but a torment, nay a base and brutish condition to be ever divorced, but only parted from each ot persons unconjunctive are unmarriable tog if, whom God hath made a fit help, fro private injuries bath made unfit, that being of marriage, God can better judge than is man indeed fit or able to decide this m ever it be, undoubtedly a peaceful divor evil, and less in scandal than hateful, harddestructive continuance of marriage in the Moses and of Christ, that justifies him in less evil; which if it were an honest a dence in the law, what is there in the ding such a kind of legal wisdom, thoug admit the common expositors? CHAP. XVII. The sentence of Christ concerning dive expounded. What Grotius hath ob additions. HAVING thus unfolded those ambig wherewith Christ (as his wont was) gay sees that came to sound him, such an an served, it will not be uneasy to explain self that now follows; "Whosoever sha wife, except it be for fornication, and other, committeth adultery." First the down what is observed by Grotius u man of general learning. Next, I pro own thoughts gave me before I had seen Origen, saith he, notes that Christ rather as one example of other like c only exception; and that is frequent n but in divine laws, to express one kind other causes of like nature may have Exod. xxi. 18, 19, 20, 26; Deut. xix. maxims of civil law he shews, that penal laws the same reason hath the in gentler laws, that from like caus interprets rightly. But it may be o that nothing destroys the end of we adultery. To which he answers, that ordained only for copulation, but for comfort of life: and if we mark dil of our Saviour's commands, we shi their beginning and their end co whose will is, that we should so be that we be not cruel to ourselves: ar why Mark, and Luke, and St. Paul mentioning this precept of Christ, because exceptions that arise from included silently under general to considered therefore, whether the sa have place in other cases less frequ From hence is what I add: First, Christ, as it is usually expounded, o that a man for no cause should se Lastly, Christ himself tells who should not be put asunder, namely, those whom God hath joined. 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 friends consent? No surely, for that may concur to lewdest ends. Or is it when church rites are finished? Neither; for the efficacy of those depends upon the presupposed fitness of either party. Perhaps after carnal knowledge: least 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 foundation of matrimony, "I will make him a help-meet for him;" for surely what God intended and promised, that only can be thought to be his joining, and not the contrary. So likewise the apostle witnesseth, 1 Cor. vii. 15, that in marriage" God hath called us to peace." And doubtless in what respect he hath called us to marriage, 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 tolerable sort. Neither can it be said properly that such twain were tery, 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 pressed 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 live, is a law ancienter and deeper engraven in blameless nature than the other: therefore the inspired lawgiver 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 accomplishment of every command. Thirdly, it is no command of perfection further than it partakes of charity, which is "the bond of perfection." Those commands therefore, which compel us to selfcruelty 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 und, (for so the Hebrew 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, wherein amendment or reconciliation might have place. This law the Pharisees depraving extended to any slight contentious cause whatsoever. Christ therefore 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 reconcilable uffence (except fornication) can justify a divorce. He taches not here those natural and perpetual hinderunces of society, whether in body or mind, which are et to be removed; for such as they are aptest to cause in unchangeable offence, so are they not capable of rencilement, because not of amendment, they do not break indeed, but they annihilate the bands of marriage tre than adultery. For that fault committed argues not always a hatred either natural or incidental against hom it is committed; neither does it infer a disability of all future helpfulness, or loyalty, or loving agreement, being once past and pardoned, where it can be pardoned: but that which naturally distastes, and "finds to favour in the eyes" of matrimony, 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 permits divorce, but in cases only that have hands to join, and more need of separating than adultery. Christ forbids it, but in matters only that may accord, and those less than fornication. Thus is Moses's 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, that 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 reconcilement; of which sort 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 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 adultery: 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, whether through importunity or opportunity, the gospel does not therefore dissuade him who would therefore divorce; but that natural hatred whenever it arises, is a greater evil in marriage than the accident of adultery, a greater defrauding, a greater injustice, 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 true 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 gentle enough and spacious enough to contemplate what is true love. And the reason why men so disesteem this wise judging law of God, and count hate, or "the not finding of favour," as it is there termed, a humourous, 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 adultery; 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 fit us, wholly diverted and embezzled from us. Maligners of mankind! But who hath taught you to mangle thus, and make more gashes in the miseries of a blameless creature, with the leaden dag- | to judge of these things but by the rule of equity, and gers of your literal decrees, to whose ease you cannot CHAP. XVIII. by permitting a wise man to walk the middle way of prudent circumspection, 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 husband, 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 stubbornness 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 reasons, 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 whether she were false or no, and constrained to drink that " bitter water," with an undoubted "curse of rottenness and tympany" to Whether the words of our Saviour be rightly ex-follow, unless she were innocent. And the jealous pounded only of actual fornication to be the cause of divorce. The opinion of Grotius, with other reasons. BUT because we know that Christ never gave a judicial law, and that the word fornication is variously significant in Scripture, it will be much right done to our Saviour's words, to consider diligently whether it be meant here, that nothing but actual fornication proved by witness can warrant a divorce; for so our canon law judges. Nevertheless, as I find that Grotius on this place hath observed the christian emperors, Theodosius the IInd 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 obstinately against the will of her husband, such things as gave open suspicion of adulteriz ing, as the wilful haunting of feasts, and invitations with men not of near kindred, the lying forth of her house, without probable cause, the frequenting of theatres against her husband's mind, her endeavour to prevent or destroy conception. Hence that of Jerom, "where fornication is suspected, the wife may lawfully be divorced:" not that every motion of a jealous 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 man had not been guiltless before God, as seems by the last verse, if having such a suspicion in his head, he should neglect 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 of lewd suspicion and example, may be held sufficient to incur a divorce, though the act itself hath not been proved. And seeing the generosity of our nation is so, as to account no reproach more abominable than to be nicknamed the husband of an adulteress; that our law should not be as ample as the law of God, to vindicate a man from that ignoble sufferance, 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 there fore may be enough to inform us, that divorcive adultery is not limited by our Saviour to the utmost act, and that to be attested always by eyewitness, but may be extended also to divers obvious actions, which either plainly lead to adultery, or give such presumption whereby sensible men may suspect the deed to be 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 besides actual adultery. For that sin needed not the riddance of divorce, but of death by the law, which was active even till then by the example of 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 word's, 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 Lawgiver of all the world, who knew best what was adultery, both to the Jew and to the Gentile, appointed no such applying, and never likes when mortal men will be vainly presuming to outstrip his justice. CHAP. XIX. Christ's manner of teaching. St. Paul adds to this matter of divorce without command, to shew the matter to be of equity, not of rigour. That 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 is those other? Therefore the apostle himself adds, ἐν τοῖς τοιούτοις. Tars at length we see both by this and other places, that there is scarce any one saying in the gospel but must be read with limitations and distinctions to be rightly understood; for Christ gives no full comments er continued discourses, but (as Demetrius the rhetorian 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 be finds with other precepts, with the end of every ordinance, and with the general analogy of evangelic doctrine: otherwise many particular sayings would be but strange repugnant riddles, and the church would efend in granting 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 rommand from the Lord, to enlarge the seeming construction of those places in the gospel, by adding 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 farther liberty for christian prudence to determine in cases of like 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 misyoking with a 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, wherever 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 undeserved thraldom, to be cooped up, as it were in mockery of wedlock, to a perpetual 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 soul's 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 mankind, 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 perseverance. CHAP. XX. The meaning of St. Paul, that "charity believeth 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 man's unjust laws. AND though bad causes would take licence 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, as that whereby we endeavour 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 belief, and that we cannot safely assent to any precept 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 conduct having followed as a loadstar, with all diligence 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 burdensome and remorseless obscurity, tangled with manifold repugnances, to their native lustre and consent between each other; hereby also dissolving tedious and Gordian difficulties, which have hitherto molested 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 literalist 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 unnatural and unchristianly yoke, hath given the flesh this advantage to hate it, and turn aside, ofttimes unwillingly, to all dissolute uncleanness, even till punishment itself is weary of and overcome by the incredible frequency of trading lust and uncontrolled adulteries. Yet men whose creed is custom, I doubt not will be still endeavouring to hide the sloth of their own timorous capacities with this pretext, that for all this it is better to endure with patience and silence this affliction which God hath 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 Perkins well notes) God gives not ordinarily, no not to most earnest prayers. Therefore 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 66 of disquieting 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 trial, take it as if God would have you live 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 Satan. To him who divorces an adulteress, piety might say, pardon her; you may shew 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 unconstrained. Forced virtue is as a bolt overshot, 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 unnecessary burdens upon all men, to make a fair shew in the fleshly 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 libertines to admit of grossest uncleanness; as if they had 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, hath been through misadventure ill engaged in this contracted evil here complained of, and finds the fits and workings of a high impatience 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 providence of Heaven, or tax the God and his divine truth: for they are equal, easy, and not burdensome: nor do they ever cross the just and reasonable desires of men, nor involve this our portion of mortal life into a necessity of sadness and malecontent, 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 errour 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 everlasting. 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 ord nances which were allotted to our solace and reviving to trample over us, and hale us into a multitude of sor rows, which God never meant us. And where he set ways of |