in them? Now whenas not only men, but good men, do ftand upon their right, their estimation, their dignity, in all other actions and deportments, with warrant enough and good confcience, as having the image of God in them, it will not be difficult to determine what is unworthy and unfeemly for a man to do or fuffer in wedlock: and the like proportionally may be found for woman, if we love not to ftand difputing below the principles of humanity. He that faid, "Male and female created he them," immediately before that faid alfo in the fame verfe, "in the image of God created he him," and redoubled it, that our thoughts might not be fo full of dregs as to urge this poor confideration of male and female, without remembering the nobleness of that former repetition; left when God fends a wife eye to examine our trivial gloffes, they be found extremely to creep upon the ground: especially fince they confefs, that what here concerns marriage is but a brief touch, only preparative to the inftitution which follows more exprefsly in the next chapter; and that Chrift fo took it, as defiring to be briefeft with them who came to tempt him, account shall be given in due place. Ver. 28. "And God bleffed them, and God faid unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth," &c. This declares another end of matrimony, the propagation of mankind; and is again repeated to Noah and his fons. Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary, nor unworth the noting; but I undertook not a general comment. Hence therefore we fee the defire of children is honeft and pious; if we be not lefs zealous in our christianity than Plato was in his heathenifi; who in the fixth of his laws, counts offspring therefore defirable, that we may leave in our ftead fons of our fons, continual fervants of God: a religious and prudent defire, if people knew as well what were required to breeding as to begetting; which defire perhaps was a caufe, why the Jews hardly could endure a barren wedlock: and Philo, in his book of special laws, efteems him only worth pardon, that fends not barrennefs away. Carvilius, the firft recorded in Rome to have fought divorce, had it granted him for the barrennefs of his wife, upon his oath that he married to the end he might have children; as Dionyfius and Gellius are authors. But to difmifs a wife only for barrenness, is hard: and yet in fome the defire of children is fo great, and fo juft, yea fometime fo neceffary, that to condemn fuch a one to a childlefs age, the fault apparently not being in him, might feem perhaps more strict than needed. Sometimes inheritances, crowns, and dignities are fo interested and annexed in their common peace and good to fuch or fuch lineal defcent, that it may prove of great moment both in the affairs of men and of religion, to confider thoroughly what might be done herein, notwithstanding the waywardness of our fchool doctors. Gen. II, 18. And the Lord faid, It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a help meet for him." Ver. 23. "And Adam faid," &c. Ver. 24. "Therefore fhall a man leave," &c. THIS fecond chapter is granted to be a commentary on the first, and these verfes granted to be an exposition of that former verfe, "Male and female created he them:" and yet when this male and female is by the explicit words of God himself here declared to be not meant other than a fit help, and meet society; fome, who would engrofs to themselves the whole trade of interpreting, will not fuffer the clear text of God to do the office of explaining itself. "And the Lord God faid, it is not good."] A man would think, that the confideration of who spake should raife up the intention of our minds to inquire better, and obey the purpofe of fo great a speaker: for as we order the bufinefs of marriage, that which he here fpeaks is all made vain; and in the decifion of matrimony, or not matrimony, nothing at all regarded. Our prefumption hath utterly changed the ftate and condition of this ordinance: God ordained it in love and helpfulness to be indiffoluble, and we in outward act and formality to be a forced a forced bondage; fo that being fubject to a thousand errours in the best men, if it prove a bleffing to any, it is of mere accident, as man's law hath handled it, and not of inftitution. "It is not good for man to be alone."] Hitherto all things, that have been named, were approved of God to be very good: loneliness is the first thing, which God's eye named not good: whether it be a thing, or the want of fomething, I labour not; let it be their tendance, who have the art to be industriously idle. And here "alone" is meant alone without woman; otherwise Adam had the company of God himfelf, and angels to converfe with; all creatures to delight him ferioufly, or to make him fport. God could have created him out of the fame mould a thousand friends and brother Adams to have been his conforts; yet for all this, till Eve was given him, God reckoned him to be alone. "It is not good."] God here prefents himself like to a man deliberating; both to fhew us that the matter is of high confequence, and that he intended to found it according to natural reason, not impulfive command; but that the duty fhould arife from the reafon of it, not the reafon be swallowed up in a reafonlefs duty. "Not good," was as much to Adam before his fall, as not pleafing, not expedient; but fince the coming of fin into the world, to him who hath not received the continence, it is not only not expedient to be alone, but plainly finful. And therefore he who wilfully abftains from marriage, not being fupernaturally gifted, and he who by making the yoke of marriage unjuft and intolerable, causes men to abhor it, are both in a diabolical fin, equal to that of Antichrift, who forbids to marry. For what difference at all whether he abftain men from marrying, or reftrain them in a marriage happening totally difcommodious, diftafteful, difhoneft, and pernicious to him, without the appearance of his fault? For God does not here precifely fay, I make a female to this male, as he did before; but expounding himself here on purpofe, he faith, because it is not good for man to be alone, I make him therefore a meet help. God fupplies the privation of not good, with the perfect gift of a real and politive good: it is man's man's perverfe cooking, who hath turned this bounty of God into a fcorpion, either by weak and fhallow conftructions, or by proud arrogance and cruelty to them who neither in their purpofes nor in their actions have offended against the due honour of wedlock. "Now whereas the Apostle's fpeaking in the fpirit, 1 Cor. vii, pronounces quite contrary to this word of God, "It is good for a man not to touch a woman," and God cannot contradict himfelf; it inftructs us, that his commands and words, especially fuch as bear the manifest title of fome good to man, are not to be fo ftrictly wrung, as to command without regard to the moft natural and miferable neceffities of mankind. Therefore the Apostle adds a limitation in the 26th verfe of that chapter, for the prefent neceffity it is good; which he gives us doubtlefs as a pattern how to reconcile other places by the general rule of charity. "For man to be alone."] Some would have the sense hereof to be in refpect of procreation only: and Austin contests that manly friendship in all other regards had been a more becoming folace for Adam, than to fpend fo many fecret years in an empty world with one woman. But our writers defervedly reject this crabbed opinion; and defend that there is a peculiar comfort in the married ftate befide the genial bed, which no other fociety affords. No mortal nature can endure either in the actions of religion, or ftudy of wisdom, without sometime flackening the cords of intenfe thought and labour: which left we fhould think faulty, God himself conceals us not his own recreations before the world was built; "I was," faith the eternal wisdom, "daily his delight, playing always before him." And to him indeed wifdom is as a high tower of pleasure, but to us a fteep hill, and we toiling evor about the bottom: he executes with eafe the exploits of his omnipotence, as eafy as with us it is to will: but no worthy enterprife can be done by us without continual plodding and wearifomenefs to our faint and fenfitive abilities. We cannot therefore always be contemplative, or pragmatical abroad, but have need of fome delightful intermiffions, wherein the enlarged foul may leave off a while her fevere fchooling; and, like a glad youth youth in wandering vacancy, may keep her holidays to joy and harmless paftime: which as the cannot well do without company, fo in no company fo well as where the different fex in moft refembling unlikenefs, and moft unlike resemblance, cannot but pleafe beft, and be pleafed in the aptitude of that variety. Whereof left we should be too timorous, in the awe that our flat fages would form us and drefs us, wifeft Solomon among his graveft Proverbs countenances a kind of ravifhment and erring fondnefs in the entertainment of wedded leifures; and in the Song of Songs, which is generally believed, even in the jollieft expreffions, to figure the fpoufals of the Church with Chrift, fings of a thousand raptures between those two lovely ones far on the hither fide of carnal enjoyment. By thefe inftances, and more which might be brought, we may imagine how indulgently God provided againft man's loneliness; that he approved it not, as by himfelf declared not good; that he approved the remedy thereof, as of his own ordaining, confequently good: and as he ordained it, fo doubtlefs proportionably to our fallen eftate he gives it; elfe were his ordinance at leaft in vain, and we for all his gifts ftill empty handed. Nay, fuch an unbounteous giver we should make him, as in the fables Jupiter was to Ixion, giving him a cloud inftead of Juno, giving him a monftrous iffue by her, the breed of Centaurs, a neglected and unloved race, the fruits of a delufive marriage; and laftly, giving him her with a damnation to that wheel in Hell, from a life thrown into the midft of temptations and diforders. But God is no deceitful giver, to bestow that on us for a remedy of lonelinefs, which if it bring not a fociable mind as well as a conjunctive body, leaves us no less alone than before; and if it bring a mind perpetually averfe and disagreeable, betrays us to a worfe condition than the most deferted lonelinefs. God cannot in the juftice of his own promife and inftitution fo unexpectedly mock us, by forcing that upon us as the remedy of folitude, which wraps us in a mifery worfe than any wildernefs, as the fpirit of God himfelf judges, Prov. xix, especially knowing that the beft and wifeft men amidit the fincere and moft cordial defigns of their heart, do VOL. II. daily K |