 
 devotion both baptism and the Lord's Supper should 
 be administered and received. How much more is 
 it our duty to observe diligently what the Lord hath 
 commanded, and taught by the examples of his 
 people concerning marriage, whereof we have the 
 use no less than they ? 
 
 And because this same worthy author hath ano- 
 ther passage to this purpose, in his comment upon 
 Matthew, chap. v. 19, I here insert it from p. 46. 
 
 Since we have need of civil laws, and the power 
 
 of punishing, it will be wisest not to contemn those 
 
 given by Moses; but seriously rather to consider 
 
 what the meaning of God was in them, what he 
 
 chiefly required, and how much it might be to the 
 
 good of every nation, if they would borrow thence 
 
 their manner of governing the commonwealth ; yet 
 
 freely all things and with the spirit of Christ. For 
 
 what Solon, or Plato, or Aristotle, what lawyers or 
 
 Caesars could make better laws than God ? And 
 
 it is no light argument, that many magistrates at this 
 
 day do not enough acknowledge the kingdom of 
 
190 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Christ, though they would seem most Cliristian, in 
 that they govern their states by laws so diverse from 
 those of Moses. 
 
 The 18th chapter I only mention^as determining 
 a thing not here in question, that marriage without 
 consent of parents ought not to be held good ; yet 
 with this qualification fit to be known. 
 
 That if parents admit not the honest desires of 
 their children, but shall persist to abuse the power 
 they have over them ; they are to be mollified by 
 admonitions, entreaties, and persuasions, first of their 
 friends and kindred, next of the church-elders. 
 Whom if still the hard parents refuse to hear, then 
 ought the magistrate to interpose his power: lest 
 any by the evil mind of their parents be detained 
 from marriage longer than is meet, or forced to an 
 untimely match : in which case the Roman laws 
 also provided. C. de Nupt. 1. 11, 13, 26. 
 
 CHAP. XIX. 
 
 Whether it may he permitted to revoke the promise of mar- 
 riage. 
 
 Here ariseth another question concerning con- 
 tracts, when they ought to be unchangeable ? for 
 religious emperors decreed, that the contract was 
 not indissoluble, until the spouse were brought 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. I9I 
 
 home, and the solemnities performed. They thought 
 it a thing unworthy of divine and human equity, 
 and the due consideration of man^s infirmity in de- 
 liberating and determining, when space is given to 
 renounce other contracts of much less moment, 
 which are not yet confirmed before the magistrate, 
 to deny that to the most weighty contract of mar- 
 riage, which requires the greatest care and consulta- 
 tion. Yet lest such a covenant should be broken 
 for no just cause, and to the injury of that person 
 to whom marriage was promised, they decreed a 
 fine, that he who denied marriage to whom he had 
 promised, and for some cause not approved by the 
 judges, should pay the double of that pledge which 
 was given at making sure, or as much as the judge 
 should pronounce might satisfy the damage, or the 
 hinderance of either party. It being most certain, 
 that ofttimes after contract just and honest causes of 
 departing from promise come to be known and 
 found out, it cannot be other than the duty of pious 
 princes, to give men the same liberty of unpromis- 
 ing in these cases, as pious emperors granted: es- 
 pecially where there is only a promise, and not car- 
 nal knowledge. And as there is no true marriage 
 between them, who agree not in true consent of 
 mind ; so it will be the part of godly magistrates, 
 to procure that no matrimony be among their sub- 
 jects, but what is knit with love and consent. And 
 though your majesty be not bound to the imperial 
 
192 THE DOCTRINE AND^ 
 
 laws, yet it is the duty of a Christian king, to em^ 
 brace and follow whatever he knows to be any 
 where piously and justly constituted, and to be 
 honest, just, and well-pleasing to his people. But 
 why in God's law, and the examples of his saints^ 
 nothing hereof is read, no marvel ; seeing his an- 
 cient people had power, yea a precept, that whoso 
 could not bend his mind to the true love of his 
 wife, should give her a bill of divorce, and send her 
 from him, though after carnal knowledge and long 
 dwelling together. This is enough to authorize a 
 godly prince in that indulgence, which he gives to 
 the changing of a contract ; both because it is cer- 
 tainly the invention of Antichrist, that the promise 
 of marriage de prcBsenti, as they call it, should be 
 indissoluble, and because it should be a prince's 
 care, that matrimony be so joined, as God ordained ; 
 which is, that every one should love his wife with 
 such a love as Adam expressed to Eve : so as we 
 may hope, that they who marry may become one 
 flesh, and one also in the Lord. 
 
 CHAP. XX. 
 
 Concerns only the celebration of maiTiage. 
 
Discipline of divorce. 193 
 
 CHAP. XXf. 
 
 The means of preserving marriage holy and pure. 
 
 Now since there ought not to be less care, that 
 marriage be rehgiously kept, than that it be piously 
 and deliberately contracted, it will be meet, that to 
 every church be ordained certain grave and godly 
 men, who may have this care upon them, to ob- 
 serve whether the husband bear himself wisely to- 
 ward the wife, loving, and inciting her to all piety, 
 and the other duties of this life ; and whether 
 the wife be subject to her husband, and study to be 
 truly a meet help to him, as first to all godliness, so 
 to every other use of life. And if they shall find 
 each to other failing of their duty, or the one long 
 absent from the other without just and urgent cause, 
 or giving suspicion of irreligious and impure life, or 
 of living in manifest wickedness^ let it be admo- 
 nished them in time. And if th^ir authority be 
 contemned, let the names of such contemners be 
 brought to the magistrate, who may qse punishment 
 to compel such violators of marriage to their duty, 
 that they may abstain from all probable suspicion 
 of transgressing ; and if they admit of suspected 
 company, the magistrate* is to forbid them; whom 
 they not therein obeying, are to be punished as 
 adulterers, according to the law of Justinian, Au- 
 
 o 
 
194 THE DOCTRINE AliD 
 
 thent. 1 17. For if holy wedlock, the fountain and 
 seminary of good subjects, be not vigilently pre- 
 served from all blots and disturbances, what can be 
 hoped, as I said before, of the springing up of good 
 men, and a right reformation of the commonwealth? 
 We know it is not enough for Christians to abstain 
 from foul deeds, but from the appearance and sus- 
 picion thereof. 
 
 CHAP. XXII. 
 
 Of lawful divorce, what the ancient churches have thought. 
 
 Now we shall speak about that dissolving of ma- 
 trimony, which may be approved in the sight of 
 God, if any grievous necessity require. In which 
 thing the Roman Antichrists have knit many a per- 
 nicious entanglement to distressed consciences : for 
 that they might here also exalt themselves above 
 God, as if they would be wiser and chaster than 
 God himself is ; for no cause, honest or necessary, 
 will they permit a final divorce : in the meanwhile, 
 whoredoms and adulteries, and worse things than 
 these, not only tolerating in themselves and others, 
 but cherishing and throwing men headlong into 
 these evils. For although they also disjoin married 
 persons from board and bed, that is, from all conju- 
 gal society and communion, and this not only for 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCB. 195 
 
 adultery, but for ill-usage, and matrimonial duties 
 denied ; yet they forbid those thus parted, to join in 
 wedlock with others : but, as I said before, any dis- 
 honest associating they permit. And they pro- 
 nounce the bond of marriage to remain between 
 those whom they have thus separated* As if the 
 bond of marriage, God so teaching and pronounc- 
 ing, were not such a league as binds the married 
 couple to all society of life, and communion in di- 
 vine and human things ; and so associated keeps 
 them. Something indeed out of the later fathers 
 they may pretend for this their tyranny, especially 
 out of Austria and some others, who were much 
 taken with a preposterous admiration of single life; 
 yet though these fathers, from the words of Christ 
 not rightly understood, taught that it was unlawftil 
 to marry again, while the former life lived, whatever 
 cause there had been either of desertion or divorce ; 
 yet if we mark the custom of the church, and the 
 common judgment which both in their times and 
 afterward prevailed, we shall perceive, that neither 
 these fathers did ever cast out of the church any 
 one for marrying after a divorce, approved by the 
 imperial laws. 
 
 Nor only the first Christian emperors, but the 
 latter also, even to Justinian and after him, did grant 
 for certain causes approved by judges, to make a 
 true divorce ; which made and confirmed by law, 
 it might be lawful to marry again ; whioh if it 
 
 o 2 
 
}96 THE DOCTRmE AND 
 
 could not have been done without displeasing Christ 
 and his church, surely it would not have been 
 granted by Christian emperors, nor had the fathers 
 then winked at those doings in the emperors. Hence 
 ye may see that Jerome also, though zealous of 
 single life more than enough, and such a condemner 
 of second marriage, though after the death of either 
 party, yet forced by plain equity, defended Fabiola, 
 a noble matron of Rome, who, having refused her 
 husband for just causes, was married to another. 
 For that the sending of a divorce to her husband 
 was not blame-worthy, he affirms because the man 
 was heinously vicious ; and that if an adulterous 
 .wife may be discarded, an adulterous husband is not 
 to be kept. But that she married again, while yet 
 her husband w^as alive ; he defends in that the apos- 
 tle hath said, * It is better to marry than to burn ;' 
 and that young widows should marry, for such was 
 Fabiola, and could not remain in widowhood. 
 
 But some one will object, that Jerome there add&, 
 " Neither did she know the rigour of the gospel, 
 wherein all cause of marrying is debarred from wo- 
 men, while their husbands Uve ; and again, while 
 she avoided many wounds of Satan, she received 
 one ere she was aware." But let the equal reader 
 mind also what went before ; " Because," saith he, 
 soon after the beginning, " there is a rock and storm 
 of slanderers opposed before her, I will not praise 
 her converted, unless I first absolve her guilty." For 
 
D5SCIPMNE Of DIVORCE. 197 
 
 "vrhy does he call them slanderers, who accused Fa- 
 biola of marrying again, if he tJid not judge it a 
 matter of Christian equity and charity, to pass by 
 and pardon that fact, though in his own opinion he 
 held it a fault ? And what can this mean, " I will 
 not praise her, unless I first absolve her ?" For how 
 could he absolve her, but by proving that Fabiola, 
 neither in rejecting her vicious husband, nor in mar- 
 rying another, had committed sucb a sin, as could 
 foe justly condemned ? Nay, he proves both by 
 evident reason, and clear testimonies of scripture, 
 that she avoided sin. 
 
 This is also hence understood, that Jerome by the 
 rigour of the gospel, meant that height and perfec- 
 tion of our Saviour's precept, which might be re- 
 tiritted to those that burn ; for he adds, " But if she 
 be accused in that she remained not unmarried, I 
 shall confess the fault, so I may relate the ne- 
 cessity/* If then he acknowledged a necessity, as 
 he did, because she was young, and could not live 
 in widowhood, certainly he could not impute her 
 second marriage to her much blame : but when he 
 excuses her out of the word of God, does he not 
 openly declare his thoughts, that the second mar- 
 riage of Fabiola was permitted her by the Holy 
 Ghost himself, for the necessity which he suffered, 
 and to shun the danger of fornication, though she 
 went somewhat aside from the rigour of the gospel ? 
 But if any urge, that Fabiola did public penance 
 
198 THE DOCRTRINE AND 
 
 for her second marriage, which, was not imposed but 
 for great faults ; it is answered, she was not enjoined 
 to this penance, but did it of her own accord, " and 
 not till after her second husband^s death. '^ As in 
 the time of Cyprian, we read that many were wont 
 to do voluntary penance for small faults, which were 
 not liable to excommunication. 
 
 CHAP. XXIII. 
 
 That marriage was granted by the ancient fathers, even after 
 the vow of single life, 
 
 I omit his testimonies out of Cyprian, Gellasius, Epipha- 
 nius, contented only to relate what he thence collects 
 to the present purpose. 
 
 Some will say perhaps, wherefore all this concern- 
 ing marriage after vow of single life, whenas the ques- 
 tion was of marriage after divorce ? For this reason, 
 that they whom it so much moves, because some of 
 the fathers thought marriage after any kind of divorce 
 to be condemned of our Saviour, may see that this 
 conclusion follows not. The fathers thought all 
 marriage after divorce to be forbidden of our 
 Saviour, therefore they thought such marriage was 
 not to be tolerated in a Christian. For the same 
 fathers judged it forbidden to marry after vow ; yet 
 such marriages they neither dissolved nor excom- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 1^ 
 
 municated : for these words of our Saviour, and of 
 the Holy Ghost, stood in their way ; " All cannot 
 receive this saying, but they to whom it is given. 
 Every one hath his proper gift from God, one after 
 this manner another after that. It is better to 
 marry than to burn. I will that younger widows 
 marry ;" and the like. 
 
 So there are many canons and laws extant, 
 whereby priests, if they married, were removed 
 from their office, yet is it not read that their mar- 
 riage was dissolved, as the papists now-a-days do, 
 or that they were excommunicated, nay expressly 
 they might communicate as laymen. If the consi- 
 deration of human infirmity, and those testimonies 
 of divine scripture which grant marriage to every 
 one that wants it, persuaded those fathers to bear 
 themselves so humanely toward them who had 
 married with breach of vow to God, as they beheved, 
 and with divorce of that marriage wherein they were 
 in a manner joined to God ; who doubts, but that 
 the same fathers held the like humanity was to be 
 afforded to those, who after divorce and faith broken 
 with men, as they thought, entered into a second 
 marriage ? For among such are also found no less 
 weak, and no less burning. 
 
800 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 CHAP. XXIV. 
 
 Who of the ancient fathers have granted marriage after 
 divorce. 
 
 This is clear both by what hath been said, and 
 by that which Origen relates of certain bishops in 
 his time, Homil. 7. in Matth. " I know some," 
 saith he, " which are over churches, who without 
 scripture have permitted the wife to marry while 
 her former husband lived. And did this against 
 scripture, which saith, the wife is bound to her 
 husband so long as he lives ; and she shall be called 
 an adulteress, if, her husband living, she take ano- 
 ther man ; yet did they not permit this without 
 cause, perhaps for the infirmity of such as had not 
 continence, they permitted evil to avoid worse.^' 
 Ye see Origen and the doctors of his age, not with- 
 out all cause, permitted women after divorce to 
 marry, though their former husbands were living ; 
 yet writes that they permitted against scripture. 
 But what cause could they have to do so, unless 
 they thought our Saviour in his precepts of divorce 
 had so forbidden, as willing to remit such perfec- 
 tion to his weaker ones, cast into danger of worse 
 faults ? 
 
 The same thought Leo, bishop of Rome, Ep. 85. 
 to the African bishops of Mauritania Caesariensis, 
 wherein complaining of a certain priest, who divorc- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 201 
 
 ing his wife, or being divorced by her, as other 
 copies have it, had married another, neither dissolves 
 the matrimony, nor excommunicates him, only 
 unpriests him. The fathers therefore, as we see, did 
 not simply and wholly condemn marriage after 
 divorce. 
 
 But as for me, this remitting of our Saviour's 
 precepts, which these ancients allow to the infirm 
 in marrying after vow and divorce, I can in no ways 
 admit ; for whatsoever plainly consents not with the 
 commandment, cannot, I am certain, be permitted, 
 or suffered in a Christian : for heaven and earth 
 shall pass away, but not a tittle from the commands 
 gf God among them who expect life eternal. Let 
 us therefore consider, and weigh the words of our 
 Lord concerning marriage and divorce, which he 
 pronounced both by himself, and by his apostle, 
 and let us compare them with other oracles of God; 
 for whatsoever is contrary to these, I shall not per- 
 suade the least tolerating thereof. But if it can be 
 taught to agree with the word of God, yea to be 
 commanded, that most men may have permission 
 given them to divorce and marry again, 1 must 
 prefer the authority of God's word before the opi- 
 nion of fathers and doctors, as they themselves 
 teach. 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 CHAP. XXV. 
 
 The words of our Lord, and of the Holy Ghost, by the 
 Apostle Paul concerning divorce, are explained. The first 
 Axiom, that Christ could not condemn of adultery, that 
 which he once commanded. 
 
 But the words of our Lord, and of the Holy 
 Ghost, out of which Austin and some others of the 
 fathers think it concluded, that our Saviour forbids 
 marriage after any divorce, are these ; Matt. v. 31, 
 32. ' It hath been said,^ &c. : and Matt. xix. 7, 
 ' They say unto him, why did Moses then com- 
 mand,' &c.: and Mark x. and Luke xvi. Rom. vii. 
 1, 2, 3. 1 Cor. vii. 10, 11. Hence therefore they 
 conclude, that all marriage after divorce is called 
 adultery ; which to commit, being no ways to be 
 tolerated in any Christian, they think it follows, 
 that second marriage is in no case to be permitted 
 either to the divorcer, or to the divorced. 
 
 But that it may be more fully and plainly per- 
 ceived what force is in this kind of reasoning, 
 it will be the best course, to lay down certain 
 grounds whereof no Christian can doubt the 
 truth. First, it is a wickedness to suspect,- that 
 our Saviour branded that for adultery, which him- 
 self, in his own law which he came to fulfil, and 
 not to dissolve, did not only permit, but also com- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 203 
 
 mand; for by him, the only mediator, was the 
 ^hole law of God given. But that by this law of 
 God marriage was permitted after any divorce, is 
 certain by Deut. xxiv. 1. 
 
 CHAP. XXVI. 
 
 That God in his law did not only grant, but also command 
 divorce to certain men, 
 
 Deut. xxiv. 1. ' When a man hath taken a 
 wife,' &c. But in Mai. ii. 15, 16, is read the 
 Lord's command to put her away whom a man 
 hates, in these words : ' Take heed to your spirit, 
 and let none deal injuriously against the wife of his 
 youth. If he hate, let him put away, saith the 
 Lord God of Israel. And he shall hide thy violence 
 with his garment,' that marries her divorced by 
 thee, ' saith the Lord of Hosts ; but take heed to 
 your spirit, and do no injury.' By these testimo- 
 nies of the divine law, we see, that the Lord did 
 not only permit, but also expressly and earnestly 
 commanded his people, by whom he would that all 
 holiness and faith of marriage covenant should be 
 observed, that he, who could not induce his mind 
 to love his wife with a true conjugal love, might 
 dismiss her, that she might marry to another. 
 
204 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 CHAP. XXVII. 
 
 That what the Lord permitted and commanded to his ancient 
 people concerning divorce belongs also to Christians. 
 
 Now what the Lord permitted to his first-born 
 people, that certainly he could not forbid to his 
 own among the Gentiles, whom he made co-heirs, 
 and into one body with his people ; nor could he 
 ever permit, much less command aught that was 
 not good for them, at least so used as he command- 
 ed. For being God, he is not changed as man. 
 Which thing who seriously considers, how can he 
 imagine, that God would make that wicked to them 
 that believe, and serve him under grace, which he 
 granted and commanded to them that served him 
 under the law ? Whenas the same causes require 
 the same permission. And who that knows 
 but human matters, and loves the truth, will deny 
 that many marriages hang as ill together now, as 
 ever they did among the Jews ? So that such mar- 
 riages are liker to torments than true marriages. As 
 therefore the Lord doth always succour and help 
 the oppressed, so he would ever have it provided 
 for injured husbands and wives, that under pretence 
 of the marriage bond, they be not sold to perpetual 
 vexations, instead of the loving and comfortable 
 marriage duties. And lastly, as God doth always 
 detest hypocrisy and fraud, so neither doth he 
 
DISCIPLINE QF DIVORCE. 205 
 
 approve that among his people, that should be 
 counted marriage, wherein none of those duties 
 remain, whereby the league of wedlock is chiefly 
 preserved. What inconsiderate neglect then of 
 God's law is this, that I may not call it worse, to 
 hold that Christ our Lord would not grant the same 
 remedies both of divorce and second marriage to 
 weak, or to the evil, if they will needs have it so, 
 but especially to the innocent and wronged; whenas 
 the same urgent causes remain as before, when the 
 discipline of the church and magistrate hath tried 
 what may be tried ? 
 
 CHAP. XXVIII. 
 
 That our Lord Christ intended not to make new laws of mar' 
 riage and divorce, or of any civil matters. Axiom 2. 
 
 It is agreed by all who determine of the kingdom 
 and offices of Christ by the holy scriptures, as all 
 godly men ought to do, that our Saviour upon earth 
 took not on him either to give new laws in civil 
 affairs, or to change the old. But it is certain, that 
 matrimony and divorce are civil things. Which 
 the christian emperors knowing, gave conjugal laws, 
 and reserved the administration of them to their 
 own courts ; which no true ancient bishop ever 
 condemned. 
 
 Our Saviour came to preach repentance and re- 
 mission : seeing theretbre those, who put away their 
 
206 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 wives without any just cause, were not touchefd 
 with conscience of the sin, through misunderstand- 
 ing of the law, he re-called them to a right interpre- 
 tation, and taught, that the woman in the beginning 
 was so joined to the man, that there should be a 
 perpetual union both in body and spirit : where this 
 is not, the matrimony is already broke, before there 
 be yet any divorce made, or second marriage. 
 
 CHAP. XXIX, 
 
 That it is wicked to strain the words of Christ beyond their 
 purpose. 
 
 This is his third Axiom, whereof there needs no 
 explication here. 
 
 CHAP. XXX. 
 
 That all places of Scripture about the same thing are to be 
 joined and compared, to prevent contradictions. Axiom 4. 
 
 This he demonstrates at large out of sundry places in 
 the gospel, and principally by that precept against 
 swearing,* which, compared with many places of the 
 law and prophets, is a flat contradiction of them all, 
 if we follow superstitiously the letter. Then having 
 repeated briefly his four axioms, he thus proceeds : 
 
 These things thus pre-admonished, let us inquire 
 what the undoubted meaning is of our Saviour's 
 
 ♦ Matthew v. 34. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 207 
 
 words, and inquire according to the rule which is 
 observed by all learned and good men in their expo- 
 sitions ; that praying first to God, who is the only 
 opener of our hearts, we may first with fear and 
 reverence consider well the words of our Saviour 
 touching this question. Next, that we may com- 
 pare them with all other places of scripture treating 
 of this matter, to see how they consent with our 
 Saviour's words, and those of his apostle. 
 
 CHAP. XXXI. 
 
 This Chapter disputes against Austin and the 
 papists, who deny second marriage even to them 
 who divorce in case of adultery ; which because it 
 is not controverted among true protestants, but that 
 the innocent person is easily allowed to marry, I 
 spare the translating. 
 
 CHAP. xxxn. 
 
 That a manifest adulteress ought to he divorced^ and cannot 
 lawfully be retained in marriage by any true Christian. 
 
 This though he prove sufficiently, yet I let pass, 
 because this question was not handled in the Doc- 
 trine and Discipline of Divorce ; to which book I 
 bring 90 much of this treatise as runs parallel. 
 
208 THE DOCTRrNE AN0 
 
 CHAP, xxxni. 
 
 That adultery is to be punished with death. 
 
 This Chapter also I omit for the reason last 
 alleged. 
 
 CHAP. XXXIV. 
 
 That it is lawful /or a wife to leave an adulterer, and to marry 
 . another husband. 
 
 This is generally granted, and therefore excuses 
 me the writing out. 
 
 CHAP. XXXV. 
 
 Places in the writings of the apostle Paul, touching divorce, 
 explained. 
 
 Let us consider the answers of the Lord given 
 by the apostle severally. Concerning the first, 
 which is Rom. vii. 1, ' Know ye not, brethren, for 
 I speak to them that know the law,' &c. Ver. 2, 
 ' The woman is bound by the law to her husband so 
 long as he liveth.' Here it is certain, that the Holy 
 Ghost had no purpose to determine aught of mar- 
 riage, or divorce, but only to bring an example from 
 the common and ordinary law of wedlock, to show, 
 that as no covenant holds either party being dead^ 
 
DISCIPLINE QF DIVORCE. 209 
 
 SO now that we are nbt bound to the law, bujt to 
 Christ our Lord j seeing that through him we are 
 dead to sin, and to the law ; and so joined to Christ, 
 that we may bring forth fruit in him from a willing 
 godliness, and not by the compulsion of law, where- 
 by our sins are more excited, and become more 
 violent. What therefore the holy spirit here speaks 
 of matrimony, cannot be extended beyond the 
 general rule. 
 
 Besides it is manifest, that the apostle did allege 
 the law of wedlock, as it was delivered to the Jews ; 
 for, saith he, ' I speak* to them that know the law.' 
 They knew no law of God, but that by Moses,- 
 which plainly grants divorce f6r several reasons. It 
 cannot therefore be said, that the apostle cited this 
 general example out of the law, to abolish the 
 several exceptions of that law, which God himself 
 granted by giving authority to divorce. 
 
 Next, when the apostle brings an example out of 
 God's law concerning man and wife, it must be 
 necessary, that we understand such for man and 
 wife, as arie so indeed according to the same law of 
 God ; that is, who are so disposed, as that they are 
 both willing and able to perform the necessary du- 
 ties of marriage i not those who, under a false title 
 of marriage, keep themselves mutually bound to 
 injuries and disgraces; for such twain are nothing 
 less than lawful man and wife. 
 
 The like answer is to be given to all the other 
 places both of the gospel and the apostle, that what- 
 ever exception may be proved out of God's law, be 
 
 P 
 
210 THE DOCTRINE AN© 
 
 not excluded from those places. For the spirit of 
 God doth not condemn things formerly granted 
 and allowed, where there is like cause and reason. 
 Hence Ambrose, upon that place, 1 Cor. vii. 15, 
 ' A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such 
 cases, ^ thus expounds ; ' The reverence of marriage 
 is not due to him who abhors the anchor of mar- 
 riage ; nor is that marriage ratified, which is without 
 devotion to God : he sins not therefore, who is put 
 away for God^s cause, though he join himself to 
 another. For the dishonour of the Creator dis-* 
 solves the right of matrimony to him who is de- 
 serted, that he be not accused, though marrying to 
 another. The faith of wedlock is not to be kept 
 with him who departs, that he might not hear the 
 God of Christians to be the author of wedlock. 
 For if Ezra caused the misbelieving wives and hus- 
 bands to be divorced, that God might be appeased, 
 and not offended, though they took others of their 
 own faith, how much more shall it be free, if the 
 misbeliever depart, to marry one of our own reli- 
 gion. For this is not to be counted matrimony, 
 which is against the law of God/ 
 
 Two things are here to be observed toward the 
 following discourse, which truth itself and the force 
 of God*s word hath drawn from this holy man. 
 For those words are very large, ' Matrimony is not 
 ratified, without devotion to God.' And ' the dis- 
 honour of the Creator dissolves the right of matri- 
 mony.' For devotion is far off, and dishonour is 
 done to God by all who persist in any wickedness 
 and heinous crime. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 2\ 1 
 
 CHAP. XXXVL 
 
 That although it seem in the Gospel, as if our Saviour granted 
 divorce only for adultery, yet in very deed he granted it for 
 other causes also. 
 
 Now is to be dealt with this question, whether 
 it be lawful to divorce and marry again for other 
 causes besides adultery, since our Saviour expressed 
 that only ? To this question, if we retain our prin- 
 ciples already laid, and must acknowledge it to be a 
 cursed blasphemy, if we say that the words of God 
 do contradict one another, of necessity we must 
 confess, that our Lord did grant divorce, and mar- 
 riage after that, for other causes besides adultery, 
 notwithstanding what he said in Matthew. For 
 first, they who consider but only that place, 1 Cor. 
 vii. which treats of believers and misbelievers 
 matched together, must of force confess. That our 
 Lord granted just divorce, and second marriage in 
 the cause of desertion, which is other than the cause 
 of fornication. And if there be one other cause 
 found lawful, then is it most true, that divorce was 
 granted not only for fornication. 
 
 Next, it cannot be doubted, as I showed before, 
 by them to whom it is given to know God and his 
 judgments out of his own word, but that, what 
 means of peace and safety God ever granted and 
 ordained to his elected people, the same he grants 
 and ordains to men of all ages, who have equally 
 need of the same j:emedies. And who, that is but 
 
 p 2 
 
^12 TtfE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 a knowing man, dares say there be not husbands 
 and wives now to be found in such a hardness of 
 heart, that they will not perform either conjugal 
 affection, or any requisite duty thereof, though it 
 be most deserved at their hands ? 
 
 Neither can any one defer to confess, but that 
 God, whose property it is to judge the cause of 
 them that suffer injury, hath provided for innocent 
 and honest persons wedded, how they might free 
 themselves by lawful means of divorce, from the 
 bondage and iniquity of those who are falsely termed 
 their husbands or their wives. This is clear out of 
 Deut. xxiv. 1 ; Malach. ii. ; Matth. xix. 1 ; 1 Cor. 
 vii. ; and out of those principles, which the scrip- 
 ture every where teaches, that God changes not his 
 mind, dissents not from himself, is no accepter of 
 persons ; but allows the same remedies to all men 
 oppressed with the same necessities and infirmities ; 
 yea, requires that we should use them. This he 
 will easily perceive, who considers these things in 
 the spirit of the Lord. 
 
 Lastly, it is most certain, that the Lord hath 
 commanded us to obey the civil laws, every one of 
 his own commonwealth, if they be not against the 
 laws of God. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. gJ3 
 
 CHAP. XXXVII. 
 
 For tohai causes divorce is permitted by the civil law, ex I, 
 Consensu Codic, de Repudiis. 
 
 It is also manifest, that the law of Theodosus 
 and Valentinian, which begins " Consensu," &c. 
 touching divorce, and many other decrees of pious 
 emperors agreeing herewith, are not contrary to 
 the word of God : and therefore may be re-called 
 into use by any christian prince or commonwealth ; 
 nay, ought to be with due respect had to every na- 
 tion : for whatsoever is equal and just, that in every 
 thing is to be sought and used by Christians. 
 Hence it is plain, that divorce is granted by divine 
 approbation, both to husbands and to wives, if either 
 party can convict the other of these following 
 offences before the magistrate. 
 
 If the husband can prove the wife to be an adul- 
 teress or a murderess ; to have bought or sold 
 to slavery any one free-born, to have violated sepul- 
 chres, committed sacrilege, favoured thieves and 
 robbers, desirous of feasting with strangers, the hus- 
 band not knowing, or not wiUing ; if she lodge forth 
 without a just and probable cause, or frequent thea- 
 tres and sights, he forbidding ; if she be privy with 
 those that plot against the state, or if she deal 
 falsely, or offer blows. And if the wife can prove 
 her husband guilty of any those fore-named crimes, 
 and frequent the company of lewd women in her 
 sight ; or if he beat her, she had the like liberty to 
 
214 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 quit herself; with this difference, that the man after 
 divorce might forthwith marry again ; the woman 
 not till a year after, lest she might chance to have 
 conceived. 
 
 CHAP. XXXVIIL 
 
 An exposition of those places wherein God declares the nature 
 of holy wedlock. 
 
 Now to the end it may be seen, that this agrees 
 with the divine law, the first institution of marriage 
 is to be considered, and those texts in which Go^ 
 established the joining of male and female, and de- 
 scribed the duties of them both. When God had 
 determined to make woman, and gave her as a wife 
 to man, he spake thus. Gen. ii. 18, 'It is not good 
 for man to be alone, I will make him a helpmeet 
 for him. And Adam said,* but in the spirit of 
 God, V. 23, 24, ' This is now boneof my bone, and 
 flesh of my flesh : Therefore shall a man leave his 
 father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and 
 they shall be one flesh.' 
 
 To this first institution did Christ re-call his own ; 
 when answering the Pharisees, he condemned the 
 licence of unlawful divorce. He taught therefore 
 by his example, that we, according to this first insti- 
 tution, and what God hath spoken thereof, ought 
 to determine what kind of covenant marriage is, 
 how to be kept, and how far ; and lastly, for what 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 215 
 
 causes to be dissolved. To which decrees of God 
 these also are to be joined, which the Holy Ghost 
 hath taught by his apostle, that neither the husband 
 Dor the wife ' hath power of their own body, but 
 mutually each of cither's.^ That 'the husband 
 shall love the wife as his own body, yea as Christ 
 loves his church ; and that the wife ought to be 
 subject to her husband, as the church is to Christ.* 
 By these things the nature of holy wedlock is 
 certainly known ; whereof if only one be wanting 
 in both or either party, and that either by obstinate 
 malevolence, or too deep inbred weakness of mind, 
 or lastly, through incurable impotence of body, it 
 cannot then be said, that the covenant of matrimony 
 holds good between such ; if we mean that cove- 
 nant, which God instituted and called marriage, and 
 that whereof only it must be understood that our 
 Saviour said, ' Those whom God hath joined, let 
 no man separate.' 
 
 And hence it is concluded, that matrimony re- 
 quires continual cohabitation and living together, 
 unless the calling of God be otherwise evident ; 
 which union if the parties themselves disjoin either 
 by mutual consent, or one against the other's will 
 depart, the marriage is then broken. Wherein the 
 papists, as in other things, oppose themselves 
 against God : while they separate for many causes 
 from bed and board, and yet will have the bond of 
 matrimony remain, as if this covenant could be other 
 than the conjunction and communion not only of 
 bed and board, but of all other loving and helpful 
 
2J6* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 duties. This we may see in these words ; ' I 
 will make him a helpmeet for him; bone of his 
 bone, and flesh of his flesh : for this cause shall he 
 ieave father and mother, and cleave to his wife, and 
 they twain shall be one flesh/ By which words 
 who discerns not, that God requires of them both 
 so to live together, and to be united not only in 
 body but iii mind also, with such an affection as 
 pone may be dearer and more ardent among all the 
 relations of mankind, nor of more efficacy to the 
 mutual offices of love and loyalty? They must 
 communicate and consent in all things both divine 
 and human, which have any moment to well and 
 happy living. The wife must honour and obey her 
 husband, as the church honours and obeys Christ 
 her head. The husband must love and cherish his 
 wife, as Christ his church. Thus they must be to 
 each other, if they will be true man and wife in the 
 sight of God, whom certainly the churches ought to 
 follow in their judgment, Now the proper and 
 ultimate end of marriage is not copulation, or chil- 
 dren, fpr then there was not true matrimony between 
 Joseph and Mary the mother of Christ, nor between 
 many holy persons more ; but the full and proper 
 and main end of marriage is the communicating of 
 ^11 duties, both divine and human, each to other 
 >vith utmost benevolence and affection. 
 
DieClPMNF. OF DIVORCE. 217 
 
 CHAP. XXXIX, 
 
 The properties ofafrue and christian marriage more distinctly repeated. 
 
 By which definition we may know, that God es- 
 teems and reckons upon these four necessary pro- 
 perties to be in every true marriage. 1. That they 
 should live together, unless the calling of God re- 
 quire otherwise for a time. 2. That they should love 
 one another to the height of dearness, and that in the 
 Lord, and in the communion of true religion. 3. That 
 the husband bear himself as the head and preserver 
 of his wife ; instructing her to all godliness and in- 
 tegrity of life : that the wife also be to her husband 
 a help, according to her place, especially furthering 
 him in the true worship of God, and next in all the 
 occasions of civil life. And 4. That they defraud not 
 each other of conjugal benevolence, as the apostle 
 commands, 1. Cor. vii. Hence it follows, according 
 to the sentence of God, which all Christians ought 
 to be ruled by, that between those, who either 
 through obstinacy, or helpless inability, cannot or 
 will not perform these repeated duties, between 
 those there can be no true matrimony, nor ought 
 they to be counted man and wife. 
 
 CHAP. XL. 
 
 Whether those crimes recited chap. xxxviL out of the civil law, dissolve 
 matrimony in God's account. 
 
 Now if a husband or wife be found guilty of any 
 of those crimes, which by the law "consensu" are 
 made causes of divorce, it is manifest, that such a 
 man cannot be the head and preserver of his wife, 
 
218 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 nor such a woman be a meet help to her husband, 
 as the divine law in true wedlock requires ; for these 
 faults are punished either by death, or deportation, 
 or extreme infamy, which are directly opposite to the 
 covenant of marriage. If they deserve death, as 
 adultery and the like, doubtless God would not that 
 any should live in wedlock with them whom he 
 would not have to live aJ: all. Or if it be not death, 
 but the incurring of notorious infamy, certain it is 
 neither just, nor expedient, nor meet, that an honest 
 man should be coupled with an infamous woman, 
 nor an honest matron with an infamous man. The 
 wise Roman princes had so great a regard to the 
 equal honour of either wedded person, that they 
 counted those marriages of no force, which were 
 made between the one of good repute, and the other 
 of evil note. How much more will all honest regard 
 of christian expedience and comeliness beseem and 
 concern those who are set free and dignified in 
 Christ, than it could the Roman senate, or their 
 sons for whom that law was provided ? 
 
 And this all godly men will soon apprehend, that 
 he who ought to be the head and preserver not only 
 of his wife, but also of his children and family, as 
 Christ is of his church, had need be one of honest 
 name : so likewise the wife, which is to be the meet 
 help of an honest and good man, the mother of an 
 honest offspring and family, the glory of the man, 
 even as the man is the glory of Christ, should not be 
 tainted with ignominy ; as neither of them can avoid 
 to be, having been justly appeached of those fore- 
 named crimes ; and therefore cannot be worthy to 
 hold their place in a christian family: yea, they 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 219 
 
 themselves turn out themselves and dissolve that 
 holy covenant. And they who are true brethren 
 and sisters in the Lord are no more in bondage to 
 such violators of marriage. 
 
 But here the patrons of wickedness and dissolvers 
 of christian disciphne will object, that it is the part of 
 man and wife to bear one another's cross, whether in 
 calamity or infamy, that they might gain each other, 
 if not to a good name, yet to repentance and amend- 
 ment. But they who thus object, seek the impu- 
 nity of wickedness, and favour wicked men, not 
 the duties of true charity ; which prefers pubhc 
 honesty before private interest, and had rather the 
 remedies of wholesome punishment appointed by 
 God should be in use, than that by remissness the 
 licence of evil doing should increase. For if they 
 whp, by committing such offences, have made void 
 the only knot of marriage, be capable of repentance 
 they will be sooner moved when due punishment 
 is executed on them, than when it is remitted. 
 
 We must ever beware, lest, in contriving what 
 will be best for the soul's health of delinquents, we 
 make ourselves wiser and discreeter than God. He 
 that rehgiously weighs his oracles concerning marri- 
 age, cannot doubt, that they, who have committed 
 the foresaid transgressions, have lost the right of 
 matrimony, and are unworthy to hold their dignity 
 in an honest and christian family. 
 
 But if any husband or wife see such signs of re- 
 pentance in their transgressor, as that they doubt not 
 to regain them by continuing with them, and par- 
 taking of their miseries and attaintures, they maybe 
 left to their own hopes^ and their own mind ; saving 
 
220 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 ever the right of church and commonwealth, that it 
 receive no scandal by the neglect of due severity, 
 and their children no harm by this invitation to 
 licence, and vi^ant of good education. 
 
 From all these considerations, if they be thought 
 on, as in the presence of God, and out of his w^ord, 
 and one may perceive, w^ho desires to determine 
 of these things by the scripture, that those causes of 
 lawful divorce, which the most religious emperors 
 Theodosius and Valentinian set forth in the fore-cited 
 place, are according to the law of God, and the 
 prime institution of marriage ; and were still more 
 and more straitened, as the church and state of the 
 empire still more and more corrupted and degene- 
 rated. Therefore pious princes and commonwealths 
 both may and ought to establish them again, if they 
 have a mind to restore the honour, sanctity, and 
 religion of holy wedlock to their people, and dis- 
 entangle many consciences from a miserable and 
 perilous condition to a chaste and honest life. 
 
 To those recited causes wherefore a wife might 
 send a divorce to her husband, Justinian added four 
 more, Constit. 117; and four more, for which a 
 man might put away his wife. Three other causes 
 were added in the Code '* de repudiis, 1. Jubemus.^^ 
 All which causes are so clearly contrary to the first 
 intent of marriage, that they plainly dissolve it. 
 1 set them not down, being easy to be found in the 
 body of the civil law. 
 
 It was permitted also by christian emperors, that 
 they who would divorce by mutual consent, might 
 without impediment. Or if there were any diffi- 
 culty-at all in it, the law expresses the reason, that 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 221 
 
 it was only in favour of the children ; so that jf 
 there were none, the law of those godly emperors 
 made no other difficulty of a divorce by consent. 
 Or if any were minded without consent of the other 
 to divorce, and without those causes which have 
 been named, the christian emperors laid no other 
 punishment upon them, than that the husband 
 wrongfully divorcing his wife should give back 
 her dowry, and the use of that which was called 
 " Donatio propter nuptias ;^' or if there were no 
 dowry nor no donation, that he should then give 
 her the fourth part of his goods. The like penalty 
 was inflicted on the wife departing without just 
 cause. But that they who were once married should 
 be compelled to remain so ever against their wills, 
 was not exacted. Wherein those pious princes fol- 
 lowed the law of God in Deut. xxiv. 1, and his ex- 
 press charge by the prophet Malachi, to dismiss 
 from him the wife whom he hates. For God never 
 meant in marriage to give to man a perpetual torment 
 instead of a meet help. Neither can God approve, 
 that to the violation of this holy league (which is 
 violated as soon as true affection ceases and is lost) 
 should be added murder, which is already com- 
 mitted by either of them who resolvedly hates the 
 other, as 1 showed out of 1 John xv. « Whoso 
 hateth his brother, is a murderer.* 
 
 CHAP. XLI. 
 
 Whether the husband or wife deserted may marry to another. 
 
 The wife's desertion of her husband the christian 
 emperors plainly decreed to he a just cause of 
 
THE DOCTRINE AN» 
 
 divorce, whenas they granted him the right thereorf, 
 if she had but lain out one night against his will 
 without probable cause. But of the man deserting 
 his wife they did not so determine : yet if we look 
 into the word of God, we shall find, that he who 
 though but for a year without just cause forsakes his 
 wife, and neither provides for her maintenance nor 
 signifies his purpose of returning, and good will to- 
 wards her, whenas he may, hath forfeited his right 
 in her so forsaken. For the spirit of God speaks 
 plainly, that both man and wife have such power 
 over one another's person, as that they cannot de- 
 prive each other of living together, but by consent, 
 and for a time. 
 
 Hither may be added, that the holy spirit grants 
 desertion to be a cause of divorce, in those answers 
 given to the Corinthians concerning a brother or 
 sister deserted by a misbeliever. " If he depart, let 
 him depart, a brother or a sister is not under bon- 
 dage in such cases/' In which words, who sees 
 not that the Holy Ghost openly pronounced, that 
 the party without cause deserted is not bound for 
 another's wilful desertion, to abstain from marriage^ 
 if he have need thereof ? 
 
 But some will say, that this is spoken of a misbe- 
 liever departing. But I beseech ye, doth not he 
 reject the faith of Christ in his deeds, who rashly 
 breaks the holy covenant of wedlock instituted by 
 God ? And besides this the holy spirit does not 
 make the misbelieving of him who departs, but the 
 parting of him who disbelieves, to be the just cau^^e 
 of freedom to the brother or sister. 
 
 Since therefore it will be agreed among Christians, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 
 
 that they who depart from wedlock without just 
 cause, do not only deny the faith of matrimony, but 
 of Christ also, whatever they profess with their 
 mouths ; it is but reason to conclude, that the party 
 deserted is not bound in case of causeless desertion, 
 but that he may lawfully seek another consort, if 
 it be needful to him, toward a pure and blameless 
 conversation. 
 
 CHAP. XLIL 
 
 The impotence of body, leprosy, madness, ifc, are just causeg 
 pf divorce. 
 
 Of this, because it was not disputed in the Doc- 
 trine and Discipline of Divorce, him that would 
 know further I commend to the Latin original. 
 
 CHAP. XLHI. 
 
 That to grant divorce for all the causes which have hee^ 
 hitherto brought, disagrees not from the words of Christy 
 naming only the cause of adultery. 
 
 Now we must see how these things can stand 
 with the words of our Saviour, who seems directly 
 to forbid all divorce except it be for adultery. To 
 the understanding whereof, we must ever remember 
 tliis : That in the words of our Saviour there can 
 be no contrariety ; That his words and answers 
 are not to be stretched beyond the question proposed ; 
 That our Saviour did not there purpose to treat 
 of all the causes for which it might be lawful to di- 
 vorce and marry again ; for then that in the Corin^ 
 thians of marrying again without guilt of adultery 
 
224 THE DOCTRINE ANEr 
 
 could not be added. That it is not good for tba^ 
 man to be alone, who hath not the special gift front 
 above. That it is good for every such one to be 
 married, that he may shun fornication. 
 
 With regard to these principals, let us see w^hat 
 our Lord answered to the tempting Pharisees about 
 divorce, and second marriage, and how far his an*' 
 swer doth extend. 
 
 First, no man who is not very contentious will 
 deny, that the Pharisees asked our Lord whether 
 it were lawful to put away such a wife, as was truly, 
 and according to God's law, to be counted a wife ; 
 that is, such a one as would dwell with her husband, 
 and both would and could perform the necessary 
 duties of wedlock tolerably. But she who will not 
 dwell with her husband is not put away by him, 
 but goes of herself: and she who denies to be a meet 
 help, or to be so hath made herself unfit by open 
 misdemeanors, or through incurable impotencies 
 cannot be able, is not by the law of . God to be 
 esteemed a wife ; as hath been shewn both from the 
 first institution, and other places of scripture. Nei- 
 ther certainly would the Pharisees propound a ques- 
 tion concerning such an unconjugal wife ; for their 
 depravation of the law had brought them to that 
 pass, as to think a man had right to put away his 
 wife for any cause, though never so shght. Since 
 therefore it is manifest, that Christ answered the 
 Pharisees concerning a fit and meet wife according 
 to the law of God, whom he forbad to divorce for 
 any cause but fornication ; who sees not that it is a 
 wickedness so to wrest and extend that answer of his, 
 as if it forbad to divorce her who hath alreadv for- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOROE. 225 
 
 saken, or hath left the place and dignity of ^ wife, by 
 deserved infamy, or hath undertaken to be that 
 which she hath not natural ability to be ? 
 
 This truth is so powerful, that it hath moved 
 the papists to grant their kind of divorce for other 
 causes besides adultery, as for ill usage, and the 
 not performing of conjugal duty ; and to separate 
 from bed and board for these causes, which is as 
 much divorce as they grant for adultery. 
 
 But some perhaps will object, that though it be 
 yielded that our Lord granted divorce not only for 
 adultery, yet it is not certain, that he permitted 
 marriage after' divorce, unless for that only cause. 
 I answer, first, that the sentence of divorce and se- 
 cond marriage is one and the same. So that when 
 the right of divorce is evinced to belong not only 
 to the cause of fornication, the power of second 
 marriage is also proved to be not limited to that 
 cause only ; and that most evidently whenas the 
 Holy Ghost;, 1 Cor. vii. so frees the deserted party 
 from bondage, as that he may not only send a just 
 divorce in case of desertion, but may seek another 
 marriage. 
 
 Lastly, seeing God will not that any should live 
 in danger of fornication and utter ruin for the default 
 of another, and hath commanded the husband to 
 send away with a bill of divorce her whom he could 
 not love ; it is impossible that the charge of adul- 
 tery should belong to him who for lawful causes 
 divorces and marries, or to her who marries after 
 she hath been unjustly rejected, or to him who 
 receives her without all fraud to the former wed- 
 lock. For this were a horrid blasphemy against 
 
 Q 
 
226 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 God, SO to interpret his words, as to make him dis-i 
 sent from himself; for who sees not a flat contra- 
 diction in this, to enthral blameless men and women 
 to miseries and injuries, under a false and soothing 
 title of marriage, and yet to declare by his apostle, 
 that a brother or sister is not under bondage in 
 such cases ? No less do these two things conflict 
 with themselves, to enforce the innocent and fault- 
 less to endure the pain and misery of another's per- 
 verseness, or else to live in unavoidable temptation ; 
 and to affirm elsewhere that he lays on no man the 
 burden of another man's sin, nor doth constrain any 
 man to the endangering of his soul. 
 
 CHAP. XLIV. 
 
 That to those also ivho are justly divorcedy second marriage 
 ought to be permitted* 
 
 Thus although it be well proved, yet because it 
 concerns only the offender, I leave him to search 
 out his own charter himself in the author. 
 
 CHAP. XLV. 
 
 That some persons are so ordained to marriage, as that they 
 cannot obtain the gift of continence, no not by earnest 
 prayer ; and that therein every one is to be left to his own 
 judgment and conscience, and not to have a burden laid upon 
 him by any other. 
 
Di«CIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 227 
 
 CHAP. XLVl 
 
 The words of the Apostle cmicerning the praise of single lifk 
 unfolded. 
 
 These two chapters not so immediately debat- 
 ing the right of divorce, I choose rather not to 
 insert. 
 
 CHAP. XLVH. 
 
 The conclusion of this treatise. 
 
 These things, most renowned king, I have 
 brought together, both to explain for what causes 
 the unhappy but sometimes most necessary help of 
 divorce ought to be granted according to God's 
 word, by princes and rulers ; as also to explain how 
 the words of Christ do consent with such a grant. 
 I have been large indeed both in handling those 
 oracles of God, and in laying down those certaiil 
 principles, which he who will know what the mind 
 of God is in this matter, must ever think on and 
 remember. But if we consider what mist and ob- 
 scurity hath been poured out by Antichrist upon 
 this question, and how deep this pernicious con- 
 tempt of wedlock, and admiration of single li(e, even 
 in those who are not called thereto, hath sunk into 
 many men^s persuasions : 1 fear lest all that hath 
 been said be hardly enough to persuade such, that* 
 they would cease at length to make themselves 
 wiser and holier than God himself, in being to 
 
 Q 2 
 
22S THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 severe to grant lawful marriage, and so easy to con- 
 nive at all, not only whoredoms but deflowerings 
 and adulteries : whenas, among the people of God, 
 no whoredom was to be tolerated. 
 
 Our Lord Jesus Christ, who came to destroy the 
 works of Satan, sent down his spirit upon all Chris- 
 tians, and principally upon christian governors both 
 in church and commonwealth (for of the clear judg- 
 ment of your royal majesty I nothing doubt, revolv- 
 ing the scripture so often as ye do) that they may 
 acknowledge how much they provoke the anger of 
 God against tis, whenas all kind of unchastity is 
 tolerated, fornications and adulteries winked at ; but 
 holy and honourable wedlock is oft withheld by the 
 mere persuasion of Antichrist, from such as without 
 this remedy cannot preserve themselves from dam- 
 nation ! For none who hath but a spark of honesty 
 will deny, that princes and states ought to use dili- 
 gence toward the maintaining of pure and honest 
 life among all men, without which all justice, all 
 fear of God, and true religion decays, 
 
 And who knows not, that chastity and pureness 
 of life can never be restored, or continued in the 
 commonwealth, unless it be first established in pri- 
 vate houses, from whence the whole breed of men 
 js to come forth ? To effect this, no wise man can 
 doubt, that it is necessary for princes and magis- 
 trates first with severity to punish whoredom and 
 adultery; next to see that marriages, be lawfully 
 contracted, and in the Lord ; then that they be 
 faithfully kept ; and lastly, when that unhappiness 
 urges, that they be lawfully dissolved, and other 
 piarriage granted j according as the law of God, and 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 22§ 
 
 of nature, and the constitutions of pious princes 
 have decreed : as I have shewn both by evident 
 authorities of scripture, together with the writings 
 of the ancient fathers, and other testimonies. Only 
 the Lord grant that we may learn to prefer his ever 
 just and saving word, before the comments of Anti> 
 christ, too deeply rooted in many, and the false and 
 blasphemous exposition of our Saviour's words* 
 Amen. 
 
 A Postscript. 
 
 Thus far Martin Bucer* whom, were 1 might 
 without injury to either part of the cause, I deny 
 not to have epitomized ; in the rest observing a 
 well- warranted rule, not to give an inventory of so 
 many words, but to weigh their force, I could 
 have added that eloquent and right christian dis- 
 course, written by Erasmus on this argument, not 
 disagreeing in effect from Bucer. But this, I hope, 
 will be enough to excuse me with tlie mere Eng- 
 lishman, to be no forger of new and loose opinions^ 
 Others may read him in his own phrase on the first 
 to the Corinthians, and ease me who never could 
 delight in long citations, much less in whole tra- 
 ductions ; whether it be natural disposition or edu- 
 cation in me, or that my mother bore me a speaker 
 of what God made mine own, and not a translator. 
 There be others also whom I could reckon up, of 
 no mean account in the church (and Peter Martyr 
 among the first) who are more than half our own in 
 this controversy. But this is a providence not to 
 
1^30. THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 be slighted, that as Bucer wrote this tractate of di- 
 vorce in England and for England, so Erasmus pro- 
 fesses he begun here among us the same subject, 
 especially out of compassion, for the need he saw 
 this nation had of some charitable redress herein ; and 
 seriously exhorts others to use their best industry in 
 the clearing of this point, wherein custom hath a 
 greater sway than verity. That therefore which 
 came into the mind of these two admired strangers 
 to do for England, and in a touch of highest pru- 
 dence, which they took to be- not yet recovered 
 from monastic superstition, if I a native am found 
 to have done for mine own country, altogether suit- 
 ably and conformably to their so large and clear 
 understanding, yet without the least help of theirs ; 
 I suppose that henceforward among conscionable 
 and judicious persons it will no more be thought to 
 my discredit, or at all to this nation^s dishonour. 
 And if these their books the one shall be printed 
 often with best allowance in most religious cities, 
 the other with express authority of Leo the Tenth, 
 a pope, shall, for the propagating of truth, be pub- 
 lished and re-published, though against the received 
 opinion of that church, and mine containing but the 
 same thing, shall in a time of reformation, a time of 
 free speaking, free writing, not find a permission to 
 the press ; , 1 refer me to wisest men, whether truth 
 be suffered to be truth, or liberty to be liberty now 
 among us, and be not again in danger of new fetters 
 and captivity after all our hopes and labours lost: 
 and whether learning be not (which our enemies too 
 jirophetically feared) in the way to be trodden 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 231 
 
 down again by ignorance. Whereof while time 
 is, out of the faith owing to God and my country, 
 I bid this kingdom beware ; and doubt not but God 
 who hath dignified this parhament already to so 
 many glorious degrees, will also give them (which 
 is a singular blessing) to inform themselves rightly 
 in the' midst of an unprincipled age, and to prevent 
 this working mystery of ignorance and ecclesiastical 
 thraldom, which under new shapes and disguises 
 begins afresh to grow upon us. 
 
TETRACHORDON: 
 
 EXPOSITIONS 
 
 UP05J 
 
 The four chief places in Scripture which treat of Marj 
 riagCf or Nullities in Marriage. 
 
 Gen. i. 27, 28, c oift pared and explained by 
 
 Gen. ii. 18, 23, 24. 
 Deut. xxiv. 1, 2. 
 On \ Matt. v. 31, 32, with Matt. xix. from ver. 
 
 3 to 11. 
 1 Cor. vii. from ver. 10 to 16. 
 
 Wherein the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, as was 
 lately published, is confirmed by explanation of scrip- 
 ture, by testimony of ancient fathers, of civil laws in 
 the primitive church, of famousest reformed divines ; 
 and lastly by an intended act of the parliament and 
 church of England in the last year of Edward the 
 Sixth. 
 
 Tan ^' a,v ^qxhvtuv tl^eva^ n woixtAoy, 
 Kpiio"0"tfv vo/ucicrSsis £" woXtJ, At"ffl-po5 (pavrt, 
 
 Euripid. Medea. 
 
 TO THE PARLIAMENT. 
 
 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 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 2S3 
 
 which I saw, and was partaker of, your vows 
 and solemn covenants, parliament of England ! 
 your actions also manifestly tending to exak the 
 truth, and to depress the tyranny of error and ill 
 custom, with more constancy and prowess than ever 
 yet any since that parliament which put the first 
 sceptre of this kingdom into his hand whom God 
 and extraordinary virtue made their monarch ; were 
 the causes that moved me, one else not placing 
 much in the eminence of a dedication, to present 
 your high notice with a discourse, conscious to 
 itself of nothing more than of diligence, and firm 
 affection to the public good. And that ye took it 
 so as wise and impartial men, obtaining so great 
 power and dignity, are wont to accept, in matters 
 both doubtful and important what they think offered 
 them well meant, and from a rational ability, I had 
 no less than to persuade me. And on that persua- 
 sion am returned as to a famous and free port, my- 
 self also bound by more than a maritime law to ex- 
 pose as freely what fraughtage 1 conceive 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, entitled, *' The Doc- 
 trine and Discipline 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 less meditating, holds ever 
 with hardest obstinacy that which it took up with 
 easiest credulity ; I do not find yet that aught, for 
 the furious incitements which have been used, hath 
 issued by your appointment, that might give tlie 
 
234 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 least interruption or disrepute either to the author/ 
 or to the book. Which he who will be better ad- 
 vised than to call your neglect or connivance at a 
 thing imagined so perilous, can attribute it to nothing 
 more justly, than to the deep and quiet stream of 
 your direct and calm deliberations, that gave not 
 way either to the fervent rashness, or the immaterial 
 gravity of those who ceased not to exasperate with- 
 out cause. For which uprightness and incorrupt 
 refusal of what ye were incensed to, lords and com- 
 mons I (though it were done to justice, not to me, 
 and was a peculiar demonstration how far your 
 ways are different from the rash vulgar) besides those 
 allegiances of oath and duty, which are my public 
 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 than 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 cen- 
 sure, but wishes rather he might see those his de- 
 tractors at any fair meeting, as learned debatements 
 are privileged with a due freedom under equal mode- 
 rators ; I shall here briefly single one of them (be- 
 cause he hath obliged me to it) who I persuade me 
 having scarce read the book, nor knowing him who 
 writ it, or at least feigning the latter, hath not for- 
 born to scandalize him, unconferred with, unadmo- 
 nished, undealt with by any pastorly or brotherly 
 convinceitient, in the most open and invective man- 
 ner, and at the most bitter opportunity that drift or 
 set design could have invented. And this, when as 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 236 
 
 the canon law, though commonly most favouring the 
 boldness of their priests, punishes the naming or tra- 
 ducing of any person in the pulpit, was by him made 
 no scruple. If I shall therefore take license by the 
 right of nature, and that liberty wherein I was born, 
 to defend myself publicly against a printed calumny, 
 and do willingly appeal to those judges to whom I 
 am accused, it can be no immoderate or unallowa- 
 ble course^of seeking so just and needful reparations. 
 Which I had done long since, had not those em- 
 ployments, which are now visible, deferred me. It 
 was preached before ye, lords and commons! in 
 August last upon a special day of humiliation, that 
 " there was a wicked book abroad," and ye were 
 taxed of sin that it was yet '' uncensured, the book 
 deserving to be burnt ;" and " impudence*^ also was 
 charged upon the author, who durst " set his name 
 to it, and dedicate it to yourselves !*' First, lords 
 and commons ! I pray to that God, before whom 
 ye then were prostrate, so to forgive ye those omis- 
 sions and trespasses, which ye desire most should 
 find forgiveness, as I shall soon show to the world 
 how easily ye absolve yourselves of that which this 
 man calls your sin, and is indeed your wisdom, 
 and your nobleness, whereof to this day ye have 
 done well not to repent. He terms it " a wicked 
 book,'' and why but " for allowing other causes of 
 divorce, than Christ and his apostles mention ?'' 
 and with the same censure condemns of wickedness 
 not only Martin Bucer, that elect instrument of 
 reformation, highly honoured, and had in reverence 
 by Edward the Sixth, and his whole parliament, 
 whom also I had published in English by a good pro- 
 
236 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 vidence, about a week before this calumnious digres- 
 sion was preached ; 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 condemns again of wicked- 
 ness, either ignorantly or wilfully, not only Martin 
 Bucer, and all the choicest and holiest of our re- 
 formers, but the whole parliament and church of 
 England in those best and purest times of Edward 
 the Sixth. All which I shall prove with good evi- 
 dence, at the end of these explanations. And then 
 let it be judged and seriously considered with what 
 hope the affairs of our religion are committed to 
 one among others, who hath now only left him 
 which of the twain he will choose, whether this 
 shall be his palpable ignorance, or the same wick- 
 edness of his own book, which he so lavishly inoi- 
 putes to the writings of other men : and whether 
 this of his, that thus peremptorily defames and at^ 
 taints of wickedness unspotted churches, unble- 
 mished parliaments, and the most eminent restorer^ 
 of christian doctrine, deserve not to be burnt first. 
 And if his heat had burst out only against the 
 opinion, his wonted passion had no doubt been 
 silently borne with wonted patience. But since, 
 against the charity of that solemn place and meet- 
 ing, it served him further to inveigh opprobriously 
 against the person, branding him with no less than^ 
 impudence, only for setting his name to what he 
 had written ; I must be excused not to be so want- 
 ing to the defence of an honest name, or to the 
 reputation of those good men who afford me their 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 23J 
 
 society, but to be sensible of such a foul endea- 
 voured disgrace : not knowing aught 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 intemperances of this man's preaching choler. 
 And indeed to be so prompt and ready in the 
 midst of his humbleness, to toss reproaches of this 
 bulk and size, argues as if they were the weapons 
 of his exercise, 1 am sure not of his ministry, or of 
 that day's work. Certainly to subscribe my name at 
 what I was to own, was what the state had ordered 
 and requires. And he who lists not to be malicious, 
 would call it ingenuity, clear conscience, willing- 
 ness to avouch what might be questioned, or to be 
 better instructed. And if God were so displeased 
 with those, Isa. Iviii. who " on the solemn fast 
 were wont to smite with the fist of wickedness,'^ it 
 could be no sign of his own humiliation accepted, 
 which disposed him to smite so keenly with a revil- 
 ing tongue. But if only to have writ my name 
 must be counted " impudence," how doth this but 
 justify another, who might affirm with as good war- 
 rant, that the late discourse of " Scripture and 
 Reason,'^ which is certain to be chiefly his own 
 draught, was published without a name, out of base 
 fear, and the sly avoidance of what might follow to 
 his detrim<?nt, 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 1 offer my hand also if need be, to make good 
 the same opinion which 1 there maintain, by inevit- 
 able consequences drawn parallel from his own 
 principal arguments in that of " Scripture and 
 
238 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Reason :" which I shall pardon him if he can den}^ 
 without shaking his own composition to pieces. 
 The " impudence" therefore, since he weighed so 
 httle what a gross revile that was to give his equal, 
 I send him back again for a phylactery to stitch 
 upon his arrogance, that censures not only before 
 conviction, so bitterly without so much as one 
 reason given, 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 addressed 
 the dedication of what I had studied to the parlia- 
 ment ; how could I better declare the loyalty which 
 I owe to that supreme and majestic tribunal, and 
 the opinion which I have of the high entrusted 
 judgment, and personal worth assembled in that 
 place ? With the same affections therefore, and the 
 same addicted fidelity, parliament of England ! I here 
 again have brought to your perusal on the same 
 argument these following expositions of scripture. 
 The former book, as pleased some to think, who 
 were thought judicious, had of reason in it to a suf- 
 ficiency ; what they required was, that the scriptures 
 there alleged might be discussed more fully. To 
 their desires thus much further hath been laboured 
 in the scriptures. Another sort also, who wanted 
 more authorities and citations, have not been here 
 unthought of. If all this attain not to satisfy them, 
 as I am confident that none of those our great con- 
 troversies at this day hath had a more demonstrative 
 explaining, I must confess to admire what it is : for 
 doubtless it is not reason now-a-days that satisfies 
 or suborns the common credence of men, to, yield 
 
DISCIPLINE OP DIVOKCE. 239 
 
 SO easily, and grow so vehement in matters much 
 more disputable, and far less conducing to the daily 
 good and peace of life. Some whose necessary 
 shifts have lonsr enured them to cloak the defects of 
 their unstudied years, and hatred now to learn, 
 under the appearance of a grave solidity (which es- 
 timation they have gained among weak perceivers,) 
 find the ease of slighting what they cannot refute, 
 and are determined, as* I hear, to hold it not worth 
 the answering. In which number I must be forced 
 to reckon that doctor, who in a late equivocating 
 treatise plausibly set afloat against the Dippers, div- 
 ing the while himself with a more deep prelatical 
 malignance against the present state and church- 
 government, mentions with ignominy " The Trac- 
 tate of Divorce ;'* yet answers nothing, but instead 
 thereof (for which I do not commend his marshal- 
 ling) sets Moses also among the crew of his Ana- 
 baptists ; as one who to a holy nation ; the com- 
 monwealth of Israel, gave laws " breaking the 
 bonds of marriage to inordinate lusts.^' These are 
 no mean surges of blasphemy, not only 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 handled 
 shall verify, to the Jaunching of that old aposte- 
 mated error. Him therefore I leave now to his re- 
 pentance. 
 
 Others, which is their courtesy, confess 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 worst cause seem ihe belter; and thus 
 
240 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 thinking themselves discharged of the difficulty, 
 love not to wade further into the fear of a convince- 
 ment. These will be their excuses to decline the 
 full examining of this serious point. So much the 
 more I press it and repeat it, lords and commons ! 
 that ye beware while time is, ere this grand secret, 
 and only art of ignorance affecting tyranny, grow 
 powerful, and rule among us. For if sound argu- 
 ment and reason shall be thus put off, either by an 
 undervaluing silence, or the masterly censure of 
 a railing word or two in the pulpit, or by rejecting 
 the force of truth, as the mere 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 evil of this 
 age : worse to be feared, if it get once to reign over 
 us, than any fifth monarchy. If this shall be the 
 course, that what was wont to be a chief commen- 
 dation, and the ground of other men^s confidence 
 in an author, his diligence, his learning, his elocu- 
 tion whether by right, or by ill meaning granted 
 him, shall be turned now to a disadvantage and sus- 
 picion against him, that what he writes, though 
 unconfuted, must therefore be mistrusted, therefore 
 not received for the industry, the exactness, the la- 
 bour in it, confessed to be more than ordinary ; as 
 if wisdom had now forsaken the thirsty and labo- 
 rious inquirer to dwell against her nature with the 
 arrogant and shallow babbler ; to what purpose all 
 those pains and that continual searching required of 
 us by Solomon to the attainment of understanding ? 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 241 
 
 Why are men bred up with such care and expense 
 to a hfe of perpetual studies ? Why do yourselves 
 with such endeavour seek to wipe off the imputa. 
 tion of intending to discourage the progress and 
 advance of learning ? He therefore, whose heart 
 can bear him to the high pitch of your noble enter* 
 prises, may easily assure himself, that the prudence 
 and far-judging circumspectness of so grave a ma- 
 gistracy sitting in parliament, who have before them 
 the prepared and purposed act of their most religi- 
 ous predecessors to imitate in this question, cannot 
 reject the clearness of these reasons, and these alle- 
 gations both here and formerly offered them ; nor 
 can overlook the necessity of ordaining more whole- 
 somely and more humanely in the casualties of di- 
 vorce, than our laws have yet established, if, the 
 most urgent and excessive grievances happening in 
 domestic life be worth the laying to heart; which, 
 unless charity be far from us, cannot be neglected. 
 And that these things both in the right constitution, 
 and in the right reformation of a commonwealth 
 call for speediest redress, and ought to be the first 
 considered, enough was urged in what was prefaced 
 to that monument of Bucer, which I brought to 
 your remembrance, and the other time before. 
 Henceforth, except new cause be given, I shall say 
 less and less. For if the law make not timely pro- 
 vision, let the law, as reason is, bear the censure of 
 those consequences, which her own default now 
 more evidently produces. And if men want man- 
 liness to expostulate the right of their due ransom, 
 and to second their own occasions, they may sit 
 hereafter and bemoan themselves to have neglected 
 
242 
 
 through faintness the only remedy of their sufFeringgy 
 which a seasonable and well-grounded speaking 
 might have purchased 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 
 marked events, and better weighed how hurtful and 
 unwise it is, to hide a secret and pernicious rupture 
 under the ill counsel of a bashful silence. But who 
 would distrust aught, or not be ample in his hopes of 
 your wise and Christian determinations ? who have 
 the prudence to consider, and should have the good- 
 ness, like gods, as ye are called, to find out readily, 
 and by just law to administer those redresses, which 
 have of old, not without God ordaining, been granted 
 to the adversities of mankind, ere they who needed, 
 were put to ask. Certainly, if any other have en- 
 larged his thoughts to expect from this government, 
 so justly undertaken, and by frequent assistances 
 from heaven so apparently upheld, glorious changes 
 and renovations both in church and state, he among 
 the foremost might be named, who prays that the 
 fate of England may tarry for no other deliverers. 
 
 John Milton. 
 
TETRACHORDON: 
 
 EXPOSITIONS 
 
 UPON 
 
 The four chief places in Scripture which treat of Marriage^ 
 or Nullities in Marriage, 
 
 Genesis i. 27. 
 
 So God created man in his own linage, in the image 
 of God created he him ; male and female cre^ 
 ated he them, 
 
 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto 
 them. Be fruitful, &c. 
 
 Gen, ii. 18. 
 And the Lord God said. It is not good that man 
 should he alone, I will make him a helpmeet for 
 him. 
 
 23. And Adam said, this is now hone of my bone, 
 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, i. 27- 
 
 *' So God created man in his own image.**^ To 
 be informed aright in the whole history of marriage, 
 that we may know for certain, not by a forced yoke, 
 but by an impartial definition, what marriage is, 
 and what is not marriage : it will undoubtedly be 
 
 R 2 
 
244 THE DOCTRINE ANt> 
 
 safest, fairest and most with our obedience to in-^ 
 quire, as our Saviour's direction is, how it was in 
 the beginning. And that we begin so high as man 
 created after God's own image, there want not 
 earnest causes. For nothing now-a-days is more 
 degenerately forgotten, than 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 natural privileges men neither 
 can rightly seek, nor dare fully claim, unless they 
 be allied to inward goodness and stedfast knowledge, 
 and that the want of this quells them to a servile 
 sense of their own conscious unworthiness ; it may 
 save the wondering why in this age many are so op- 
 posite both to human and to Christian liberty, either 
 while they understand not, or enry others that do ; 
 contenting, or rather priding themselves in a specious 
 humility and strictness bred out of low ignorance, that 
 never yet conceived the freedom of the gospel ; and 
 is therefore by the apostle to the Colossi ans ranked 
 with no better company than will worship and the 
 mere show of wisdom. And how injurious herein 
 they are, if not to themselves, yet to their neigh- 
 bours, and not to them only, but to the all-wise 
 and bounteous grace offered us in our redemption, 
 will orderly appear. 
 
 ** In the image of God created he /iz'm."] It is 
 enough determined, that this image of God, wherein 
 man was created, is meant wisdom, purity, justice, 
 and rule over all creatures. All which, being lost 
 in Adam, was recovered with gain by the merits of 
 Christ. For albeit our first parent had lordship over 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 245 
 
 €ea, and land, and air, yet there was a law without 
 him, as a guard set over him. But Christ having 
 cancelled the hand writing of ordinances which was 
 against us, Coloss. ii. 14, and interpreted the ful- 
 filling of all through charity, hath in that respect 
 set us over law, 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 aids and furthers a religious 
 life, makes us holiest and likest to his immortal 
 image^ not that which makes us most conformable 
 and captive to civil and subordinate precepts : where- 
 of the strictest observance may ofttimes prove the 
 xlestruction not only of many innocent persons and 
 families, but of whole nations. Although indeed no 
 ordinance human or from heaven can bind against the 
 good of man ; so that to keep them strictly against that 
 end, is all one with to break them. Men of most re- 
 nowned virtue have sometimes by transgressing most 
 truly kept the law; and wisest magistrates have per- 
 mitted and dispensed it ; while they looked not peev- 
 ishly at the letter, but with a greater spirit at the good 
 of mankind, if always not written in the characters of 
 law, yet engraven in the heart of man by a divine 
 impression. This Heathens could see, as the well- 
 read in story can recount of Solon and Epaminon- 
 das, whom Cicero in his first book of " Invention** 
 nobly defends. " All law," saith he, '^ we ought 
 to refer to the common good, and interpret by that, 
 not by the scroll of letters. No man observes law 
 for law's sake, but for the good of them for whom 
 it was made." The rest might serve well to lecture 
 these timi?8, deluded through belly doctrines into a 
 
246 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 devout slavery. The Script lire also affords us 
 David in the show-bread, Hezekiah in the pass- 
 over, sound and safe transgressors of the literal 
 command, which also dispensed not seldom with 
 itself ; and taught us on what just occasions to do 
 so : until our Saviour, for whom that great and 
 god-like work was reserved, redeemed us to a state 
 above prescriptions, by dissolving the whole law 
 into charity And have we not the soul to under- 
 stand this, and must we against this glory of God's 
 transcendent love towards us be still the servants of 
 a literal indictment ? 
 
 " 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, how- 
 ever the Jews fable, and please themselves with the 
 accidental conc*urrence of Plato's wit, as if man at 
 first had been created hermaphrodite : but then it 
 must have been male and female created he him. 
 So had the image of God been equally common to 
 them both, it had no doubt been said, in the image 
 of God created he them. But St. Paul ends the 
 controversy, by explaining, that the woman is not 
 primarily and immediately the image of God, but in 
 reference to the man, " The head of the woman," 
 saith he, 1 Cor. xi. " 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. iii. 18 ; " In every thing," 
 Eph, V. 24. Nevertheless man is not to hold her 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 247 
 
 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 yield : for then a superior and more 
 natural law comes in, that the wiser should govern 
 the less 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 breadth of this divine utterance, that man the 
 protraiture of God, joining to himself for his in- 
 tended good and solace an inferior sex, should so 
 become her thrall, whose wilfulness or inability to 
 be a wife frustrates the occasional end of her crea- 
 tion ; but that he may acquit himself to freedom by 
 his natural birthright, and that indelible character 
 of priority, which God crowned him with. If it be 
 urged, 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 further lose 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 causeless : and God 
 hath the praise in our speeches of him, to sort his 
 punishment in the same kind with the ofTence, 
 Suppose he erred ; it is not the intent of God or 
 man, to hunt an error so to the death with a revenge 
 
248 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 beyond all measure and proportion. But if we 
 argue thus, this affliction is befallen 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 Job, and of the man born 
 blind, John ix, 3. was evident : next, by that rea- 
 son, all miseries coming for sin, we must let them 
 all lie upon us like the vermin of an Indian Catha- 
 rist, 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, 
 po law hinders us in that regard, no law but bids 
 us remove it if we can ; much more if it be a dan- 
 gerous temptation withal ; much more yet, if it be 
 certainly a temptation, and not certainly a punish- 
 ment, though a pain. As for what they say we 
 must bear with patience ; to bear with patience, and 
 to seek effectual remedies, implies no contradiction i 
 It may no less be for our disobedience, our unfaith- 
 fulness, and other sins against God, that wives 
 become adulterous to the bed ; and questionless we 
 ought to take the affliction as patiently as Chris- 
 tian prudence would wish : yet hereby is not Jost 
 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 jn binding on us a disastrous marriage, why 
 did he except adultery ? Certainly to have been 
 bound from divorce in that case also had been as 
 plentiful 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 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE, JMI 
 
 ^rdo« the act of adultery once and again coni^ 
 mitted by a person worth pity and forgiveness, than 
 to lead a wearisome life of unloving and unquiet 
 .conversation with one who neither affects nor is 
 affected, much less with one who exercises all bit- 
 terness, and would commit adultery too, but for 
 envy lest the persecuted should thereby get the 
 benefit of his freedom. It is plain therefore, 
 that God enjoins not this supposed strictness of 
 not divorcing either to punish us, or to try our 
 patience. 
 
 Moreover, if man be the image of God, which 
 consists in holiness, and woman ought in the same 
 respect to be the image and companion of man, in 
 such wise to be loved as the church is beloved 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 tie of Christian matrimony: so as if 
 there be found between the pair a notorious dispa- 
 rity either of wickedness or heresy, the husband by 
 all manner of right is disengaged from a creature, 
 not made and inflicted on him to the vexation of 
 his righteousness : the wife also, as her subjection 
 is terminated in the Lord, being herself the redeemed 
 of Christ, is not still bound to be the vassal of him, 
 who is the bond-slave 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 recourse to the wing of charity, and protec- 
 tion of the church, unless there be a hope on cither 
 side : yet such a hope must be meant, as may be a 
 
250 , THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 rational hope, and not an endless servitude. Of 
 which hereafter. 
 
 But usually it is objected, that if it be thus, then 
 there can be no true marriage between misbelievers 
 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. v. But this they 
 will say perhaps, is but penuriously to resolve a 
 doubt. J answer therefore, that where they are 
 both irreligious, the marriage may be yet true 
 enough to them in a civil relation. For there are 
 left some remains of God's image in man, as he is 
 merely man ; which reason God gives against the 
 shedding of man^s blood. Gen. ix. as being made 
 in God's image, without expressing whether he were 
 a good man or a bad, to exempt the slayer from 
 punishment. So that in those marriages where the 
 parties are alike void of religion, the wife owes a 
 civil homage and subjection, the husband owes a 
 civil loyalty. But where the yoke is mis-yoked, 
 heretic with faithful, godly with ungodly, to the 
 grievance and manifest endangering of a brother or 
 sister, reasons of a higher strain than matrimonial 
 bear sway ; unless the gospel, instead of freeing 
 us, debase itself to make us bond-men, and suffer 
 evil to controul good. 
 
 " Male and female created he them.^^~\ This 
 contains another end of matching man and woman, 
 being the right and lawfulness of the marriage-bed ; 
 though much inferior to the former end of her being 
 his image and help in religious society. An d who 
 of weakest insight may not see, that this creating 
 of them male and female cannot in any order of 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ^61 
 
 reason, or Christianity, be of such moment against 
 tlae better and higher purposes of their creation^ :as 
 to enthral husband or wife to duties or to sufferings, 
 unworthy and unbeseeming the image of God in 
 them ? Now whenas not only men, but good men, 
 do stand upon their right, their estimation, their 
 dignity, in all other actions and deportments, with 
 warrant enough and good conscience, as having the 
 image of Grod in them, it will not be difficult to 
 determine what is unworthy and unseemly for a 
 man to do or suffer in wedlock : and the like pro- 
 portionally may be found for woman, if we love 
 not to stand disputing below the principles of hu- 
 manity. He that said, " Male and female created he 
 them," immediately before that said also in the same 
 verse, " in the image of God created he him," and 
 redoubled it, that our thoughts might not be so full 
 of dregs as to urge this poor consideration of male 
 and female, without remembering the nobleness of 
 that former repitition ; lest when God sends a wise 
 eye to examine our trivial glosses, they be found 
 extremely to creep upon the ground : especially 
 since they confess, that what here concerns mar- 
 riage is but a brief touch, only preparative to 
 the institution which follows more expressly 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. 
 Ver. 28. " And God blessed them, and God said 
 unto them, be fruitful and tnultiply, and reple- 
 nish the earth,^^ &c. 
 
 This declares another end of matrimony, the pro- 
 pagation of mankind ; and is again repeated to 
 
2B2 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Noah and his sons. Many things might be noted 
 on this place not ordinary, nor un worth the noting ; 
 but I undertook not a general comment. Hence 
 therefore we see the desire of children is honest and 
 pious ; if we be not less zealous in our Christianity 
 than Plato was in his heathenism ; who in the 
 sixth of his laws, counts offspring therefore desir- 
 able, that we may leave in our stead sons of our 
 sons, continual servants of God : a religious and 
 prudent desire, if people knew as well what were 
 required 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 
 special laws, esteems him only worth pardon, that 
 sends not barrenness away. Carvilius, the first re- 
 corded in Rome to have sought divorce, had it 
 granted him for the barrenness of his wife, upon his 
 oath that he married to the end he might have chil- 
 dren ; as Dionysius and Gellius are authors. But 
 to dismiss a wife only for barrenness, is hard : and 
 yet in some the desire of children is so great, and so 
 just, yea sometime so necessary, that to condemn 
 such a one to a childless age, the fault apparently 
 not being in him, might seem perhaps more strict 
 than needed. Sometimes inheritances, crowns, and 
 dignities are so interested and annexed in their com- 
 mon peace and good to such or such lineal descent, 
 that it may prove of great moment both in the 
 affairs of men and of religion, to consider thoroughly 
 what might be done herein, notwithstanding the 
 waywardness of our school doctors. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 26S 
 
 Gen, ii. 18. 
 " And the Lord said, it is not good that man 
 
 should he alone, I will make him a helpmeet for 
 
 him" 
 Ver. 23. " And Adam said,'' &c. Ver. 24, 
 " Therefore shall a man leave,'' &c. 
 
 This second chapter is granted to be a commen- 
 tary on the first, and these verses granted to be an 
 exposition of ithat former verse, " Male and female 
 created he them :" and yet when this male and fe- 
 male is by the explicit words of God himself here 
 declared to be not meant other than a fit help, and 
 meet society ; some, who would engross to them- 
 selves the whole trade of interpreting, will not suf- 
 fer the clear text of God to do the office of explain- 
 ing itself. 
 
 " And the Lord God said, it is not good'*'\ A 
 man would think, that the consideration of who 
 spake should raise up the intention of our minds to 
 inquire better, and obey the purpose of so great a 
 speaker : for as we order the business of marriage, 
 that which he here speaks is all made vain ; and 
 in the decision of matrimony, or not matrimony, 
 nothing at all regarded. Our presumption hath 
 utterly changed the state and condition of this 
 ordinance : God ordained it in love and helpfulness 
 to be indissoluble, and we in outward act and forma- 
 lity to be a forced bondage ; so that being subject 
 to a thousand errors in the best men, if it prove a 
 blessing to any, it is of mere accident, as man's 
 law hath handled it, and not of institution. 
 
 " It is not good for man to be alone."~\ Hitherto 
 all things that have been named, were approved of 
 
2M THii: DOCt'RINE AND 
 
 God to be very good : loneliness is the first things 
 which God*s eye named not good : whether it be a 
 thing, or the want of something, I labour not ; let 
 it be their tendance, who have the art to be indus- 
 triously idle. And here " alone" is meant alone 
 without woman ; otherwise Adam had the com- 
 pany of God himself, and angels to converse 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 been his consorts ; yet for all this, till Eve 
 was given him, God reckoned him to be alone. 
 
 " It is not goodJ'^'] God here presents himself 
 like to a man deliberating ; both to show us that 
 the matter is of high consequence, and that he in- 
 tended to found it according to natural reason, not 
 impulsive command ; but that the duty should 
 arise from the reason of it, not the reason be swal- 
 lowed up in a reasonless duty. " Not good,** was 
 as much to Adam before his fall, as not pleasing, 
 not expedient ; but since the coming of sin into the 
 world, to him who hath not received the conti- 
 nence, it is not only not expedient to be alone, but 
 plainly sinful. And therefore he who wilfully abstains 
 from marriage, not being supernaturally gifted, and 
 he who by making the yoke of marriage unjust and 
 intolerable, causes men to abhor it, are both in a 
 diabolical sin, equal to that of Antichrist, who for- 
 bids to marry. For what difference at all whether 
 he abstain men from marrying, or restrain them in 
 a marriage happening totally discommodious, dis- 
 tasteful, dishonest, and pernicious to him, without 
 the appearance of his fault ? For God does not 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 265 
 
 here precisely say, I make a female to this male, as 
 he did before ; but expounding himself here on pur- 
 pose, he saith, because it is not good for man to be 
 alone, I make him therefore ameethelp. God sup- 
 plies the privation of not good, with the perfect gift 
 of a real and positive good : it is man^s perverse 
 cooking, who hath turned this bounty of God into 
 a scorpion, either by weak and shallow construc- 
 tions, 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 A posticus speaking in the 
 spirit, 1 Cor. vii. pronounces quite contrary to this 
 word of God, " It is good for man not to touch a 
 woman," and God cannot contradict himself; it 
 instructs us, that his commands and words, espe- 
 cially such as bear the manifest title of some good to 
 man, are not to be so strictly wrung, as to com- 
 mand without regard to the most natural and miser- 
 able necessities of mankind. Therefore the Apostle 
 adds a limitation in the 26th verse of that chapter, 
 for the present necessity it is good ; which he gives 
 us doubtles as a pattern how to reconcile other 
 places by the general rule of charity. 
 
 " For man to he aion€.'*'\ Some would have the 
 sense hereof to be in respect of procreation only : 
 and Austin contests that manly friendship in all 
 other regards had been a more becoming solace for 
 Adam, than 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 married state 
 beside the genial bed, which no other society 
 
256 THE DOCTRINE i^ND 
 
 affords. No mortal nature can endure either in the 
 actions of rehgion, or study of wisdom, without some- 
 time slackening the cords of intense thought and 
 labour : which lest we should think faulty, God him- 
 self conceals us not his own recreations before the 
 world was built ; " I was," saith the eternal wisdom, 
 "daily his delight, playing always before him." And 
 to him indeed wisdom is as a high tower of pleasure, 
 but to us a steep hill, and we toiling ever about the 
 bottom: he executes with ease the exploits of 
 his omnipotence, as easy as with us it is to will ; 
 but no worthy enterprise can be done by us with- 
 out continual plodding and wearisomeness to our 
 faint and sensitive abilities. We cannot there- 
 fore always be contemplative, or pragmatical 
 abroad, but have need of some delightful inter- 
 missions, wherein the enlarged soul may leave off 
 a while her severe schooling ; and, like a glad 
 youth in wandering vacancy, may keep her holidays 
 to joy and harmless pastime : which as she cannot 
 well do without company, so in no company so 
 well as where the different sex in most resembling 
 unlikeness, and most unlike resemblance, cannot 
 but please best, and be pleased in the aptitude of 
 that variety. Whereof lest we should be too timo- 
 rous, in the awe that our flat sages would form us 
 and dress us, wisest Solomon among his gravest 
 Proverbs countenances a kind of ravishment and 
 erring fondness in the entertainment of wedded lei- 
 sures ; and in the Song of Songs, which is generally 
 believed even in the jolliest expressions, to figure 
 the spousals of the Church with Christ, sings of a 
 thousand raptures between those two lovely ones 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 357 
 
 far on the hitlier side of carnal enjoyment. By 
 these instances, and more which might be brought, 
 we may imagine how indulgently God provided 
 against man's loneliness ; that he approved it not, 
 as by himself declared not good ; that he approved 
 the remedy thereof, as of his own ordaining, con- 
 sequently good : and as he ordained it, so doubtless 
 proportionably to our fallen estate he gives it ; else 
 were his ordinance at least in vain, and we for all 
 his gifts still empty handed. Nay, such an unboun- 
 teous 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 Centaurs, a neglected and unloved race, 
 the fruits of a delusive marriage ; and lastly, giving 
 him her with a damnation to that wheel in Hell, 
 from a life thrown into the midst of temptations 
 and disorders. But God is no deceitful giver, to 
 bestow that on us for a remedy of loneliness, which 
 if it bring not a sociable mind, as well as a conjunc- 
 tive body, leaves us no less alone than before ; and 
 if it bring a mind perpetually averse and disagree- 
 able, betrays us to a worse condition than the most 
 deserted loneliness. 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 than any 
 wilderness, as the spirit of God himself judges, 
 Prov. xix. especially knowing that the best and 
 wisest men amidst the sincere and most cordial de- 
 signs of their heart, do daily err in choosing. We 
 may conclude therefore, seeing orthodoxal expositors 
 confess to our hands, that by loneliness is not only 
 
 s 
 
168 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 meant the want of copulation, and that man is not 
 less alone by turning in a body to him, unless there 
 be within it a mind 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 
 mind, and not unnaturally to set it beneath the for- 
 malities and respects of the body, to make it a ser- 
 vant of its own vassal : I say, we may conclude 
 that such a marriage, wherein the mind is so dis- 
 graced and vilified below the body^s interest, and 
 can have no just or tolerable contentment, is not of 
 God's institution, and therefore no marriage. Nay, 
 in concluding this, I say we conclude no more than 
 what the common expositors 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 leave their own mature posi- 
 tions 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 taxed of novelties and 
 strange produoements, while they, like that inconsi- 
 derate bird, know not that these are their own na^ 
 tural breed. 
 
 " twill mahe him an helpmeet for Afm.^^] Here 
 the heavenly institutor, as if he laboured not to be 
 mistaken by the supercilious hypocrisy of those thart 
 love to master their brethren, and to make us sure 
 that he gave us not now a servile yoke, but an ami- 
 able knot, contents not himself to say, I will make 
 him a wife ; but resolving to give ns first the mean- 
 ing before the name of a wife, saith graciously, " I 
 will make him a helpmeet for him.*' And here 
 ^ain, as before, 1 do not require more full and fair 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 269 
 
 deductions than the whole consent of our divines 
 usually raise from this text, that in matrimony there 
 must be first a mutual help to piety, next to civil 
 fellowship of love and amity, then to generation, so 
 to household affairs, lastly the remedy of inconti- 
 nence. And commonly they reckon them in such 
 order, as leaves generation and incontinence to be 
 last considered. This I amaze me at, that though 
 all the superior and nobler ends both of marriage 
 and of the married persons be absolutely frustrate, 
 the matrimony stirs not, looses no hold, remains as 
 rooted as the centre : but if the body bring but in 
 a complaint of frigidity, by that cold application 
 only this adamantine Alp of wedlock has leave to 
 dissolve ; which else all the machinations of reli- 
 gious or civil reason at the suit of a distressed mind, 
 either for divine worship or human conversation 
 vidated, cannot unfasten. What courts of concu- 
 piscence are these, wherein 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 helpful to each 
 other in the family, but they cannot couple ; that 
 shall divorce them, though either party would not. 
 They can neither serve 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 ; it is all 
 one, tbey can couple, they shall not divorce till 
 death, uo though this sentence be their death. What 
 is this besides tyranny, but to turn nature upside 
 down, to make both religion, and the mind of man 
 wait upon tlu^ slavish errands of the body, and not 
 
 s 2 
 
260 , THI? DOCTRINE AND 
 
 the bod}^ to follow either the sanctity, or the sove- 
 reignty of the mind, unspeakably wronged, and with 
 all equity complaining ? What is this but to abuse 
 the sacred and mysterious bed of marriage to be the 
 compulsive stye of an ingrateful and malignant lust, 
 stirred up only from a carnal acrimony, without 
 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, unless it be the lowest lees 
 of a canonical infection livergrown to their sides ; 
 which perhaps will never uncling, without the strong 
 abstersive of some heroic magistrate, whose mind, 
 equal 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 fol- 
 low, makes a marriage ; how can they dissolve it for 
 the want of that which made it not, and not dissolve 
 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.^'l The original here is more ex- 
 pressive than other languages word for word can 
 render it ; but all agree effectual corfformity of dis- 
 position and affection to be hereby signified ; which 
 God as it were, not satisfied with the naming of a 
 help, goes on describing another self, a second self, 
 a very self itself. Yet now there is nothing in the 
 life of man, through our mis-construction, made 
 more uncertain, more hazardous and full of chance 
 than this divine blessing with such favourable signi- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 261 
 
 ficance here conferred upon us ; which if we do but 
 err in our choice, the most unblamable error that 
 can be, err but one minute, one moment after those 
 mighty syllables pronounced, which take upon them 
 to join Heaven and Hell together unpardonably till 
 death pardon : this divine blessing that looked but 
 now with such a humane smile upon us, and spoke 
 such gentle reason, straight vanishes like a fair sky, 
 and brings on such a scene of cloud and tempest, 
 as turns all to shipwreck without haven or shore, 
 but to a ransomless 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 waste 
 upon us, as to make utterly void to our use any 
 temporal benefit, much less any so much availing to 
 a peaceful and sanctified life, merely for a most in- 
 cident error, which no wariness can certainly shun. 
 And wherefore serves our happy redemption, and 
 the liberty we have in Christ, but to deliver us from 
 calamitous yokes, not to be lived under without the 
 endangerment of our souls, and to restore us in some 
 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 here taught us 
 what the prime ends of marriage are ; mutual solace 
 and help. That we are now, upon the most irrepre- 
 hensible mistake in choosing, defeated and defrauded 
 of all this original benignity, was begun first through 
 the snare of anti-christian canons long since obr 
 truded upon the Church of Rome, and not yet 
 scoured off by reformation, out of a lingering vain- 
 glory that abides among us to make fair shows in 
 formal ordinances, and to enjoin continence and 
 
2(52 . THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 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 acknowledgment and assent Adam received 
 this new associate which God brought him. 
 
 Ver. 23. " And Adam said, This is now bone of 
 "iny bones, andjiesh of my flesh ; she shall be 
 called woman, because she was taken out of 
 man" 
 
 That there was a nearer alliance between Adam 
 and Eve, than could be ever after between man and 
 wife, is visible to any. For no other woman was 
 ever moulded out of her husband's rib, but of mere 
 strangers for the most part they come to have that 
 consanguinity, which they have by wedlock. And 
 if we look nearly upon the matter, though marriage 
 be most agreeable to holiness, to purity, and justice, 
 yet is it not a natural, but a civil and ordained rela- 
 tion. For if it w^ere in nature, no law or crime 
 could disannul it, to make a wife, or husband, 
 otherwise than 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 separates, but nullifies, and extinguishes the 
 relation itself of matrimony, so that they are no 
 more man and wife ; otherwise the innocent party 
 could not marry elsewhere, without the guilt of 
 adultery. Next, were it merely natural, why was 
 it here ordained more than the rest of moral law to 
 man in his original rectitude, in whose breast all 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 263 
 
 that was natural or moral was engraven without 
 external constitutrons and edicts ? Adam therefore 
 in these words does not establish an indissoluble 
 bond of marriage in the carnal ligaments of flesh 
 and bones ; for if he did, it would belong only to 
 himself in the literal sense, every one of us being 
 nearer in flesh of flesh, and bone of bones, to our 
 parents than to a wife ; they therefore were not to 
 be lefl: for her in that respect. But Adam, who 
 had the wisdom given him to know all creatures, 
 and to name them according to their properties, no 
 doubt but had the gift to discern perfectly that which 
 concerned him much more ; and to apprehend at 
 first sight the true fitness of that consort which God 
 provided him. And therefore spake in reference to 
 those words which God pronounced 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, even 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 wprds 
 of God, as he knew so readily what had been done 
 with his rib, while he slept so soundly. IJe 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 
 disjoin it from his outside, to prevent a treble mis- 
 chief to him ; and far sooner cut it quite off from 
 all relation for his undoubted ease, than nail it into 
 his body again, to stick for ever there a thorn in his 
 heart. Whenas nature teaches us to divide any 
 Jimb from the body to the saving of its fellows^ 
 though it be the maiming and deformity of the 
 whole ; how much more is it her doctrine to sevej: 
 
264 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 by incision, not a true limb so much, though that 
 be lawful, 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 marriage in the mere flesh, which 
 God so lately had instituted, and founded in the 
 sweet and mild familiarity of love and solace, and 
 mutual fitness ; what do we but use the mouth of 
 our general parent, the first time it opens, to an 
 arrogant opposition and correcting of God's wiser 
 ordinance ? These words therefore cannot import 
 any thing new in marriage, 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 loneliness. Adam spake like Adam 
 the words of flesh and bones, the shell and rind of 
 matrimony ; but God spake like God, of love, and 
 solace, and meet help, the soul both of Adam's 
 words and of matrimony, 
 
 Ver. 24. " Therefore shall a man leave his father 
 and his mother^ and shall cleave unto his wife^ 
 and they shall he onejiesh'* 
 
 This verse, as our common herd expounds it, is 
 the great knot-tier, which hath undone by tying, 
 and by tangling, milhons of guiltless consciences : 
 this is that grisly porter, who having drawn men and 
 wisest men by subtle 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 find no such terror in 
 
DISSCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 265 
 
 him. For first, it is not here said absolutely with- 
 out all reiison he shall cleave to his wife, be it to his 
 weal or to his destruction as it happens, but he shall 
 do this upon the premises and considerations of that 
 meet help and society before mentioned. 'There- 
 fore he shall cleave to his wife,' no otherwise a wife 
 than a fit help. He is not bid to leave the dear co- 
 habitation of his father, mother, brothers, and sisters, 
 to link himself inseparably with the mere carcass of 
 a marriage, perhaps an enemy. This joining parti- 
 cle, " Therefore*' is in all equity, nay in all necessity 
 of construction, to comprehend first and most prin- 
 cipally what God spake concerning the inward es- 
 sence of marriage in his institution, that we may 
 Jeam how far to attend what Adam spake of the 
 outward materials thereof in his approbation. For 
 if we shall bind these words of Adam only to a cor- 
 poral meaning, and that the force of this injunction 
 upon all us his sons, to live individually with any 
 woman which hath befallen us in the most mistaken 
 wedlock, shall consist not in those moral and rela- 
 tive causes of Eve's creation, but in the mere ana- 
 tomy of a rib, and that Adam's insight concerning 
 wedlock reached no further, we shall make him as 
 very an idiot as the Socinians make him ; which 
 would not be reverently done of us. Let us be con- 
 tent 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, 
 will assure us that flesh and ribs are but of a weak, 
 and dead efficacy to keep marriage united •where 
 there is no other fitness. The rib of marriage, to 
 all since Adam, is -a relation much rather than a 
 
?^ THE 0OCTRINE AND - 
 
 bone ; the nerves and sinews thereof are love and 
 meet help, they knit not every couple that marries, 
 »nd where they knit they seldom break ; but where 
 they break, which for the most part is where they 
 never truly joined, to such at the same instant both 
 flesh and rib cease to be in common : so that here 
 they argue nothing to the continuance of a false or 
 violated marriage, but must be led back again to re- 
 ceive their meaning from those institutive words of 
 God, which give them all the life and vigour they 
 have. 
 
 *' Therefore shall a man leave his father,^^ &c.] 
 What to a man's thinking more plain by this ap- 
 pointment, that the fatherly power should give place 
 to conjugal prerogative? Yet it is generally held 
 by reformed writers against the papist, that though 
 in persons at discretion the marriage in itself be 
 never so fit, though it be fully accomplished with 
 benediction, board, and bed, yet the father not con^ 
 senting, his main will without dispute shall dissolve 
 all. And this they affirm only from collective rea- 
 son, not any direct law ; for that in Exod. xxii. 17, 
 which is most particular, speaks that a father may 
 refuse to marry his daughter to one who hath de- 
 flowered her, not that he may take her away from 
 one who hath soberly married her. Yet because the 
 general honour due to parents is great, they hold he 
 may, and perhaps hold not amiss. But again, when 
 the question is of harsh and rugged parents, whci 
 defer to bestow their children seasonably, they agree 
 jointly^, that the church or magistrate may bestow 
 them, though without the father's consent ; and for 
 this they have no express authority in scripture. So 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 267 
 
 that they may see by their own handling of this very 
 place, that it is not the stubborn letter must govern 
 us, but the divine and softening breath of charity, 
 which turns and winds the dictate of every positive 
 command, and shapes it to the good of mankind. 
 Shall the outward accessory of a father's will wanting 
 rend the fittest and most affectionate marriage 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, do as much to part those who were 
 never truly wedded ? Shall a father have this power 
 to vindicate his own wilful honour and authority to 
 the utter breach of a most dearly united marriage, 
 and shall not a man in his own power have the per- 
 mission to free his soul, his life, and all his comfort 
 of life from the disaster of a no-marriage ? Shall 
 fatherhood, which is but man, for his own pleasure 
 dissolve matrimony ; and shall not matrimony, 
 which is God's ordinance, for its own honour and 
 better conservation dissolve itself when it is wrong 
 and not fitted to any of the chief ends which it 
 owes us ? 
 
 " And they shall he one flesh **^ These words 
 also infer, that there ought to be an individuality in 
 marriage ; but without all question pre-suppose the 
 joining causes. Not a rule yet that we have met 
 with, so universal in this whole institution, but hath 
 admitted limitations and conditions according to 
 human necessity. The very foundation of matri- 
 mony, though God laid it deliberately, ' that it is 
 not good for man to be alone,^ holds not always, if 
 the apostle can secure us. Soon after we arc bid 
 
268 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 leave father and mother, and cleave to a wife, but 
 must understand the father^s consent withal, else 
 not. " Cleave to a wife,'^ but let her be a wife, 
 let her be a meet help, a solace, not a nothing, not 
 an adversary, not a desertrice ; can any law or com- 
 mand be so unreasonable, as to make men cleave 
 to calamity, to ruin, to perdition ? In Hke manner 
 here ' 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. We know 
 that flesh can neither join, nor keep together two 
 bodies of itself; what is it then must make them 
 one flesh, but likeness, but fitness of mind and dis- 
 position, which may breed the spirit of concord, 
 and union between them ? If that be not in the 
 nature of either, and that there has been a remedi- 
 less mistake, as vain we go about to compel them 
 into one flesh, as if we undertook to weave a gar- 
 ment of dry sand. It were more easy to compel 
 the vegetable and nutritive power of nature to assi- 
 milations 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 sub- 
 stance, as not to be wrought on. For as the union 
 of mind is greater than the union of bodies, so 
 doubtless is the dissimilitude greater and more divi- 
 dual, as that which makes between bodies all diffe- 
 rence and distinction. Especially whenas besides 
 the singular and substantial differences of every soul, 
 there is an intimate quality of good or evil, through 
 the whole progeny of Adam, which like a radical 
 heat, or mortal chillness, joins them or disjoins them 
 irresistably. In whom therefore either the will, or 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE 2S9 
 
 the faculty is found to haVe never joined, or now 
 not to continue so, it 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 
 sodder up two such incongruous natures into the 
 one flesh of a true beseeming marriage. Why did 
 Moses then set down their uniting into one flesh ? 
 And I again ask, why the gospel so oft repeats the 
 eating of our Saviour's flesh, the drinking of his 
 blood? 'That we are one body with him, the 
 members of his body, flesh of his flesh, and bone 
 of his bone.* Ephes. v. Yet lest we should be 
 Capernaitans, as we are told there, that the flesh pro- 
 fiteth nothing ; so we are told here, if we be not as 
 deaf as adders, that this union of the flesh proceeds 
 from the union of a fit help and solace. We know 
 that there was never a more spiritual mystery than 
 this gospel taught us under the terms of body and 
 flesh ; yet nothing less intended than that we should 
 stick there. What a stupidness then is it, that in 
 marriage, which is the nearest resemblance of our 
 union with Christ, we should deject ourselves to 
 such a sluggish and underfoot philosophy, as to es- 
 teem the validity of marriage merely by the flesh, 
 though never so broken and disjointed from love and 
 peace, which only can give a human qualification 
 to that act of the flesh, and distinguish it from bes- 
 tial? The text therefore uses this phrase, that 
 * they shall be one flesh,* to justify and make legi- 
 timate the rites of marriage-bed ; which was not 
 unneedful, if for all this warrant ihey were suspected 
 of pollution by some sects of philosophy, and reli- 
 
270 THE DOCTRINE AMD 
 
 gions of old, and latelier among the papists, and 
 other heretics elder tlian they. Some tliink there 
 is a high mystery in those words, from that which 
 Paul saitli of them, Ephes. v. ' This is a great 
 mystery, but I speak of Christ and the church :' and 
 thence they would conclude marriage tO be insepa- 
 rable. For me I dispute not now whether matrimony 
 be a mystery or no; if it be of Christ and his 
 church, certainly it is not meant of every ungodly 
 and mis-wedded marriage, but then only mysterious, 
 when it is a holy, happy, and peaceful match. But 
 when a saint is joined with a reprobate, or both alike 
 wicked with wicked, fool with fool, a he-drunkard 
 with a she ; when the bed hath been nothing else 
 for twenty y«ars or more, but an old haunt of lust 
 and malice mixed together, no love, no goodness, no 
 loyalty, but counterplotting, and secret wishing 
 one another's dissolution ; this is to me the greatest 
 mystery in the world, if such a marriage as this can 
 be the mystery of aught, unless it be the mystery of 
 iniquity : according to diat which Paraeus cites out 
 of Chrysostom, that a bad wife is a help for the de- 
 vil, and the like may be said of a bad husband. 
 Since therefore none but a fit and pious matrimony 
 can signify the union of Christ and his church, 
 there cannot hence be any hindrance of divorce to 
 thttt wedlock wherein there can be no good mystery. 
 Rather it might to a Christian conscience be matter 
 of finding itself so much less satisfied than before, 
 in the continuance of an unhappy yoke, wherein 
 there can be no representation either of Chri^, or 
 of his church. 
 
 Thus having iitq^ired the institution how at was 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 271 
 
 in the beginning, both from the 1st chap, of Gen. 
 where it was only mentioned in part, and from the 
 second, where it was plainly and evidently institut- 
 ed ; and having attended each clause and word ne- 
 cessary with a diligence not drowsy, we shall now 
 fix witli some advantage, and by a short view back- 
 ward gather up the ground we have gone, and sum 
 up the strength we have, into one argumentative 
 head, with that organic force that logic proffers us. 
 AH arts acknowledge, that then only we know cer- 
 tainly, when we can define ; for definition is that 
 which refines the pure essence of things from the 
 circumstance. If therefore we can attain in thiis 
 our controversy to define exactly what marriage is, 
 we shall soon learn when there is a nullity thereof, 
 and when a divorce. 
 
 The part therefore of this chapter, which hath 
 been here treated, doth orderly and readily resolve 
 itself into a definition of marriage, and a consectary 
 from therrce. To the definition these words chiefly 
 contribute t * It is not good,' &c. * I will make,* 
 &c. Where the consectary begins this connection, 
 ' Therefore^ informs us, ' Tlierefore shall a man,^ 
 tec. Definition is decreed by logicians to consist 
 only of causes constituting the essence of a thing. 
 What is not therefore amons: the causes constituting 
 marriage, most 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 ways than one, and that in 
 relations and institutions which have no corporal 
 subsistence, but only a respective being, the Form, 
 by which the thiwg is what it is, is oft so slender 
 
272 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 and undistinguishable, that it would soon confuse, 
 were it not sustained by the efficient and final 
 causes, which concur to make up the form invahd 
 otherwise of itself, it will be needful to take in all 
 the four causes into the definition. First therefore 
 the material cause of matrimony is man and wo- 
 man ; the author and efficient, God and their con- 
 sent ; the internal Form and Soul of this relation is 
 conjugal love arising from a mutual fitness to the 
 final causes of wedlock, help and society in religi- 
 ous, civil, and domestic conversation, which in- 
 cludes as an inferior end the fulfilling of natural de- 
 sire, and specifical increase ; these are the final 
 causes both moving the Efficient, and perfecting the 
 Form. And although copulation be considered 
 among the ends of marriage, yet the act thereof in 
 a right esteem can no longer be matrimonial, than it 
 is an effect of conjugal love. When love finds 
 itself utterly unmatched, 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 marriage ; being at best but an ani- 
 mal excretion, but more truly worse and more ig- 
 noble than that mute kindUness among the herds 
 and flocks : in that proceeding as it ought from 
 intellective principles, it participates of nothing 
 rational, but that which the field and the fold 
 equals. For in human actions the soul is the agent, 
 the body in a manner passive. If then the body 
 do out of sensitive force, what the soul complies not 
 with, how can man, and not rather something be- 
 neath man, be thought the doer ? 
 
 But to proceed in the pursuit of an accurate 
 
DISCIPLINE OlP DIVORCE. 27^ 
 
 definition, it will avail us sometliing, and whet our 
 thoughts, tb examine what fabric hereof others have 
 already reared. Paraeus on Gen. defines marriage to 
 be " an indissoluble conjunction of one man and one 
 woman to an individual and intimate conversation, 
 and mutual benevolence," &c. Wherein is to be 
 marked his placing of intimate conversation before 
 bodily benevolence ; for bodily is meant, though 
 indeed "benevolence" rather sounds will than body. 
 Why then shall divorce be granted for want of 
 bodily performance, and not for want of fitness to 
 intimate conversation, whenas corporal benevolence 
 cannot in any human fashion be without this? 
 Thus his definition places the ends of marriage in 
 one order, and esteems them in another. His tau- 
 tology also of indissoluble and individual is not to 
 be imitated ; especially since neither indissoluble 
 nor individual hath aught to do in the exact defi- 
 nition, being but a consectory flowing from thence, 
 as appears by plain scripture, " Therefore shall a 
 man leave," &c. For marriage is not true marriao-e 
 by being individual, but therefore individual, if it 
 be true marriage. No argument but causes enter 
 the definition : a consectary is but the eflfect of 
 those causes. Besides, that marriage is indissolu- 
 ble, is not cathoUcly true ; we know it dissoluble 
 for adultery and for desertion by the verdict of all 
 reformed churches. Dr. Ames defines it " an in- 
 dividual 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 in- 
 stitution places meet help and society of life before 
 communion of body. And vulgar estimation un- 
 
 T 
 
274 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 dervalues beyond comparison all society of life and 
 communion of mind beneath the communion of 
 body ; granting no divorce, but to the want or mis- 
 communicating of that. Hemingius, an approved 
 author, Melancthon's scholar, and who, next to 
 Bucer and Erasmus, writes of divorce most hke a 
 divine, thus comprises, " Marriage is a conjunction 
 of one man and one woman lawfully consenting, 
 into one flesh, for mutual help's sake, ordained of 
 God." And in his explanation stands punctually 
 upon the conditions of consent, that it be not in any 
 main matter deluded, as being the life of wedlock, 
 and no true marriage without a true consent. 
 " Into one flesh" he expounds into one mind, as 
 well as one body, and makes it the formal cause •* 
 herein 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 wedlock, but one end, or one effect of a 
 '* a meet help :" the end ofttimes being the effect 
 and fruit of the form, as logic teaches : else many 
 aged and holy matrimonies, and more eminently 
 that of Joseph and Mary, would be no true mar- 
 riage. And that maxim generally received, would 
 be false, that " consent alone, though copulation 
 never follow, makes the marriage.^' 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." 
 Wherein first, individual is not so bad as indissolu- 
 ble put in by others : and although much cavil 
 
DISCIPLINE OP DIVORCE. ^5 
 
 might be made in the distinguishing between indi- 
 visible and individual, yet the one taken for |K)ssibIe, 
 the other for actual, neither the one nor the other 
 can belong to the essence of marriage ; especially 
 when a civilian defines, by which law marriage is 
 actually divorced for many causes, and with good 
 leave, by mutual consent. Therefore where " con- 
 junction" is said, they who comment the Institutes 
 agree, that conjunction of mind is by the law meant, 
 not necessarily conjunction of body. That law 
 then had good reason attending to its own defini- 
 tion, that divorce should be granted for the break- 
 ing of that conjunction which "it holds neces- 
 sary, sooner than for the want of that con- 
 junction which it holds not necessary. And 
 whereas Tuningus a famous lawyer, excuses 
 individual as the purpose of marriage, not al- 
 ways the success, it suffices not. Purpose is not 
 able to constitute the essence of a thing. Nature 
 herself, the universal mother, intends nothing but 
 her own perfection and preservation ; yet is not the 
 more indissoluble for that. The Pandects out of Mo- 
 destinus, though they do not define, yet well describe 
 marriage " the conjunction of male and female, the 
 society of all life, the communion of divine and 
 human right :" which Bucer always imitates on the 
 fifth to the Ephesians. But it seems rather to com- 
 prehend the several ends of marriage than to con- 
 tain 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 
 judged on, it will be looked I should produce ano- 
 ther definition than these which have not stood the 
 T 2 
 
276 - THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 trial. Thus then I suppose that marriage by the 
 natural and plain order of God's institution in the 
 text may be more demonstratively and essentially 
 defined. " Marriage is a divine institution, join- 
 ing man and woman in a love fitly disposed to the 
 helps and comforts of domestic life/' " A divine 
 .institution." This contains the prime efficient cause 
 of marriage : as for consent of parents and guardians, 
 it seems rather a concurrence than a cause ; for as 
 many that marry are in their own power as not ; 
 .and where they are not their 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 
 tire not to be counted marriage. " Joining man and 
 woman in a love,'' &c. This brings in the parties 
 consent ; until which be, the marriage hath no true 
 being. When I say " consent," I mean not error, 
 for error is not properly consent : and why should 
 not consent be here understood with equity and 
 good to either part, as in all other friendly cove- 
 nants, and not be strained and cruelly urged to 
 the mischief and destruction of both ? Neither do 
 I mean that singular act of consent which made the 
 contract, for that may remain, and yet the marriage 
 not true nor lawful ; and that may cease, and yet 
 the marriage both true and lawful, to their sin that 
 break it. So that either as no efficient at dl, or 
 but a transitory, it comes not into the definition. 
 That consent I mean, which is a love fitly disposed 
 to mutual help and comfort of life: this is that 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ^TJ 
 
 tiappy Form of Marriage naturally arising from the 
 very heart of divine institution in the text, in all 
 the former definitions either obscurely, and untje^ 
 ^li^taken terms expressed, or not at all. This gives 
 marriage all her due, all her benefits, all her being, 
 all her distinct and proper being. This makes a 
 marriage not a bondage, a blessing not a curse, a 
 gift of God not a snare, Unless there be a love, 
 and that love born of fitness, how can it last ? 
 unless it last, how can the best and sweetest pur- 
 poses of marriage be attained ? And they not 
 attained, which are the chief ends, and with a law- 
 ful love constitute the formal cause itself of mar- 
 riage, how can the essence thereof subsist ? How 
 can it be indeed what it goes for ? Conclude there- 
 fore by all the power of reason, that where this 
 essence of marriage is not, there can be no true 
 marriage ; and the parties, either one of them or 
 both, are free, and without fault, rather by a nullity 
 than by a divorce, may betake them to a second 
 choice, if their present condition be not tolerable to 
 them. If any shall ask, why " domestic" in the 
 definition ? 1 answer, that because both in the 
 scriptures, and in the gravest poets and philosophers, 
 I find the properties and excellencies of a wife set 
 out only from domestic virtues ; if they extend fur- 
 ther, it diflTuses them into the motion of some more 
 common duty than matrimonial. 
 
 Thus far of the definition ; the consectary which 
 flows from thence, altogether depends thereon, is 
 manifestly brought in by this connexive particle 
 " therefore ;" and branches itself into a double con- 
 sequence ; first individual society, ' therefore shall 
 
978 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 a man leave father and mother:* secondly, conjugal 
 benevolence, ' and they shall be one flesh.^ Which, 
 as was shown, is not without cause here mentioned, 
 to prevent and to abolish the suspect of pollution in 
 that natural and undefiled act. These consequences 
 therefore cannot either in religion, law, or reason, 
 be bound, and posted upon a man to his sorrow 
 and misery, but receive what force they have from 
 the meetness 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 herself in artificial theorems, and defini- 
 tions, corolaries, like a professor in the schools, but 
 looks to be analysed, and interpreted by the logical 
 industry of her disciples and followers, and to be 
 reduced by them, as oft as need is, into those scien- 
 tial rules, which are the implements of instruction ; 
 yet Moses, as if foreseeing the miserable work that 
 man's ignorance and pusillanimity would make in this 
 matrimonious business, and endeavouring his utmost 
 to prevent it, condescends in this place to such a 
 methodical and school-like wayjof defining and con- 
 sequencing, as in no place of the whole law more. 
 
 Thus we have seen, and, if we be not conten- 
 tious may know what was marriage in the beginning, 
 to which in the gospel we are referred ; and what 
 from hence to judge of nullity, or divorce. Here I 
 esteem the work done ; in this field the controversy 
 decided ; but because other places of scripture seem 
 to look aversely upon this our decision, (although 
 indeed they keep all harmony with itj) and because 
 it is a better work to reconcile the seeming diversi- 
 ties of scripture, than the real dissentions of nearest 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 279 
 
 friends ; I shall assay in the three following dis 
 courses to perform that office. 
 
 Deut. xxiv. 1, 2, 
 
 1. " When a man hath taken a wife and married 
 her, and it conies to pass that shejind no favour 
 in his eyes^ because he luilh found some unclean- 
 ness in her, then let him write her a hill of 
 divorcement, 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 go and be another mans wife,*' 
 
 That which is the only discommodity of speaking 
 in a clear matter, the abundance of argument that 
 presses to be uttered, and the suspense of judgment 
 what to choose, and how in the multitude oF reason 
 to be not tedious, is the greatest difficulty which I 
 expect here to meet with. Yet much hath been 
 said formerly concerning this law in " the Doctrine 
 of Divorce." Whereof I shall repeat no more than 
 what is necessary. Two things are here doubted : 
 first, and that but of late, whether this be a law or 
 no ; next, what this reason of " uncleanness" might 
 mean, for which the law is granted. That it is a 
 plain law no man ever questioned, till Vatablus 
 within these hundred years professed Hebrew at 
 Paris, a man of no religion, as Beza deciphers him. 
 Yet some there be who follow him, not only against 
 the current of all antiquity both Jewish and Chris- 
 tian, but the evidence of Scripture also, Malach. 
 ii. 16. ' Let him who hateth put away, saith the 
 Lord God of Israel.* Although this place also hath 
 teen tampered with, as if it were to be thus ren-» 
 
280 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 dered, * The Lord God saith, that he hateth putting 
 away/ But this new interpretation rests only in 
 the authority of Junius : for neither Calvin, nor 
 Vatablus himself, nor any other known divine so in- 
 terpreted 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 else, for these two reasons : 
 first, it introduces in a new manner the person of 
 God speaking less majestic than he is ever wont : 
 when God speaks by his prophet, he ever speaks in 
 the first person, thereby signifying his majesty and 
 omnipresence. He would have said, I hate putting 
 away, saith the Lord ; and not sent word by Ma- 
 lachi in a sudden fallen style, ' The Lord God saith, 
 that he hateth putting away :' that were a phrase to 
 shrink the glorious omnipresence of God speaking, 
 into a kind of circumspective absence. And were 
 as if a herald, in the achievement of a king, should 
 commit the indecorum to set his helmet side-ways 
 and close, not full-faced and open in the posture of 
 direction and command. We cannot think there- 
 fore that this last prophet v^ould thus in a new 
 iiishion 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 : he that reads attentively will soon perceive, 
 that God blames not here the Jews for putting 
 away their wives, but for keeping strange concu- 
 bines, to the " profaning of Juda's holiness," and 
 the vexation of their Hebrew wives, v. 11, 
 and 14. * Judah hath married the daughter of a 
 gtrange God :* and exhorts them rather to put their 
 
DISCIPLINE OP DIVORCE. 267*^ 
 
 wives away whom they hate, as the law permitted, 
 thaii to keep them under such affronts. And it is 
 received, that this prophet lived in those times of 
 Ezra and Nehemiah (nay by some is thought to be 
 Ezra himself) when the people were forced by these 
 two worthies to put their strange wives away. So 
 that what the story of those times, and the plain 
 context of the eleventh verse, from whence this re- 
 buke begins, can give us to conjecture of the ob- 
 scure and curt Ebraisms that follow ; this prophet 
 does not forbid putting away, but forbids keeping 
 and commands putting away according to God's 
 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 confirms, that he commands it 
 also here by Moses. 
 
 1 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 Eccle- 
 siasticus. Which book, begun by the grandfather 
 of that Jesus, who is called the son of Sirach, might 
 have been written in part, not much afler the time 
 when Malachi lived ; if we compute by the reign of 
 Ptolemaeus Euergetcs. It [)rofesses to explain the 
 law and the prophets; and yet exhorts us to divorce, 
 for incurable causes, and to cut off from the flesh 
 those whom it there describes. Ecclesiastic, xxv. 26. 
 Whic': doubtless that wise and ancient writer would 
 never have advised, had either Malachi so lately 
 forbidden it, or the law by a full precept not left it 
 lawful. But 1 urge not this for want of better 
 proof; our Saviour himself allows divorce to be si 
 
258* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 command, Mark x. 3, 6. Neither do they weaken 
 this assertion, who say it was only a sufferance, as 
 shall be proved at large in that place of Mark. But 
 suppose it were not a written law, they never can 
 deny it was a custom, and so eifect nothing. For 
 the same reasons that induce them why it should 
 not be a law, will straighten them as hard why 
 it should be allowed 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 whole- 
 some laws ; unless we imagine Moses weaker than 
 every negligent and startling politician. If it be, 
 as they make this of divorce to be, a custom against 
 nature, against justice, against charity, how, upon 
 this most impure custom tolerated, could the God 
 of pureness erect a nice and precise law, that the 
 wife married after divorce could not return to her 
 former husband, as being defiled? What was all 
 this following niceness worth, built upon the lewd 
 foundation of a wicked thing allowed ? In few 
 words then, this custom of divorce either was allow- 
 able, or not allowable ; if not allowable, how 
 could it be allowed ? if it were allowable, all who 
 undersand law will consent, that a tolerated custom 
 hath the force of a law, and is indeed no other but 
 an unwritten law, as Justinian calls it, and is as pre- 
 valent as any written statute. So that their shift of 
 turning this law into a custom wheels about, and 
 gives the onset upon their own flanks ; not disprov- 
 ing, but concluding it to be the more firm law, 
 because it was without controversy a granted cus- 
 tom ; as clear in the reason of common life, as those 
 given rules whereon Euclides builds his propositions. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 259* 
 
 Thus being 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 judgment, but what he learnt of God ; 
 of whom also in his song he saith, Deut. xxxii. 
 ' He is the rock, his work is perfect, all his ways 
 are judgment, a God of truth, and without iniquity, 
 just and right is he/ And David testifies, the 
 judgments of the Lord " are true and righteous 
 altogether." Not partly right and partly wrong, 
 much less wrong altogether, as divines of now-a- 
 days dare censure them. Moses again, of that 
 people to whom he gave this law, saith Deut. xiv. 
 ' Ye are the children of the Lord your God, the 
 Lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people to 
 himself above all the nations upon the earth, that 
 thou shouldest keep all his commandments, and be 
 high in praise, in name, and in honor, holy to the 
 Lord !* chap. xxvi. And in the fourth, ' Behold 
 I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as 
 the Lord my God commanded me, keep therefore 
 and do 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 there so great, who hath God so nigh to 
 them ? and what nation that hath statutes and judg- 
 ments sa righteous as all this law which I set before 
 you this day ?' Thus whether we looji at the purity 
 and justice of God himself, the jealousy of his 
 honour among other nations, the holiness and moral 
 perfection which he intended by his law to teach 
 this people, we cannot possibly think how he could 
 
260* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 endure to let them slug and grow inveterately wicked, 
 under base allowances, and whole adulterous lives 
 by dispensation. They might not eat, they might 
 not touch an unclean thing ; to what hypocrisy then 
 were they trained up, if by prescription of the same 
 law, they might be unjust, they might be adulterous 
 for term of life ? forbid to soil their garments with a 
 coy imaginary pollution, but not forbid, bcut coun- 
 tenanced and animated by law to soil their souls 
 with deepest defilements. What more unlike to 
 God, what more like that God should hate, than 
 that this law should be so curious to wash vessels 
 and vestures, and so careless to leave unwashed, un- 
 regarded, so foul a scab of Egypt in their souls ? 
 What would we more ? The statutes of the Lord 
 are all pure and just : and if all, then this of divorce. 
 " Because he hath found some uncleanness in 
 her,*^^ That we may not esteem this law to be a mere 
 authorizing of licence, as the Pharisees took it, Moses 
 adds the reason, for " some uncleanness found.'* 
 Some heretofore have been so ignorant, as to have 
 thought, that this uncleanness means adultery. But 
 Erasmus, who, for having writ an excellent treatise 
 of divorce, was wrote against by some burly stand- 
 ard divine perhaps of Cullen, or of Lovain, who calls 
 himself Phimostomus, shows learnedly out of the 
 fathers, with other testimonies and reasons, that 
 uncleanness is not here so understood ; defends his 
 former work, though new to that age, and perhaps 
 counted licentious, and fears not to engage all his 
 fame on the argument. Afterward, when expositors 
 began to understand the Hebrew text, which they 
 had not done of many ages before, they translated 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 261* 
 
 \rord<br word not " uncleanness,** but ** the naked- 
 ness of any thing," and considering that nakedness 
 is usually referred in scripture to the mind as well 
 as to the body, they constantly expound it any de- 
 fect, annoyance, or ill quality in nature, which to be 
 joined with, makes life tedious, and such company 
 worse than solitude. So that here will be no cause 
 to vary from the general consent of exposition, 
 which gives us freely that God permitted divorce, 
 for whatever was unalterably distasteful, whether in 
 body or mind. But with this admonishment, that 
 If the Roman law, especially in contracts aud dow- 
 ries, left many things to equity with these <;autions, 
 " ex fide bona, quod aequis melius erit, ut inter bo- 
 nes bene agitur,^' we will not grudge to think, that 
 God intended not licence here to ev^ry humour, but 
 to such remediless grievances as might move a good 
 and honest and faithful man then to divorce, when 
 it can no more be peace or comfort to either of them 
 continuing thus joined. And although it could n€rt 
 be avoided, but that men of hard hearts would abuse 
 this liberty, yet doubtless it was intended, as all other 
 privil^es in law are, to good men principally, to bad 
 only by accident. So that the siii was not in the 
 permission, nor simply in the action of divorce (for 
 then the permitting also had been sin) but only in 
 the abuse. But that this law should, as it were, be 
 wrung from God and Moses, only to serve the hard- 
 heartedness, and the lust of injurious men, how re- 
 mote it is from all sense, and law, and honesty, and 
 therefore surely from the meaning of Christ, shall 
 abundantly be manifest in due order. 
 
 Now although Moses needed not to add other 
 
262* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 reason of this law than that one there expressed^ 
 yet to these ages wherein canons, and Scotisms, and 
 Lombard laws, have dulled, and almost obliterated 
 the lively sculpture of ancient reason and humanity ; 
 it will be requisite to heap reason upon reason, and 
 all little enough to vindicate the whiteness and the 
 innocence of this divine law, from the calumny it 
 finds at this day, of being a door to licence and* 
 confusion. Whena& indeed there is not a judicial 
 point in all Moses, consisting of more true equity, 
 high wisdom, and godlike pity than this law ; not 
 derogating, but preserving the honour and peace of 
 marriage, and exactly agreeing with the sense and 
 mind of that institution in Genesis. 
 
 For first, if marriage be but an ordained relation, 
 as it seems not more, it cannot take place above the 
 prime dictates of nature : and if it be of natural 
 right, yet it must yield to that which is more 
 natural, and before it by eldership and precedence 
 in nature. Now it is not natural, that Hugh mar- 
 ries Beatrice, or Thomas Rebecca, being only a 
 civil contract, and full of many chances ; but that 
 these men seek them meet helps, that only is na- 
 tural ; and that they espouse them such, that only 
 is marriage. But if they find them neither fit helps 
 nor tolerable society, what thing more natural, more 
 original, and first in nature, than to depart from that 
 which is irksome, grievous, actively hateful, and in- 
 jurious even to hostility, especially in a conjugal 
 respect, wherein antipathies are invincible, and where 
 the forced abiding of the one can be no true good, no 
 real comfort to the other ? For if he find no con- 
 tentment from the other, how can he return it from 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 263* 
 
 himself? or no acceptance, how can he mutually 
 accept ? What more equal, more pious, than to untie 
 a civil knot for a natural enmity held by violence 
 from parting, to dissolve an accidental conjunction 
 of this or that man and woman, for the most natural 
 and most necessary disagreement of meet from 
 unmeet, guilty from guiltless, contrary from con- 
 trary? It being certain, that the mystical and 
 blessed unity of marriage can be no way more 
 unhallowed and profaned, than by the forcible 
 uniting of such disunions and separations. Which 
 if we see ofttimes they cannot join or piece up 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, 
 than to infect their friendship with the strife of their 
 servants : Paul and Barnabas, joined together by 
 the Holy Ghost to a spiritual work, thought it 
 better to separate, when once they grew at variance. 
 If these great saints, joined 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 colleagueship in the same family, 
 or in the same journey, lest it should grow to a 
 worse division ; can any thing be more absurd and 
 barbarous, than that they whom only error, casu- 
 alty, art, or plot, hath joined, should be compelled, 
 not against a sudde,Q> passion, but against the per- 
 manent and radical discords of nature, to the most 
 intimate and incorporating duties of love and em- 
 
g64* THE DOCTRINE A^D 
 
 bracement, therein only rational, and human, as 
 they are free and voluntary ; being else an abject 
 and servile yoke, scarce 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 
 marriage among those who can be friendly, can 
 T€spect each other, yet to marry each other would 
 not for any persuasion. If then this unfitness and 
 •disparity be not till after marriage discovered, 
 through many causes, and colours, and conceal- 
 ments, that may overshadow ; undoubtedly it will 
 produce the same effects, and perhaps with more 
 vehemence, that such ^ mistaken pair would give 
 the world to be unmarried again. And their con- 
 dition Solomon to the plain justification of divorce 
 expresses, Prov. xxx. .21, 23, where he tells us of 
 his own accord, that a ' hated, or a hateful woman, 
 when she 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 than 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 do no good, and is exposed to all evil. 
 Secondly, It is unjust that any ordinance, or- 
 dained to the good and comfort of man, w^here that 
 end is missing, without his fault, should be forced 
 Upon him to an unsufferable misery and discomfort, 
 if not commonly ruin. All ordinances are esta- 
 blished in their end ; the end of law is the virtue, 
 is the righteousness of law: and therefore him we 
 ^uiit an ill-expounder, who urges law against the 
 intention thereof. The general end of every ordi- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. S6^* 
 
 nance, of every severest, every divinist, even 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, whereof both 
 the general and particular end is the peaCe and con* 
 tentment of man's mind, as the institution declares* 
 Contentment of body they grant, which if it be 
 defrauded, the plea of frigidity shall divorce : bijiit 
 here hes the fathomless absurdity, that granting this 
 for bodily defects, they will not grant it for any de- 
 fect of the mind, any violation of religious or civil 
 society. Whenas, if the argument of Christ be 
 firm against the ruler of the synagogue, Luke xiii. 
 ' Thou hypocrite, doth not each of you on the Sab- 
 bath-day loosen his ox or his ass 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 here • ye have regard in marriage to 
 the grievance of body, should you not regard more 
 the grievances of the mind, seeing the soul as much 
 excels the body, as the outward man excels the ass, 
 and more ? for that animal is yet a living creature, 
 perfect in itself: but the body without the soul is a 
 mere senseless trunk. No ordinance therefore, given 
 particularly to the good both spiritual and temporal 
 of man, can be urged upon him to his mischief: 
 and if they yield this to the un worthier part, the 
 body, whereabout are they in their principles, that 
 they yield it not to the more worthy, the mind of a 
 good man ? 
 
 Thirdly, As no ordimmce, so no covenant, no 
 not between God an<j man, much less between man 
 and man, being, as all are, intended to the good of 
 
266* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 both parties, can hold to the deluding or making 
 miserable of them both. For equity is understood 
 in every covenant, even between enemies, though 
 the terms be not expressed. If equity therefore 
 made it, extremity may dissolve it. But marriage, 
 they use to say, is the covenant of God. Un- 
 doubted: and so is any covenant frequently called 
 in Scripture, v^herein God is called to vt^itness : the 
 covenant of friendship between David and Jonathan 
 is called the covenant of the Lord, ] Sam. xx. The 
 covenant of Zedekiah with the king of Babel, a 
 covenant to be doubted whether lawful or no, yet, 
 in respect of God invoked thereto, is called * the 
 oath, and the covenant of God,' Ezek. xvii. Mar- 
 riage also is called 'the covenant of God,* Prov. ii. 
 17. Why, but as before, because God is the wit- 
 ness thereof, Mai. ii. 14. So that this denomina- 
 tion adds nothing to the covenant of marriage, above 
 any other civil and solemn contract : nor is it more 
 indissoluble for thjs reason than any other against 
 the end of its own ordination ; nor is any vow or 
 oath to God exacted with such a rigour, where 
 superstition reigns not. For look how much divine 
 the covenant is, so much the more equal, so much 
 the more to be expected that every article thereof 
 should be fairly made good ; no false dealing or 
 unperforming should be thrust upon men without 
 redress, if the covenant be so divine. But faith, 
 they say, must be kept in covenant, though to our 
 damage. I answer, that only holds true, where the 
 other side performs ; which failing, he is no longer 
 bound. Again, this is true, when the keeping of 
 fdith can be of any use or benefit to the other. But 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 267* 
 
 in marriage, a league of love and willingness, if 
 feith be not willingly kept, it scarce is worth the 
 keeping ; nor can be any delight to a generous 
 mind, with whom it is forcibly kept : and the ques- 
 tion still supposes the one brought to an impossi- 
 bility of keeping it as he ought, by the other's 
 default • and to keep it formally, not only with a 
 thousand shifts and dissimulations, but with open 
 anguish, perpetual sadness and disturbance, no wil- 
 lingness, Jio cheerfulness, no contentment ; cannot 
 be any good to a mind not basely poor and shallow, 
 with whom the contract of love is so kept. A co- 
 venant therefore brought to that pass, is on the 
 unfaulty side without injury dissolved. 
 
 Fourthly, The law is not to neglect men under 
 greatest sufferances, but to see covenants of greatest 
 moment faithfullest performed- And what injury 
 comparable to that sustained in a frustrate and false 
 dealing marriage, to lose, for another's 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 man's good and' quiet reduced things 
 to propriety, which were at first in common ; how 
 much more law-like were it to assist nature in dis- 
 appropriating that evil, which by continuing proper 
 becomes destructive ? But he might have bewared* 
 So he might in any other covenant, wherein the 
 law does not constrain error to so dear a forfeit. 
 And yet in these matters wherein the wisest are apt 
 to err, ail the wariness that can be ofttimes nothing 
 avails. But the law can compel the offending party 
 to be more duteous. Yes, if all these kind of 
 oflfences were fit in public to be complained of, 
 T 9* 
 
S68# THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 or being compelled were any satisfaction to a mate 
 not sottish, or malicious. And these injuries work 
 so vehemently, that if the few remedy them not, by 
 separating the cause when no way else will pacify, 
 the person not relieved betakes him either to such 
 disorderly courses, or to such a dull dejection, as 
 renders him either infamous, or useless to the ser- 
 vice of God and his country. Which the law ought 
 to prevent as a thing pernicious to the common- 
 wealth ; and what better prevention than this which 
 Moses used ? 
 
 Fifthly, The law is to tender the liberty and the 
 human dignity of them that live under the law, 
 whether it be the man's right above the woman, or 
 the woman's just appeal against wrong and servitude. 
 But the duties of marriage contain in them a duty 
 of benevolence, which to do by compulsion against 
 the soul, where there can be neither peace, nor joy, 
 nor love, but an enthralment to one who either 
 cannot, or will not be mutual in the godhest and 
 the civilest ends of that society, is the ignoblest, 
 and the lowest slavery that a human shape can be 
 put to. This law therefore justly and piously pro- 
 vides against such an unmanly task of bondage as 
 this. The civil law though it favoured the setting 
 free of a slave, yet, if he proved ungrateful to his 
 patron, reduced him to a servile 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 unpurposed and unworthy bond- 
 age to a rightful liberty, for the most unnatural 
 fraud and ingratitude that can be committed against 
 him. And if that civilian emperor, in his title of. 
 
DliSCIPLlNE OF DIVORCE. S60* 
 
 *' Donations,'* permit the giver to re-call his gift 
 from him who proves unthankful towards him ; yea, 
 though he had subscribed and signed in the deed 
 of his gift not to re-call it, though for this very cause 
 of ingratitude ; with much more equity doth Moses 
 permit here the giver to re-call no petty gift, but the 
 gift of himself, from one who most injuriously and 
 deceitfully uses him against the main ends and 
 conditions of his giving himself, expressed in God's 
 institution. 
 
 Sixthly, Although there be nothing in the plain 
 words of this law, that seems to regard the afflic- 
 tions of a wife, how great soever ; yet expositors 
 determine, and doubtless determine rightly, that 
 God was not uncompassionate 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 emperor's statue, by giving 
 jeave to chai>ge their cruel masters ; and should 
 God, who in his law also is good to injured ser- 
 vants, by granting them their freedom in divers 
 ■cases, not consider the wrongs and miseries of a 
 wife, which is no servant? Though herein the 
 counter-sense of our divines to me, 1 must confess, 
 «eems admirable ; who teach that God gave this as 
 41 merciful law, not for Man whom he here namea, 
 and to whom by name he gives this power ; but for 
 the wife, whom he names not, and to whom by 
 name he gives no power at all. For certainly if 
 jnan be liable to injuries in marriage, 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 marriage, and not him at 
 all for whom marriage was made. 
 
270* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Seventhly, The law of marriage gives place to the 
 power of parents : for we hold, that consent o^ 
 parents not had may break the wedlock, though 
 else accomplished. It gives place to masterly 
 power, for the master might take away from a He- 
 brew servant the wife which he gave him, Exod. xxi. 
 If it be answered, that the marriage of servants is 
 no matrimony ; it is rephed, that this in the an- 
 cient Roman law is true, not in the Mosaic. If 
 it be added, she was a stranger, not a Hebrew, 
 therefore easily divorced ; it will be answered, that 
 strangers not being Canaanites, and they also being 
 converts, might be lawfully married, as Rahab was. 
 And her conversion is here supposed ; for a He- 
 brew master could not lawfully give a Heathen wife 
 to a 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. xxiv. and Deut. xxi. Lastly, 
 it gives place to the right of war, for a captive woman 
 lawfully married, and afterwards not beloved, might 
 be dismissed, only without ransom, Deut. xxi. If 
 marriage be dissolved by so many exterior powers, 
 not superior, as we think, why may not the power 
 of marriage itself, for its own peace and honour, dis- 
 solve itself, where the persons wedded be free per- 
 sons ^ Why may not a greater and more natural 
 power complaining dissolve marriage ? For the 
 ends, why matrimony was ordained, are certainly 
 and by all logic above the ordinance itself; why 
 may not that dissolve marriage, without which that 
 institution hath no force at all ? For the prime 
 ends of marriage are the whole strength and validity 
 thereof, without which matrimony is like an idol, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 271* 
 
 nothing in the world. But those former allow- 
 ances were all for hardness of heart. Be that 
 granted, until we come where to understand it 
 better ; if the law suffer thus far the obstinacy of a 
 bad man, it is not more righteous here, to do willingly 
 what is but equal, to remove in season the extre- 
 mities of a good man. 
 
 Eighthly, If a man had deflowered a virgin, or 
 brought an ill name on his wife that she came not a 
 virgin to him, he was amerced in certain shekels of 
 silver, and bound never to divorce her all his days, 
 Deut. xxii. which shows that the law gave no 
 liberty to divorce, where the injury was palpable ; 
 and that the absolute forbidding to divorce was in 
 part the punishment of a deflowerer, and a defamer. 
 Yet not so but that the wife questionless might de- 
 part when she pleased. Otherwise this course had 
 not so much righted her, as delivered her up to 
 more spite and cruel usage. This law therefore 
 dot!, justly distinguish the privilege of an honest 
 and blameless man in the matter of divorce, from 
 the punishment of a notorious offender. 
 
 Ninthly, Suppose it should be imputed to a man, 
 that he was too rash in his choice, and why he took 
 not better heed, let him now smart, and bear his 
 folly as he may ; although the law of God, that ter- 
 rible law, do not tl^us upbraid the infirmities and 
 unwilling mistakes of man in his integrity : but 
 suppose these and the like proud aggravations of 
 some stern hypocrite, more merciless in his mer- 
 cies, than any literal law in the rigour of severity, 
 must be patiently heard ; yet ail law, and God's 
 law especially grants every where to error easy 
 
272* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 remitments, even where the utmost penalty exacted 
 were no undoing. With great reason therefore and 
 mercy doth it here not torment an error, if it be so, 
 with the endurance of a whole life lost to all house- 
 hold comfort and society, a punishment of too vast 
 and huge dimension for an error, and the more un- 
 reasonable for that the like objection may be opposed 
 against the plea of divorcing for adultery : he might 
 have looked better before to her breeding under re- 
 ligious parents : why did he not more diligently 
 enquire into her manners, into what company she 
 kept ? every glance of her eye, every step of her 
 gait would have prophecied adultery, if the quick 
 scent of these discerners had been took along ; they 
 had the divination to have foretold you all this, as 
 they have now the divinity to punish an error inhu- 
 manly. As good reason to be content, and forced 
 to be content with your adulteress ; if these object- 
 ors might be the judges of human frailty. But God, 
 more mild and good to man, than man to his bro- 
 ther, in all this liberty given to divorcement, men- 
 tions 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 ini- 
 quity. For if the one be to look so narrowly wha|: 
 he takes, at the peril of ever keeping, why should 
 not the other be made as wary ^what is promised, by 
 the peril of losing? for without those promises the 
 treaty of marriage had not proceeded. Why should 
 his own error bind him, rather than the other's fraud 
 acquit him ? Let thfe buyer beware, saith the old 
 law-beaten termer. Belike then there is no more 
 honesty, nor ingenuity in the bargain of a wedlock, 
 than in the buying of a cplt : we must it seems 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 273* 
 
 cirive it on as craftily with those whose affinity we 
 seek, as if they were a pack of salemen and corn- 
 plotters. But the deceiver deceives himself in the 
 unprosperous marriage, and therein is sufficiently pu- 
 nished. I answer, that the most of those who deceive 
 are suOh as either understand not, or value not the 
 true purposes of marriage ; they have the prey they 
 seek, not the punishment : yet say it prove to them 
 some cross, it is not equal that error and fraud 
 should be linked in the same degree of forfeiture, 
 but rather that error should be acquitted, and fraud 
 bereaved his morsel, if the mistake were not on both 
 sides ; for then on both sides the acquitment would 
 be reasonable, if the bondage be intolerable; which 
 this law graciously determines, not unmindful of 
 the wife, as was granted willingly to the common 
 expositors, though beyond the letter of this law, 
 yet not beyond the spirit of charity. 
 
 Tenthly, Marriage is a solemn thing, some say 
 a holy, the resemblance of Christ and his church : 
 and so indeed it is where the persons are truly reli- 
 gious ; and we know all sacred things, not per- 
 formed sincerely as they ought, are no way accept- 
 able to God in their outward formality. And 
 that wherein it differs from personal duties, if they 
 be not truly done, the fault is in ourselves ; but mar- 
 riage to be a true and pious marriage is not in the 
 single power of any person ; the essence whereof, 
 as of all other covenants, is in relation to another, 
 the making and maintaining causes thereof are all 
 mutual, and must be a communion of spritual and 
 temporal comforts. If then either of them cannot, 
 or obstinately will not be answerable in these duties, 
 so as that the other can have no peaceful hving, or 
 
274* THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 endure the want of what he justly seeks, and sees 
 no hope, then straight from that dwelHng, love, 
 which is the soul of wedlock, takes his flight, leav- 
 ing only some cold performances of civil and com- 
 mon respects; but the true bond of marriage, if 
 there were ever any there, is already burst like a 
 rotten thread. Then follows dissimulation, sus- 
 picion, false colours, false pretences, and worse than 
 these, disturbance, annoyance, vexation, sorrow, 
 temptation even in the faultless person, weary of 
 himself, and of all actions public or domestic ; then 
 comes disorder, neglect, hatred, and perpetual strife, 
 all these the enemies of holiness and Christianity, 
 and every one persisted in, a remediless violation 
 of matrimony. Therefore God, who hates all feign- 
 ing and formality, where there should be all faith 
 and sincereness, and abhors the inevitable discord, 
 where there should be greater concord ; when 
 through another's default faith and concord cannot 
 be, counts it neither just to punish the innocent with 
 the transgressor, nor holy, nor honourable for the 
 sanctity of marriage, that should be the union of 
 peace and love, to be made the commitment and 
 close fight of enmity and hate. And therefore doth 
 in this law what best agrees with his goodness, 
 loosening a sacred thing to peace and charity, rather 
 than binding it to hatred and contention ; loosenin?;; 
 only the outward and formal tie of that which is 
 already inwardly and really broken, or else was really 
 never joined. 
 
 Eleventhly, One of the chief matrimonial ends is 
 said to seek a holy seed ; but where an unfit mar- 
 riage administers continual cause of hatred and dis- 
 temper, there, as was heard before, cannot choose 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 276* 
 
 but much unholiness abide. Nothing more unhal- 
 lows a man, more unprepares him to the service of 
 God in any duty, than a habit of wrath and pertur- 
 bation, arising from the importiinity of troublous 
 causes never absent. And where the household 
 stands in this phght, what love can there be to the 
 unfortunate issue, what care of their breeding, which 
 is of main conducement to their being holy ? God 
 therefore, knowing how unhappy it would be for 
 children to be born in such a family, gives this law 
 as a prevention, that, being an unhappy pair, they 
 should not add to be unhappy parents, or else as a 
 remedy that if there be children, while they are 
 fewest, they may follow either parent, as shall be , 
 agreed, or judged, from the house of hatred and dis- 
 cord to a place of more holy and peaceable education. 
 Twelfthly, All law is available to some good end, 
 but the final prohibition of divorce avails to no 
 good end, causing only the endless aggravation of 
 evil, and therefore this permission of divorce was 
 given to the Jews by the wisdom and fatherly pro- 
 vidence of God ; who knew that law cannot com- 
 mand love, without which matrimony hath no true 
 being, no good, no solace, nothing of God's institut- 
 ing, nothing but so sordid and so low, as to be dis- 
 dained of any generous person. Law cannot ena- 
 ble natural inability either of body, or mind, which 
 gives the grievance ; it cannot make equal those 
 inequalities, it cannot make fit those unfitnesses ; 
 and where there is malice more than defect of nature, 
 it cannot hinder ten thousand injuries, and bitter 
 actions of despight, too subtile and too unapparent 
 for law to deal with. And while it seeks to remedy 
 more outward wrongs, it exposes the injured person 
 
27©^ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 to Other more inward and more cutting. Al! these 
 evils unavoidably will redound upon the children, if 
 any be, and upon the whole family. It degenerates 
 and disorders the best spirits, leaves them to unsettled 
 imaginations, and degraded hopes, careless of 
 themselves, their households and their friends, unac- 
 tive to all public service, dead to the commonwealth ; 
 wherein they are by one mishap, and iio willing- 
 trespass of theirs, outlawed from all the benefits 
 and comforts of married life and posterity. It con- 
 fers as little to the honour and inviolable keeping 
 of matrimony, but sooner stirs up temptations and 
 occasions to secret adulteries and unchaste roving. 
 But it maintains public honesty. Public folly 
 rather ; who shall judge of public honesty ? The law 
 of God and of ancientest Christians, and all civil na- 
 tions ; or the illegitimate law of monks and canonists, 
 the most malevolent, most unexperienced, most 
 incompetent judges of matrimony ? 
 
 These reasons, and many more that might be 
 -alleged, afford us plainly to perceive both what good 
 cause this law had to do for good men in mis- 
 chances, and what necessity it had to suffer acciden- 
 tally the hardheartedness of bad men, which it could 
 not certainly discover, or discovering could not 
 subdue, no nor endeavour to restrain without mul- 
 tiplying sorrow to them, for whom all was endea- 
 voured. The guiltless therefore were not deprived 
 their 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 ail this there is a loud exception 
 against this law of God, nor can the holy Author 
 
DISCli»LINK OF DIVORCE. 277* 
 
 save his law from this exception, that it opens a 
 door to all licence and confusion. But this is the 
 rudest, I was almost saying the most graceless ob- 
 jection, and with the least reverence to God and 
 Moses, that could be devised : this is to cite God 
 before man's tribunal, to arrogate a wisdom and 
 holiness above him. Did not God then foresee 
 what event of licence or confusion could follow ? 
 Did not he know how to ponder these abuses with 
 more prevaihng respects, in the most even balance 
 of his justice and pureness till these correctors came 
 up to show him better ? The law i§, if it stir up sin 
 any way, to stir it up by forbidding, as one contrary 
 excites another, Rom. vii ; 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 obstinate lust, how is God 
 not made the contradicter of himself ? No man 
 denies, that best things may be abused: but it 
 is a rule resulting from many pregnant experiences, 
 that what doth most harm in the abusing, used 
 rightly cloth most good. And such a good to take 
 away from honest men, for being abused by such 
 as abuse all things, is the greatest abuse of all. That 
 the whole law is no further useful, than as a man 
 uses it lawfully, St. Paul teaches 1 Tim. i. And 
 that christian liberty may be used for an occasion 
 to the flesh, the same apostle confesses. Gal. v. 
 yet thinks not of removing it for that, but bids us 
 rather * stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ 
 hath freed us, and not be held again in the yoke of 
 bondage.' The very permission, which Christ gave 
 to divorce for adultery, may be foully abused, by 
 any whose hardness of heart can either feign adul- 
 
278^^ TBB DOCTRINE AND 
 
 tery or dares commit, that he may divorce. And 
 for this cause the pope, and hitherto the church 
 of England, forbid all divorce from the bond of 
 marriage, though for openest adultery. If then 
 it be righteous to hinder, for the fear of abuse, 
 that which God^s law, notwithstanding that caution, 
 hath warranted to be done, doth not our righteous- 
 ness come short of Antichrist ? or do we not rather 
 herein conform ourselves to his unrighteousness 
 in this undue and unwise fear ? For God regards 
 more to reheve by this law the just complaints of 
 good men, than to curb the licence of wicked men, 
 to the crushing withal, and the overwhelming of 
 his afflicted servants. He loves more that his law 
 should look with pity upon the difficulties of his 
 own, than with rigour upon the boundless riots 
 of them who serve another master, and, hindered 
 here by strictness, will break another way to worse 
 enormities. If this law therefore have many good 
 reasons for which God gave it. and no intention of 
 giving scope to lewdness, 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 God's wisdom, nor can be purity, if 
 his purity will suffice us, to except against this law, 
 as if it fostered licence. But if they affirm this law 
 had no other end, but to permit obdurate lust, 
 because it would be obdurate, making the law of 
 God intentionally to proclaim and enact sin lawful, 
 as if the will of God were become sinful, or sin 
 stronger than his direct and lawgiving will ; the men 
 would be admonished to look well to it, that while 
 they are so eager to shut the door against licence. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 279* 
 
 they do not open a worse door to blasphemy. And 
 yet they shall be here further shown their iniquity : 
 what more foul common sin among us than drunken- 
 ness ? And who can be ignorant, that if the impor- 
 tation of wine, and the use of all strong drink, were 
 forbid, it would both clean rid the possibility of com- 
 mitting that odious vice, and men might afterwards 
 live happily and healthfully without the use of those 
 intoxicating liquors ? Yet who is there the severest 
 of them all, that ever propounded to lose his sack, 
 his ale, toward the certain abolishing of so great 
 a sin ? who is there of them, the holiest, that less 
 loves his rich canary at meals, though it be fetched 
 from places that hazard the religion of them who 
 fetch it, and though it make his neighbour drunk 
 out of the same tun ? While they forbid not there- 
 fore the use of that liquid Merchandize, which for- 
 bidden would utterly remove a most loathsome sin, 
 and not impair either the health or the refreshment 
 ' of mankind, supplied many other ways : why do 
 they forbid a law of God, the forbidding whereof 
 brings into excessive bondage ofttimes the best of 
 men, and betters not the worse ? He, to remove a 
 national vice, will not pardon his cups, nor think it 
 concerns him to forbear the quaffing of that outland- 
 ish grape, in his unnecessary fulness, though other 
 men abuse it never so much ; nor is he so abstemi- 
 ous as to intercede with the magistrate, that all 
 matter of drunkenness be banished the common- 
 wealth ; and yet for the fear of a less inconvenience 
 I un pardonably requires of his brethren, in their ex- 
 treme necessity, to debar themselves the use of 
 God*8 pel missive law, though it might be their sav- 
 — 
 
2^^ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 this peremptory strictness 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 divorced, 
 being married to another, might not return to her 
 former husband. And Justinian's law counsels 
 the same in his title of " Nuptials." And what con- 
 fusion else can there be in separation, to separate 
 upon extreme urgency the religious from the irreligi- 
 ous, the fit from the unfit, the willing from the 
 wilful, the abused from the abuser ? Such a sepa- 
 ration is quite contrary to confusion. But to bind 
 and mix together holy with atheist, heavenly with 
 hellish, fitness with unfitness, light with darkness, 
 antipathy with antipathy, the injured with the in- 
 jurer, and force them into the most inward nearness 
 of a detested union ; this doubtless is the most 
 horrid, the most unnatural mixture, the greatest 
 confusion that can be confused. 
 
 Thus by this plain and christian Talmud, vindi- 
 cating the law of God from irreverent and unwary 
 expositions, I trust, where it shall meet with intel- 
 ligent perusers, some stay at least in men^s thoughts 
 will be obtained, to consider these many prudent 
 and righteous ends of this divorcing permission: 
 that it may have, for the great author's sake, here- 
 after some competent allowance to be counted a 
 little purer than the prerogative of a legal and public 
 ribaldry, granted to that holy seed. So that from 
 hence we shall hope to find the way still more open 
 to the reconciling of those places, which treat this 
 matter in the gospel^ And thither now without 
 interruption the course of method brings us. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 'S8l 
 
 TETRACHORDON: 
 
 Matth.V, 31, 32. 
 
 3L '* It hath been said, whosoever shell put away 
 his wife, let him give her a wiiting of divorce^ 
 ment" 
 
 32. *' But I say unto you, that whosoever shall put 
 away his wife,' S^c. 
 
 Matth. XIX, 3, 4, &c. 
 
 3. ** And the Pharisees also came unto him, tempting 
 him,'' S^c, 
 
 IT hath been said"] What hitherto hath beeA 
 spoke upon the law of God touching matrimony 
 or divorce, he who will deny to have been argued 
 according to reason and all equity of scripture, I 
 cannot edify how, or by what rule of proportion 
 that man's virtue calculates, what his elements 
 are, nor what his analytics. Confidently to those 
 who have read good books, and to those whose 
 reason is not an illiterate book to themselves, I 
 appeal, whether they would not confess all this 
 to be the commentary of truth and justice, were 
 it not for these recited words of our Saviour. 
 And if they take not back that which they thus 
 grant, nothing sooner might persuade them that 
 Christ here teaches no new precept, and nothing 
 
 U 
 
J28^ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 sooner might direct them to find his meaning than 
 to compare and measure it by the rules of nature 
 and eternal righteousness, which no written law 
 extinguishes, and the gospel least of all. For 
 what can be more opposite and disparaging to 
 the covenant of love, of freedom, and of our man- 
 hood in grace, than to be made the yoking peda- 
 g'ogue of new severities, the scribe of syllables 
 and rigid letters, not only grievous to the best 
 of men, but different and strange from the light 
 of reason in them, save only as they are fain to 
 stretch and distort their apprehensions, for fear 
 of displeasing the verbal straitness of a text, 
 which our own servile fear gives us not the 
 leisure to understand aright ? If the law of Christ 
 shall be written in our hearts, as was promised 
 to the gospel, Jer. xxxi, how can this in the 
 vulgar and superficial sense be a law of Christ, 
 so far from being written in our hearts, that it 
 injures and disallows not only the free dictates 
 of nature and moral law, but of charity also and 
 religion in our hearts ? Our Saviour's doctrine is, 
 that the end and the fulfilling of every command 
 is charity; no faith without it, no truth without 
 it, no worship, no works pleasing to God but as 
 they partake of charity. He himself sets us an 
 example, breaking the solemnest and strictest 
 ordinance of religious rest, and justified the 
 breaking, not to cure a dying man, but such 
 whose cure might without danger have been de- 
 ferred. And wherefore needs must the sick man s 
 
PISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 283 
 
 bed be carried on that day by his appointment ? 
 And why were the disciples, who could not forbear 
 on that day to pluck the corn, so industriously 
 defended, but to show us, that, if he preferred 
 the slightest occasions of man s good before the 
 observing of highest and severest ordinances, he 
 gave us much more easy leave to break the into- 
 lerable yoke of a never well-joined wedlock for 
 the removing of our heaviest afflictions ? There- 
 fore it is, that the most of evangelic precepts are 
 given us in proverbial forms, 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 we bind, or slacken on earth, 
 are so in Heaven, but to signify that the christian 
 arbitrement of charity is supreme decider of all 
 controversy, and supreme resolver of all scripture, 
 not as the pope determines for his own tyranny, 
 but as the church ought to determine for its own 
 true liberty. Hence Eusebius, not far from the 
 beginning of his history, compares the state of 
 Christians to that of Noah and the patriarchs 
 before the law. And this indeed was the reason 
 why apostolic tradition in the ancient church was 
 counted nigh equal to the written word, though 
 it carried them at length awry, for want of con- 
 sidering that tradition was not left to be imposed 
 as law, but to be a pattern of that christian pru- 
 dence and liberty, which holy men by right as- 
 sumed o.f old ; which truth was so evident, that 
 it found entrance even into the council of Trent, 
 
 u 2 
 
S84 THE DOCTEINE AND 
 
 when the point of tradiUon came to be discussed. 
 And Marinaro, a learned Carmelite, for approach- 
 ing too near the true cause that gave esteem to 
 tradition, that is to say, the difference between 
 the Old and New Testament, the one punctually- 
 prescribing written law, the other guiding by the 
 inward spirit, was reprehended by cardinal Pool 
 as one that had spoken more worthy a German 
 Colloquy, than a general council. I omit many 
 instances, many proofs and arguments of this 
 kind, which alone would compile a just volume, 
 and shall content me here to have shown briefly, 
 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 cracked cymbals, we do but tinkle, 
 we know nothing, we do nothing, all the sweat 
 of our toilsomest obedience will but mock us. 
 And what we suffer superstitiously returns us no 
 thanks. Thus medicining our eyes, we need not 
 doubt to see more into the meaning of these our 
 Saviour's words, than many who have gone be- 
 fore us. 
 
 *' It hath been said, whosoever shall put away 
 hiswifeJ"] 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 shows, how they were the 
 lawbreakers. In every commonwealth, when it 
 decays, corruption makes two main steps ; first. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. S85 
 
 when men cease to do according to the inward 
 and uncompelled actions of virtue, caring only 
 to live by the outward constraint of law, and turn 
 the simplicity of real good into the craft of seem- 
 ing so by law. To this hypocritical honesty was 
 Rome declined in that age wherein Horace lived, 
 and discovered it to Quintius. 
 
 Whom do we count a good man, whom but he 
 Who keeps the laws and statutes of the Senate ? 
 Who judges in great suits and controversies ? 
 Whose witness and opinion win the cause ? 
 But his own house, and the whole neighbourhood 
 See his foul inside through his whited skin. 
 
 The next declining is, when law becomes now 
 too strait for the secular manners, and those too 
 loose for the cincture of law. This brings in false 
 and crooked interpretations to eke out law, 
 and invents the subtle encroachment of obscure 
 traditions hard to be disproved. To both these 
 descents the pharisees themselves were fallen. 
 Our Saviour therefore shows them both where 
 they broke the law, in not marking the divine in- 
 tent thereof, but only the letter ; and where they 
 depraved the letter also with sophistical exposi- 
 tions. This law of divorce they had depraved 
 both ways : first, by teaching that to give a bill 
 of divorce was all the duty which that law re- 
 quired, whatever the cause were ; next by running 
 to divorce for any trivial, accidental cause; whenas 
 
 1^ 
 
THE DOCTEINE AND 
 
 the law evidently stays in the grave causes of 
 natural and immutable dislike. *' It hath been 
 said," saith he. Christ doth not put any con- 
 tempt or disesteem upon the law of Moses, by 
 citing it so briefly ; for in the same manner God 
 himself cites a law of greatest caution, Jer. iii. : 
 *' They say if a man put away his wife, shall he 
 return to her again?" &c. Nor doth he more 
 abolish it than the law of swearing, cited next 
 with the same brevity, and more appearance of 
 contradicting : for divorce hath an exception left 
 it ; but we are charged there, as absolutely as 
 words can charge us, *' not to swear at all ?" yet 
 who denies the lawfulness of an oath, though here 
 it be in no case permitted ? And what shall be- 
 come of his solemn protestation not to abolish 
 one law, or one tittle of any law, especially of 
 those which he mentions in this chapter ? And 
 that he meant more particularly the not abolish- 
 ing of Mosaic divorce, is beyond all cavil manifest 
 in Luke xvi, 17, 18, where this clause against 
 abrogating is inserted immediately before the 
 sentence against divorce, as if it were called 
 thither on purpose to defend the equity of this 
 particular law against the foreseen rashness of 
 common textuaries, who abolish laws, as the rab- 
 ble demolish images, in the zeal of their hammers 
 oft violating the sepulchres of good men: like 
 Pentheus in the tragedies, they see that for 
 Thebes which is not, and take that for supersti- 
 tion, as these men in the heat of their annulling 
 
rUSCIPLINK OF DIVORCE. 
 
 287 
 
 perceive not how they abolish right, and equal 
 justice, under the appearance of judicial. And 
 yet are confessing all the while,' that these 
 sayings of Christ stand not in contradiction to 
 the law of Moses, but to the false doctrine of 
 the Pharisees raised from thence; that the law 
 of God is perfect, not liable to additions or dimi- 
 nutions : and Parseus accuses the Jesuit Maldo- 
 natus of greatest falsity for limiting the per- 
 fection of that law only to the rudeness of the 
 Jews. He adds, ** That the law promiseth life 
 to the performers thereof, therefore needs not 
 perfecter precepts than such as bring to life ; 
 that if the corrections of Christ stand opposite, 
 not to the corruptions of the pharisees, hut to 
 the law itself of God, the heresy of Manes would 
 follow, one God of the Old Testament, and 
 another of the New. That Christ saith not here, 
 except your righteousness exceed the righteous- 
 ness of Moses' law, but of the scribes and pha- 
 risees." That all this may be true : whither is 
 common sense flown asquint, if we can maintain 
 that Christ forbid the Mosaic divorce utterly, 
 and yet abolished not the law that permits it? 
 For if the conscience only were checked, and 
 the law not repealed, what means the fanatic 
 boldness of this age, that dares tutor Christ to 
 be more strict than he thought fit ? Ye shall have 
 the evasion, it was a judicial law. What could in- 
 fancy and slumber have invented more childish ? 
 Judicial or not judicial, it was one of those laws 
 
9SB THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 expressly which he forewarned us with protesta- 
 tion, that his mind was, not to abrogate : and 
 if we mark the steerage of his words, what course 
 they hold, we may perceive that what he pro- 
 tested not to dissolve (that he might faithfully 
 and not deceitfully remove a suspicion from him- 
 self) was principally concerning the judicial law; 
 for of that sort are all these here which he vin- 
 dicates, except the last. Of the ceremonial law 
 he told them true, that nothing of it should pass 
 ^' until all were fulfilled." Of the moral law he 
 knew the pharisees did not suspect he meant to 
 nullify that : for so doing would soon have un- 
 done his authority, and advanced theirs. Of the 
 judicial law therefore chiefly this apology was 
 meant : for how is that fulfilled longer than the 
 common equity thereof remains in force ? And 
 how is this our Saviour's defence of himself not 
 made fallacious if the pharisees chief fear be lest 
 he should abolish the judicial law, and he, to 
 satisfy them, protests his good intention to the 
 moral law ? It is the general grant of divines, 
 that what in the judicial law is not merely 
 judaical,* but reaches to human equity in com- 
 mon, was never in the thought of being abrogated. 
 If our Saviour took away aught of law, it was the 
 burdensonaeness of it, not the ease of burden ; it 
 
 * The first edition has judicial, but as that word may not be 
 60 universally understood in this place as judaical (though the 
 meaning of both be here the same), we have therefore inserted 
 the latter word in the text. 
 
i 
 
 DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 289 
 
 was the bondage, not the liberty of any divine 
 law, that he removed; this he often professed to 
 be the end of his coming. But vsrhat if the law 
 of divorce be a moral law, as most certainly it is 
 fundamentally, and hath been so proved in the 
 reasons thereof? For though the giving of a bill 
 may be judicial, yet the act of divorce is alto- 
 gether conversant in good and evil, and so abso- 
 lutely moral. So far as it is good, it never can 
 be abolished, being moral; and so far as it is 
 simply evil, it never could be judicial, as hath 
 been shown at large *' in the Doctrine of Divorce," 
 and will be reassumed anon. Whence one of 
 these two necessities follow, that either it was 
 never established, or never abolished. Thus much 
 may be enough to have said on this place. The 
 following verse will be tetter unfolded in the xix 
 chapter, where it meets us again, after a large 
 debatement on the question between our Saviour 
 and his adversaries. 
 
 Matt. XIX, 3, 4> &c. 
 
 Ver. 3. '* And the pharisees came unto him, tempting^ 
 him, and sailing unto him." 
 
 " TEMPTING him."] The manner of these men 
 coming to our Saviour, not to learn, but to tempt 
 him, may give us to expect, that their answer 
 will be such as is fittest for them ; not so much a 
 teaching, as an entangling. No man, though 
 never so willing or so well enabled to instruct, 
 
290 THE DOCTRINE ANI> 
 
 but if he discern his willingness and candour 
 made use of to entrap him, will suddenly draw 
 in himself, and laying aside the facil vein of per- 
 spicuity, will know his time to utter clouds and 
 riddles ; if he be not less wise than that noted 
 fish, whenas he should be not unwiser than the 
 serpent. Our Saviour at no time expressed any 
 great desire, to teach the obstinate and unteach- 
 able pharisees ; 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, unless we 
 draw his absolution of adultery into an edict? 
 So about the tribute, who is there can pick out 
 a full solution, what and when we must give to 
 Caesar, by the answer which he gave the phari- 
 sees ? If we must give to Caesar that which is 
 Caesar's, and all be Caesar's which hath his image, 
 we must either new stamp our coin, or we may 
 go new stamp our foreheads with the superscrip- 
 tion of slaves instead of freemen. Besides, it is 
 a general precept not only of Christ, but of all 
 other sages, not to instruct the unworthy and 
 the conceited, who love tradition more than 
 truth, but to perplex and stumble them pur- 
 posely with contrived obscurities. No wonder 
 then if they, who would determine of divorce by 
 this place, have ever found it difficult and unsa- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 291 
 
 tisfying through all the ages of the church, as 
 Austin himself and other great writers confess. 
 Lastly, it is manifest to be the principal scope 
 of our Saviour, both here, and in the fifth of 
 Matthew, to convince the pharisees of what they 
 being evil did licentiously, not to explain what 
 others being good and blameless men might be 
 permitted to do in case of extremity. Neither 
 was it seasonable to talk of honest and conscien- 
 tious liberty among them, who had abused legal 
 and civil liberty to uncivil license. We do not 
 say to a servant what we say to a son ; nor was 
 it expedient to preach freedom to those who had 
 transgressed in wantonness. When we rebuke a 
 prodigal, we admonish him of thrift, not of mag- 
 nificence, or bounty. And to school a proud 
 man, we labour to make him humble, not mag- 
 nanimous. So Christ, to retort these arrogant 
 inquisitors their own, took the course to lay their 
 haughtiness under a severity which they deserved ; 
 not to acquaint them, or to make them judges 
 either of the just mans right and privilege, or 
 of the afflicted man's necessity. And if we may 
 have leave to conjecture, there is a likelihood 
 offered us by Tertullian in his fourth against 
 Marcion, whereby it may seem very probable, 
 that the pharisees had a private drift of malice 
 against our Saviour's life in proposing this ques- 
 tion ; and our Saviour had a peculiar aim in the 
 rigour of his answer, both to let them know the 
 freedom of his spirit, and the sharpness of his 
 
J92 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 discerning. ''This I must now show," saith 
 Tertullian, " whence our Lord deduced this sen- 
 tence, and which way he directed it, whereby it 
 will more fully appear, that he intended not to 
 dissolve Moses." And thereupon tells us, that 
 the vehemence of this our Saviour's speech was 
 chiefly darted against Herod and Herodias. The 
 story is out of Josephus ; Herod had been a long 
 time married to the daughter of Aretas king of 
 Petra, till happening on his journey towards 
 Rome to be entertained at his brother Philip's 
 house, he cast his eye unlawfully and unguest- 
 like upon Herodias there, the wife of Philip, but 
 daughter to Aristobulus their common brother, 
 and durst make words of marrying her his niece 
 from his brother's bed. She assented, upon 
 agreement he should expel his former wife. All 
 was accomplished, and by the Baptist rebuked 
 with the loss of his head. Though doubtless 
 that stayed not the various discourses of men 
 upon the fact, which while the Herodian flatterers, 
 and not a few perhaps among the pharisees, eji- 
 deavoured to defend by wresting the law, it might 
 be a means to bring the question of divorce into 
 a hot agitation among the people, how far Moses 
 gave allowance. The pharisees therefore know- 
 ing our Saviour to be a friend of John the Bap- 
 tist, and no doubt but having heard much of his 
 sermon on the mount, wherein he spake rigidly 
 against the licence of divorce, they put him this 
 question, both in hope to find him a contradictor 
 
DisciPLiNB OF divorce; 5598 
 
 of Moses, and a condemner of Herod; so to 
 insnare him within compass of the same accu- 
 sation which had ended his friend ; and our 
 Saviour so orders his answer, as that they might 
 perceive Herod and his adulteress, only not 
 named : so lively it concerned them both what 
 he spake. No wonder then if the sentence of our 
 Saviour sounded stricter than his custom was ; 
 which his conscious attempters doubtless appre- 
 hended sooner than his other auditors. Thus 
 much we gain from hence to inform us, that what 
 Christ intends to speak here of divorce, will be 
 rather the forbidding of what we may hot do 
 herein passionately and abusively, as Herod and 
 Herodias did, than the discussing of what herein 
 we may do reasonably and necessarily. 
 
 ** Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?'"^ 
 It might be rendered more exactly from the 
 Greek, " to loosen or to set free ;" which though 
 it seem to have a milder signification than the 
 two Hebrew words commonly used for divorce, 
 yet interpreters have noted, that the Greek also 
 is read in the Septuagint for an act which is not 
 without constraint. As when Achish drove from 
 his presence David, counterfeiting madness, 
 Psal. xxxiv, the Greek 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 pharisees did not 
 state this question in the strict right of the man, 
 not tarrying for the wife's consent. And if our 
 
^94 . THE docthine and 
 
 Saviour answered directly according to what was 
 asked in the term of putting away, it will be 
 questionable, whether the rigour of his sentence 
 did not forbid only such putting away as is 
 without mutual consent, in a violent and harsh 
 manner, or without any reason but will, as the 
 Tetrarch did. Which might be the cause that 
 those christian emperors feared not in their con- 
 stitutions to .dissolve marriage by mutual con- 
 sent; in that our Saviour seems here, as the 
 case is most likely, not to condemn all divorce, 
 but all injury and violence in divorce. But no 
 injury can be done to them, who seek it, as the 
 Ethics of Aristotle sufficiently prove. True it is, 
 than an unjust thing may be done to one though 
 willing, and so may justly be forbidden: but 
 divorce being in itself no unjust or evil thing, 
 but only as it is joined with injury or lust ; injury 
 it cannot be at law, if consent be, and Aristotle 
 err not. And lust it may as frequently not be, 
 while charity hath the judging of so many private 
 grievances in a misfortuned wedlock, which may 
 pardonably seek a redemption. But whether it 
 be or not, the law cannot discern or examine lust, 
 so long as it walks from one lawful term to 
 another, from divorce to marriage, both in them- 
 selves indifferent. For if the law cannot take 
 hold to punish many actions apparently covetous, 
 ambitious, ungrateful, proud, how can it forbid 
 and punish that for lust, which is but only sur- 
 mised so, and can no more be certainly proved 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOECE. 
 
 in the divorcing now, than before in the marry- 
 ing? Whence if divorce be no unjust thing, but 
 through lust, a cause not discernible by law, as 
 law is wont to discern 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 lawful : leaving secrecies to conscience, 
 the thing which our Saviour here aims to rectify, 
 not to revoke the statutes of Moses. In the 
 mean while the word " to put away,*' being in 
 the Greek to loosen or dissolve, utterly takes 
 away that vain papistical distinction of divorce 
 from bed, and divorce from bond, evincing plainly, 
 that Christ and the pharisees mean here that 
 divorce, which finally dissolves the bond, and 
 frees both parties to a second marriage. 
 
 " For every causeJ'^ This the pharisees held, 
 that for every cause they might divorce, for every 
 accidental cause, any quarrel or difference that 
 might happen. So both Josephus and Philo, 
 men who lived in the same age, explain ; and the 
 Syriac translator, whose antiquity is thought 
 parallel to the Evangelists themselves, reads it 
 conformably, " upon any occasion or pretence." 
 Divines also generally agree, that thus the pha- 
 risees meant. Cameron, a late writer, much 
 applauded, commenting this place not undili- 
 gently, affirms that the Greek preposition x»roi 
 translated unusually (for) hath a force in it im- 
 plying the suddenness of those pharasaic divorces ; 
 
^96 THE DOCTRINE AMI) 
 
 and that their question was to this effect,' " whe- 
 ther for any cause whatever it chanced to be, 
 straight as it rose, the divorce might be lawful.'* 
 This he freely gives, whatever moved him, and I 
 as freely take, nor can deny his observation to 
 be acute and learned. If therefore we insist upon 
 the word of " putting away ;" that it imports a 
 constraint without consent, as might be insisted, 
 and may enjoy what Cameron bestows on us, 
 that " for every cause *' is to be understood, 
 ** according as any cause may happen," with a 
 relation to the speediness of those divorces, and 
 that Herodian act especially, as is already brought 
 us; the sentence of our Saviour will appear 
 nothing so strict a prohibition as hath been long con- 
 ceived, forbidding only to divorce for casual and 
 temporary causes, that may be soon ended, or 
 soon remedied : and likewise forbidding to divorce 
 rashly, and on the sudden heat, except it be for 
 adultery. If these qualifications may be ad- 
 mitted, as partly we offer them, partly are offered 
 them by some of their own opinion, and that 
 where nothing is repugnant why they should not 
 be admitted, nothing can wrest them from us; 
 the severe sentence of our Saviour will straight 
 unbend the seeming frown into that gentleness 
 and compassion, which was so abundant in all 
 his actions, his office, and his doctrine, from all 
 which otherwise it stands off at no mean dis- 
 tance. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIvaRCE. ^97 
 
 Ver. 4. ^' And he anm-ered and said unto them, 
 have ye 7wt read, that he which made them at the 
 beginning, made them male and female ?" 
 
 Ver. 5. " A7id said, for this cause shall a man 
 leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his 
 ivife, and they twain shall he one flesh.'' 
 
 Ver. 6. '* Wherefore they are no more twain, 
 hut one flesh : what therefoix God hath joined toge- 
 ther, let no inan'put asunder T 
 
 4, and 5, " Made them male and female ; and 
 said, for this cause,'' &c.] We see it here unde- 
 niably, that the law which our Saviour cites to 
 prove that divorce was forbidden, is not an abso- 
 lute and tyrannical command without reason, as 
 now-a-days we make it little better, but is 
 grounded upon some rational cause not difficult to 
 be apprehended, being in a matter which equally 
 concerns the meanest and the plainest sort oP 
 persons in a household life. Our next way then 
 will be to inquire if there be not more reasons 
 than one ; and if there be, whether this be the 
 best and chiefest. That we shall find by turn- 
 ing to the first institution, to which Christ refers 
 our own reading : he himself, having to deal with 
 treacherous assailants, useth brevity, and lighting 
 on the first place in Genesis that mentions any 
 thing tending to marriage in the first chapter, 
 joins it immediately to the twenty-fourth verse of 
 the second chapter, omitting all the prime words 
 
 X 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 between, which create the institution, and con- 
 tain the noblest and purest ends of matrimony ; 
 without which attained, 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 learn of him, asking him which command- 
 ments he should keep ; he neither repeats the first 
 table, nor all the second, nor that in order which 
 he repeats. If here then being tempted, he de- 
 sire to be the shorter, and the darker in his con- 
 ference, and omit to cite that from the second of 
 Genesis, which all divines confess is a commen- 
 tary to what he cites out of the first, the "making 
 them male and female ;" what are we to do, but 
 to search the institution ourselves ? And we shall 
 find there his own authority, giving other manner 
 of reasons why such firm union is to be in matri- 
 mony ; without which reasons, their being male 
 and female can be no cause of joining them unse- 
 parably : for if it be, then no adultery can sever. 
 Therefore the prohibition of divorce depends not 
 upon this reason here expressed to the pharisees, 
 but upon the plainer and more eminent causes 
 omitted here, and referred to the institution; 
 which causes not being found in a particular and 
 casual matrimony, this sensitive and materious 
 cause alone can no more hinder a divorce against 
 those higher and more human reasons urging it, 
 than it can alone without them to warrant a co- 
 pulation, but leaves it arbitrary to those who in 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. ^ 299 
 
 their chance of marriage find not why divorce is 
 forbid them, but why it is permitted them ; and 
 find 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 show us, that as through their 
 licentious divorces they made no more of mar- 
 riage, than as if to marry were no more than to 
 be male and female, so he goes no higher in his 
 confutation ; deeming them unworthy to be talked 
 with in a higher strain, but to be tied in marriage 
 by the mere material cause thereof, since their 
 own licence testified that nothing matrimonial 
 was in their thought, but to be male and female. 
 Next, it might be done to discover the brute igno- 
 rance of these carnal 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 believe this, his 
 entertainment of the young man soon after may 
 persuade us. Whom, though he came to preach 
 eternal life by faith only, he dismisses with a sal- 
 vation taught him by works only. On which 
 place Paraeus notes, " That this man was to be 
 convinced by a false persuasion ; and that Christ 
 is wont otherwise to answer hypocrites, other- 
 wise those that are docible." Much rather then 
 anay we think, that, in handling these tempters, 
 
 X 2 
 
|€© THE POCTRTNE AN© 
 
 he forgot not so to frame his prudent ambiguities 
 and concealments, as was to the troubling of 
 those peremptory disputants most wholesome. 
 When therefore we would know what right there 
 may be, in ill accidents, to divorce, we must re- 
 pair thither where God professes to teach his 
 servants by the prime institution, and not where 
 we see him intending to dazzle sophisters : we 
 must not read, " he made them male and female," 
 ?ind not understand he made them more intend- 
 edly '' a meet help" to remove the evil of being 
 '' alone." We must take both these together, 
 and then we may infer completely, as from the 
 whole cause, why a man shall cleave to his wife, 
 and they twain shall be one flesh : but if the full 
 and chief cause why we may not divorce be want- 
 ing here, this place may skirmish with the rab- 
 bies while it will, but to the true Christian it pro- 
 hibits nothing beyond the full reason of its own 
 prohibiting, which is best known by the insti- 
 tution. 
 
 Ver. 6. *' Wherefore they are no more twam^ 
 hut one flesh ^1 This is true in the general 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 meet for each oth^r ac- 
 cording to the plain prescript of God, may with 
 less ado than a volume be concluded still twain. 
 And so long as we account a magistrate no ma- 
 
 t 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 501 
 
 gistrate, if there be but a flaw in his election, 
 why should we not much rather count a matri- 
 mony no matrimony, if it cannot be in any rea- 
 sonable manner according to the words of God's 
 institution ? 
 
 " What therefore God hath joined, let no man 
 put asunder,''] But here the christian prudence 
 lies to consider what God hath joined ; shall we 
 say that God hath joined error, fraud, unfitness, 
 wrath, contention, perpetual loneliness, perpetual 
 discord ; whatever lust, or wine, or witchery, 
 threat, or inticement, avarice, or ambition hath 
 joined together, faithful and unfaithful, christian 
 with anti-christian, hate with hate, or hate with 
 love ; shall we say this is God's joining ? 
 
 *' Lei no man put asunder.''^ That is to say, 
 what God hath joined ; for if it be, as how oft we 
 see it may be, not of God's joining, and his law 
 tells us he joins not unmatchable things, but 
 hates to join them, as an abominable confusion, 
 then the divine law of Moses puts them asunder, 
 his own divine will in the institution puts them 
 asunder, as oft as the reasons be not extant, for 
 which only God ordained their joining. 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 joining, when wrongs 
 Mid extremities and unsupportable grievances 
 compel him to disjoin : when such as Herod and 
 
 /v 
 
SOS THE -DOCTRINE AlflD 
 
 the pharisees divorce beside law, or against law, 
 then only man separates, and to such only this 
 prohibition belongs. In a word, if it be unlaw- 
 ful for man to put asunder that which God hath 
 joined, let man take heed it be not detestable to 
 join that by compulsion which God hath put 
 asunder. 
 
 Ver. 7. ** Thei/ say unto him, Why did Moses 
 then command to give a writing of divorcement, 
 and to put her away ?" 
 
 Ver. 8. *^ He saith unto them, Moses because 
 of the hardness of your hearts suffered you to put 
 away your wives ; but from the beginning it was 
 not so'* 
 
 " Moses because of the hardness of your hearts 
 suffered you,''] Hence the divinity now current 
 argues, that this judicial law of Moses is abo- 
 lished. But suppose it were so, though it hath 
 been proved otherwise, the firmness of such right 
 to divorce, as here pleads is fetched from the 
 prime institution, does not stand or fall with the 
 judicial law, but is as moral as what is moralest. 
 Yet as I have shown positively, that this law 
 cannot be abrogated, both by the words of our 
 Saviour pronouncing the contrary, and by that 
 unabolishable equity which it conveys to us ; so 
 I shall now bring to view those appearances of 
 strength, which are levied from this text to main- 
 tain the most gross and massy paradox that ever 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 303 
 
 did violence to reason and religion, bred only 
 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 years long : although to de- 
 tect the prodigy of this surmise, the former book 
 set forth on this argument hath already been 
 copious. I shall not repeat much, though I might 
 borrow of mine own ; but shall endeavour to add 
 something either yet untouched, or not largely 
 enough explained. First, it shall be manifest, 
 that the common exposition cannot possibly con- 
 sist with christian doctrine : next, a truer rnean- 
 ing of this our Saviour's reply shall be left in the 
 room. The received exposition is, that God, 
 though not approving, did enact a law to permit 
 adultery by divorcement simply unlawful. And 
 this conceit they feed with fond supposals, that 
 have not the least footing in Scripture : as that 
 the Jews learned this custom 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 xviiith, 
 ^* After the doings of Egypt ye shall not do." 
 Another while they invent a slander (as what 
 thing more bold than teaching ignorance when he 
 shifts to hide his nakedness ?) that the Jews were 
 naturally to their wives the cruellest men in the 
 "World ; would poison, brain, and do I know not 
 what, if they might not divorce. Certain, if it 
 
S04 TH£ DOCTRINE a:N1> 
 
 were a fault heavily punished, to bring an evil 
 report upon the land which God gave, what is it 
 to raise a groundless calumny against the people 
 which God made choice of? But that this bold 
 interpretament, how commonly soever sided with, 
 cannot stand a minute with any competent rever- 
 ence to God, or his law, or his people, nor with 
 any other maxim of religion, or good manners, 
 might be proved through all the heads and topics 
 ^f argumentation; but I shall willingly be as 
 concise as possible. First the law, not only the 
 jnoral, but the judicial, given by Moses, is just 
 and pure; for such is God who gave it. *' Hearken 
 
 Israel," saith Moses, Deut. iv, '^ unto the 
 statutes and the judgments which I teach you, 
 to do them, that ye may live, &c. Ye shall not 
 add unto the word which I command you, neither 
 shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep 
 the commandments of the Lord your God, which 
 
 1 command you." And onward in the chapter, 
 '* Behold, I have taught you stEttutes and judg- 
 ments, even as the Lord my God commanded me. 
 Keep therefore and do them, for this is your 
 wisdom and your understanding. For what na- 
 tion hath God so nigh unto him, and what nation 
 hath statutes and judgments so righteous as all 
 this law, which I set before ye this day ?" Is it 
 imaginable there should be among these a law 
 which God allowed not, a law giving permissions 
 laxative to unmarry a wife and marry a liist, a 
 law to suffer a kind of tribu^al adultery? Many 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 305 
 
 Other scriptures might be brought to assert the 
 purity of this judicial law, and many I have al- 
 leged 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 think we ? The three ge- 
 neral doctrines of Justinian's 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 only 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 perfect, and 
 certainly the law is of all his other gifts one of 
 the perfectest. But if it give that outwardly 
 wfrich it takes away really, and give that seem- 
 ingly, which, if a man take it, wraps him into sin 
 and damns him; what gift of an enemy can be 
 more dangerous and destroying than this ? 
 
 Thirdly, Moses every where commends his 
 laws, prefers them before all of other nations, 
 and warrants them to be the way of life and 
 safety to all that walk therein. Lev. xviii. But 
 if they contain statutes which God approves not, 
 and train men unweeting to commit injustice and 
 adultery under the shelter of law ; if those things 
 be sin, and death sin's wages, what is this law 
 but the snare of death ? 
 
 Fourthly, The statutes and judgments of the 
 Lord, which, without exception, are often told us 
 
306 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 to be such, as doing we may live by them, are 
 doubtless 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 down from the state of her incorrupti- 
 ble majesty to grant lust his boon, palpably it 
 darkens and confounds both knowledge and con- 
 science ; it goes against the common office of all 
 goodness and friendliness, which is at least to 
 counsel and admonish ; it subverts the rules of 
 all sober education, and is itself a most negligent 
 and debauching tutor. 
 
 Fifthly, If the law permits a thing unlawful, 
 it permits that which elsewhere it hath forbid ; so 
 that hereby it contradicts itself, and transgresses 
 itself. But if the law become a transgressor, it 
 stands guilty to itself, and how then shall it save 
 another ? It makes a confederacy with sin, how 
 then can it justly condemn a sinner? And thus 
 reducing itself to the state of neither saving nor 
 condemning, it will not fail to expire solemnly 
 ridiculous. 
 
 Sixthly, The prophets in scripture declare se- 
 verely against the decreeing of that which is 
 unjust, Psal. xciv, 20; Isaiah x. But it was 
 done, they say, for hardness of heart : to which 
 objection the apostle's rule, '^ not to do evil that 
 good may come thereby," gives an invincible re- 
 pulse ; and here especially, where it cannot be 
 shown how any good came by doing this evil, 
 how rather more evil did not hereon abound ; for 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 307 
 
 the giving way to hardness of heart hardens the 
 more, and adds more to the number. God to an 
 evil and adulterous generation would not " grant 
 a sign ;" much less would he for their hardness 
 of heart pollute his law with adulterous permis- 
 sion. Yea, but to permit evil is not to do evil. 
 Yes, it is in a most eminent manner to do evil : 
 where else are all our grave and faithful sayings, 
 that he whose office is to forbid and forbids 
 not, bids, exhorts, encourages ? Why hath God 
 denounced his anger against parents, masters, 
 friends, magistrates, neglectful of forbidding what 
 they ought, if law, the common father, master, 
 friend, and perpetual magistrate, shall not only 
 not forbid, but enact, exhibit, and uphold with 
 countenance and protection, a deed every way 
 dishonest, whatever the pretence be ? If it were 
 of those inward vices, which the law cannot by 
 outward constraint remedy, but leaves to con- 
 science and persuasion, it had been guiltless in 
 being silent : but to write a decree of that which 
 can be no way lawful, and might with ease be 
 hindered, makes law by the doom of law itself ac- 
 cessory in the highest degree. 
 
 Seventhly, It makes God the direct author of 
 sin : For although he be not made the author of 
 what he silently permits in his providence, yet 
 in his law, the image of his will, when in plain 
 expression he constitutes and ordains a fact 
 utterly unlawful ; what wants he to authorize it, 
 and what wants that to be the author ? 
 
508 THE BOCTRIME AND 
 
 Eighthly, To establish by law a thing wholly 
 unlawful and dishonest, is an affirmation was 
 never heard of before in any law, reason, philo- 
 sophy, or religion, till it was raised by inconsi- 
 derate glossists from the mistake of this text. 
 And though the civilians have been contented to 
 chew this opinion, after the canon had subdued 
 them, yet they never could bring example or 
 authority either from divine writ, or human learn- 
 ing, or human practice in any nation, or well- 
 formed republic, but only from the customary 
 abuse of this text. Usually they allege the 
 epistle of Cicero to Atticus; wherein Cato is 
 blamed for giving sentence to the scum of Ro- 
 mulus, as if he were in Plato's commonwealth. 
 Cato would have called some great one into judg- 
 ment for bribery ; Cicero, as the time stood, ad- 
 vised against it. Cato, not to endamage the pub- 
 lic treasury, would not grant to the Roman 
 knights, that the Asian taxes might be farmed 
 them at a less rate. Cicero wished it granted. 
 Nothing in all this will be like the establishing of 
 a law to sin : here are no laws made, here only 
 the execution of law is craved might be suspended : 
 between which and our question is a broad differ- 
 ence. And what if human lawgivers have con- 
 fessed they could not frame their laws to that 
 perfection which they desired ? We hear of no 
 such confession from Moses concerning the laws 
 of God, but rather all praise and high testimony 
 of perfection given them. And although man's 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE^ 509 
 
 nature cannot bear exactest laws, yet still within 
 the confines of good it may and must, so long as 
 less good is far enough from altogether evil. As 
 for what they instance of usury, let them first 
 prove usury to be wholly unlawful, as the law 
 allows it ; which learned men as numerous on 
 the other side will deny them. Or if it be alto- 
 gether unlawful, why is it tolerated more than 
 divorce? He who said divorce not, said also, 
 " Lend, hoping for nothing again," Luke vi, 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 only means ofttimes to right the innocent and 
 outrageously wronged, shall be utterly forbid. 
 This is egregious doctrine, and for which one day 
 charity will much thank them. Beza not finding 
 how to solve this perplexity, and Cameron, since 
 him, would secure us ; although the latter con- 
 fesses, that to '* permit a wicked thing by law, is a 
 wickedness which God abhors ; yet to limit sin, 
 and prescribe it a certain measure, is good»" 
 First, this evasion will not help here ; for this 
 law bounded no man : he might put away what- 
 ever found not favour in his eyes. And how 
 could it forbid to divorce, whom it could not 
 forbid to dislike, or command to love ? If these 
 be the limits of law to restrain sin, who so lame 
 a sinner but may hop over them more easily than 
 over those Romulean circumscriptions, not as 
 Remus did with hard success, but with all indem- 
 
510 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 nity ? Such a limiting as this were not worth the 
 mischief that accompanies it. This law therefore, 
 -not bounding the supposed sin, by permitting 
 enlarges it, gives it enfranchisement. And never 
 greater confusion, than when law and sin move 
 their landmarks, mix their territories, and corres- 
 pond, have intercourse, and traffic together. 
 When law contracts a kindred and hospitality 
 with transgression, becomes the godfather of sin, 
 and names it lawful ; when sin revels and gossips 
 within the arsenal of law, plays and dandles the 
 artillery of justice that should be bent against her, 
 this is a fair limitation indeed. Besides, it is an 
 absurdity to say that law can measure sin, or 
 moderate sin; sin is not in a predicament to be 
 measured and modified, but is always an excess. 
 The least sin that is exceeds the measure of the 
 largest law that can be good ; and is as bound- 
 less as that vacuity beyond the world. If once 
 it square to the measure of law, it ceases to be 
 an excess, and consequently ceases to be a sin ; 
 or else law conforming itself to the obliquity of 
 sin, betrays itself to be not straight, but crooked, 
 and so immediately no law. And the improper 
 conceit of moderating sin by law will appear, if 
 we can imagine any lawgiver so senseless as to 
 decree, that so far a man may steal, and thus far 
 be drunk, that moderately he may couzen, and 
 moderately commit adultery. To the same extent 
 it would be as pithily absurd to publish, that a 
 man may moderately divorce, if to do that be 
 
DISCIPLINE or DIVORCE. 811 
 
 entirely naught. But to end this moot ; the law 
 of Moses is manifest to fix no limit therein at all, 
 or such at least as impeaches the fraudulent 
 abuser no more than if it were not set ; only re- 
 quires the dismissive writing without other cau- 
 tion, lea\^s that to the inner man, and the bar of 
 conscience. But it stopped other sins. This is 
 as vain as the rest, and dangerously uncertain : 
 the contrary to be feared rather, that one sin, ad- 
 mitted courteously by law, opened the gate to 
 another. However, evil must not be done for good. 
 And it were a fall to be lamented, and indig- 
 nity unspeakable, if law should become tributary 
 to sin her slave, and forced to yield up into his 
 hands her awful minister, punishment; should 
 buy out her peace with sin for sin, paying as it 
 were her so many Philistian foreskins to the 
 proud demand of transgression. But suppose it 
 any way possible to limit sin, to put a girdle 
 about that Chaos, suppose it also good ; yet, if 
 to permit sin by law be an abomination in the 
 eyes of God, as Cameron acknowledges, the evil 
 of permitting will eat out the good of limiting. 
 For though sin be not limited, there can but evil 
 come out of evil; but if it be permitted and de- 
 creed lawful by divine law, of force then sin must 
 proceed from the infinite gopd, which is a dread- 
 ful thought. But if the jestraining of sin by this 
 permission being good, as this author testifies, be 
 more good than the permission of more sin by 
 the restraint of divorce, and that God weighing 
 
31^ The doctrine and 
 
 both these like two ingots, in the perfect scales of 
 his justice and providence, found them so, and 
 others, coming without authority from God, shall 
 change this counterpoise, and judge it better to 
 let sin multipljT- by setting a judicial restraint 
 xipon divorce which Christ never set ; then to 
 limit sin by this permission, as God himself 
 thought best to permit it, it will behove them to 
 consult betimes whether these their balances be 
 not false and abominable ; and this their limiting 
 that which God loosened, and their loosening the 
 sins that he limited, which they confess was good 
 to do : and were it possible to do by law, doubt- 
 less it would be most morally good ; and they so 
 believing, as we hear they do, 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 sin, and they can never 
 limit it better than so as God prescribed in his 
 law. 
 
 Others conceive it a more defencible retirement 
 to say, this permission to divorce sinfully for hard- 
 ness of heart was a dispensation. But surely 
 they either know not, or attended not to what a 
 dispensation means. A dispensation is for no 
 long time, is particular to some persons, rather 
 than general to a whole people ; always hath cha- 
 rity the end, is granted to necessities and infirmi- 
 ties, not to obstinate lust. This permission is 
 another creature, hath all those evils and absurdi- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOBCE. 313 
 
 ties following the name of a dispensation, as when 
 it was named a law, and is the very antarctic pole 
 against charity, nothing more adverse, ensnaring, 
 and ruining those that trust in it, or use it ; so 
 lewd and criminous as never durst enter into the 
 head of any politician, Jew, or proselyte, till they 
 became the apt scholars of this canonistic exposi- 
 tion. Aught in it, that can allude in the least 
 manner to charity, or goodness, belongs with more 
 full right to the Christian under grace and liberty-, 
 than to the Jew under law and bondage. To 
 Jewish ignorance it could not be dispensed, with- 
 out a horrid imputation laid upon the law, to dis- 
 pense foully, instead of teaching fairly ; like that 
 dispensation that first polluted Christendom with 
 idolatry, permitting to laymen images instead of 
 books and preaching. Sloth or malice in the law 
 would they have this called ? But what ignorance 
 can be pretended for the Jews, who had all the 
 same precepts about marriage, that we know ? for 
 Christ refers all to the institution. It was as rea- 
 sonable for them to know then as for us now, and 
 concerned them alike : for wherein hath the gos- 
 pel altered the nature of matrimony? All these 
 considerations, or many of them, have been fur- 
 ther amplified in " The Doctrine of Divorce." And 
 what Rivetus and Paraeus have objected, or given 
 over as past cure, hath been there discussed. 
 Whereby it may be plain enough to men of eyes, 
 that the vulgar exposition of a permittance by law 
 to an intire sin, whatever the colour may be, is an 
 
 Y 
 
314> THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 opinion both ungodly, unpolitic, unvirtuous, and 
 void of all honesty and civil sense. It appertains 
 therefore to every zealous Christian both for the 
 honour of God's law^, and the vindication of our 
 Saviour's words, that such an irreligious deprave- 
 ment no longer may be soothed and flattered 
 through custom, but with all diligence and speed 
 solidly refuted, and in the room a better expla- 
 nation given ; which is now our next endeavour. 
 " Moses suffered you to put away^' &c.] Not 
 commanded you, says the common observer, and 
 therefore cared not how soon it were abolished, 
 being but suffered ; herein declaring his annota- 
 tion to be slight, and nothing law-prudent. For 
 in this place " commanded " and " suffered" are 
 interchangeably used in the same sense both by 
 our Saviour and the pharisees. Our Saviour, who 
 here saith, ''Moses suffered you," in the 10th of 
 Mark saith, " Moses wrote you this command." 
 And the pharisees, who here say, " Moses com- 
 manded," and would mainly have it a command, 
 in that place of Mark say, *' Moses suffered," 
 which had made against them in their own mouths, 
 if the word of *' suffering" had weakened the com- 
 mand. So that suffered and commanded is here 
 taken for the same thing on both sides of the con- 
 troversy: as Cameron also and others on this 
 place acknowledge. And lawyers know that all 
 the precepts of law are divided into obligatory 
 and permissive, containing either what we must 
 do, or what we may do ; and of this latter sort 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOECE. 815 
 
 are as many precepts as of the former, and all as 
 lawful. Tutelage, an ordainment than which no- 
 thing more just, being for the defence of orphans, 
 the institutes of Justinian say " is given and per- 
 mitted by the civil law:" and '*to parents it is 
 permitted to choose and appoint by will the guar- 
 dians of their children." What more equal, and 
 yet the civil law calls this " permission." So like- 
 wise to "manumise," to adopt, to make a will, and 
 to be made an heir, is called ''permission" bylaw. 
 Marriage itself, and this which is already granted, 
 to divorce for adultery, obliges no man, is but a 
 permission by law, is but suffered. By this we 
 may see how weakly it hath been thought, that 
 all divorce is utterly unlawful, because the law is 
 said to suffer it; whenas to "suffer" is but the 
 legal phrase denoting what by law a man may do 
 or not do. 
 
 " Because of the hardness of your hearts''^ 
 Hence they argue that therefore he allowed it 
 not; and therefore it must be abolished. But 
 the contrary to this will sooner follow, that be- 
 cause he suffered it for a cause, therefore in rela- 
 tion to that cause he allowed it. Next, if he in 
 his wisdom, and in the midst of his severity al- 
 lowed it for hardness of heart, it can be nothing 
 better than arrogance and presumption to take 
 stricter courses against hardness of heart, than 
 God ever set an example ; and that under the 
 gospel, which warrants them to no judicial act of 
 compulsion in this matter, much lesa to be more 
 
 y 2 
 
S16 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 severe against hardness of extremity, than God 
 thought good to be against hardness of heart. 
 He suffered it, rather than worse inconveniences ; 
 these men wiser, as they make themselves, will 
 suffer the worst and heinousest inconveniences to 
 follow, rather than they will suifer what God suf- 
 fered. Although they can know when they 
 please, that Christ spake only to the con- 
 science, did not judge on the civil bench, but al- 
 ways disavowed it. What can be more contrary 
 to the ways of God, than these their doings ? If 
 they be such enemies to hardness of heart, al- 
 though this groundless rigour proclaims it to be 
 in themselves, they may yet learn, or consider 
 that hardness of heart hath a two-fold acceptation 
 in the Gospel. One, when it is in a good man 
 taken for infirmity, and imperfection, which was 
 in all the apostles, whose weakness only, not utter 
 want of belief, is called hardness of heart, Mark 
 XVI. Partly for this hardness of heart, the im- 
 perfection and decay of man from original righte- 
 ousness, it was that God suffered not divorce 
 only, but all that which by civilians is termed the 
 " secondary law of nature and of nations." He 
 suffered his own people to waste and spoil and 
 slay by war, to lead captives, to be some masters, 
 some servants, some to be princes, others to be 
 subjects ; he suffered propriety to divide all things 
 by several possession, trade, and commerce, not 
 without usury; in his commonwealth some to be 
 imdeservedly rich, others to be undeservingly 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 317 
 
 poor. All which till hardness of heart came in 
 was most unjust; whenas prime nature made us 
 all equal, made us equal coheirs by common right 
 and dominion over all creatures. In the same 
 manner, and for the same cause, he suffered di- 
 vorce as well as marriage, our imperfect and de- 
 generate condition of necessity requiring this 
 law among the rest, as a remedy against intolera- 
 ble wrong and servitude above the patience of 
 man to bear. Nor was it given only because our 
 infirmity, or if it must be so called, hardness of 
 heart could not endure all things; but because 
 the hardness of another's 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 suffered for hardness of heart, we 
 may as well abolish the whole law of nations, as 
 only suffered for the same cause ; it being shown 
 us by St. Paul, 1. Cor. vi. that the very seeking 
 of a man's right by law, and at the hands of a 
 worldly magistrate, is not without the hardness of 
 our hearts. **For why do ye not rather take 
 wrong," saith he, " why suffer ye not rather your- 
 selves to be defrauded V* If nothing now must 
 be suffered for hardness of heart, I say the very 
 prosecution of our right by way of civil justice 
 can no more be suffered among Christians, for the 
 hardness of heart wherewith most men pursue it. 
 And that would next remove all our judicial laws, 
 and this restraint of divorce also in the number; 
 
818 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 which would more than half end the controversy. 
 But if it be plain, that the whole juridical law and 
 civil power is only suffered under the gospel, for 
 the hardness of our hearts, then wherefore should 
 not that which Moses suffered, be suffered still by 
 the same reason ? 
 
 In a second signification, hardness of heart is 
 taken for a stubborn resolution to do evil. And 
 that God ever makes any law purposely to such* 
 I deny ; for he vouchsafes to enter covenant with 
 them, but as they fortune to be mixed with good 
 men, and pass undiscovered ; much less that he 
 should decree an unlawful thing only to serve 
 their licentiousness. But that God '' suffers" this 
 reprobate hardness of heart I affirm, not only in 
 this law of divorce, but throughout all his best 
 and purest commandments. He commands all to 
 worship in singleness of heart according to all 
 his ordinances ; and yet suffers the wicked man 
 to perform all the rites of religion hypocritically, 
 and in the hardness of his heart. He gives us ge- 
 neral statutes and privileges in all civil matters, 
 ;ust and good of themselves, yet suffers unworthi- 
 est men to use them, and by them to prosecute 
 their own right, or any colour of right, though 
 for the most part maliciously, covetously, rigo- 
 rously, revengefully. He allowed by law the 
 discreet father and husband to forbid, if he 
 thought fit, the religious vows of his wife or 
 daughter. Numb, xxx; and in the same law suf- 
 Cered the hardheartedness of impious and cove- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 819 
 
 tous fathers or husbands abusing this law, to for- 
 bid their wives or daughters in their offer- 
 ings and devotions of greatest zeal. If then 
 God suffer hardness 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 abolished. 
 But other laws, they object, may be well used, 
 this never. How often, shall I answer, both 
 from the institution of marriage, and from other 
 general rules in scripture, that this law of divorce 
 hath many wise and charitable ends besides the 
 being suffered for hardness of heart, which is in- 
 deed no end, but an accident happening through 
 the whole law ; which gives to good men right, 
 and to bad men, who abuse right under false pre- 
 tences, gives only sufferance. Now although 
 Christ express no other reasons here, but only 
 what was suffered, it nothing follows that this 
 law had no other reason to be permitted but for 
 hardness of heart. The scripture seldom 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 mar- 
 riage, 1 Cor. vii, seems to permit even that also 
 for hardness of heart only, lest we should run 
 into fornication : yet no intelligent man thence 
 concludes marriage allowed in the gospel only to 
 avoid an evil, because no other end is there ex- 
 pressed. Thus Moses of necessity suffered many 
 to put away their wives for hardness of heart ; 
 but enacted the law of divorce doubtless for other 
 
S20 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 good causes, not for this only sufferance. He 
 permitted not divorce by law as an evil, for that 
 w^as impossible to divine law, but permitted by 
 accident the evil of them who divorced against 
 the law's intention undiscoverably. This also 
 may be thought not improbably, that Christ, 
 stirred up in his spirit against these tempting 
 pharisees, answered them in a certain form of 
 indignation usual among good authors ; whereby 
 the question or the truth is not directly answered, 
 but something which is fitter for them, who ask, 
 to hear. So in the ecclesiastical stories, one de- 
 manded how God employed himself before the 
 world was made? had answer, that he was 
 making hell for curious questioners. Another 
 (and Libanius the sophist, as I remember) asking 
 in derision some Christian, What the carpenter, 
 meaning our Saviour, was doing, now that Julian 
 so prevailed ? had it returned him, that the car- 
 penter was making a coffin for the apostate. So 
 Christ being demanded maliciously why Moses 
 made the law of divorce, answers them in a ve- 
 hement scheme, not telling them the cause why 
 he made it, but what was fittest to be told them, 
 that, " for the hardness of their hearts" he suf- 
 fered them to abuse it. And albeit Mark say not 
 ** he suffered^* you, but " to you he wrote this 
 precept ;" Mark may be warrantably expounded 
 by Matthew the larger. And whether he suffered, 
 or gave precept, being all one as was heard, it 
 changes not the trope of indignation, fittest ac- 
 
DISCrPLlNE OF DIVOBCE. 321 
 
 count for such askers. Next, for the hardness of 
 ** your hearts, to you he wrote this precept," in- 
 fers not therefore for this cause only he wrote it, 
 as was paralleled by other scriptures. Lastly, 
 it may be worth the observing, that Christ, speak- 
 ing to the Pharisees, does not say in general that 
 for hardness of heart he gave this precept, but 
 ** you he suffered and to you he gave this precept 
 for your hardness of heart." It cannot be easily 
 thought, that Christ here included all the chil- 
 dren of Israel under the person of these tempting 
 pharisees, 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 pharisees best repre- 
 sented, that is to say, for the hardness of your 
 hearts : as indeed to wicked men and hardened 
 hearts he gives the whole law and the gospel 
 also, to harden them the more. Thus many ways 
 it may orthodoxally be understood how God or 
 Moses suffered such as the demanders were, to 
 divorce for hardness of heart. Whereas the vul- 
 gar expositor, beset with contradictions and ab- 
 surdities round, and resolving at any peril to 
 make an exposition of it (as there is nothing more 
 violent and boisterous than a reverend ignorance 
 in fear to be convicted), rushes brutely and im- 
 petuously against all the principles both of na- 
 ture, piety, and moral goodness ; and in the fury 
 of his literal expounding overturns them all. 
 ** But from the beginning it wii3 not ^o."] Not 
 
3S3 THE DOCTRINE ^NI> 
 
 how from the beginning ? Do they suppose that 
 men might not divorce at all, not necessarily, not 
 deliberately, except for adultery, but that some 
 law, like canon law, presently attached 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 judicial law, divorce 
 was more permissive from the beginning before 
 Moses than under Moses. But from the begin- 
 ning, that is to say, by the institution in Para- 
 dise, it was not intended that matrimony should 
 dissolve for every trivial cause, as you pharisees 
 accustom. But that it was not thus suffered from 
 the beginning ever since the race of men cor- 
 rupted, and laws were made, he who will affirm, 
 must have found out other antiquities than are 
 yet 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 
 continued perfect, it had been just that all things 
 should have remained, as they began to Adam 
 and Eve. But after that the sons of men grew 
 violent and injurious, it altered the lore of justice, 
 and put the government of things into a new 
 frame. While man and woman were both per- 
 fect each to other, there needed no divorce ; but 
 when they both degenerated to imperfection, and 
 ofttimes grew to be an intolerable evil each to 
 other, then law more justly did permit the alien- 
 ating of that evil which mistake made proper. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 325 
 
 than 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, and that propriety, whether by co- 
 venant or possession, be but the attainment of 
 some outward good, it is more natural and righ- 
 teous that the law should sever us from an inti- 
 mate evil, than appropriate any outward good to 
 us from the community of nature. The gospel 
 indeed tending ever to that which is perfectest, 
 aimed at 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 and Sapphira dearly 
 felt. That custom also continued more or less 
 till the time of Justin Martyr, as may be read in 
 his second Apology, which might be writ after 
 that act of communion perhaps some forty years 
 above a hundred. But who will be the man that 
 shall introduce this kind of commonwealth, as 
 Christianity now goes ? If then marriage must be 
 as in the beginning, the persons that marry must 
 be such as then were ; the institution must make 
 good, in some tolerable sort, what it promises to 
 either party. If not, it is but madness to drag 
 this one ordinance back to the beginning, and 
 draw down all other to the present necessity and 
 condition, far from the beginning, even to the 
 tolerating of extortions and oppressions. Christ 
 only told us, that from the beginning it was not 
 so ; that is to say, not so as the pharisees ma- 
 
3^4 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 nered the business ; 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 de- 
 sires, but so in execution, as reason and present 
 nature can bear. Although we are not to seek 
 that the institution itself from the first beginning 
 was never but conditional, as all covenants are ; 
 because thus and thus, therefore so and so ; if 
 not thus, then not so. Then moreover was per- 
 fectest to fulfil each law in itself; now is per- 
 fectest, in this estate of things, to ask of charity 
 how much law may be fulfilled : else the fulfilling 
 ofttimes is the greatest breaking. If any there- 
 fore demand, which is now most perfection, to 
 ease an extremity by divorce, or to enrage and 
 fester it by the grievous observance of a miserable 
 wedlock, I am not destitute to say, which is 
 most perfection (although some, who believe 
 they think favourably of divorce, esteem it only 
 venial to infirmity). Him I hold more in the way 
 to perfection, who foregoes an unfit, ungodly, 
 and discordant wedlock, to live according to 
 peace and love, and God's institution in a fitter 
 choice, than he who debars himself the happy 
 experience of all godly, which is peaceful conver- 
 sation in his family, to live a contentious and un- 
 christian life not to be avoided, in temptations 
 not to be lived in, only for the false keeping of a 
 most unreal nullity, a marriage that hath no af- 
 finity with God's intention, a daring phantasm, a 
 mere toy of terror awing weak senses, to the la- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 325 
 
 mentable superstition of ruining themselves; the 
 remedy whereof God in his law vouchsafes 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 and more circumspect than 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 done in the be- 
 ginning, as that which is now nearest to th^ rule 
 of charity. This is the greatest, the perfectest, 
 the highest commandment. 
 
 Ver. 9. " And I say miio you, whoso shall put 
 away his wifCy except it he for fornicatioriy and 
 shall rnarry another^ committeth adultery: and 
 whoso 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 ex- 
 positors themselves disclaim : and that it does 
 not traverse from the closet of conscience to the 
 courts of civil or canon law, with any christian 
 rightly commenced, requires not long evincing. 
 If Christ then did not here check permissive 
 Moses, nor did reduce matrimony to the begin- 
 ning more than all other things, as the reason of 
 man's condition could bear ; we would know pre- 
 
THE ©OCTRINE AHD 
 
 cisely what it was which he did, and what the 
 end was of his declaring thus austerely against 
 divorce. For this is a confessed oracle in law, 
 that he who looks not at the intention of a precept, 
 the more superstitious he is of the letter, the 
 more he misinterprets. Was it to shame Moses? 
 that had been 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 
 blameless person, to league himself in chains 
 with a begirting mischief, not to separate till 
 death ? He who taught us, that no man puts a 
 piece of new cloth upon an old garment, or new 
 wine into old bottles, that he should sew this 
 patch of strictness upon the old apparel of our 
 frailty, to make a rent more incurable, whenas 
 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 piece of rigour, not only sounding 
 disproportion to the whole gospel, but out- 
 stretching the most rigorous nerves of law and 
 rigour itself. No other end therefore can be left 
 imaginable of this excessive restraint, but to 
 bridle those erroneous and licentious postillers 
 the Pharisees ; not by telling them what may be 
 done in necessity, but what censure they deserve 
 who divorce abusively, which their Tetrarch had 
 done. And as the offence W2^& in one extreme* 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVOBCE. 5^7 
 
 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 powerful reclaiming, wisest men have also 
 taught in their ethical precepts and Gnomologies, 
 resembling it, as when we bend a crooked wand 
 the contrary way ; not that it should stand so 
 bent, but that the overbending might reduce it 
 to a straightness by its own reluctance. And as 
 the physician cures him who hath taken down 
 poison, not by the middling temper of nourish- 
 ment, but by the other extreme of antidote, so 
 Christ administers here a sharp and corrosive 
 sentence against a foul and putrid licence ; not 
 to eat into the flesh, but into the sore. And 
 knowing that our divines through all their com- 
 ments make no scruple, where they please, to 
 soften the high and vehement speeches of our 
 Saviour, which they call hyperboles : why in this 
 one text should they be such crabbed Masorites 
 of the letter, as not to mollify a transcendence 
 of literal rigidity, which they confess to find 
 often elsewhere in his manner of delivery, but 
 must make their exposition here such an obdurate 
 Cyclops, to have but one eye for this text, and 
 that only open to cruelty and enthralment, such 
 as no divine or human law before ever heard of? 
 No, let the foppish canonist, with his fardel of 
 matrimonial cases, go and be vendible where men 
 be so unhappy as to cheapen him: the words of 
 Christ shall be asserted from such elemental 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 notaries, and resolved by the now only lawgiving 
 mouth of charity; which may be done undoubt- 
 edly by understanding them as follows. 
 
 *^ Whosoever shall put mvay his wife,'"'] That 
 is to say, shall so put away as the propounders 
 of this question, the pharisees, were wont to do, 
 and covertly defended Herod for so doing ; whom 
 to rebuke, our Saviour here mainly intends, and 
 not to determine all the cases of divorce, as 
 appears by St. Paul. Whosoever shall put away, 
 either violently without mutual 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 soon over, and be recon- 
 ciled, except it be fornication ; whosoever shall 
 put away rashly, as his choler prompts him, 
 without due time of deliberating, and think his 
 conscience discharged only by the bill of divorce 
 given, and the outward law satisfied ; whosoever 
 lastly, shall put away his wife, that is a wife 
 indeed, and not in name only, such a one who 
 both can and is willing to be a meet help toward 
 the chief ends of marriage both civil and sanc- 
 tified, except fornication be the cause, that man, 
 or that pair, commit adultery. Not he who puts 
 away by mutual consent, with all the considera- 
 tions and respects of humanity and gentleness, 
 without malicious or lustful drift. Not he who 
 after sober and cool experience, and long debate 
 within himself, puts away, whom though he 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORGE. 3^9 
 
 cannot love or suffer as a wife with that sincere 
 affection that marriage requires, yet loves at least 
 with that civility and goodness, as not to keep 
 her under a neglected and unwelcome residence, 
 where nothing can be hearty, and not being, it 
 must needs be both unjoyous, and injurious to 
 any perceiving person so detained, and more 
 injurious than to be freely, and upon good terms 
 dismissed. Nor doth he put away adulterously 
 who complains of causes rooted in immutable 
 nature, utter unfitness, utter disconformity, not 
 conciliable, because not to be amended without 
 a miracle. Nor he who puts away an unquench- 
 able vexation from his bosom, and flies an evil, 
 than which a greater cannot befal human society. 
 Nor he who puts away with the full suffrage and 
 applause of his conscience, not relying on the 
 written bill of law, but claiming by faith and 
 fulness of persuasion the rights and promises of 
 God's institution, of which he finds himself in a 
 mistaken wedlock defrauded. Doubtless this 
 man hath bail enough to be no adulterer, giving 
 divorce for these causes. 
 
 " His wife.''] This word is not to be idle 
 here, a mere word without a sense, much less a 
 fallacious word signifying contrary to what it 
 pretends ; but faithfully signifies a wife, that is, 
 a comfortable help and society, as God instituted; 
 does not signify deceitfully under this name an 
 intolerable adversary, not a helpless, unaffec- 
 
 Z 
 
S30 THK DOCTRINE AND 
 
 tionate, and sullen mass, whose very company 
 represents the visible and exactest figure of lone- 
 liness itself. Such an associate he who puts 
 away, divorces not a wife, but disjoins a nullity 
 which God never joined, if she be neither willing, 
 nor to her proper and requisite duties sufficient, 
 as the words of God institute her. And this also 
 is Bucer's explication of this place. 
 
 *' Ea:cept it be for fornication^' or " saving for 
 the cause of fornication" as Matt, v.] This de- 
 clares what kind of causes our Saviour meant; 
 fornication being no natural and perpetual cause, 
 but only accidental and temporary; therefore 
 shows that head of causes from whence it is 
 excepted, to be meant of the same sort. For 
 exceptions are not logically deduced from a 
 diverse kind, as to say whoso puts away for any 
 natural cause except fornication, the exception 
 would want salt. And if they understand it, 
 whoso for any cause whatever, they cast them- 
 selves ; granting divorce for frigidity a natural 
 cause of their own allowing, though not here ex- 
 pressed, and for desertion without infidelity, 
 whenas he who marries, as they allow him for 
 desertion, deserts as well as is deserted and 
 finally puts away for another cause besides adul- 
 tery. It will with all due reason therefore be 
 thus better understood, whoso puts away for any 
 accidental and temporary causes, except one of 
 them, which is fornication. Thus this exception 
 
 { 
 
DJSCIPLINS OF DIVORCE. 331 
 
 finds out the causes from whence it is excepted, 
 to be of the same kind, that is casual not con- 
 tinual. 
 
 " Saving for the cause of fornication J''] The 
 New Testament, though originally writ in Greek, 
 yet hath nothing near so many Atticisms as 
 Hebraisms, and Syriacisms, which was the ma- 
 jesty of God, not filing the tongue of Scrip- 
 ture to a Gentilish idiom, but in a princely 
 manner offering to them as to Gentiles and fo- 
 reigners grace and mercy, though not in foreign 
 words, yet in a foreign style that might induce 
 them to the fountains ; and though their calling 
 were high and happy, yet still to acknowledge 
 God*s ancient people their betters, and that 
 language the metropolitan language. He there- 
 fore who thinks to scholiaze upon the gospel, 
 though Greek, according to his Greek analogies, 
 and hath not been auditor to the oriental dialects, 
 shall want in the heat of his analysis no accom- 
 modation to stumble. In this place, as the v. of 
 Matth. reads it, " Saving for the cause of forni- 
 cation," the Greek, such as it is, sounds it, except 
 for the ** word, report, speech, or proportion" 
 of fornication. In which regard, with other in- 
 ducements, many ancient and learned writers 
 liave understood this exception, as comprehend- 
 ing any fault equivalent and proportional to for- 
 nication. But truth is, the evangelist here He- 
 braizes, taking " word or speech for cause or 
 matter" in the common Eastern phrase, meaning 
 
 z2 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 perhaps no more than if he had said for forni- 
 cation, as in this xix chapter. And yet the word 
 is found in the v. of Exodus also signifying pro- 
 portion ; where the Israelites are commanded to 
 do 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 doubtful yet, 
 whether here be not excepted not only fornica- 
 tion itself, but other causes equipollent, and pro- 
 portional to fornication. Which very word also 
 to understand rightly, we must of necessity have 
 recourse again to the Hebrew. For in the Greek 
 and Latin sense by fornication is meant the com- 
 mon 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 forbid divorce for 
 adultery also, until it come to open whoredom 
 and trade, like that for which Claudius divorced 
 Messalina. Since therefore they take not here 
 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 speaks a public 
 and notorious frequency of fact, not without 
 price; we may reason with as good leave, and as 
 little straining to the text, that our Saviour on 
 set purpose chose this word fornication im- 
 properly applied to the lapse of adultery, that 
 we might not think ourselves bound from all 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 333 
 
 divorce, except when that fault hath been actually 
 committed. For the language of Scripture sig- 
 nifies by fornication (and others besides St. Austin 
 so expounded it) not only the trespass of body, 
 nor perhaps that between married persons, unless 
 in a degree or quality as shameless as the bor- 
 dello ; but signifies also any notable disobedi- 
 ence, or intractable carriage of the wife to the 
 husband, as Judg. xix. 2, whereof at large in 
 '" the Doctrine of Divorce,'' 1.2, c. 18. Secondly, 
 signifies the apparent alienation of mind not to 
 idolatry (which may seem to answer the act of 
 adultery), but far on this side, to any point of 
 will- worship, theugh to the true God; some- 
 times it notes the love of earthly things, or 
 worldly pleasures, though in a right believer, 
 sometimes the least suspicion of unwitting ido- 
 latry. As Numb. XV, 39, wilful disobedience to 
 tmy of the least of God's commandments is called 
 fornication : Psalm. Ixxiii, 26, 27, a distrust only 
 in God, and withdrawing from that nearness of 
 zeal and confidence which ought to be, is called 
 fornication. We may be sure it could not import 
 thus much less than idolatry in the borrowed 
 metaphor between God and man, unless it signi- 
 fied as much less than adultery in the ordinary 
 acceptation between man and wife. Add 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 
 
384 THS DOCTRINE ANP 
 
 privately, lest he should make her an example 
 of capital punishment, as learnedest expounders 
 affirm, Herod being a great zealot of the Mosaic 
 law, and the pharisees great masters of the text, 
 as the woman taken in adultery doubtless had 
 cause to fear. Or if they can prove it was neg- 
 lected, which they cannot do, why did our Sa- 
 viour 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 judi- 
 catures, much less then was it in his thought to 
 make them new ones, or that divorce should be 
 judicially restrained in a stricter manner by these 
 his words, more than adultery judicially acquitted 
 by those his words to the adulteress. His sen- 
 tence doth no more by law forbid divorce here, 
 than by law it doth absolve adultery there. To 
 them therefore, who have drawn this yoke upon 
 Christians from his words thus wrested, nothing 
 remains but the guilt of a presumption and per- 
 verseness, which will be hard for them t) 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 practice of disobedi- 
 ence and crossness from the duties of love and 
 peace ; that is in sum, when to be a tolerable 
 wife is either naturally not in their power, or 
 obstinately not in their will: and this opinion 
 also is St. Austin's, lest it should hap to be sus- 
 pected of novelty. Yet grant the thing here 
 
DISCIPLINE OF IklVORCE. 335 
 
 meant were only adultery, the reason of things 
 will afford more to our assertion, than did the 
 reason of words. For why is divorce unlawful 
 but only for adultery ? because, say they, that 
 crime only breaks the matrimony. But this, I 
 reply, the institution itself gainsays : for that 
 which is most contrary to the words and meaning 
 of the institution, that most breaks the matri- 
 mony; but a perpetual unmeetness and unwil- 
 lingness to all the duties of help, of love and 
 tranquillity, is most contrary to the words and 
 meaning of the institution ; that therefore much 
 more breaks matrimony than the act of adultery, 
 though repeated. For this, as it is not felt, nor 
 troubles him who perceives it not, so being per- 
 ceived, may be soon repented, soon amended : 
 soon, if it can be pardoned, may be redeemed 
 with the more ardent love and duty in her who 
 hath the pardon. But this natural unmeetness 
 both cannot be unknown long, and ever after cannot 
 be amended, if it be natural, and will not, if it be 
 far gone obstinate. So that wanting aught 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 fitness, her 
 other pleasingness ; she may be otherwise both 
 loving and prevalent, as many adulteresses be ; 
 but in this general unfitness or alienation she can 
 be nothing to him that can please. In adultery 
 nothing is given from the husband, which he 
 misses, or enjoys the less, as it may be subtly 
 
S36 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 given: but this unfitness defrauds him of the 
 whole contentment which is sought in wedlock. 
 And what benefit to him, though nothing be given 
 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 owe him. Besides, is adultery 
 the greatest breach of matrimony in respect of 
 the oflfence 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 ser- 
 vant from being one flesh with such an offender. 
 If in respect of the latter, other injuries are de- 
 monstrated therein more heavy to man's nature 
 than the iterated act of adultery. God there- 
 fore, in his wisdom, 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, and the reason 
 of adultery, that the exception of divorce is not 
 limited to that act, but enlarged to the causes 
 
 above specified. 
 
 *' And whoso marrieth her which is put away, 
 
 doth commit adultery.''^ By this clause alone, if 
 by nothing else, we may assure us that Christ 
 intended not to deliver here the whole doctrine 
 of divorce, but only to condemn abuses. Other- 
 wise to marry after desertion, which the apostle, 
 and the reformed churches at this day permit, is 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 3S7 
 
 here forbid, as adultery. Be she never so 
 wrongfully deserted, or put away, as the law then 
 suffered, \f thus forsaken and expulsed, she accept 
 the refuge and protection of any honester man 
 who would love her better, and give herself in 
 marriage 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 do to the contrary, are loose 
 and remiss ; besides that the apostle himself 
 stands deeply fined 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 try ; let 
 him try which way he can wind in his Vertumnian 
 distinctions and evasions, if his canonical gabar- 
 dine of text and letter do not now sit too close 
 about him, and pinch his activity : which, if I err 
 not, hath here hampered itself in a spring fit for 
 those who put their confidence in alphabets. 
 Spanheim, a writer of " Evangelic Doubts,'' 
 comes now and confesses, that our Saviour's 
 words are " to be limited beyond the limitation 
 there expressed, and excepted beyond their own 
 exception," as not speaking of what happened 
 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 hate- 
 fully expelled, should to the heaping of more 
 injury be turned like an infectious thing out of 
 all marriage fruition upon pain of adultery, as 
 
338 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 not considerable to the brevity of this half sen- 
 tence? Of what then speaks our Saviour? "of 
 that collusion," saith he, " which was then most 
 frequent among the Jews, of changing wives and 
 husbands through inconstancy and unchaste 
 desires." CoUuders yourselves, as violent to this 
 law of God by your unmerciful binding, as the 
 Pharisees by their unbounded loosening ! Have 
 thousands of christian souls perished as to this 
 life, and God knows what hath betided their con- 
 sciences, 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 spout- 
 ing ? " Whosoever putteth away his wife, except 
 for fornication, committeth adultery." That shall 
 be spoke of all ages, and all men, though never 
 so justly otherwise moved to divorce : in the 
 very next breath, " And whoso marrieth 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 w^as 
 in fashion to chop matrimonies ; and must be 
 meant of him who puts away with his wife's con- 
 sent through the lightness and lewdness of them 
 both.*' But by what rule of logic, or indeed of 
 reason, is our commission to understand the an- 
 tecedent one way and the consequent another ? 
 for in that habitude this whole verse may be con- 
 sidered : or at least to take the parts of a copu- 
 late axiom, both absolutely affirmative, and to 
 say, the first is absolutely true, the other not, but 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 359 
 
 must be limited to a certain time and custom ; 
 which is no less than to say they are both false? 
 For in this compound axiom, be the parts never 
 so many, if one of them do but falter, and be not 
 equally absolute and general, the rest are all 
 false. If, therefore, that " he who marries her 
 which is [put away commits adultery,*' be not ge- 
 nerally true, neither is it generally true, that 
 " he commits adultery who puts away for other 
 cause than fornication." And if the marrying 
 her which is put away must be understood 
 limited, which they cannot but yield, it must, 
 with the same limitation must be understood the 
 putting away. Thus doth the common exposi- 
 tion confound itself and justify this which is here 
 brought; that our Saviour, as well in the first 
 part of this sentence as in the second, prohibited 
 only such divorces as the Jews then made 
 through malice or through plotted license, not 
 those which are for necessary and just causes; 
 where charity and wisdom disjoins, that which 
 not God, but error and disaster joined. 
 
 And there is yet to this our exposition, a 
 stronger siding friend, than any can be an adver- 
 sary, unless St. Paul be doubted, who repeating 
 a command concerning divorce, 1 Cor. vii, which 
 is agreed by writers to be tTie same with this of 
 our Saviour, and appointing that the " wife 
 remain unmarried, or be reconciled to her hus- 
 band," leaves it infallible, that our Saviour spake 
 chiefly against putting away for casual and cho- 
 
340 . THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 leric disagreements, or any other cause which 
 may with human patience and wisdom be recon- 
 ciled ; not hereby meaning to hale and dash toge- 
 ther the irreconcilable aversations of nature, nor 
 to tie up a faultless person like a parricide, as it 
 were, into one sack with an enemy, to be his 
 causeless tormentor and executioner the length 
 of a long life. Lastly, let this sentence of Christ 
 be understood how it will, yet that it was never 
 intended for a judicial law, to be enforced by the 
 magistrate, besides that the office of our Saviour 
 had no such purpose in the gospel, this latter 
 part of the sentence may assure us, " And whoso 
 marrieth her which is put away, commits adul- 
 tery." Shall the exception for adultery belong 
 to this clause or not ? If not, it would be strange, 
 that he who marries a woman really divorced for 
 adultery, as Christ permitted, should become an 
 adulterer by marrying oi;ie who is now no other 
 man's wife, himself being also free, who might by 
 this means reclaim her from common whoredom. 
 And if the exception must belong hither, then 
 it follows that he who marries an adulteress 
 divorced commits no adultery ; which would soon 
 discover to us what an absurd and senseless piece 
 of injustice this would be, to make a civil statute 
 of in penal courts : whereby the adulteress put 
 ^way may marry another safely ; and without a 
 crime to him that marries her ; but the innocent 
 and wrongfully divorced shall not marry again 
 without the guilt of adultery both to herself and 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. S41 
 
 to her second husband. This saying of Christ 
 therefore cannot be made a temporal law, were 
 it but for this reason. Nor is it easy to say what 
 coherence there is at all in it from the letter, to 
 any perfect sense not obnoxious to some absur- 
 dity, and seems much less agreeable to whatever 
 else of the gospel is left us written : doubtless by 
 our Saviour spoken in that fierceness and abstruse 
 intricacy, first to amuse his tempters, and admo- 
 nish in general the abusers of that Mosaic law ; 
 next, to let Herod know a second knower of his 
 unlawful act, though the Baptist were beheaded ; 
 last, that his disciples and all good men might 
 learn 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 sum of all commands, and 
 the perfection. 
 
 Ver. 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 add, to leave no objection behind 
 unanswered : for some may think, if this our 
 Saviour's sentence be so fair, as not commanding 
 aught 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 
 been longer bred up under the pharisaean doc- 
 trine, than under that of Christ, and so no marvel 
 though they yet retained the infection of loving 
 
S42 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 old licentious customs ; no marvel though they 
 thought it hard they might not for any offence, 
 that thoroughly angered 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 under- 
 stand our Saviour in matters far easier. So that 
 be it granted their conceit of this text was the 
 same which is now commonly conceived, accord- 
 ing to the usual rate of their capacity then, it will 
 not hurt a better interpretation. But why did 
 not Christ, seeing their error, inform them ? for 
 good cause, it was his professed method not to 
 teach them all things, at all times, but each thing 
 in due place and season. Christ said, Luke xxii, 
 that " he who had no sword, should sell his gar- 
 ment and buy one :" the disciples took it in a 
 manifest wrong sense, yet our Saviour did not 
 there inform them better. He told them, "it 
 was easier for a camel to go through a needle s 
 eye," than a rich man in at Heaven-gate. They 
 were ** amazed exceedingly:" he explained him- 
 self to mean of those " who trust in riches," 
 Mark x. *' They were amazed then out of mea- 
 sure," for so Mark relates it ; as if his explaining 
 had increased their amazement in such a plain 
 case, and which concerned so nearly their calling 
 to be informed in. Good reason, therefore, if 
 Christ at that time did not stand amplifying, to 
 the thick prejudice and tradition wherein they 
 were, this question of more difficulty, and less. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF mvOECE. 343 
 
 concernment to anyperhapsof them in particular. 
 Yet did he not omit to sow within them the seeds 
 of a sufficient determining, against the time that 
 his promised spirit should bring all things to 
 their memory. He had declared in their hearing 
 not long before, how distant he was from abolish- 
 ing the law itself of divorce ; he had referred 
 them to the institution ; and after all this, gives 
 them a set answer, from which they might collect 
 what was clear enough, that " all men cannot re- 
 ceive all sayings," ver. 11. If such regard be 
 had to each man's receiving of marriage or single 
 life, what can arise, that the same christian regard 
 should not be had in most necessary divorce? 
 All which instructed both them and us, that it 
 beseemed his disciples to learn the deciding of 
 this, question, which hath nothing new in it, first 
 by the institution, then by the general grounds of 
 religion, not by a particular saying here and there, 
 tempered and levelled only to an incident occa- 
 sion, the riddance of a tempting assault. For 
 what can this be but weak and shallow appre- 
 hension, to forsake the standard principles of in- 
 stitution, faith and charity ; then to be blank and 
 various at every occurrence in scripture, and in a 
 cold spasm of scruple, to rear peculiar doctrines 
 upon the place, that shall bid the gray authority 
 of most unchangeable and sovereign rules to 
 stand by and be contradicted ? Thus to this evan- 
 gelic precept of famous difficulty, which for these 
 many ages weakly understood and violently put 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 in practice, hath made a shambles rather than an 
 ordinance of matrimony, I am firm a truer expo- 
 sition cannot be given. If this or that argument 
 here used please not every one, there is no 
 scarcity of arguments, any half of them will suf- 
 fice. Or should they all fail, as truth itself can 
 fail as soon, I should content me with the institu- 
 tion alone to wage this controversy, and not dis- 
 trust to evince. If any need it not, the happier ; 
 yet christians ought to study earnestly what may 
 be another's need. But if, as mortal mischances are, 
 some hap to need it, let them be sure they abuse 
 not, and give God his thanks, who hath revived 
 this remedy, not too late for them, and scowered 
 off an inveterate misexposition from the gospel : 
 a work not to perish by the vain breath or doom 
 of this age. Our next industry shall be, under 
 the same guidance, to try with what fidelity that 
 remaining passage in the Epistles touching this 
 matter hath been commented. 
 
 1 CoR. vii, 10, &c. 
 
 10. '' A7id unto the married I command/' ^d 
 
 11. " And let not the husband put away his wife^ 
 
 THIS intimates but what our Saviour taught 
 before, that divorce is not rashly to be made, but 
 reconcilement to be persuaded and endeavoured, 
 as oft as the cause can have to do with reconcile- 
 ment, and is not under the dominion of blameless 
 nature ; which may have reason to depart, though 
 
DISCIPLINE OF PIVORCE. 845 
 
 seldomest and last from charitable love, yet some- 
 times from friendly, and familiar, and something 
 oftener from conjugal love, which requires not 
 only moral, but natural causes to the making and 
 maintaining; and may be warrantably excused 
 to retire from the deception of what it justly 
 seeks, and the ill requitals which unjustly it finds. 
 For nature hath her zodiac also, keeps her great 
 annual circuit over human things, as truly as the 
 sun and planets in the firmament ; hath her ano- 
 malies, hath her obliquities in ascensions and de- 
 clinations, accesses and recesses, as blamelessly 
 as they in Heaven. And sitting in her planetary 
 orb with two reins in each hand, one straight, the 
 other loose, tempers the course of minds as well 
 as bodies to several conjunctions and oppositions, 
 friendly 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 appear not in the 
 cause, yet to a clear capacity, well nurtured with 
 good reading and observation, it cannot but be 
 plain and visible. Other exposition, therefore, than 
 hath been given to former places, that give light 
 to these two summary verses, will not be needful: 
 save only that these precepts are meant to those 
 married who differ not in religion. 
 
 *' But to the rest speak I, not the Lord; if any 
 brother hath a wife that believeth not, and she 
 be pleased to dwell with him^ let him not put her 
 awayy 
 
 A A 
 
346 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Now follows what is to be done, if the persons 
 wedded be of a different faith. The common be- 
 lief is, that a christian is here commanded not to 
 divorce, if the infidel please to stay, though it be 
 but to vex, or to deride, or to seduce the chris_ 
 tian. This doctrine will be the easy work of a 
 refutation. The other opinion is, that a christian 
 is here conditionally permitted to hold wedlock 
 with a misbeliever only, upon hopes limited by 
 christian prudence, which without much difficulty 
 shall be defended. That this here spoken by 
 Paul, not by the Lord, cannot be a command, 
 these reasons avouch. First, the law of Moses, 
 Exod. xxxiv, 16, Deut. vii, 3, 6, interpreted by 
 Ezra and Nehemiah, two infallible authors, com- 
 mands to divorce an infidel not for the fear only 
 /of a ceremonious defilement, but of an irreligious 
 seducement, feared both in respect of the believer 
 himself, and of his children in danger to be per- 
 verted by the misbelieving parent, Nehem. xiii, 
 24, 26. And Peter Martyr thought this a con- 
 vincing reason. If therefore the legal pollution 
 vanishing have abrogated the ceremony of this 
 law, so that a christian may be permitted to re- 
 tain an infidel without uncleanness, yet the moral 
 reason of divorcing stands to eternity, which 
 neither apostle nor angel from Heaven can coun- 
 termand. 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 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. $41f 
 
 understand his commands aright ; if we turn not 
 this evangelic permission into a legal, and yet 
 illegal command ; if we turn not hope into bond- 
 age, the charitable and free hope of gaining an- 
 other into the forced and servile temptation of 
 losing ourselves : but more of this beneath. 
 Thus these words of Paul by common doctrine 
 made a command, are made a contradiction to 
 the moral law. 
 
 Secondly, Not the law only, but the gospel 
 from the law, and from itself, requires even in the 
 same chapter, where divorce between them of 
 one religion is so narrowly forbid, rather than 
 our christian love should come into danger of 
 backsliding, to forsake all relations how near 
 soever, and the wife expressly, with promise of a 
 high reward. Mat. xix. And he who hates not 
 father or mother, wife or children, hindering his 
 christian course, much more if they despise or 
 assault it, cannot be a disciple, Luke xiv. How 
 can the apostle then command us to love and con- 
 tinue 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 
 itself at once, to breathe and to fetch breath in 
 the same instant, as teach our minds how to do 
 such contrary acts as these towards the same 
 object, and as they must be done in the same mo- 
 ment. For either the hatred of her religion, and 
 her hatred to our religion will work powerfully 
 against the love of her society, or the love of that 
 A A 2 
 
B48 
 
 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 will by degrees flatter out all our zealous hatred 
 and forsaking, and soon ensnare us to unchris- 
 tianly compliances. 
 
 Thirdly, In marriage 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 peaceful society (they of the other 
 opinion confess it), nay there ought not to be, 
 further than in expectation of gaining a soul; 
 when that ceases, we know God hath put an 
 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. xix. And this apostle him- 
 self in another place warns us, that we be not 
 unequally yoked with infidels," 2 Cor. vi, for that 
 there can be no fellowship, no communion, no 
 concord between such. Outward commerce and 
 civil intercourse 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 mar- 
 riage or continuance in marriage be commanded, 
 where true friendship is confessed impossible? 
 For say they, we are forbid here to marry with 
 an infidel, not bid to divorce. But to rob the 
 words thus of their full sense, will not be allowed 
 them: it is not said, enter not into yoke, but 
 *' be not unequally yoked;" which plainly for- 
 bids the thing in present act, as well as in pur- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. S49 
 
 pose : and his manifest conclusion is, not only 
 that " we should not touch," but that having 
 touched, *' we should come out from among 
 them, and be separate ;" with the promise of a 
 blessing thereupon, that '* God will receive us, 
 will be our father, and we his sons and daughters," 
 ver. 17, 18. Why we should stay with an infidel 
 after the expense of all our hopes can be but for 
 a civil relation ; but why we should depart from 
 a seducer, setting aside the misconstruction of 
 this place, is from a religious necessity of de- 
 parting. The worse 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, 
 and such a prostrate humiliation by Ezra and Ne- 
 hemiah. What God hates to join, certainly he 
 cannot love should continue joined : it being all 
 one in matter of ill consequence, to marry, or to 
 continue married with an infidel, save only so long 
 as we wait willingly, and with a safe hope. St. 
 Paul therefore citing here 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 himself takes 
 care lest we should mistake him, ** but to the rest 
 speak I, not the Lord." If the Lord spake not, 
 then man spake it, and man hath no lordship to 
 command the conscience : yet modern interpre- 
 
350 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 ters will have it a command, maugre St. Paul 
 himself, they will make him a prophet like Caia- 
 phas, to speak the word of the Lord, not think- 
 ing, nay denying to think ; though he disavow to 
 have received it from the Lord, his word shall 
 not be taken ; though an apostle, he shall be borne 
 down in his own epistle, by a race of expositors 
 who presume to know from whom he spake, 
 better than he himself. Paul deposes, that the 
 Lord speaks not this ; they, that the Lord speaks 
 it : can this be less than to brave him with a full- 
 faced 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 
 apostle's mouth, they are already furnished 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 pre- 
 amble but in things indifferent ? So long as we 
 receive 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 same tense, all will be then clear, 
 for we cannot supply it thus, to the rest I speak, 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 351 
 
 the Lord spake not ; but I speak, the Lord speaks 
 not. If then the Lord neither spake in person, 
 nor speaks it now, the apostle testifying both, 
 it follows duly, that this can be no command. 
 Forsooth the fear is, lest this, not being a com- 
 mand, would prove an evangelic counsel, and so 
 make way for supererogations. As if the apostle 
 could not speak his mind in things indifferent, as 
 he doth in four or five several places of this 
 chapter with the like preface of not commanding* 
 but that the doubted inconvenience of superero- 
 gating must needs rush in. And how adds it to 
 the word of the Lord (for this also they object), 
 whenas the apostle by his christian prudence 
 guides 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 Ca- 
 meron, an ingenuous writer, and in high esteem, 
 solidly confutes the surmise of a command here, 
 and among other words hath these ; that *' when 
 Paul speaks as an apostle, he uses this form," 
 The Lord saith, not I, ver. 10 ; ** but as a private 
 man he saith, I speak, not the Lord." And thus 
 also all the prime fathers, Austin, Jerom, and the 
 rest understood this place. 
 
 Fifthly, The very stating of the question de- 
 clares this to be no command ; "If any brother 
 hath an unbelieving wife, and she be pleased to 
 dwell with him, let him not put her away." For 
 the Greek word ruvivSoxiT does not imply only her 
 
35S THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 being pleased to stay, but his being pleased to 
 let her stay; it must be a consent of them both. 
 Nor can the force of this word be rendered 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 ap- 
 pears by Matthaeus Monachus, an author set forth 
 by Leunclavius, and of antiquity perhaps not in- 
 ferior to Balsamon, who writes upon the canons 
 of the apostles : this author in his chap. *^ That 
 marriage is not to be made with heretics," thus 
 recites the second canon of the 6th synod : " As 
 to the Corinthians, Paul determines ; If the be- 
 lieving wife choose to live with the unbelieving 
 husband, or the believing husband with the unbe- 
 lieving wife. Mark," saith he, '* how the apostle 
 here condescends, if the believer please to dwell 
 with the unbeliever ; so that if he please not, out 
 of doubt the marriage is dissolved. And I am 
 persuaded it was so in the beginning, and thus 
 preached." And thereupon gives an example of 
 one, who though not deserted, yet by the decree 
 of Theodotus the patriarch divorced an unbeliev- 
 ing 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 ] 1th verse to the 12th 
 (for wherefore else is logic taught us ?) in a dis- 
 creet axiom, as it can be no other by the phrase ; 
 " The Lord saith, Let not the husband put away 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 353 
 
 his wife : but I say, Let him not put away a mis- 
 believing wife." This sounds as if by the judg- 
 ment of Paul a man might put away any wife 
 but the misbelieving; or else the parts are 
 not discrete, or dissentany, for both conclude 
 not putting away, and consequently in such 
 a form the proposition is ridiculous. Of neces- 
 sity therefore the former part of this sen- 
 tence must be conceived, as understood, and 
 silently granted, that although the Lojd command 
 to divorce an infidel, yet I, not the Lord com- 
 mand you. No, but give my judgment, that for 
 some evangelic reasons a Christian may be per- 
 mitted not to divorce her. Thus while we 
 reduce the brevity of St. Paul to a plainer sense, 
 by the needful supply of that which was granted 
 between him and the Corinthians, the very logic 
 of his speech extracts him confessing, that the 
 Lord's 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 rigour of it, by the right of the gospel, 
 so far forth as a charitable cause leads us in the 
 hope of winning another soul without the peril 
 of losing our own. For this is the glory of the 
 gospel, to teach us that " the end of the com- 
 mandment is charity," 1 Tim. i, not the drudging 
 out a poor and worthless duty forced from us by 
 the tax and tale of so many letters. This doc- 
 trine therefore can be no command, but it must 
 
354 TH^ DOCTEINE AND 
 
 contradict the moral law, the gospel, and the 
 apostle himself, both elsewhere and here also 
 even 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, fulfils it through charity. 
 The law had two reasons, the one was ceremo- 
 nial, the pollution that all Gentiles were to the 
 Jews ; this the vision of Peter had abolished, 
 Acts X, and cleansed all creatures to th^ use of a 
 Christian. The Corinthians understood not this, 
 but feared lest dwelling in matrimony with an 
 unbeliever, they were defiled. The apostle dis- 
 cusses that scruple with an evangelic reason, 
 showing 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 purified them from that 
 legal uncleanness wherein they stood, to use and 
 to be used in a pure manner. 
 
 For, saith he, " The unbelieving husband is 
 sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife 
 is sanctified by the husband, else were your 
 children unclean ; but now they are holy." That 
 is, they are sanctified to you, from that legal 
 impurity which you so fear ; and are brought into 
 a near capacity to be holy, if they believe, and to 
 have free access to holy things. In the mean 
 
 /" 
 
DISCIPLIIJE OF DIVOECE. S55 
 
 time, as being God's 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 marriage with an 
 unbeliever. Thus others also expound this place, 
 and Cameron especially. This reason warrants 
 us only what we may do without fear of pollution, 
 does not bind 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 actual Christian from the 
 snare of a misbeliever. Yet if a Christian full of 
 grace and spiritual gifts, finding the misbeliever 
 not frowardly affected, fears not a seducing, but 
 hopes rather a gaining, who sees not that this 
 moral reason is not violated by not divorcing, 
 which the law commanded to do, but better ful- 
 filled by the excellence of the gospel working 
 through charity ? For neither the faithful is se- 
 duced, and the unfaithful is either saved, or with 
 all discharge of love and evangelic duty, sought to 
 be saved. But contrariwise if the infirm Chris- 
 tian shall be commanded here against his mind, 
 against his hope, and against his strength, to dwell 
 with all the scandals, the household persecutions, 
 or alluring temptations of an infidel, how is not 
 the gospel by this made harsher than the law, 
 and more yoking? Therefore the apostle, ere he 
 deliver this other reason why we need not in all 
 
S56 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 haste put away an infidel, his mind misgiving 
 him, lest he should seem to be the imposer of a 
 new command, stays not for method, but with an 
 abrupt speed inserts the declaration of their 
 liberty in this matter. 
 
 " But if the unbelieving 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 unbelieving depart^'] This cannot 
 be restrained to local departure only ; for who 
 knows not that an offensive society is worse than 
 a forsaking ? If his purpose of cohabitation be to 
 endanger the life, or the conscience, Beza himself 
 is half persuaded, that this may purchase to the 
 faithful person the same freedom that a desertion 
 may ; and so Gerard and others whom he cites. 
 If therefore he depart in affection ; if he depart 
 from giving hope of his conversion ; if he disturb, 
 or scoff at religion, seduce, or tempt ; if he rage, 
 doubtless not the weak only, but the strong may 
 leave him : if not for fear, yet for the dignity's 
 sake of religion, which cannot be liable to all base 
 affronts, merely for the worshipping of a civil mar- 
 riage. I take therefore " departing" to be as large 
 as the negative of being well pleased : that is, if 
 he be not pleased for the present to live lovingly, 
 quietly, inoffensively, so as may give good hope ; 
 which appears well by that which follows. 
 
 ** A brother or a sister is not under bondage in 
 such cases''^ If St. Paul provide seriously against 
 the bondage of a Christian, . it is not the only 
 
DTSCTPITNK OF DIVOECK. S57 
 
 bondage to live unmarried for a deserting infidel, 
 but to endure his presence intolerably, to bear 
 indignities against his religion in words or deeds, 
 to be wearied with seducements, to have idola- 
 tries and superstitions ever before his eyes, to be 
 tormented with impure and prophane conversa- 
 tion ; this must needs be bondage to a Christian : 
 is this left all unprovided for, without remedy, or 
 freedom granted? Undoubtedly no ; for the apostle 
 leaves it further to be considered with prudence, 
 what bondage a brother or sister is not under, not 
 only in this case, but as he speaks himself 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 pleased to live peaceably, as 
 marriage and Christianity require. And where 
 strife arises from a cause hopeless to be allayed, 
 what better way to peace than by separating that 
 which is ill joined? It is not divorce that first 
 breaks the peace of a family, as some fondly com- 
 ment on this place, but it is peace already broken, 
 which, when other cures fail, can only be restored 
 to the faultless person by a necessary divorce. 
 And St. Paul here warrants us to seek peace, 
 rather than to remain in bondage. If God hath 
 called us to peace, why should we not follow him? 
 why should we miserably stay in perpetual dis- 
 cord under a servitude not required ? 
 
 " For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou 
 shah save thy husband,'' 4'^.] St. Paul having thus 
 
558 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 cleared himself, not to go about the mining of 
 our christian liberty, not to cast a snare upon us, 
 which to do he so much hated, returns now to 
 the second reason of that law, to put away an 
 infidel for fear of seducement, which he does not 
 here contradict with a command now to venture 
 that ; but if neither the infirmity of the christian, 
 nor the strength of the unbeliever be feared, but 
 hopes appearing that he may be won, he judges 
 it no breaking of that law, though the believer be 
 permitted to forbear divorce, and can abide, with- 
 out 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 means conve- 
 nient and possible with discretion and probability, 
 as human things are, have been used. For Christ 
 himself sends not our hope on pilgrimage to the 
 world's end ; but sets its bounds, beyond which 
 we need not wait on a brother, much less on an 
 infidel. If after such a time we may count a pro- 
 fessing Christian no better than a Heathen, after 
 less time perhaps we may cease to hope of a 
 Heathen, that he will turn Christian. Otherwise, 
 to bind us harder than the law, and tell us we are 
 not under bondage, is mere mockery. If, till the 
 unbeliever please to part, we may not stir from 
 the house of our bondage, then certain this our 
 liberty is not grounded in the purchase of Christ, 
 
I>ISCIPLTNK OF DIVORCE. 869 
 
 but in the pleasure of a miscreant. What knows 
 the loyal husband, whether he may not save the 
 adulteress? he is not therefore bound to receive 
 her. What knows the wife, but she may reclaim 
 her husband who hath deserted her ? Yet the re- 
 formed churches do not enjoin her to wait longer 
 than after the contempt of an ecclesiastical sum- 
 mons. Beza himself here befriends us with a re- 
 markable speech, *' What could be firmly consti- 
 tuted in human matters, if under pretence of ex- 
 pecting grace from above, it should be never 
 lawful for us to seek our right ?" And yet in other 
 cases not less reasonable to obtain a most just 
 and needful remedy by divorce, he turns the in- 
 nocent party to a task of prayers beyond the 
 multitude of beads and rosaries, to beg the gift 
 of chastity in recompense of an injurious mar- 
 riage. But the apostle is evident enough, ** 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 
 freedom. God hath called us to peace, and so 
 doubtless hath left in our hands how to obtain it 
 seasonably : if it be not our own choice to sit 
 ever like novices wretchedly servile. 
 
 Thus much the apostle in this question between 
 christian and pagan, to us now of little use ; yet 
 supposing it written for our instruction, as it may 
 be rightly applied, I doubt not but that the dif- 
 ference between a true believer and a heretic, or 
 any one truly religious either deserted or seeking 
 
S60 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 divorce from anyone grossly erroneous or pro- 
 phane, may be referred hither. For St. Paul 
 leaves us here the solution not of this case only 
 which little concerns us, but of such like cases, 
 w^hich may occur to us. For were the reasons 
 directly square, who can forbid why the verdict 
 should not be the same ? But this the common 
 writers allow us not. And yet from this text, 
 which in plain words give liberty to none, unless 
 deserted by an infidel, they collect the same free- 
 dom, though the desertion be not for religion, 
 which, as I conceive, they need not do ;- but may, 
 without straining, reduce it to the cause of forni- 
 cation. For first, they confess that desertion is 
 seldom without a just suspicion of adultery : next, 
 it is a breach of marriage in the same kind, and 
 in some sort worse : for adultery, though it give 
 to another, yet it bereaves not all ; but the de- 
 serter 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. Never- 
 theless, those reasons, which they bring of esta- 
 blishing by this place the like liberty from any 
 desertion, are fair and solid : and if the thing be 
 lawful, and can be proved so, more ways than one, 
 so much the safer. Their arguments I shall here 
 recite, and that they may not come idle, shall use 
 them to make good the like freedom to divorce 
 for other causes ; and that we are no more under 
 bondage to any heinous default against the main 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. «%1 
 
 ends of matrimony, than to a desertion : first they 
 allege that 1 to Tim. v. 8, " If any provide not 
 for those of his own house, he hath denied the 
 faith, and is worse than an infidel." But a de- 
 serter, say they, " can have no care of them who 
 are most his own ; therefore the deserted party 
 is not less to be righted against such a one, than 
 against an infidel." With the same evidence I 
 argue, that man or wife, who hates in wedlock, 
 is perpetually unsociable, unpeaceful, or undute- 
 ous, either not being able, or not willing to per- 
 form what the main ends of marriage demand in 
 help and solace, cannot be said to care for who 
 should be dearest in the house; therefore is 
 worse than an infidel in both regards, either in 
 undertaking a duty which he cannot perform, to 
 the undeserved and unspeakable injury of the 
 other party so defrauded and betrayed, or not 
 performing what he hath undertaken, whenas he 
 may or might have, to the perjury of himself, more 
 irreligious than heathenism. The blameless per- 
 son 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 St. Paul grant it, with as much leave 
 as they grant to enlarge a particular freedom 
 from paganism, into a general freedom from any 
 desertion. Secondly, they reason from the like- 
 ness of either fact, " the same loss redounds to 
 
 Bb 
 
^63 THE DOCTRINE AN© 
 
 the deserted by a christian, as by an infidel, the 
 same peril of temptation." And I in like manner 
 affirm, that if honest and free persons may be 
 allowed to know what is most to their own loss, 
 the same loss and discontent, but worse disquiet, 
 with continual misery and temptation, resides in 
 the company, or better called the persecution of 
 an unfit, or an unpeaceable consort, than by his 
 desertion. For then the deserted may enjoy him- 
 self at least. And he who deserts is more favour- 
 able to the party whom his presence afflicts, than 
 that importunate 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 marriage, no desertion, so long as the 
 flesh is present, and offers a benevolencie that 
 hates, or is justly hated ; I am not of that vulgar 
 and low persuasion, to think such forced embrace- 
 ments as these worth the honour, or the humanity 
 of marriage, but far beneath the soul of a rational 
 and freeborn man. Thirdly, they say, *' It is not 
 the infidelity of the deserter, but the desertion of 
 the infidel, from which the apostle gives this free- 
 dom :" and I join, 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 
 bosom evil, argues an improvident and careless 
 deliverer. And thus all occasions, which way 
 soever they turn, are not unofficious to administer 
 
DliClPLINK OF DIVOilCE. 368 
 
 something 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 yielded, as in the best ages, a thing 
 of commdn reason, not of controversy. What 
 have I left to say ? I fear to be more elaborate 
 in such a perspicuity as this ; lest I should seem 
 not to teach, but to upbraid the dulness of an 
 age ; not to commune 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 discourse. 
 
 Wko among the fathers have interpreted the words of 
 Christ concerning divorce, as is here interpreted; 
 and what the civil law of christian emperors in the 
 primitive church determined. 
 
 Although testimony be in logic an argument 
 rightly called ** inartificial," and 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 scan reason, nor clearly to apprehend it, 
 but to trust for that the names and nunibers 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 
 
 B B 2 
 
364 XHE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 follow authorities, to take notice that this opinion, 
 which, I bring, hath been favoured, and by some 
 of those affirmed, who in their time were able to 
 carry what they taught, had they urged it, through 
 all Christendom ; or to have left it such a credit 
 with all good men, as they who could not boldly 
 use the opinion, would have feared to censure it. 
 But since by his appointment on whom the times 
 and seasons wait, every point of doctrine is not 
 fated to be thoroughly sifted out in every age ; it 
 will be enough for me to find, that the thoughts 
 of wisest heads heretofore, and hearts no less re- 
 verenced for devotion, have tended this way, and 
 contributed their lot in some good measure to- 
 wards this which hath been here attained. Others 
 of them, and modern especially, have been 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 being something first. 
 
 But I defer not what I undertook to show, that 
 in the church both primitive and reformed, the 
 words of Christ have been understood to grant 
 divorce for other causes than adultery ; and that 
 the word Fornication in marriage hath a larger 
 sense than that commonly supposed. 
 
 Justin Martyr in his first apology, written with- 
 in fifty years after St. John died, relates a story 
 which Eusebius transcribes, that a certain matron 
 of Rome, the wife of a vicious husband, herself 
 also formerly vicious, but converted to the faith. 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DlVOttCE. 365 
 
 and persuading the same to her husband, at least 
 the amendment of his wicked life ; upon his not 
 yielding to her daily entreaties and persuasions 
 in this behalf, procured by law to be divorced from 
 him. This was neither for adultery, nor deser- 
 tion, but as the relation says, "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 ways." Suppose he endeavoured 
 some unnatural abuse, as the Greek admits that 
 meaning, it cannot yet be called adultery ; it there- 
 fore could be thought worthy of divorce no other- 
 wise than as equivalent, or worse; and other vices 
 will appear in other respects as much divorcive. 
 Next, it is said her friends advised her to stay 
 awhile ; and what reason gave they ? not because 
 they held unlawful what she purposed, but because 
 they thought she might longer yet hope his re- 
 pentance. She obeyed, till the man going to Alex- 
 andria, and from thence reported to grow still 
 more impenitent, not for any adultery or desertion, 
 whereof neither can be gathered, but saith the 
 Martyr, and speaks it like one approving, "lest 
 she should be partaker of his unrighteous and un- 
 godly deeds, remaining in wedlock, the communi- 
 on of bed and board with such a person, she left 
 him by a lawful divorce." This cannot but give 
 us the judgment of the church in those pure and 
 next to apostolic times. For how else could the 
 woman have been permitted, or here not repre- 
 hended? and if a wife might then do this wi^h- 
 
THK DQCTRIi^K AN* 
 
 out reproof, a husband certainly might no less» if 
 not more. 
 
 Tertullian in the same age, writing his fourth 
 hook against Marcion, witnesses " that Christ by 
 his answer to the pharisees, protected the consti^ 
 tutiop of Moses as his own, and directed the in- 
 stitution of the Creator," for I alter not his Cartha- 
 ginian phrase; " he excused rather than destroy- 
 ed the constitution of Moses ; I say, he forbid con- 
 ditionally, if any one therefore put away, that he 
 may marry another : so that if he prohibited con- 
 ditionally, then not wholly: and what he forbad 
 not wholly, he permitted otherwise, where the 
 ca^ise. ceases for which he prohibited :" that is, 
 when a man makes it not the cause of his putting 
 away, merely that he may marry again. " Christ 
 teaches not contrary to Moses, the justice of di- 
 vorce hath Christ the asserter ; he would not have, 
 marriage separate, nor kept with ignominy, per- 
 mitting then, a divorce ;" and guesses that this 
 vehemence of our Saviour's sentence was chiefly 
 bent against Herod, as was cited before. Which 
 leaves it evident how Tertullian interpreted this 
 prohibition of our Saviour : for whereas the text 
 is, ''Whosoever putteth away, and marrieth an- 
 other;" wherefore should Tertullian explain it, 
 ^* Whosoever putteth away that he may marry an- 
 other," but to signify his opinion, that our Saviour 
 did not forbid divorce from an unworthy yoke, but 
 forbid the malice or the lust of a needless change, 
 and chiefly those plotted divorces then in use ? 
 
\ 
 
 DISCIPLINE ©F DIVaRCE. S^? 
 
 Origen in the next century testifies to have 
 known certain who had the government of churches 
 in his time, who permitted some to marry, while 
 yet their former husbands lived, and excuses the 
 deed, as done "not without cause, though without 
 scripture," which confirms that cause not to be 
 adultery ; for how then was it against scripture 
 that they married again? And a little beneath, 
 for I cite his seventh homily on Matthew, saith 
 he, " to endure faults worse than adultery and for- 
 nication, seems a thing unreasonable ;" and dis- 
 putes therefore that Christ did not speak by 
 "way of precept, but as it were expounding.'' 
 By which and the like speeches, Origen declares 
 his mind, far from thinking that our Saviour con- 
 fined all the causes of divorce to actual adultery. 
 Lactantius, of the age that succeeded, speaking 
 of this matter in the 6th 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 removed, he commits adultery who 
 marries the divorced 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 dif- 
 ferent things ; and imply that Lactantius thought 
 not this place the forbidding of all necessary di. 
 vorce, but such only as proceeded from the wan- 
 ton desire of a future choice, not from the burdea 
 t)f a present aflliction. 
 
THE DOCTRIKE AND 
 
 About this time the council of Eliberis in 
 Spain decreed the husband excommunicate, 
 *' if he kept his wife, being an adulteress; 
 but if he left her, he might after ten years 
 be received into communion, if he retained her 
 any while in his house after the adultery known." 
 The council of Neocsesaria, in the year 314, de- 
 creed. That if the wife of any laic were convicted 
 of adultery, that man could not be admitted into 
 the ministry : if after ordination it were commit- 
 ted, he was to divorce her ; if not he could not 
 hold his ministry. The council of Nantes con- 
 demned in seven years penance the husband, that 
 would reconcile with an adulteress. But how 
 proves this that other causes may divorce ? It 
 proves thus : There can be but two causes why 
 these councils enjoined so strictly the divorcing 
 'of an adulteress, 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 master of his own forgiveness ; who 
 shall hinder him to pardon the injuries done 
 against himself? It follows therefore, that the di- 
 vorce of an adulteress was commanded by these 
 three councils, as it was a sin against God ; and by 
 all consequence they could not but believe that 
 other sins as heinous might with equal justice be 
 the ground of a divorce. 
 
 Basil in his 73rd rule, as Chamier numbers it, 
 thus determines : ** That divorce ought not to be, 
 unless for adultery, or the hinderance to a godly 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 369 
 
 life." What doth this but proclaim aloud more 
 causes of divorce than adultery, if by other sins 
 besides this, in wife or husband, the godliness of 
 the better person may be certainly hindered and 
 endangered. 
 
 Epiphanius no less ancient, writing against he- 
 retics, and therefore should himself be orthodoxal 
 above others, acquaints us in his second book, 
 Tom. I, 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 happen for any cause, either forni- 
 cation or adultery, or any heinous fault, the word 
 of God blames not either the man or wife marry- 
 ing again, nor cuts them offfrom the congregation, 
 or from life, but bears with the infirmity; not 
 that he may keep both wives, but that leaving the 
 former, he may be lawfully joined to the latter . 
 the holy word, and the holy church of God com- 
 miserates this man, especially if he be otherwise 
 of good conversation, and live according to God's 
 lav/." This place is clearer than exposition, and 
 needs no comment. 
 
 Ambrose, on the 16th of Luke, teaches, "that 
 all wedlock is not God s joining :" and to the 
 xixth of Prov. ** That a wife is prepared of the 
 Lord," as the old Latin translates it, he answers, 
 that the Septuagint renders it, '* a wife is fitted 
 by the Lord, and tempered to a kind of harmony ; 
 and where that harmony is, there God joins; 
 
3*^ THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 where it is not, there dissension reigns, which is 
 not from God, for God is love." This he brings 
 to prove the marrying of Christian with Gentile 
 to be no marriage, and consequently divorced 
 without sin : but he who sees not this argument 
 how plainly it serves to divorce any untunable, or 
 unatonable matrimony, sees little. On the first 
 to the Cor. vii, he grants a woman may leave her 
 husband not only for fornication, ** but for apo- 
 stacy, and inverting nature, though not marry 
 again ; but the man may :" here are causes of di- 
 vorce assigned other than adultery. And going 
 on, he affirms, " that the cause of God is greater 
 than the cause of matrimony ; that the reverence 
 of wedlock is not due to him who hates the author 
 thereof; that no matrimony is firm without devo- 
 tion to God ; that dishonour done to God acquits 
 the other being deserted from the bond of matri- 
 mony ; that the faith of marriage is not to be kept 
 with such." If these consorted sentences be aught 
 worth, it is not the desertion that breaks what is 
 broken, but the impiety ; and who then may not 
 for that cause better divorce, than tarry to be de- 
 serted ? or these grave sayings of St. Ambrose are 
 but knacks. 
 
 Jerom on the 19th 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 Jerom's consent therefore divorce 
 is free not only for actual adultery, but for any 
 
DISCIPLINE or DIVOBCE. 3TI' 
 
 cause that may incline a wise man to the just 
 suspicion thereof. 
 
 Austin also must be remembered among those 
 who hold, that this instance of fornication gives 
 equal inference to other faults equally hateful, for 
 which to divorce : and therefore in his books to. 
 Pollentius he disputes, ** that infidelity, as being 
 a greater sin than adultery, ought so much the ra- 
 ther cause a divorce." And on the sermon on the 
 mount, under the name of fornication will have 
 " idolatry, or any harmful superstition" con- 
 tained, which are not thought to disturb matri- 
 mony so directly as some other obstinacies and 
 disaffections, more against the daily duties of that 
 covenant, and in the Eastern tongues not unfre- 
 quently called fornication, as hath been shown. 
 *' Hence is understood," saith he, '* that not only 
 for bodily fornication, but for that which draws 
 the mind from God's law, and foully 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 
 constrained 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 for- 
 nication therefore is not in this discourse newly 
 interpreted to signify other faults infringing the 
 duties of wedlock, besides adultery. 
 
THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 Lastly, the council of Agatha, in the year 506, 
 Can. 25, decreed, that " if laymen who divorced 
 without some great fault, or giving no probable 
 cause, therefore divorced, that they might marry 
 some unlawful person, or some other man's, if 
 before the provincial bishops were made ac- 
 quainted, or judgment passed, they presumed 
 this, excommunication was the penalty." Whence 
 it follows, that if the cause of divorce were some 
 great offence, or that they gave probable causes 
 for what they did, and did not therefore divorce, 
 that they might presume with some unlawful 
 person, or what was another man's, the censure 
 of church in those days did not touch them. 
 
 Thus having alleged enough to show, after 
 what manner the primitive church for above 500 
 years understood our Saviour's words touching 
 divorce, I shall now, with a labour less dis- 
 persed, and sooner dispatched, 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, ra- 
 ther than to count that for law, which the pontifi- 
 cal canon had enthralled them to, and instead of 
 interpreting a generous and elegant law, made 
 them the drudges of a blockish Rubric. 
 
 Theodosius and Valentinian, pious emperors 
 both, ordained that " as by consent lawful marriages 
 were made, so by consent, but not without the bill 
 of divorce, they might be dissolved ; and to dissolve 
 was the more difficult, only in favour of the chil- 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCK. 373 
 
 dren." We see the wisdom and piety of that age, 
 one of the purest and learnedest since Christ, con- 
 ceived no hindrance in the words of our Saviour, 
 but that a divorce, mutually consented, might be 
 suffered by the law, especially if there were no 
 children, or if there were, careful provision was 
 made. And further saith that law (supposing there 
 wanted the consent of either), " We design the 
 causes of divorce by this most wholesome law ; for 
 as we forbid the dissolving of marriage without just 
 cause, so we desire that a husband or a wife dis- 
 tressed by some adverse necessity, should be freed 
 though by an unhappy, yet a necessary relief.'^ 
 What dram of wisdom or religion (for charity is the 
 truest religion) could there be in that knowing age, 
 which is not virtually summed up in this most just 
 law ? As for those other christian emperors, from 
 Constantine the first of them, finding the Roman 
 law in this point so answerable to the Mosaic, it 
 might be the likeliest cause why they altered no- 
 thing to restraint ; but if aught, rather to liberty, 
 for the help and consideration of the weaker sex, 
 according as the gospel seems to make the wife 
 more equal to her husband in these conjugal re- 
 spects, than the law of Moses doth. Therefore 
 " if a man were absent from his wife four years, 
 and in that space not heard of, though gone to war 
 in the service of the empire,^' she might divorce, 
 and marry another by the edict of Constantine to 
 Dalmatius, Cod. 1. 6, tit. 17. And this was an 
 age of the church, both ancient and cried up still 
 
SV4 THE DOetEIJfK AND 
 
 for the most flourishing in knowledge and pious 
 government since the apostles. But to return to 
 this law of Theodosius, with this observation by 
 the way, that still as the church corrupted, as the 
 clergy grew more ignorant, and yet more usurping 
 on the magistrate, who also now declined, so still 
 divorce grew rnore restrained ; though certainly if 
 better times permitted the thing that worse times 
 restrained, it would not weakly argue that the per- 
 mission was better, and the restraint worse. This 
 law therefore of Theodosius, wiser in this than the 
 most of his successors, though no wiser than God 
 and Moses, reduced the causes of divorce to a cer- 
 tain number, which by the judicial law of God, and 
 all recorded humanity, were left before to the breast 
 of each husband, provided that the dismiss was not 
 without reasonable conditions to the wife. But 
 this was a restraint not yet come to extremes. For 
 besides adultery, and that not only actual, but sus- 
 pected by many signs there set down, any fault 
 equally punishable with adultery, or equally infa- 
 mous, might be the cause of a divorce. Which 
 informs us how the wisest of those ages understood 
 that place in the gospel, whereby not the pilfering 
 of a benevolence was considered as the main and 
 only breach of wedlock, as is now thought, but the 
 breach of love and peace, a more holy union than 
 that of the flesh ; and the dignity of an honest per- 
 son was regarded, not to be held in bondage with 
 one whose ignominy was infectious. To this pur- 
 pose was constituted Cod.i. 5, tit. 17, and Authent. 
 
DiaCIPLINE OF DIVOBCE. 375 
 
 collat 4, tit. i. Novell. 22, where Justinian added 
 three causes more. In the 117 Novell, most of 
 the same causes are allowed, but the liberty of 
 divorcing by consent is repealed : but by whom ? 
 by Justinian, not a wiser, not a more religious em- 
 peror than either of the former, but noted by judi- 
 cious writers for his fickle head in making and un- 
 making laws ; and how Procopius, a good historian, 
 and a counsellor of state then living, deciphers him 
 in his other actions, I willingly omit. Nor was the 
 church then in better case, but had the corruption 
 of a hundred declining years swept on it, when the 
 statute of *' Consent " was called in ; which, as I 
 said, gives us every way more reason to suspect this 
 restraint, more than that liberty : which therefore in 
 the reign of Justin, the succeeding emperor, was 
 recalled, Novell. 140, and established with a pre- 
 face more wise and christianly than for those times, 
 declaring the necessity to restore that Theodosian 
 law, if no other means of reconcilement could be 
 found. And by whom this law was abrogated, or 
 how long after, I do not find ; but that those other 
 causes remained in force as long as the Greek em- 
 pire subsisted, and were assented to by that church, 
 is to be read in the canons and edicts compared by 
 Photius the patriarch, with the avertiments of Bal- 
 samon and Matthaeus Monachus thereon. 
 
 Bui long before those days, Leo, the son of Basi- 
 
 li us Macedo, reigning about the yea'r 886, and for 
 
 his excellent wisdom surnamed the " Philosopher," 
 
 constituted, ** that in case of madness, the husband 
 
 •. II 
 
376 THE DOCTKINE AND 
 
 might divorce after three years, the wife after five/^ 
 Constit. Leon. Ill, 112. This declares how he 
 expounded our Saviour, and derived his reasons 
 from the institution, which in his preface with great 
 eloquence are set down ; whereof a passage or two 
 may give some proof, though better not divided from 
 the rest. " There is not,^^ saith he, " a thing more 
 necessary to preserve mankind, than the help given 
 him from his own rib ; both God and nature so 
 teaching us : which doing so, it was requisite that 
 the providence of law, or if any other care be to the 
 good of man, should teach and ordain those things 
 which are to the help and comfort of married per- 
 sons, and confirm the end of marriage purposed in 
 the beginning, not those things which afflict and 
 bring perpetual misery to them.^' Then answers the 
 objection, that they are one flesh ; " If matrimony 
 had held so as God ordained 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 feared, 
 persuades not to marry though contracted, not 
 persuade to un marry, if after marriage a calamity 
 befall ? Should we bid beware lest any fall into 
 an evil, and leave him helpless who by human 
 error is fallen therein ? This were as if we sho ud 
 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 judgment first of primitive 
 fathers ; next of the imperial law not disallowed by 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 377 
 
 the universal church in ages of her best authority ; 
 and lastly, of the whole Greek church and civil 
 state, incorporating their canons and edicts together* 
 that divorce was lawful for other causes equivalent 
 to adultery, contained under the word fornication. 
 So that tlie exposition of our Saviour's sentence 
 here alleged hath all these ancient and great as- 
 serters ; is therefore neither new nor licentious, as 
 some would persuade the commonalty ; although it be 
 nearer truth that nothing is more new than those 
 teachers themselves, and nothing more licentious 
 than some known to be, whose hypocrisy yet 
 shames not to take offence at this doctrine for 
 licence ; when as indeed they fear it would re- 
 move licence, and leave them but few companions. 
 
 That the popes canon law, encroaching upon civil 
 magistracy y abolished all divorce even for adul- 
 tery. What the reformed divines have recovered; 
 and that the famousest of them have taught 
 according to the assertion of this book. 
 
 But in these western parts of the empire, it will 
 appear almost unquestionable, that the cited law of 
 Theodosius and Valentinian stood in force until the 
 blindest and corruptest times of popedom displaced 
 it. For, that the volumes of Justinian never came 
 into Italy, or beyond lUyricum, is the opinion of 
 good antiquaries. And that only manuscript there- 
 of found in Apulia, by Lotharius the Saxon, and 
 given to the states of Pisa, for their aid at sea 
 against the Normans of Sicily, was received as a 
 rarity not to be matched. And although the Goths, 
 
 C c 
 
378 THE fiOCTRINE AH & 
 
 and after them the Lombards and Franks, who 
 overrun the most of Europe, except this island^ 
 (unless we make our Saxons and Normans a limb 
 of them) brought in their own customs, yet that 
 they followed the Roman laws in their contracts 
 iand marriages, Agathias the historian is alleged. 
 And other testimonies relate, that Alaricus and 
 Theodoric, their kings, writ their statutes out of 
 this Theodosian code, which hath the recited law of 
 divorce. Nevertheless, while the monarchs of 
 Christendom were yet barbarous, and but half- 
 christian, the popes took this advantage of their weak 
 superstition, to raise a corpulent law out of the 
 canons and decretals of audacious priests ; and pre- 
 sumed also to set this in the front : " That the con- 
 stitutions 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 he saith, though " Man's 
 law grant it, yet God^s law prohibits it:'^ whence 
 Gregory the pope, writing to Theoctista, infers that 
 ecclesiastical courts cannot be dissolved by the ma- 
 gistrate. A fair conclusion from a double error. 
 First, in saying that the divine law prohibited 
 divorce : (for what will he make of Moses ?) Next,- 
 supposing that it did, how will it follow, that what- 
 ever Christ forbids in his evangelic precepts, should 
 be haled into a judicial constraint against the pat- 
 tern of a divine law? Certainly the gospel came 
 not to enact such compulsions. In the mean while. 
 
DrSCrptlNE OF DIVORCE. 379" 
 
 we m^y note here, that the restraint of divorce wasr 
 one of the first fair seeming pleas which the Pope 
 had, to step into secular authority, and with his' 
 antichristian rigour to abohsh the permissive law of 
 christian princes conforming to a sacred lawgiver. 
 Which if we consider, this papal and unjust restric- 
 tion of divorce need not be so dear to us, since the 
 plausible restraining of that was in a manner the 
 first loosening of Antichrist, and, as it were, the 
 substance of his eldest horn. Nor do we less re- 
 markably owe the first means of his fait here in 
 England, to the contemning of that restraint by 
 Henry the Vlllth, whose divorce he opposed. Yet 
 was not that rigour executed anciently in' spiritual* 
 courts, until Alexander the Ilird, who trod upon the 
 neck of Frederic Barbarossa the emperor, and sum- 
 moned our Henry Hnd into Normandy, about the' 
 death of Becket. He it was, that the worthy au- 
 thor may be known, who first actually repealed the 
 imperial law of divorce, and decreed this tyrannous 
 decree, that matrimony for no cause should be dis- 
 solved, though for many causes it might separate ; 
 as may be seen Decret. Gregor. 1. 4, tit. 19, and in 
 other places of the canonical tomes. The main 
 good of which invention, wherein it consists, who 
 can tell? but that it hath one virtue incomparable, 
 to fill all Christendom with whoredoms and adulte« 
 ries, beyond the art of Balaams, or of devils. Yet 
 neither can these, though so perverse, but acknow-' 
 ledge that the words of Christ, under the name of 
 fornication, allow putting away for other causes thanl^ 
 
 c c 2 
 
38(t^ THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 adultery, both from ^^ bed and board,^^ but not fronj 
 the *' bond ;^' their only reason is, because marriage 
 they beheve tjo be a " sacrament/' But our divines, 
 who would seem long since to have renounced that 
 reason, have so forgot themselves, as yet to hold 
 the absurdity, which but for that reason, unless 
 there be some mystery of Satan in it, perhaps the 
 papist would not hold. It is true, we grant divorce 
 for actual and proved adultery, and not for less than 
 many tedious and unrepairable years of desertion, 
 wherein a man shall lose all his hope of posterity, 
 which great and holy men have bewailed, 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 done ; what are these two cases 
 to many other, which afflict the state of marriage as 
 bad, and yet find no redress ? What hath the soul 
 of man deserved, if it be in the way of salvation, 
 that it should be mortgaged thus, and may not 
 redeem itself according to conscience out of the 
 hands of such ignorant and slothful teachers as these, 
 who are neither ablo nor mindful to give due ten- 
 dance to that precious cure which they rashly 
 undertake ; nor have in them the noble goodness, 
 to consider these distresses and accidents of man^s 
 life, but are bent rather to fill their mouths with 
 tithe and oblation ? Yet if they can learn to follow, 
 as well as they can seek to be followed, I shall direct 
 them to a fair number of renowned men, worthy to 
 be their leaders, who will commend to them a doc- 
 trine in this point wiser than their own ; and if they 
 
 t 
 
Dl^CiPLlNE OF DIVORCE. 381 
 
 %e not impatient, it will be the same doctrine which 
 this treatise hath defended. 
 
 WickhfF, that Englishman honoured of God to be 
 the first preacher of a general reformation to all 
 Europe, was not in this thing better taught of God, 
 than to teach among his chiefest recoveries of truth, 
 ** that divorce is lawful to the Christian for many 
 other causes equal to adultery.*' This book indeed, 
 through the poverty of our hbraries, I am forced to 
 cite from " Arnisaeus of Halberstad on the Rite of 
 Marriage," who cites it from Corasius of Toulouse, 
 c. 4, Cent. Sect, and he from Wickliff, 1. 4, Dial. 
 c. 2 1 . So much the sorrier, for that I never looked 
 into an author cited by his adversary upon this oc- 
 casion, but found him more conducible to the 
 question than his quotation rendered him. 
 
 Next, Luther, how great a servant of God ! in 
 his book of " Conjugal Life'^ quoted by Gerard 
 out of the Dutch, allows divorce for the obstinate 
 denial of conjugal duty ; and " that a man may 
 send away a proud Vashti, and marry an Esther in 
 her stead." It seems, if this example shall not be 
 impertinent, that Luther meant not only the refusal 
 of benevolence, but a stubborn denial of any main 
 conjugal duty; or if he did not, it will be evinced 
 from what he allows. For out of question, with 
 men that are not barbarous, love and peace, and 
 fitness, will be yielded as essential to marriage, as 
 corporal benevolence. " Though I give my body 
 to be burnt," saith St. Paul, *' and have not cha- 
 rity, it profits me nothing." So though the body 
 
3^82 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 prostitute itself to whom the mind affords no other 
 love or peace, but constant malice and vexation, 
 can this bodily benevolence deserve to be called 
 a marriage between Christians and rational crea- 
 tures ? 
 
 Melancthon, the third great luminary of reforma- 
 tion, in his book " concerning Marriage,'^ grants 
 divorce for cruel usage, and danger of life, urging 
 the authority of that Theodosian law, which he 
 esteems written with the grave deliberation of godly 
 men ; " and that they who reject this law, and 
 think it disagreeing from the gospel, understand not 
 ]the difference of law and gospel ; that the magis- 
 trate ought not only to defend life^ but to succour 
 the weak conscience ; lest, broke with grief and 
 indignation, it relinquish prayer, and turn to ^pme 
 unlawful thing." What if this heavy plight of des- 
 pair arise from other discontents in wedlock, which 
 may go to the soul of a good man more than the 
 danger of his life, or cruel using, which a man can- 
 not be liable to? suppose it be ingrateful usage, 
 suppose it be perpetual spight and disobedience, 
 suppose a hatred ; shall not the magistrate. free him 
 from this disquiet which interrupts his prayers, and 
 disturbs the course 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, than fears 
 to lose it ? Shall not this equally concern the office 
 of civil protection, and much more the charity of a 
 true church to remedy ? 
 
 Erasmus, who for learning was the wonder of }iis 
 
DISCIPLINE OV DIVORCE. 383 
 
 zge, both in his Notes on Matthew, and on the first 
 to the Corinthians, in a large and eloquent dis- 
 course, and in his answer to Phimostomus, a papist, 
 maintains (and no protestant then living contra- 
 dicted 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 prefer before Calvin) in his comment on 
 Matthew, and in his second book " of the Kingdom 
 of Christ," treats of divorce at large, to the same 
 effect as is written in " the Doctrine and Discipline 
 of Divorce" lately published, and the translation is 
 extant : whom, lest I should be thought to have 
 wrested to mine own purpose, take something more 
 out of his 49th chapter, which I then for brevity 
 omitted. " It will be the duty of pious princes, and 
 all who govern church or commonwealth, if any, 
 whether husband or wife, shall affirm their want of 
 such, who either will or can tolerably perform the 
 necessary duties of married life, to grant that they 
 may seek them such, and marry them ; if they 
 make it appear that such they have not." This 
 book he wrote here in England, where he lived the 
 greatest admired man ; and this he dedicated to 
 Edward the VI th. 
 
 Fagius, ranked among the famous divines of 
 Germany, whom Frederic, at that time the Pala- 
 tine, sent for to be the reformer of his dominion^ 
 and whom afterwards England sought to, and ob- 
 tained of him to come and teach her, differs not in 
 
384 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 this opinion from Bucer, as his notes on the 
 Chaldee Paraphrast well testify. 
 
 The whole Church of Strasburgh in her most 
 flourishing time, when Zelhus, Hedio, Capito, and 
 other great divines taught there, and those two re- 
 nowned magistrates, Farrerus and Sturmius, go- 
 verned that commonwealth and academy to the 
 admiration of all Germany, hath thus in the 21st 
 article : *« We teach, that if according to the word 
 of God, yea, or against it, divorces happen, to do 
 according to God's word, Deut. xxiv, i, Mat. xix, 
 1 Cor. vii, and the observation of the primitive 
 x^hurch, and the christian constitution of pious 
 Caesars. ^^ 
 
 Peter Martyr seems in word our easy adversary, 
 but is indeed for us : toward which, though it be 
 something when he saith of this opinion, " that it 
 is not wicked, and can hardly be refuted,^* this 
 which follows is much more ; *' I speak not here,-' 
 saith he, " of natural impediments, which may so 
 happen, that the matrimony can no longer hold :'* 
 but adding, that he often wondered, " how the an- 
 cient and most christian emperors established those 
 laws of divorce, and neither Ambrose, who had 
 such influence upon the laws of Theodosius, nor 
 any of those holy fathers found fault, nor any of the 
 churches, why the magistrates of this day should be 
 so loth to constitute the same. Perhaps they fear 
 an inundation of divorces, which is not likely ; 
 when as we read not either among the Hebrews, 
 Greeks, or Romans, that they were much frequent 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 88$ 
 
 where they were niost permitted. If they judge 
 christian men worse than Jews or Pagans, they 
 both injure that name, and by this reason will be 
 constrained to grant divorces the rather ; because it 
 was permitted as a remedy of evil, for who would 
 remove the medicine, while the disease is yet so 
 rife r^^ This being read both in " his Common 
 places,'* and 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, and other places of his commentaries, 
 he grants divorce not only for desertion, but for the 
 seducement and scandalous demeanour of an he* 
 retical consort. 
 
 Musculus, a divine of no obscure fame, distin* 
 guishes between the religious and the civil determi- 
 nation of divorce ; and leaving the civil wholly to 
 the lawyers, pronounces a conscionable divorce for 
 impotence not only natural, but accidental, if it be 
 durable. His equity it seems, can enlarge the words 
 of Christ to one cause more than adultery ; why 
 may not the reason of another man as wise enlarge 
 them to another cause ? 
 
 Gualter of Zuric, a well-known judicious com? 
 men ta tor, in his homilies on Matthew, allows di- 
 vorce for " leprosy, or any other cause which ren- 
 ders unfit for wedlock," and calls this rather " a 
 nullity of marriage than a divorce." And who, 
 ithat is not himself a mere body, can restrain all the 
 unfitness of marriage only to a corporeal defect. 
 
 Hemingius, an author highly esteemed, and his 
 
386 THE DOCTRINE AND 
 
 works printed at Geneva, writing of divorce, coi>- 
 fesses that learned men vary in this question, some 
 granting three causes thereof, some five, others many 
 more ;" he himself gives us six, " adultery, deser- 
 tion, inability, errour, evil usage, and impiety,^^ 
 using argument, " that Christ under one special 
 contains the whole kind, and under the name and 
 example of fornication, he includes other causes 
 equipolent." This discourse he wrote at the 
 request of many who had the judging of these causes 
 in Denmark and Norway, who by all likelihood 
 followed his advice. 
 
 Hunnius, a doctor of Wittenberg, well known 
 both in divinity and other arts, on the xixth of 
 Matth. affirms, *' That the exception of fornication 
 expressed by our Saviour, excludes not other causes 
 equalling adultery, or destructive to the substantials 
 of matrimony ; but was opposed to the custom of 
 the Jews, who made divorce for every light cause." 
 
 Fehx Bidenbachius, an eminent divine in the 
 duchy of Wirtemberg, affirms, *' That the obstinate 
 refusal of conjugal due is a lawful cause of divorce ;" 
 and gives an instance, " that the consistory of that 
 state so judged.^' 
 
 Gerard cites Harbardus, an author not unknown, 
 and Arnisaeus cites Wigandus, both yielding divorce 
 in case of cruel usage ; and another author, who 
 testifies to " have seen in a dukedom of Germany, 
 marriages disjoined for some implacable enmities 
 arising.^^ 
 
 Beza, one of the strictest against divorce, denies 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 387 
 
 h not '* for danger of life from a heretic, or impor- 
 tunate solicitation to do aught against religion :" and 
 counts it " all one whether the heretic desert, or 
 would stay upon intolerable conditions. ^^ But this 
 decision, well examined, will be found of no so- 
 lidity. For Beza would be asked why, if God so 
 strictly exact our stay in any kind of wedlock, we 
 had not better stay and hazard a murdering for reli- 
 gion at the hand of a wife or husband, as he and 
 others enjoin us to stay and venture it for all other 
 causes but that ? and why a man's life is not as well 
 and warrantably saved by divorcing from an ortho- 
 dox murderer, as a heretical ? Again, if desertion be 
 confessed by him to consist not only in the forsakr 
 ing, but in the unsufferable conditions of staying, a 
 man may as well deduce the lawfulness of divorcing 
 from any intolerable conditions (if his grant be 
 good, that we may divorce thereupon from a 
 heretic) as he can deduce it lawful to divorce from 
 any deserter, by finding it lawful to divorce from a 
 deserting infidel. For this is plain, if St. Paul's 
 permission to divorce an infidel deserter infer it 
 lawful for any malicious desertion, then doth Beza's 
 definition of a deserter transfer itself with like 
 facility from the cause of religion, to the cause of 
 malice, and proves it as good to divorce from him 
 who intolerably stays, as from him who purposely 
 departs ; and leaves it as lawful to depart from him 
 who urgently requires a wicked thing, though pro- 
 fessing the same religion, as from him who urges a 
 heathenish or superstitious compliance in a different 
 
S88 THE DOCTRINE ANB 
 
 faith. For if there be such necessity of our abiding, 
 we ought rather to abide the utmost for religion, 
 than for any other cause ; seeing both the cause of 
 our stay is pretended our religion to marriage, and 
 the cause of our suffering is supposed our constant 
 marriage to religion. Beza therefore, by his own 
 definition of a deserter justifies a divorce ^^from any 
 wicked or intolerable conditions rather in the same 
 religion than in a different. 
 
 Aretius, a famous divine of Bern, approves many 
 causes of divorce in his '* Problems," and adds, 
 ^' that the laws and consistories of Switzerland ap- 
 prove them also.'^ As first, " adultery, and that 
 not actual only, but intentional ;" alleging Matthew 
 V, " Whosoever looketh to lust, hath committed 
 adultery already in his heart. Whereby,"' saith he, 
 " our Saviour shows', that the breach of matrimony 
 in ay be not only by outward act, but by the heart 
 and desire ; when that hath once possessed, it ren- 
 ders the conversation intolerable, and commonly 
 the fact follows." Other causes to the number of 
 nine or ten, consenting in most with the imperial 
 laws, may be read in the author himself, who avers 
 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 
 been all so blinded by the canon, as not to avouch 
 the justice of those old permissions touching 
 divorce. 
 
 Alciat of Milan, a man of extraordinary wisdom 
 and learning, in. the sixth book of his " Parerga/- 
 
DlSCfPHNE OF DIVORCE. 389i 
 
 defends those imperial laws, " not repugnant to the 
 gospel, as the church then interpreted. For/* 
 saith he, " the ancients understood him separate by 
 man, whom passions and corrupt affections di^ 
 vorced, not if the provincial bishops first heard the 
 matter, and judged, as the council of Agatha de- 
 clares :" and on some part of the Code he names 
 Isidorus Hispalensis, the first computer of canons, 
 " to be in the same mind/^ And in the former 
 place gives his opinion, " that divorce might be 
 more lawfully permitted than usury." 
 
 Corasius, recorded by Helvicus among the fa- 
 mous lawyers, hath been already cited of the same 
 judgment. 
 
 Wesembechius, a much- named civilian, in his 
 comment on this law defends it, and affirms, " That 
 our Saviour excluded not other faults equal to 
 adultery ; and that the word fornication signifies 
 larger among the Hebrews than with us, compre-* 
 bending 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 
 ancient civility, yea, to the Mosaic law, *' as being 
 most just and undeceivable." On the 5th of 
 Matth. he saith, *' That Christ made no civil laws, 
 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 own conscience ; that Christ 
 therefore cannot be thought to send him ; that 
 
S90' Of^E DOCTRINE AND 
 
 adultery may be judged by a vehement suspicion ;• 
 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, some 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 then!' 
 joined in an opinion so consonant to reason ? For 
 although some speak of this cause, others of that, 
 why divorce may be, yet all agreeing in the ne- 
 cessary enlargement of that textual straitness, leave 
 the matter to equity, not to literal bondage ; and 
 66 the opinion closes. Nor could I have wanted 
 more testimonies, had the cause needed a more 
 solicitous inquiry. But herein the satisfaction of 
 others hath been studied, not this gaining of more 
 assurance to mine own persuasion : although au- 
 thorities contributing reason withal be a good 
 confirmation and a welcome. But God (I solemnly 
 attest him!) withheld from my knowledge the 
 consenting judgment of these men so late, until 
 they could not be my instructors, but only my 
 unexpected witnesses to partial men, that in- this 
 work I had not given thie worst experiment of an 
 industry joined with integrity, and the free utter- 
 ance, tliough of an unpopular truth. Which yet 
 to the people of England may, if God so please, 
 prove ^ memorable informing ; certainly a benefit 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 891' 
 
 which was intended them long since by men of 
 highest repute for wisdom and piety, Bucer and 
 Erasmus. Only this one authority more, whethei* 
 in place or out of place, I am not to omit : which if 
 any can think a small one, I must be patient, it is 
 no smaller than the whole assembled authority of 
 England both church and state ; and in those times 
 which are on record for the purest and sincerest 
 that ever shone yet on the reformation of this island 
 the time of Edward the Sixth. That worthy prince, 
 having utterly abolished the canon law out of his 
 dominions, as his father did before him, appointed 
 by full vote of parliament a committee 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 king^s tutor, a man at that time counted 
 the learnedest of Englishmen, and for piety not 
 inferior) were the chief, to frame anew some eccle- 
 siastical laws, that might be instead of what was 
 abrogated. The work with great diligence was 
 finished, and with as great approbation of that 
 reforming age was received ; and had been doubtless, 
 as the learned preface thereof testifies, established 
 by act of parliament, had not the good king's death, 
 so soon ensuing, arrested the further growth of 
 religion also, from that season to this. Those laws, 
 thus founded on the memorable wisdom and piety 
 of that religious parliament and synod, allow divorce 
 and second marriage, " not only for adultery or 
 desertion, but for any capital ernnity^ or plot laid 
 
S92 THE DOCTRINE, AND 
 
 against the other's life, and likewise for evil and 
 fierce usage :" nay the twelfth chapter of that title 
 by plain consequence declares, " that lesser con- 
 tentions, if they be perpetual, may obtain divorce :'' 
 which is all one really with the position by me held 
 in the former treatise published on this argument, 
 herein only differing, that there the cause of perpe- 
 tual strife was put for example in the unchangeable 
 discord of some natures ; but in these laws intended 
 us by the best of our ancestors, the effect of continual 
 strife is determined no unjust plea of divorce, whe- 
 ther the cause be natural or wilful. Whereby the 
 wariness and deliberation, from which that discourse 
 proceeded, will appear, and that God hath aided us 
 to make no bad conclusion of this point ; seeing the 
 opinion, which of late hath undergone ill censures 
 among the vulgar, hath now proved to have done 
 no violence to scripture, unless all these famous 
 authors alleged to have done the like ; nor hath 
 affirmed aught more than what indeed the most 
 nominated fathers of the church, both ancient and 
 modern, are unexpectedly found affirming ; the 
 laws of God's peculiar people, and of primitive 
 Christendom found to have practised, reformed 
 churches and states to have imitated, and especially 
 the most pious church-times of this kingdom to have 
 framed and published, and, but for sad hinderances 
 in the sudden change of religion, had enacted by 
 the parliament. Henceforth let them, who con- 
 demn the assertion of this book for new and licen- 
 tious, be sorry ; lest, while they think to be of the 
 
DISCIPLINE OF DIVORCE. 393 
 
 graver sort, and take on them to be teachers, they 
 expose themselves rather to be pledged up and 
 down by men who intimately know them, to the 
 discovery and contempt of their ignorance and pre- 
 sumntion. 
 
 Od 
 
BRIEF STATEMENT 
 
 or THB 
 
 CONTROVERSY 
 
 PRODUCED BY THE 
 
 DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE 
 OF DIVORCE : 
 
 WITH AN ABRIDGMENT OF 
 
 COLASTERION. 
 
 THE bold, and, as they must have appeared at 
 the time, singular opinions contained in the fore- 
 going Tracts, exposed their Author to censure, and 
 involved him in controversy. He had many a " by- 
 blow'^ from the pulpit, and the press dealt out 
 against him sophistry and slander with an unsparing 
 hand. But Milton was " ready, aye, ready '^ for 
 the field. Equally a stranger to fear and to defeat, 
 whoever entered the lists with him were sure of 
 being crushed by " weapons of stouter metal than 
 their own." The stormy regions of intellectual 
 conflict were his proper element, where he felt him- 
 self a god. Irresistible arguments darted from his 
 mind like thunderbolts from the hand of Jove. 
 
COLASIJERION. 395 
 
 Heaven seemed obsequious to his will, and even 
 " Hell grew darker at his frown.'^ 
 
 In the cause of truth, and such to him appeared 
 every cause which he espoused, for his bitterest 
 enemies presume not to question his sincerity, he 
 was an undaunted and devoted champion. Nor 
 did he abandon its defence while there remained 
 an argument to be refuted, or a sophism to be ex- 
 posed. He was proud and happy when brought in 
 contact with an equal foe ; and sometimes with less 
 pleasure but not with less spirit, he imposed upon 
 himself the ungrateful task of chastising the temerity 
 which he could not hope to convince. He de- , 
 lighted to reason with those who sought truth, for her 
 own sake, and loved her better than victory, while he 
 would occasionally " answer a fool according to his 
 folly, that he might not be wise in his own conceit.'^ 
 
 In the present instance, the disingenuousness of 
 one of his opponents, and the ignorant and besotted 
 insolence of another, justly provoked his indigna- 
 tion, which he expressed, as some, perhaps, will 
 think, with too little regard to courtesy, and in a 
 spirit not sufficiently accordant with the meek- 
 ness of wisdom. Yet it must be admitted, even 
 by those most ready to censure him on this account, 
 that the controversialists of Milton's age were a 
 kind of literary gladiators, who were appre- 
 ciated by the severity of their epithets, rather 
 than the weight of their arguments. Milton cer- 
 tainly was deficient in none of the qualities which 
 form a keen, pertinacious, and exasperating oppo- 
 
S96 COLASTERION. 
 
 nent ; and he was surrounded with circumstances 
 calculated to inflame rather than to assuage these 
 qualities. In knowledge and belief of certain great 
 and important principles in government and reli- 
 gion, he went far beyond the most learned and 
 distinguished of his contemporaries. His unbend- 
 ing integrity, which would not suffer him to ally 
 himself in any degree with injustice, hypocrisy, or 
 baseness, exposed him to the persecution and 
 enmity of all parties in church and state, and he 
 complained, not without reason, that he had " fallen 
 upon evil men and evil times. '^ The present work 
 drew upon him the vengeance of the Presbyterians, 
 who, with their characteristic ingratitude, forgetting 
 their obligations to him as their mightiest cham- 
 pion, assailed him from the pulpit and the press 
 with violent and acrimonious hostility. They even 
 endeavoured to infuse these passions into the legis- 
 lature, and actually caused him to be summoned 
 before the House of Lords, pursuing him, as he 
 expresses it, with " an impotent, and worse than 
 Bonner like censure," threatening to burn the Book 
 which challenged them to a fair dispute, and to ruin 
 the man who had raised them from the dunghill. 
 
 These facts will sufficiently account for, if they 
 do not justify, the haughty and contemptuous 
 manner with which Milton was accustomed to repel 
 the attacks of his enemies. Whether he was in 
 this more faulty than many who have in the present 
 day thought proper to censure him, may, perhaps, 
 be justly questioned ; for, as Dr. Symmons has 
 
COLASTERION. S97 
 
 well observed, " the temper of polemic^ and of 
 literary disputants is in all ages the same.^' In the 
 time of Milton, controversy had not learned to con- 
 ceal the malignity of her bosom under the disguise 
 of a polished brow and a smiling clieek. '* With 
 an ardent temper and a brilliant imagination, Milton 
 was not formed for cool and temperate disputation. 
 " I could not," he says, " to my thinking, honour 
 a good cause more from the heart, than by defending 
 it earnestly.'^ He talked, indeed, " of pleading 
 against his confuters by no other advocates than 
 silence and sufferance ; and speaking deeds against 
 faltering words/^ But his bold and sanguine nature 
 prohibited such efficient acquiescence, and hurried 
 him into active war. When his adversary called 
 upon " all Christians to stone him as a miscreant, 
 whose impunity would be their crime,'^ we cannot 
 reasonably wonder at the warmth of his expressions, 
 or at the little scruple with which he scattered his 
 various instruments of pain. These polemical 
 tracts of our Author, though perhaps some of the 
 least valuable of his works, are so illumined with 
 knowledge and with fancy, and open to us such 
 occasional glimpses of a great and sublime mind, 
 that they must always be regarded as affording an 
 ample compensation for any harshness of manner 
 with which they may sometimes offend.^* 
 
 As the present age can have no interest in the 
 personalities of this controversy, we shall omit them 
 in the ensuing pages of the " Colasterion," retain- 
 ing only the reasoning, which, as it restates the 
 
39B COLASTE&IOM. 
 
 arguments of the preceding tracts with additional 
 clearness, and urges them with greater force, will 
 be a suitable conclusion to the Work. 
 
 An insignificant performance, entitled " Divorce 
 at Pleasure," is very summarily dispatched; and 
 the book which provoked the Colasterion, Milton 
 thus introduces to his readers. 
 
 " But as I still was waiting, when these light- 
 armed refuters'^ (the Presbyterians, and their foul- 
 mouthed and persecuting preachers) " would have 
 done pelting at their three lines uttered with a sage 
 delivery of no reason, but an impotent and worse than 
 Bonner-like censure, to burn that which provokes 
 them to a fair dispute ; at length a book was brought 
 to my hands, entitled, ' An Answer to the Doc- 
 trine and Discipline of Divorce/ Gladly I re- 
 ceived it, and very attentively composed myself to 
 read ; hoping that now some good man had vouch- 
 safed the pains to instruct me better, than I could 
 yet learn out of all the volumes, which for this pur- 
 pose I had visited. Only this I marvelled, and 
 other men have since, whenas I, in a subject so 
 new to this age, and so hazardous to please, con- 
 cealed not my name, why this author, defending 
 that part which is so creeded by the people, would 
 conceal his. But ere I could enter three leaves 
 into the pamphlet (for I defer the peasantly rude- 
 ness, which by the licenser's leave I met with after- 
 wards), my satisfaction came in abundantly, that it 
 could be nothing why he durst not name himself, 
 but the guilt of his own wretchedness." 
 
COIiASTEftlON. 
 
 He then proceeds to expose the writer's total 
 ignorance of the very question in dispute ; and 
 remarks, " But one thing more I observed, a singular 
 note of his stupidity, and that his trade is not to 
 meddle with books, much less with confutations ; 
 whenas the " Doctrine of Divorce '^ had now a 
 whole year been published the second time, with 
 many arguments added, and the former, ones bettered 
 end confirmed, this idle pamphlet comes reeling 
 forth against the first edition only ; as may appear 
 to any by the pages quoted : which put me in mind 
 of what by chance I had notice of to this purpose 
 the last summer, as nothing so serious but happens 
 ofttimes to be attended with a ridiculous accident : 
 it was then told me, that the ** Doctrine of Divorce" 
 was answered, and the answer half printed against 
 the first edition, not by one, but by a pack of 
 heads ; of whom the chief, by circumstance, was 
 intimated to me^ and since ratified to be no other, 
 if any can hold laughter, and I am sure none will 
 guess him lower than an actual serving-man. This 
 creature, for the story must on (and what though 
 he be the lowest person of an interlude, he may 
 deserve a canvassing), transplanted himself, and to 
 the improvement of his wages, and your better 
 notice of his capacity, turned solicitor. And 
 having conversed much with a stripling divine or 
 two of those newly fledged probationers, that 
 usually come scouting from the university, and lie 
 here no lame lepers to pop into the Bethesda of 
 some knight's chaplainship, where they bring grace 
 
400 COLASTERIOV^ 
 
 to his good cheer, but no peace or benediction else 
 to his house ; these made the cham-party, he con- 
 tributed the law, and both joined in the divinity. 
 Which made me intend following the advice also 
 of friends, to lay aside the thought of misspending 
 a reply to the buz of such a drone's nest. But 
 finding that it lay, whatever was the matter, half a 
 year after unfinished in the press, and hearing for 
 certain that a divine of note, out of his good-will to 
 the opinion, had taken it into his revise, and some- 
 thing had put out, something put in, and stuck it 
 here and there with a clove of his own calligraphy, 
 to keep it from tainting : and farther, when I saw 
 the stuff, though very coarse and threadbare, 
 garnished and trimly faced with the commendations 
 of a licenser, I resolved, so soon as leisure granted 
 me the recreation, that my man of law should not 
 altogether lose his soliciting. Although I impute a 
 share of the making to him whose name I find in 
 the approbation, who may take, as his mind serves 
 him, this reply. In the mean while it shall be 
 seen, I refuse no occasion, and avoid no adversary, 
 either to maintain what I have begun, or to give it 
 up for better reason." 
 
 Having visited the licenser with the wholesome 
 castigation he was so well able to administer, Milton 
 takes leave of him in the following rather uncourtly 
 style, to enter the lists with his anonymous com- 
 batant : — " Now therefore to your attorney, since 
 no worthier an adversary makes his appearance, nor 
 this neither his appearance, but lurking under the 
 
COLASTEEION. 401 
 
 safety of his nameless obscurity ; such as ye turn 
 him forth at the postern, I must, accept him ; and 
 in a better temper than Ajax do mean to scourge 
 this ram for ye, till I meet with his Ulysses. 
 
 " He begins with law, and we have it of him as 
 good cheap as any huckster at law, newly "set up, 
 can possibly afford, and as impertinent ; but for that 
 he hath received his handsel. He presumes also 
 to cite the civil law, which I perceive by his citing, 
 never came within his dormitory : yet what he cites, 
 makes but against himself. 
 
 "His second thing therefore is to refute the 
 adverse position, and very methodically, three pages 
 before he sets it down ; and sets his own in the 
 place, ' that disagreement of mind or disposition, 
 though showing itself in much sharpness, is not by 
 the law of God or man a just cause of divorce.^ 
 
 " To this position I answer ; That it lays no 
 battery against mine, no nor so much as faces it, 
 but tacks about, long ere it come near, like a 
 harmless and respectful confutement. For I con- 
 fess that disagreement of mind or disposition, though 
 in much sharpness, is not always a just cause of 
 divorce ; for much may be endured. But what if 
 the sharpness be much more than his much ? To 
 that point it is our mishap we have not here his 
 grave decision. He that will contradict the position 
 which I alleged, must hold that no disagreement of 
 mind or disposition can divorce, though shown in 
 most sharpness ; otherwise he leaves a place for 
 equity to appoint limits, and so his following argu- 
 
40S COIASTKEION. 
 
 ments will either not prove his own position, or not 
 disprove mine. 
 
 " His first argument, all but what hobbles to no 
 purpose, is this ; ' Where the Scripture commands 
 a thing to be done, it appoints when^ how, and for 
 what, as in the case of death, or excommunication. 
 But the Scripture directs not what measure of dis- 
 agreement or contrariety may divorce : therefore 
 the Scripture allows not any divorce for disagree- 
 ment/ — Answ. First, I deny your major ; the 
 Scripture appoints many things, and yet leaves the 
 circumstance to man's discretion^ particularly in 
 your own examples : excommunication is not 
 taught when, and for what to be, but left to the 
 church. How could the licenser let pass this 
 childish ignorance, and call it ' good ?' Next, in 
 matters of death, the laws of England, whereof you 
 have intruded to be an opiniastrous subadvocate, 
 and are bound to defend them, conceive it not 
 enjoined in Scripture, when or for what cause they 
 shall put to death, as in adultery, theft, and the hke. 
 Your minor also is false, for tibie Scripture plainly 
 sets down for what measure of disagreement a man 
 may divorce, Deut. xxiv, 1. Learn better what 
 that phrase means, ' if she find no favour in his 
 eyes.* 
 
 " Your second argument, is briefly thus : ' If 
 diversity in religion, which breeds a greater dislike 
 than any natural disagreement, may not cause a 
 divorce, then may not the lesser disagreement : But 
 diversity of religion may not ; Ergo/ 
 
COLASTEBION. 40S 
 
 « Answ. First, I deny in the major, that diversity 
 of religion breeds a greater dislike to marriage- 
 duties than natural disagreement. For between 
 Israelite, or christian and infidel, more often hath 
 been seen too much love : but between them who 
 perpetually clash in natural contrarieties, it is re- 
 pugnant that there should be ever any married love 
 or concord. Next, I deny your minor, that it is 
 commanded not to divorce in diversity of religion, 
 if the infidel will stay : for that place in St. Paul 
 commands nothing, as that book at large affirmed, 
 though you overskipped it. 
 
 " Secondly, If it do command, it is but with 
 condition that the infidel be content, and well- 
 pleased to stay, which cuts off the supposal of any 
 great hatred or disquiet between them, seeing the 
 infidel had liberty to depart at pleasure ; and so 
 this comparison avails nothing. 
 
 *« Your third argument is from Deut. xxii. * If a 
 man hate his wife, and raise an ill report, that he 
 found her no virgin ;' if this were false, * he 
 might not put her away,^ though hated never so 
 much. 
 
 *' Ans. This was a malicious hatred, bent against 
 her life, or to send her out of doors without her 
 portion. Such a hater loses by due punishment 
 that privilege, Deut. xxiv, i, to divorce for a na- 
 tural dislike ; which, though it could not love 
 conjugally, yet sent away civilly, and with just 
 conditions. But doubtless the wife in that former 
 case bad liberty to depart from her false accuser 
 
404 COLASTERION. 
 
 lest his hatred should prove mortal ; else that law, 
 peculiarly made to right the woman, had turned to 
 her greatest mischief. 
 
 " Your fourth argument is ; ' One christian ought 
 to bear the infirmities of another, but chiefly of his 
 wife/ 
 
 " Ans. I grant infirmities, but not outrages, not 
 perpetual defraudments of truest conjugal society, 
 not injuries and vexations as importunate as fire. 
 Yet to endure very much, might do well on exhor- 
 tation, but not a compulsive law. For the Spirit 
 of God himself, by Solomon, declares that such a 
 consort " the earth cannot bear, and better dwell in 
 a corner of the house-top, or in the wilderness." 
 Burthens may be borne, but still with consideration 
 to the strength of an honest man complaining. 
 Charity indeed bids us forgive our enemies, yet 
 doth not force us to continue friendship and fami- 
 liarity with those friends who have been false or 
 unworthy towards us ; but is contented in our 
 peace with them, at a fair distance. Charity com- 
 mands not the husband to receive again into his 
 bosom the adulterous wife, but thinks it enough, if 
 he dismiss her with a beneficent and peaceful dis- 
 mission. No more doth charity command, nor can 
 her rule compel, to retain in nearest union of 
 wedlock one whose other grossest faults, or dis- 
 abilities to perform what was covenanted, are the 
 just causes of as much grievance and dissention in 
 a family, as the private act of adultery. Let not 
 therefore, under the name of fulfilling charity, such 
 
COLASTERION. 405 
 
 an unmerciful and more than legal yoke be pad- 
 locked upon the neck of any christian. 
 
 '* Your fifth argument : ' If the husband ought to 
 love his wife, as Christ his church, then ought she 
 not to be put away for contrariety of mind/ 
 
 " Answ. This similitude turns against him : for if 
 the husband must be as Christ to the wife, then 
 must the wife be as the church to her husband. If 
 there be a perpetual contrariety of mind in the 
 church toward Christ, Christ himself threatens to 
 divorce such a spouse, and hath often done it. If 
 they urge, this was no true church, I urge again 
 that was no true wife. 
 
 " His sixth argument is from Matth. v, 32, which 
 he expounds after the old fashion, and never takes 
 notice of what I brought against that exposition . 
 let him therefore seek his answer there. Yet can 
 he not leave this argument, but he must needs first 
 show us a curvet of his madness, holding out an 
 objection, and running himself upon the point. 
 * For,^ saith he, ' if Christ except no cause but 
 adultery, then all other causes, as frigidity, incestu- 
 ous marriage, &c. are no cause of divorce ;^ and 
 answers, ' that the speech of Christ holds uni- 
 versally, as he intended it ; namely, to condemn 
 such divorce as was groundlessly practised among 
 the Jews, for every cause which they thought suffi- 
 cient ; not checking the law of consanguinities or 
 affinities, or forbidding other cause which makes 
 marriage void, ipso facto.* 
 
 " Answ. Look to it n©w, you be not found taking 
 
406 COLASTERIOM. 
 
 fees on both sides ; for if you once bring limitations 
 to the universal words of Christ, another will do 
 as much with as good authority ; and affirm, that 
 neither did he check the law, Deut. xxiv, i, nor 
 forbid the causes that make marriage void actually ; 
 which if any thing in the world doth, unfitness 
 doth, and contrariety of mind ; yea, more than 
 adultery, for that makes not the marriage void, nor 
 much more unfit, but for the time, if the offended 
 party forgive : but unfitness and contrariety frus- 
 trates and nullifies for ever, unless it be a rare 
 chance, all the good and peace of wedded conver- 
 sation ; and leaves nothing between them enjoyable, 
 but a prone and savage necessity, not worth the name 
 of marriage, unaccompanied with love. Thus much 
 his own objection hath done against himself. 
 
 " Argument 7th. He insists, ' that man and wife 
 are one flesh, therefore must not separate.^ But 
 must be sent to look again upon the * 36th page of 
 that book, where he might read an answer, which 
 he stirs not. Yet can he not abstain, but he must 
 do us another pleasure ere he goes ; although I call 
 the common pleas to witness, I have not hired his 
 tongue, whatever men may think by his arguing. 
 For besides adultery, he excepts other causes which 
 dissolve the union of being one flesh, either di- 
 rectly, or by consequence. If only adultery be 
 excepted by our Saviour, and he voluntarily can 
 add other exceptions that dissolve that union, both 
 
 * First Edition. 
 
COLASTERION, 407 
 
 directly and by consequence ; these words of Christ, 
 the main obstacle of divorce, are open to us by 
 his own invitation, to include whatever causes 
 dissolve that union of flesh, either directly or by 
 consequence. Which, till he name other causes 
 more likely, I affirm to be done soonest by unfitness 
 and contrariety of mind ; for that induces hatred, 
 which is the greatest dissolver both of spiritual and 
 corporal union, turning the mind, and consequently 
 the body, to other objects. Thus our doughty 
 adversary, either directly or by consequence, yields 
 us the question with his own mouth : and the next 
 thing he does, recants it again. 
 
 '* His 8th argument shivers in the uttering, and he 
 confesseth to be ' not overconfident of it :' but of 
 the rest it may be sworn he is. St. Paul, 1 Cor. 
 vii, saith, that the * man-ied have trouble in the 
 flesh,' therefore we must bear it, though never so 
 intolerable. 
 
 ** I answer, if this be a true consequence, why are 
 not all troubles to be borne alike ? Why are we 
 suffered to divorce adulteries, desertions, or frigidi- 
 ties ? Who knows not that trouble and affliction is 
 liie decree of God upon every state of life ! Follows 
 it therefore, that, though they grow excessive and 
 insupportable, we must not avoid them ? If we may 
 in all other conditions, and not in marriage, the 
 doom of our suffering ties us not by the trouble, but 
 hy the bond of roarriage : and that must be proved 
 inseparable from other reasons, not from this place. 
 And his own confession declares the weakness of 
 
408 COLASTERION. 
 
 this argument, yet his ungoverned arrogance could 
 not be dissuaded from venting it. 
 
 " His 9th argument is, * that a husband must love 
 his wife as himself; therefore he may not divorce 
 for any disagreement no more than he may separate 
 his soul from his body/ I answer : if he love his 
 wife as himself, he must love her so far as he may 
 preserve him to her in a cheerful and comfortable 
 manner, and not so as to ruin himself by anguish 
 and sorrow, without any benefit to her. Next, if 
 the husband must love his wife as himself, she must 
 be understood a wife in some reasonable measwre, 
 willing and sufficient to perform the chief duties of 
 her covenant, else by the hold of this argument it 
 would be his great sin to divorce either for adultery 
 or desertion. The rest of this will run circuit with 
 the union of one flesh, which was answered before. 
 And that to divorce a relative and metaphorical 
 union of two bodies into one flesh cannot be 
 likened in all things to the dividing of that natural 
 union of soul and body into one person, is apparent 
 of itself. 
 
 " His last argument he fetches ' from the incon- 
 venience that would follow upon this freedom of 
 divorce, to the corrupting of men's minds, and the 
 overturning of all human society.' 
 
 " But for me let God and Moses answer this blas- 
 phemer, who dares bring in such a foul indictment 
 against the divine law. Why did God permit this 
 to his people the Jews, but that the right and good, 
 which came directly thereby, was more in his esteem 
 
COLASTERlOSr. 40ft 
 
 than the wrong and evil, which came by accident ? 
 And for those weak supposes of infants that would 
 be left in their mothers^ belly (which must needs 
 be good news for chamber-maids), and portions 
 and jointures likely to incur embezzlement hereby, 
 the ancient civil law instructs us plentifully how to 
 award, which our profound opposite knew not, for 
 it was not in his tenures. 
 
 " His arguments are spun ; now follows the chap- 
 lain with his antiquities ; wiser if he had refrained, 
 for his very touching ought that is learned soils it^ 
 and lays him still more and more open, a conspicu- 
 ous gull. There being both fathers and councils 
 more ancient, wherewith to have served his purpose 
 better than with what he cites, how may we do to 
 know the subtle drift, that moved him to begin first 
 with the " twelfth council of Toledo ? ^' I would 
 not undervalue the depth of his notion ; but perhaps 
 he had heard that the men of Toledo had store of 
 good blade-mettle, and were excellent at cuttling; 
 who can tell but it might be the reach of his policy, 
 that these able men of decision would do best to 
 have the prime stroke among his testimonies in de- 
 ciding this cause ? But all this craft avails himself 
 not ; for seeing they allow no cause of divorce but 
 fornication, what do these keen doctors here, but 
 cut him over the sinews with their toledoes, for 
 holding in the precedent page other causes of di- 
 vorce besides, both directly and by consequence ? 
 As evil doth that Saxon council, next quoted, be- 
 stead him. For if it allow divorce precisely for no 
 
 £ E 
 
410 COLASTKRIOX/ 
 
 cause but fornication, it thwarts his own exposition r 
 and if it understand fornication largely, it sides with 
 whom he would confute. However, the authority 
 of that synod can be but small, being under Theo- 
 dorus, the Canterbury bishop, a Grecian monk of 
 Tarsus, revolted from his own church to the pope. 
 What have we next ? The civil law stuffed in be- 
 tween two councils, as if the Code had been some 
 synod; for that he understood himself in this quo- 
 tation, is incredible ; where the law. Cod. 1. 3, tit. 
 38, leg. 11. speaks not of divorce, but against the 
 dividing of possessions to divers heirs, whereby the 
 married servants of a great family were divided, 
 perhaps into distant countries and colonies ; father 
 horn son, wife from husband, sore against their will. 
 Somewhat lower he confesseth, that the civil law 
 allows many reasons of divorce, but the canon law 
 decrees otherwise ; a fair credit to his cause ! And 
 I amaze me, though the fancy of this dolt be as ob- 
 tuse and sad as any mallet, how the licenser could 
 .sleep out all this, and suffer him to uphold his opi- 
 nion by canons and Gregorial decretals ; a law 
 which not only his adversary, but the whole reform- 
 ation of this church and state hath branded and 
 rejected. As ignorantly, and too ignorantly to de- 
 ceive any reader but an unlearned, he talks of Jus- 
 tin Martyr^s Apology, not teUing us which of the 
 twain ; for that passage in the beginning of his first, 
 which I have cited elsewhere, plainly makes against 
 him ; so doth Tertullian, cited next, and next Eras- 
 mus, the one against Marcion, the other in his an- 
 
COLASTERION. 411 
 
 notations on Matthew, and to the Corinthians. And 
 thus ye have the list of his choice antiquities, as 
 pleasantly chosen as ye would wish from a man of 
 his handy vocation, puffed up with no luck at all 
 above the stint of his capacity. 
 
 " Now he comes to the position, which I set down 
 whole ; and, like an able textman, slits it into four, 
 that he may the better come at it with his barber- 
 surgery, and his sleeves turned up. Wherein first, 
 he denies ' that any disposition, unfitness, or con- 
 trariety of mind, is unchangeable in nature, but that 
 by the help of diet and physic it may be altered.' 
 
 ** I mean not to dispute philosophy with this pork, 
 who never read any. But I appeal to all experi- 
 ence, though there be many drugs to purge these 
 redundant humours and circulations, that commonly 
 impair health, and are not natural, whether any 
 man can with the safety of his life bring a healthy 
 constitution into physic with this design, to alter 
 his natural temperament and disposition of mind. 
 How much more vain and ridiculous would it be, 
 by altering and rooting up the grounds of nature, 
 which is most likely to produce death or madness, 
 to hope the reducing of a mind to this or that fit- 
 ness, or two disagreeing minds to a mutual sym- 
 pathy ? Suppose they might, and that with great 
 danger of their lives and right senses, alter one tem- 
 perature, how can they know that the succeeding 
 disposition will not be as far from fitness and agree- 
 ment ? They would perhaps change melancholy 
 
 £ £ 2 
 
41^ eOLASTERION. 
 
 into sanguine ; but what if phlegm and choler in a^ 
 great a measure come instead, the unfitness will be 
 still as difficult and troublesome ? But lastly, whe- 
 ther these things be changeable or not, experience 
 teaches us, and our position supposes that they sel- 
 dom do change in any time commensurable to the 
 necessities of man, or convenient to the ends of 
 marriage : and if the fault be in the one, shall the 
 other live all his days in bondage and misery, for 
 another's perverseness, or immedicable disaffec- 
 tion ? 
 
 '* His second reason is as heedless ; ' because that 
 grace may change the disposition, therefore no in- 
 disposition may cause divorce/ 
 
 " Answ. First, it will not be deniable that many 
 persons, gracious both, may yet happen to be very 
 unfitly married, to the great disturbance of either. 
 Secondly ; What if one have grace, the other not, 
 and will not alter ; as the Scriptures testify there be 
 of those, in whom we may expect a change, when 
 ' the blackamoor changes his colour, or the leopard 
 his spots,^ Jer. xiii, 23. Shall the gracious there- 
 fore dwell in torment all his life, for the ungracious ? 
 We see that holiest precepts, than which there can 
 no better physic be administered to the mind of 
 mauj and set on with powerful preaching, cannot 
 work this cure, no not in the family, not in the wife 
 of him that preaches day and night to her. What 
 an unreasonable thing is it, that men, and clergy- 
 men especially, should exact such wonderous 
 
COLASTEEIOW. 413 
 
 changes in another man's house, and are seen to 
 work so little in their own ? 
 
 " To the second point of the position, that this 
 xinfitness hinders the main ends and benefits of mar- 
 riage ; he answers, ^ if I mean the unfitness of cho- 
 ler, or «ulien disposition, that soft words, according 
 to Solomon, pacify wrath/ 
 
 " But I reply, that the saying of Solomon is a pro- 
 verb, frequently true, not universally, as both the 
 event shows, and many other sentences written by 
 the same author, particularly of an evil woman, 
 Prov. xxi. 9, 19, and in other chapters, that she is 
 better shunned than dwelt with, and a desert is pre- 
 ferred before her society. What need the Spirit of 
 God put this choice into our heads, if soft words 
 -could always take effect with her ? How frivolous 
 is not only this disputer, but he that taught him 
 thus, and let him come abroad ? 
 
 " To his second answer I return this, that although 
 ;there be not easily found such an antipathy, as to 
 bate one another like a toad or poison ; yet that 
 there is oft such a dislike in both, or either, to con- 
 jugal love, as hinders all the comfort of matrimony, 
 scarce any can be so simple as not to apprehend. 
 And what can be that favour, found or not found, 
 iQ the eyes of the husband, but a natural liking or 
 disliking ; whereof the law of God, Deut. xxiv. 
 bears witness, as of an ordinary accident, and de- 
 termines wisely and divinely thereafter. And 
 this disaffection happening to be in the one, not 
 
414 -eOLASTERlOl^. 
 
 without the unspeakable discomfort of the other, 
 must he be left like a thing consecrated to cala- 
 mity and despair, without redemption ? 
 
 ** Against the third branch of the position, he 
 denies that '^ solace and peace, which is contrary 
 to discord and variance, is the main end of mar- 
 riage/* What then ? He will have it " the solace 
 of male and female." Who but one forsaken of 
 ^11 sense and civil nature, and chiefly of Chris- 
 tianity, will deny that peace, contrary to discord, 
 is the calling and the general end of every Chris- 
 tian, and of all his actions, and more especially 
 of marriage, which is the dearest league of love, 
 and the dearest resemblance of that love which in 
 Christ is dearest to his church ? How then can 
 peace and comfort, as it is contrary to discord, 
 which God hates to dwell with, not be the main 
 end of marriage ? Discord then we ought to fly, 
 and to pursue peace, far above the observance of 
 a civil covenant already broken, and the breaking 
 daily iterated on the other side. And what better 
 testimony than the words of the institution itself, 
 to prove that a conversing solace, and peaceful 
 society, is the prime end of marriage, without 
 which no other help or office can be mutual, be^ 
 seeming the dignity of reasonable creatures, that 
 such as they should be coupled in the rights of 
 nature by the mere compulsion of lust, without 
 love or peace, worse than wild beasts ? 
 
 ** Against the last point of the position, to prove 
 
COLASTIRION. 415 
 
 tbat contrariety of mind is not a greater cause of 
 divorce than corporal frigidity, he enters into 
 such a tedious and drawling tale ' of burning, 
 and burning, and lust and burning,' that the dull 
 argument itself burns for want of stirring; and 
 yet all this burning is not able to expel the fri- 
 gidity of his brain. So long therefore as that 
 cause in the position shall be proved a sufficient 
 cause of divorce, rather than spend words with 
 this phlegmy clod of an antagonist, more than of 
 necessity and a little merriment, I will not now 
 contend whether it be a greater cause than fri- 
 gidity or no. 
 
 " His next attempt is upon the arguments which 
 I brought to prove the position. And for the first, 
 not finding it of that structure as to be scaled 
 with his short ladder, he retreats with a bravado, 
 rthat it deserves no answer- And I as much won- 
 der what the whole book deserved, to be thus 
 troubled and solicited by such a paltry solicitor. 
 I would he had not cast the gracious eye of his 
 duncery upon the small deserts of a pamphlet, 
 whose every line meddled with uncases him to 
 scorn and laughter. 
 
 " That which he takes for the second argument, 
 if he look better, is no argument, but an induc- 
 tion to those that follow. Then he stumbles that 
 I should say, * the gentlest ends of marriage,* 
 confessing that he understands it not : and I be- 
 lieve him heartily; for how should he, a serving- 
 
4X6 COXASTERIOJr. 
 
 man both by nature and by function, an idiot by 
 breeding, and a solicitor by presumption, ever 
 come to know or feel within himself what the 
 meaning is of ' gentle V He blames it for ' a 
 neat phrase,' for nothing angers him more than 
 his own proper contrary. Yet altogether without 
 art sure he is not ; for who could have devised 
 to give us more briefly a better description of his 
 own servility ? 
 
 " But what will become now of the business I 
 know not; for the man is suddenly taken with a 
 lunacy of law, and speaks revelations out of the 
 attorney's academy only from a lying spirit ; for 
 he says, ^ that where a thing is void ipso facto, 
 there needs no legal proceeding to make it void :' 
 which is false, for marriage is void by adultery or 
 frigidity, yet not made void without legal pro- 
 ceeding. Then asks my opinion of John-a-Noaks 
 and John-a- Stiles : and I answer him, that I, for 
 my part, think John Dory was a better man than 
 both of them ; for certainly they were the greatest 
 wranglers that ever lived, and have filled all our 
 law-books with the obtunding story of their suits 
 and trials. 
 
 " Lastly, If I prove that contrary dispositions 
 are joined neither of God nor nature, and so 
 the marriage void, ' he will give me the contro- 
 yersy.' I have proved it in that book to any 
 wise man, and without more ado the institution 
 proves it. 
 
COLASTERIOir. 417 
 
 *' Where I answer an obj ection usually made, that 
 * the disposition ought to be known before mar^ 
 riage,' and show how difficult it is to choose a fit 
 consort, and how easy to mistake ; the servitor 
 would know ' what I mean by conversation,' de- 
 claring his capacity nothing refined since his law- 
 puddering, but still the same it was in the pantry, 
 and at the dresser. Shall I argue of conversation 
 with this hoyden^ to go and practise at his oppor- 
 tunities in the larder ? To men of quality I have 
 said enough ; and experience confirms by daily 
 example, that wisest, soberest, justest men are 
 sometimes miserably mistaken in their choice. 
 Whom to leave thus without remedy, tossed 
 and tempested in a most unquiet sea of afflic- 
 tions and temptations, I say is most unchris- 
 tianly. 
 
 " But he goes on tountruss my arguments, ima^ 
 gining them his master's points. 
 
 " Concerning that place, Deut. xxiv, 1, which 
 he saith to be ' the main pillar of my opinion,' 
 though I rely more on the institution than on 
 that : these two pillars I do indeed confess are to 
 me as those two in the porch of the temple, Jachin 
 and Boaz, which names import establishment and 
 strength; nor do I fear who can shake them. 
 The exposition of Deut. which I brought, is the 
 received exposition, both ancient and modern, by 
 all learned men, unless it be a monkish papist 
 liere and there : and the gloss, which he and bis 
 
M8 COLASTERION. 
 
 obscure assistant would persuade us to, is merely- 
 new and absurd, presuming out of his utter igno- 
 rance in the Hebrew to interpret those words of 
 the text ; first, in a mistaken sense of unclean- 
 ness, against all approved writers. Secondly, in 
 a limited sense, whenas the original speaks with- 
 out limitation, * some uncleanness, or any :' and 
 it had been a wise law indeed to mean itself par- 
 ticular, and not to express the case which this 
 acute rabbi hath all this while been hooking for ; 
 whereby they who are most partial to him may 
 guess that something is in this doctrine which I 
 allege, that forces the adversary to such a new 
 and strained exposition : wherein he does nothing 
 for above four pages, but founder himself to and 
 fro in his own objections ; one while denying that 
 divorce was permitted, another while affirming 
 that it was permitted for the wife's sake, and 
 after all, distrusts himself. And for his surest 
 retirement, betakes him to those old suppositions, 
 * that Christ abolished the Mosaic law of divorce ; 
 that the Jews had not sufficient knowledge in 
 this point, throu-gh the darkness of the dispensa- 
 tion of heavenly things ; that under the plenteous 
 grace of the gospel we are tied by cruellest com- 
 pulsion to live in marriage till death with the 
 wickedest, the worst, the most persecuting mate.' 
 These ignorant and doting surmises he might have 
 read confuted at large, even in the first edition; 
 but found it safer to pass that part over in silence. 
 
COLASTERION. 419 
 
 So that they who see not the sottishness of this 
 his new and tedious exposition, are worthy to 
 love it dearly. 
 
 His explanation done, he charges me with a 
 wicked gloss, and almost blasphemy, for saying 
 that Christ in teaching meant not always to be 
 taken word for word ; but like a wise physician, 
 administering one excess against another, to re- 
 duce us to a perfect mean. Certainly to teach 
 us were no dishonest method : Christ himself hath 
 often used hyperboles in his teaching ; and gravest 
 authors, both Aristotle in the second of his " Ethics 
 to Nichomachus," and Seneca in his seventh " de 
 Beneficiis," advise us to stretch out the line of 
 precept ofttimes beyond measure, that while we 
 tend further, the mean might be the easier at- 
 tained. And whoever comments that vth of Mat- 
 thew, when he comes to the turning of cheek 
 after cheek to blows, and the parting both with 
 cloak and coat, if any please to be the rifler, will 
 be forced to recommend himself to the same ex- 
 position, though this chattering lawmonger be 
 bold to call it wicked. Now note another pre- 
 cious piece of him; Christ, saith he, " doth not 
 say that an unchaste look is adultery, but the 
 lusting after her; as if the looking unchastely 
 could be without lusting. This gear is licensed 
 for good reason ; * Imprimatur.' 
 
 *' Next he would prove, that the speech of Christ 
 is not uttered in excess against the pharisees, 
 first, * because he speaks it to his disciples,' 
 
421^ COLASTERION. 
 
 Matth. V. which is false, for he spake it to the 
 multitude, as by the first verse is evident, among 
 which in all likelihood were many pharisees, but 
 out of doubt all of them pharisean disciples, and 
 bred up in their doctrine ; from which extremes 
 of error and falsity Christ throughout his whole 
 sermon labours to reclaim the people. Secondly, 
 saith he, ' because Christ forbids not only putting 
 away, but marrying her who is put away/ 
 Acutely, as if the pharisees might not have 
 offended as much in marrying the divorced, as in 
 divorcing the married. The precept may bind 
 all, rightly understood ; and yet the vehement 
 manner of giving it may be occasioned only by 
 the pharisees. 
 
 '* Finally, he winds up his text with much doubt 
 and trepidation ; for it may be his trenchers were 
 riot scraped, and that which never yet afforded 
 corn of savour to his noddle, the saltcellar was 
 not rubbed: and therefore in this haste easily 
 granting, that his answers fall foul upon each 
 other, and praying, you would not think he 
 writes as a prophet, but as a man, he runs to the 
 black jack, fills his flaggon, spreads the table, and 
 serves up dinner. 
 
 " After waiting and voiding, he thinks to void 
 my second argument, and the contradictions that 
 will follow both in the law and gospel, if the 
 Mosaic law were abrogated by our Saviour, and 
 a compulsive prohibition fixed instead : and sings 
 his old song, * that the gospel counts unlawful 
 
COLASTERIOK. ISl 
 
 that which the law allowed/ instancing in cir- 
 cumcision, sacrifices, washings. But what are 
 these ceremonial things to the changing of a moral 
 point in household duty, equally belonging to Jew 
 and Gentile ? Divorce was then right, now wrong ; 
 then permitted in the rigorous time of law now- 
 forbidden by law, even to the most extremely 
 afflicted, in the favourable time of grace and free- 
 dom. But this is not for an unbuttoned fellow 
 to discuss in the garret at his trestle, and dimen- 
 sion of candle by the snufF; which brought forth 
 his scullionly paraphrase on St. Paul, whom he 
 brings in discoursing such idle stuff to the maids 
 and widows, as his own servile inurbanity for- 
 bears not to put into the apostle's mouth, ' of 
 the soul's conversing :' and this he presumes to 
 do, being a bayard, who never had the soul to 
 know what conversing means, but as his pro- 
 vender and the familiarity of the kitchen schooled 
 his conceptions. 
 
 '* He passes to the third argument, like a boar in 
 a vineyard, doing nought else, but still as he goes 
 champing and chewing over, what I could mean 
 by this chimaera of a 'fit conversing soul,' 
 notions and words never made for those chops ; 
 but like a generous wine, only by overworking 
 the settled mud of his fancy, to make him drunk, 
 and disgorge his vileness the more openly. All 
 persons of gentle breeding (I say ' gentle,' 
 though this barrow grunt at the word) I know 
 will apprehend, and be satisfied in what I spake, 
 
42^ COLASTERION. 
 
 how unpleasing and discontenting the society of 
 body must needs be between those whose minds 
 cannot be sociable. 
 
 *' The fourth argument which I had was, that 
 marriage being a covenant, the very being 
 whereof consists in the performance of unfeigned 
 love and peace ; if that were not tolerably per- 
 formed, the covenant became broke and revocable. 
 Which how can any, in whose mind the principles 
 of right reason and justice are not cancelled, 
 deny ? For how can a thing subsist, when the 
 true essence thereof is dissolved ? Yet this he 
 denies, and yet in such a manner as alters my 
 assertion; for he puts in, * though the main end 
 be not attained in full measure :' but my position 
 is, if it be not tolerably attained, as throughout 
 the whole discourse is apparent. 
 
 " Concerning the place of Paul, ' that God hath 
 called us to peace,' 1 Cor. vii, and therefore, cer- 
 tainly, if any where in this world, we have a right 
 to claim it reasonably in marriage ; it is plain 
 enough in the sense which I gave, and confessed 
 by. Parseus, and other orthodox divines, to be a 
 good sense, and this answer doth not weaken it. 
 The other place, that ' he who hateth, may put 
 away,' which, if I show him, he promises to yield 
 the whole controversy, is, besides Deut. xxiv, 1, 
 Deut.xxi, 14, and before this, Exod. xxi, 8. Of 
 Malachi I have spoken more in another place ; and 
 say again, that the best interpreters, all the an- 
 cient, and most of the modern translate it, as I 
 
COLASTKRIOX. 4f5 
 
 cite it, and very few otherwise, whereof perhaps 
 Junius is the chief. 
 
 ** Another thing troubles him, that marriage is> 
 called * the mystery of joy,' Let it still trouble 
 him ; for what hath he to do either with joy or 
 with mystery ? He thinks it frantic divinity to 
 say, it is not the outward continuance of marriage 
 that keeps the covenant of marriage whole ; but 
 whosoever doth most according to peace and 
 love, whether in marriage or divorce, he breaks 
 marriage least. If I shall spell it to him, he 
 breaks marriage least, is to say, he dishonours 
 not marriage ; for least is taken in the Bible, and 
 other good authors, for, not at all. And a parti- 
 cular marriage a man may break, if for a lawful 
 cause, and yet not break, that is, not violate, or 
 dishonour the ordinance of marriage. Hence 
 those two questions that follow are left ridicu- 
 lous ; and the maids at Aldgate, whom he flouts, 
 are likely to have more wit than the serving-man 
 at Addle-gate. 
 
 " Whereas he taxes me of adding to the scrip-* 
 ture in that I said love only is the fulfilling of 
 every commandment, I cited no particular scrip- 
 ture, but spake a general sense, which might be 
 collected from many places. For seeing love in- 
 cludes faith, what is there that can fulfil every 
 commandment but only love ? and I meant, as any 
 intelligent reader might apprehend, every positive 
 and civil commandment, whereof Christ hath 
 taught us that man is the lord. It is not the 
 
424 (^OLASTERIOK. 
 
 formal duty of worship, or the sitting still, that 
 keeps the holy rest of sabbath ; but whosoever 
 doth most according to charity, whether he works 
 or works not, he breaks the holy rest of sabbath 
 least. So marriage being a civil ordinance, made 
 for man, not man for it ; he who doth that which 
 most accords with charity, first to himself, next 
 to whom he next owes it, whether in marriage or 
 divorce, he breaks the ordinance of marriage 
 least. And what in religious prudence can be 
 charity to himself, and what to his wife, either in 
 continuing, or in dissolving the marriage-knot, 
 hath been already oft enough discoursed. So 
 that what St. Paul saith of circumcision, the 
 same I stick not to say of a civil ordinance, made 
 to the good and comfort of man, not to his ruin ; 
 marriage is nothing, and divorce is nothing, ' but 
 faith which worketh by love.' And this I trust 
 none can mistake. 
 
 '* Against the fifth argument, that a christian, in 
 a higher order of priesthood than that levitical, is 
 a person dedicate to joy and peace ; and there- 
 fore needs not in subjection to a civil ordinance, 
 made to no other end but for his good (when 
 without his fault he finds it impossible to be de- 
 cently or tolerably observed) to plunge himself 
 into immeasurable distractions and temptations, 
 above his strength ; against this he proves no- 
 thing, but gads into silly conjectures of what 
 abuses would follow, and with as good reason 
 might declaim against the best things that are. 
 
COLASTERION. 4^ 
 
 *' Against the sixth argument, that to force the 
 continuance of marriage between minds found 
 utterly unfit and disproportional, is against na- 
 ture, and seems forbid under that allegorical pre- 
 cept of Moses, ' not to sow a field with divers 
 seeds, lest both be defiled ; not to plough with an 
 ox and an ass together,' which I deduced by the 
 pattern of St. Paul's reasoning what was meant 
 by not muzzling the ox ; he rambles over a long 
 narration, to tell us that * by the oxen are meant 
 the preachers :' which is not doubted. Then he 
 demands, ' if this my reasoning be like St. 
 Paul's.* And I answer him, yes. He replies, 
 that sure St. Paul would be ashamed to reason 
 thus. And I tell him, no. He grants that place 
 which I alleged, 2 Cor. vi, of unequal yoking, 
 may allude to that of Moses, but says, * I can- 
 not prove it makes to my purpose,' and shows 
 not first how he can disprove it. Weigh, gen- 
 tlemen, and consider, whether ray affirmations, 
 backed with reason, may hold balance against the 
 bare denials of this ponderous confuter, elected 
 by his ghostly patrons to be my copesmate. 
 
 ** Against the seventh argument, that if the canon 
 law and divines allow divorce for conspiracy of 
 death, they may as well allow it to avoid the 
 same consequence from the likelihood of natural 
 causes. 
 
 " First, he denies that the canon so decrees. 
 
 " I answer, that it decrees for danger of life, as 
 much as for adultery, Decret. Gregor. 1. 4, tit. 19, 
 
 F F 
 
426 CQLASTERION. 
 
 and in other places : and the best civilians, who 
 cite the canon laM^, so collect, as Schneidewin in 
 Instit. tit. 10, p. 4, de Divort. And indeed, who 
 would have denied it, but one of a reprobate igno- 
 rance in all he meddles with ? 
 
 " Secondly, he saith the case alters ; for there 
 the offender, ' who seeks the life, doth implicitly 
 at least act a divorce.' 
 
 " And I answer, that here nature, though no 
 offender, doth the same. But if an offender, by 
 acting a divorce,- shall release the offended, this is 
 an ample grant against himself. He saith, nature 
 teaches to save life from one who seeks it. And 
 I say, she teaches no less to save it from any 
 other cause that endangers it. He saith, that 
 here they are both actors. Admit they were, it 
 would not be uncharitable to part them ; yet 
 sometimes they are not both actors, but the one 
 of them most lamentedly passive. So he con- 
 cludes, we must not take advantage of our own 
 faults and corruptions to release us from our 
 duties. But shall we take no advantage to save 
 ourselves from the faults of another, who hath 
 annulled his right to our duty ? No, says he, ' let 
 them die of the sullens, and try who will pity 
 them.' Barbarian, the shame of all honest attor- 
 neys ! 
 
 *' Against the eighth argument, that they who are 
 destitute of all marriageable gifts, except a body 
 not plainly unfit, have not the calling to marry, 
 and consequently married and so found, may be 
 
COLASTERION. 427 
 
 divorced : this, he saith, is nothing to the pur- 
 pose, and not fit to be answered. I leave it 
 therefore to the judgment of his masters. 
 
 " Against the ninth argument, that marriage is a 
 human society, and so chiefly seated in agree- 
 ment and unity of mind : if therefore the mind 
 cannot have that due society by marriage, that 
 it may reasonably and humanly desire, it can be 
 no human society, and so not without reason 
 divorcible : here he falsifies, and turns what the 
 position required of a reasonable agreement in 
 the main matters of society into an agreement in 
 all things, which makes the opinion not mine, and 
 so he leaves it. 
 
 *' At last, and in good hour, we are come to his 
 farewell, which is to be a concluding taste of his 
 jabberment in law, the flashiest and the fustiest 
 that ever corrupted in such an unswilled hogs- 
 head. 
 
 ** Against my tenth argument, as he calls it, but 
 as I intended it, my other position, 'That 
 divorce is not a thing determinable by a compul- 
 sive law, for that all law is for some good that 
 may be frequently attained without the admix- 
 ture of a worse inconvenience : but the law for* 
 bidding divorce never attains to any good end of 
 such prohibition, but rather multiplies evil; 
 therefore the prohibition of divorce is no good 
 law.' Now for his attorney's prize: but first, 
 like a right cunning and sturdy logician, he 
 denies my argument, not mattering whether in 
 
428 COLASTERION. 
 
 the major or minor: and saith, ' there are many 
 laws made for /good, and yet that good is not 
 attained, through the defaults of the party, but a 
 greater inconvenience follows.' 
 
 " But I reply, that this answer builds upon a 
 shallow foundation, and most unjustly supposes 
 every one in default, who seeks divorce from the 
 most injurious wedlock. The default therefore 
 will be found in the law itself; which is neither 
 able to punish the offender, but the innocent must 
 withal suffer ; nor can right the innocent in what 
 is chiefly sought, the obtainment of love or 
 quietness. 
 
 " I have now done that, which for many causes I 
 might have thought could not likely haVv^ been 
 my fortune, to be put to this underwork of 
 scouring and unrubbishing the low and sordid 
 ignorance of such a presumptuous lozel. Yet 
 Hercules had the labour once imposed upon him 
 to carry dung out of the Augean stable. At any 
 hand I would be rid of him : for I had rather, 
 since the life of man i§ likened to a scene, that 
 all my entrances and exits might mix with such 
 persons only, whose worth erects them and their 
 actions to a grave and tragic deportment, and 
 not to have to do with clowms and vices. But if 
 a man cannot peaceably walk into the world, but 
 must be infested ; sometimes at his face with 
 dorrs and horseflies, sometimes beneath with 
 bawling whippets and shin barkers, and these 
 to be set on by plot and consultation with a junto 
 
COL ASTER ION. ^ 429 
 
 of clergymen and licensers, commended also and 
 rejoiced in by those whose partiality cannot yet 
 forego old papistical principles ; have I not cause 
 to be in such a manner defensive, as may procure 
 me freedom to pass more unmolested hereafter 
 by those encumbrances, not so much regarded 
 for themselves, as for those who incite them,? 
 And what defence can properly be used in such 
 a despicable encounter as this, but either the 
 slap or the spurn ? If they can afford me none 
 but a ridiculous adversary, the blame belongs not 
 to me, though the whole dispute be strewed and 
 scattered with ridiculous. And if he have such 
 an ambition to know no better who are his mates, 
 but among those needy thoughts, which though 
 his two faculties of serving-man and solicitor 
 should compound into one mongrel, would be 
 but thin and meagre, if in this penury of soul he 
 can be possible to have the lustiness to think of 
 fame, let him but send me how he calls himself, 
 and I may chance not fail to indorse him on the 
 backside of posterity, not a golden, but a brazen 
 ass. Since my fate extorts from me a talent of 
 sport, which I had thought to hide in a napkin, 
 he shall be my Batrachomuomachia, my Bavius, 
 my Calandrino, the common adagy of ignorance 
 and overweening : nay, perhaps, as the provoca- 
 tion may be, I may be driven to curl up this 
 gliding prose into a rough sotadic, that shall 
 rhyme him into such a condition, as instead of 
 judging good books to be burnt by the execu- 
 
430 COLASTEEION. 
 
 tioner, he shall be readier to be his own hangman. 
 Thus much to this nuisance. 
 
 " But as for the subject itself, which I have writ 
 and now defend, according as the opposition 
 bears ; if any man equal to the matter shall think 
 it appertains him to take in hand this controversy, 
 either excepting against aught written, or per- 
 suaded he can show better how this question, of 
 such moment to be thoroughly known, may ^ re- 
 ceive a true determination, not leaning on the old 
 and rotten suggestions whereon it yet leans ; if 
 his intents be sincere to the public, and shall 
 ^ carry him on without bitterness to the opinion, or 
 to the person dissenting; let him not, I entreat 
 him, giiess by the handling, which meritoriously 
 hath been bestowed on this object of contempt 
 and laughter, that I account it any displeasure 
 done me to be contradicted in print : but as it 
 leads to the attainment of any thing more true, 
 shall esteem it a benefit ; and shall know how to 
 return his civility and fair argument in such a sort, 
 as he shall confess that to do so is my choice, and 
 to have done thus was my chance. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 Printed by T. C. Hanaard, reterborough court, I'ieet-sfreet, Loiidoiu 
 
(n^