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 adultery." Shall the exception for adultery belong to this clause or not? If not, it would be strange, that he who marrries a woman really divorced for adultery, as Christ permitted, should become an adulterer by marrying one 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 away 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 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 absurdity, 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 admonish 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 pharisean doctrine, than under that of Christ, and so no marvel though they yet retained the infection of loving 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 understand our Saviour in matters far easier. So that be it granted their conceit of this text was the same which is now commonly conceived, according 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 garment 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 himself to mean of those "who trust in riches," Mark x.

"They were amazed then out of measure," 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 concernment to any perhaps of 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 abolishing 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 receive 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 occasion, the riddance of a tempting assault. For what can this be but weak and shallow apprehension, to forsake the standard principles of institution, faith, and charity; then to be blank and various at every occurrence in Scripture, and in a cold spasm of scruple, to rear peculiar doetrines upon the place, that shall bid the gray authority of most unchangeable and sovereign rules to stand by and be contradicted? Thus to this evangelic precept of famous difficulty, which for these many ages weakly understood, and violently put in practice, hath made a shambles rather than an ordinance of matrimony, I am firm a truer exposition 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 suffice. Or should they all fail, as truth itself can fail as soon, I should content me with the institution alone to wage this controversy, and not distrust 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 CORINTHIANS vii. 10, &c.

10. "And unto the married I command," &c.

11. "And let not the husband put away his wife."

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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 reconcilement, and is not under the dominion of blameless nature; which may have reason to depart, though seldomest and last from charitable love, yet sometimes 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 VOL. I.

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2 D

planets in the firmament; hath her anomalies, hath her obliquities in ascensions and declinations, accesses and recesses, as blamelessly as they in heaven. And sitting in her planetary orb with two reins in each hand, one strait, 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 away."

Now follows what is to be done, if the persons wedded be of a different faith. The common belief 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 Christian. 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, commands 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 perverted by the misbelieving parent, Nehem. xiii. 24, 26. And Peter Martyr thought this a convincing reason. If therefore the legal pollution vanishing have abrogated the ceremony of this law, so that a Christian may be permitted to retain an infidel without uncleanness, yet the moral reason of divorcing stands to eternity, which neither apostle nor angel from heaven can countermand. All that they reply to this is their human warrant, that God will preserve us in our obedience to this command against the danger of seducement. And so undoubtedly he will, if we understand his commands aright; if we turn not this evangelic permission into a legal, and yet illegal, command; if we turn not hope into bondage, the charitable and free hope of gaining another into the forced and servile temptation of loosing 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, Matt. 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 continue in that matrimony, which our Saviour bids us hate and forsake? They can as soon teach our faculty of respiration to contract and to dilate 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 moment. 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 will by degrees flatter out all our zealous hatred and forsaking, and soon ensnare us to unchristianly 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 Jehoshaphat, 2 Chron. xix. And this apostle himself 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 marriage 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 forbids the thing in present act, as well as in purpose: 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 departing. 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 Nehemiah. 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 interpreters will have it a command, maugre St. Paul himself; they will make him a prophet like Caiaphas, to speak the word of the Lord, not thinking, nay denying to think: though he disavow to have 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 preamble 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, 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 command, 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 supererogating 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 Cameron, 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 declares 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 συνευδοκεί does not imply only her 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 appears by Matthæus Monachus, an author set forth by Leunclavius, and of antiquity perhaps not inferior to Balsamon, who writes upon the canons of the apostles: this author in his chapter, "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 believing wife choose to live with the unbelieving husband, or the believing husband with the unbelieving 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 unbelieving 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 11th verse to the 12th, (for wherefore else is logic taught us?) in a discreet axiom, as it can be no other by the phrase; "The Lord saith, Let not the husband put away his wife: but I say, Let him not put away a misbelieving wife." This sounds as if by the judgment of Paul a man might put away any wife but the misbelieving; or else the parts are not discreet, or dissentany, for both conclude not putting away, and consequently in such a form the proposition is ridiculous. Of necessity therefore the former part of this sentence must be conceived, as understood, and silently granted, that although the Lord command to divorce an infidel, yet I, not the Lord