Page images
PDF
EPUB

without confent, as might be infifted, and may enjoy what Cameron beftows on us, that "for every caufe" is to be understood, "according as any caufe may happen," with a relation to the fpeedinefs of those divorces, and that Herodian act efpecially, as is already brought us; the fentence of our Saviour will appear nothing fo ftrict a prohibition as hath been long conceived, forbidding only to divorce for cafual and temporary caufes, that may be foon ended, or foon remedied: and likewife forbidding to divorce rafhly, and on the fudden heat, except it be for adultery. If thefe qualifications may be admitted, as partly we offer them, partly are offered them by fome of their own opinion, and that where nothing is repugnant why they should not be admitted, nothing can wreft them from us; the fevere fentence of our Saviour will ftraight unbend the feeming frown into that gentleness and compaffion, which was fo abundant in all his actions, his office, and his doctrine, from all which otherwife it ftands off at no mean distance.

Ver. 4. "And he answered and faid unto them, have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female?"

Ver. 5. "And faid, for this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and fhall cleave to his wife, and they twain fhall be one fleth."

Ver. 6. "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh what therefore God hath joined together, let no man put afunder."

4, and 5. "Made them male and female; and faid, for this caufe," &c.] We fee it here undeniably, that the law which our Saviour cites to prove that divorce was forbidden, is not an abfolute and tyrannical command without reafon, as nowadays we make it little better, but is grounded upon fome rational caufe not difficult to be apprehended, being in a matter which equally concerns the meaneft and the plaincit fort of perfons in a houfe hold life. Our next way then will be to inquire if there be not more reafons than one; and if there be, whether this be the beft and chiefeft. That we fhall find by turning to the firft inftitution, to which Chrift refers our

own

own reading: he himself, having to deal with treacherous affailants, useth brevity, and lighting on the first place in Genefis that mentions any thing tending to marriage in the firft chapter, joins it immediately to the twentyfourth verfe of the fecond chapter, omitting all the prime words between, which create the inftitution, and contain the nobleft and pureft ends of matrimony; without which attained, that conjunction hath nothing in it above what is common to us with beafts. So likewife beneath in this very chapter, to the young man, who came not tempting him, but to learn of him, afking him which commandments he fhould keep; he neither repeats the first table, nor all the fecond, nor that in order which he repeats. If here then being tempted, he defire to be the fhorter, and the darker in his conference, and omit to cite that from the fecond of Genefis, which all divines confefs is a commentary to what he cites out of the first, the "making them male and female;" what are we to do, but to fearch the inftitution ourfelves? And we fhall find there his own authority, giving other manner of reafons why fuch firm union is to be in matrimony; without which reafons, their being male and female can be no caufe of joining them unfeparably: for if it be, then no adultery can fever. Therefore the prohibition of divorce depends not upon this reafon here expressed to the pharifees, but upon the plainer and more eminent causes omitted here, and referred to the institution; which caufes not being found in a particular and cafual matrimony, this fenfitive and materious caufe alone can no more hinder a divorce against thofe higher and more human reafons urging it, than it can alone without them to warrant a copulation, but leaves it arbitrary to those who in their chance of marriage find not why divorce is forbid them, but why it is permitted them; and find both here and in Genefis, that the forbidding is not abfolute, but according to the reafons there taught us, not here. And that our Saviour taught them no better, but ufes the most vulgar, moft animal and corporal argument to convince them, is first to fhow us, that as through their licentious divorces they made no more of marriage, than as if to marry were no more than to be male and

female,

female, fo 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, fince their own licence teftified that nothing matrimonial was in their thought, but to be male and female. Next, it might be done to discover the brute ignorance of these carnal doctors, who taking on them to dispute of mar riage and divorce, were put to filence with fuch a flender oppofition as this, and outed from their hold with fcarce one quarter of an argument. That we may believe this, his entertainment of the young man foon after may per fuade us. Whom, though he came to preach eternal life by faith only, he difmiffes with a falvation taught him by works only. On which place Paræus notes, "That this man was to be convinced by a falfe perfua fion; and that Chrift is wont otherwife to answer hypocrites, otherwise those that are docible." Much rather then may we think, that, in handling these tempters, he forgot not fo to frame his prudent ambiguities and concealments, as was to the troubling of thofe peremptory difputants moft wholefome. When therefore we would know what right there may be, in ill accidents, to di vorce, we must repair thither where God professes to teach his fervants by the prime inftitution, and not where we fee him intending to dazzle fophifters: we must not read, "he made them male and female," and not understand he made them more intendedly "a meet help" to remove the evil of being "alone." We muft take both thefe together, and then we may infer completely, as from the whole caufe, why a man fhall cleave to his wife, and they twain fhall be one flesh: but if the full and chief caufe why we may not divorce be wanting here, this place may fkirmish with the rabbies while it will, but to the true Chriftian it prohibits nothing beyond the full reafon of its own prohibiting, which is beft known by the inftitution.

Ver. 6. "Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flefh." 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 fure they who were VOL. II,

N

never

never one flesh rightly, never helps meet for each other according to the plain prefcript of God, may with less ado than a volume be concluded ftill twain. And fo long as we account a magistrate no magiftrate, if there be but a flaw in his election, why should we not much rather count a matrimony no matrimony, if it cannot be in any reasonable manner according to the words of God's inftitution?

"What therefore God hath joined, let no man put afunder." But here the chriftian prudence lies to confider what God hath joined; fhall we fay that God hath joined errour, fraud, unfitnefs, wrath, contention, perpetual loneliness, perpetual difcord; whatever luft, or wine, or witchery, threat, or inticement, avarice, or ambition hath joined together, faithful and unfaithful, christian with antichriftian, hate with hate, or hate with love; fhall we fay this is God's joining?

"Let not man put afunder."] That is to fay, what God hath joined; for if it be, as how oft we fee 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 confufion, then the divine law of Mofes puts them afunder, his own divine will in the inftitution puts them afunder, as oft as the reasons be not extant, for which only God ordained their joining. Man only puts afunder when his inordinate defires, his paffion, his violence, his injury makes the breach: not when the utter want of that which lawfully was the end of his joining, when wrongs and extremities and unfupportable grievances compel him to disjoin: when fuch as Herod and the pharifees divorce befide law, or against law, then only man feparates, and to fuch only this prohibition belongs. In a word, if it be unlawful for man to put afunder that which God hath joined, let man take heed it be not deteftable to join that by compulfion which God hath put afunder.

Ver. 7. "They fay unto him, Why did Mofes then command to give a writing of divorcement, and to put her away?"

Ver. 8. "He faith unto them, Mofes becaufe of the

hardness

hardness of your hearts fuffered you to put away your wives; but from the beginning it was not fo."

"Mofes because of the hardness of your hearts fuffered you."] Hence the divinity now current argues, that this judicial law of Mofes is abolished. But fuppofe it were fo, though it hath been proved otherwife, the firmness of fuch right to divorce, as here pleads is fetched from the prime inftitution, does not stand or fall with the judicial Jew, but is as moral as what is moraleft. Yet as I have shown pofitively, 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; fo I fhall now bring to view thofe appearances of ftrength, which are levied from this text to maintain the moft grofs and maffy paradox that ever did violence to reafon and religion, bred only under the shadow of thefe words, to all other piety or philofophy strange and infolent, that God by act of law drew out a line of adultery almost two thoufand years long: although to detect the prodigy of this furmife, the former book fet forth on this argument hath already been copious. I fhall not repeat much, though I might borrow of mine own; but fhall endeavour to add fomething either yet untouched, or not largely enough explained. Firft, it fhall be manifeft, that the common expofition cannot poffibly confift with chriftian doctrine: next, a truer meaning of this our Saviour's reply fhall be left in the room. The received expofition is, that God, though not approving, did enact a law to permit adultery by divorcement fimply unlawful. And this conceit they feed with fond fuppofals, that have not the leaft footing in Scripture: as that the Jews learned this cuftom of divorce in Egypt, and there fore God would not unteach it them till Chrift came, but let it stick as a notorious botch of deformity in the midft of his most perfect and severe law. And yet he faith, Levit. the xviiith, "After the doings of Egypt ye fhall not do." Another while they invent a flander (as what thing more bold than teaching ignorance when he thifts to hide his nakednefs?) that the Jews were naturally to their wives the cruelleft men in the world; would Nz poifon,

« PreviousContinue »