ance advances, unless the apoftle argue wrong: if we perform it not, and perifh for not performing, then are the conditions of grace harder than thofe of rigour. If through faith and repentance we perish not, yet grace ftill remains the lefs, by requiring that which rigour did not require, or at least not fo ftrictly. Thus much therefore to Paraus; that if the gofpel require perfecter obedience than the law as a duty, it exalts the law, and debafes itself, which is difhonourable 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 Chriftians; this is a certain rule, that fo long as the caufes remain, the allowance ought. And having thus at length inquired the truth concerning law and difpenfe, their ends, their ufes, their limits, and in what manner both Jew and Chriftian ftand liable to the one or capable of the other; we may fafely conclude, that, to affirm the giving of any law or lawlike difpenfe to fin for hardness of heart, is a doctrine of that extravagance from the fage principles of piety, that whofo confiders thoroughly cannot but admire how this hath been digefted all this while.

CHAP. VIII.

The true fenfe how Mofes fuffered divorce for hardness of heart.

WHAT may we do then to falve this feeming inconfiftence? I muft not diffemble, that I am confident it can be done no other way than this:.

Mofes, Deut. xxiv, i, established a grave and prudent law, full of moral equity, full of due confideration towards nature, that cannot be refifted, a law confenting with the laws of wifeft men and civileft nations; that when a man hath married a wife, if it come to pafs, that he cannot love her by reafon of fome displeasing natural quality or unfitness in her, let him write her a bill of divorce. The intent of which law undoubtedly was this, that if any good and peaceable man fhould difcover fome helpless difagreement or diflike either of mind or body, whereby

he

he could not cheerfully perform the duty of a husband without the perpetual diffembling of offence and difturbance to his fpirit; 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 poffibly difcharge, he might difmifs her whom he could not tolerably and fo not confcionably retain. And this law the Spirit of God by the mouth of Solomon, Prov. xxx, 21, 23, teftifies to be a good and a neceffary law, by granting it that a hated woman' (for fo the Hebrew word fignifies rather than 'odious', though it come all. to one) that a hated woman, when she is married, is a thing that the earth cannot bear.' What follows then, but that the charitable law muft remedy what nature cannot undergo? Now that many licentious and hardhearted men took hold of this law to cloke their bad purpofes, is nothing ftrange to believe. And thefe were they, not for whom Mofes made the law, (God forbid!) but whofe hardness of heart taking ill-advantage by this law he held it better to fuffer as by accident, where it could not be detected, rather than good men fhould lofe their juft and lawful privilege of remedy; Chrift therefore having to anfwer thefe tempting Pharifees, according as his custom was, not meaning to inform their proud ignorance what Mofes did in the true intent of the law, which they had ill cited, fuppreffing the true caufe for which Mofes gave it, and extending it to every flight matter, tells them their own, what Mofes was forced to fuffer by their abuse of his law. Which is yet more plain, if we mark that our Saviour, in Mat. v, cites not the law of Mofes, but the pharifaical tradition falfely grounded upon that law. And in thofe other places, chap. xix, and Mark x, the Pharifees cite the law, but conceal the wife and humane reafon there expreffed; which our Saviour corrects not in them, whofe pride deferved not his inftruction, only returns them what is proper to them: Mofes for the hardness of your heart fuffered you,' that is fuch as you, 'to put away your wives; and to you he wrote this "precept for that caufe,' which' (to you') must be read with an impreffion, and understood limitedly of fuch as covered ill purpofes under that law: for it was feafonable,

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that they should hear their own unbounded licence rebuked, but not seasonable for them to hear a good man's requifite liberty 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 confcience, and faith unfeigned," as was heard: it cannot allow fin, but is purposely to refift fin, as by the same chapter to Timothy appears. There we learn alfo," 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 Mofes willingly allowed, and there might be an unlawful ufe made thereof by hypocrites; and that was it which was unwillingly fuffered, forefeeing it in general, but not able to difcern it in particulars. Chrift therefore mentions not here what Mofes and the law intended; for good men might know that by many other rules and the fcornful Pharifees were not fit to be told, until they could employ that knowledge they had lefs abufively. Only he acquaints them with what Mofes by them was put to fuffer.

CHAP. IX.

The Words of the inftitution how to be understood; and of our Saviour's Anfwer to his Difciples.

AND to entertain a little their overweening arrogance as beft befitted, and to amaze them yet further, because they thought it no hard matter to fulfil the law, he draws them up to that unfeparable infiitution, which God ordained in the beginning before the fall, when man and woman were both perfect, and could have no cause to feparate: juft as in the fame chapter he ftands not to contend with the arrogant young man, who boafted his obfe rvance of the whole law, whether he had indeed kept it or not, but fcrews 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 inftitution he fet before the opinionative Pharifees, to dazzle them, and not to

bind us. For this is a folid rule, that every command, given with a reason, binds our obedience no otherwife than that reafon holds. Of this fort was that command. in Eden; therefore fhall a man cleave to his wife, and they fhall be one flesh;' which we fee is no abfolute command, but with an inference therefore:' the reafon then must be firft confidered, that our obedience be not mifobedience. The firft is, for it is not fingle, because the wife is to the hufband flesh of his flesh,' as in the verfe going before. But this reafon cannot be fufficient of itself: for why then fhould he for his wife leave his father and mother, with whom he is far more fleth of flesh, and bone of bone,' as being made of their fubftance? and befides, it can be but a forry and ignoble fociety of life, whofe infeparable injunction depends merely upon flesh and bones. Therefore we must look higher, fince Christ himself recalls us to the beginning, and we thall find, that the primitive reafon of never divorcing was that facred and not vain promife of God to remedy man's loneliness by making him a meet help for him,' though not now in perfection, as at first; yet fill in proportion as things now are. And this is repeated, verfe 20, when all other creatures were fitly affociated and brought to Adam, as if the Divine Power had been in fome care and deep thought, because there was not yet found any help meet for man.' And can we fo flightly deprefs the all-wife purpofe of a deliberating God, as if his confultation had produced no other good for man, but to join him with an accidental companion of propagation, which his fudden word had already made for every beaft? nay ́ a far lefs good to man it will be found, if the muft at all adventures be faftened upon him individually. And therefore even plain fenfe and equity, and, which is above them both, the all-interpreting voice of charity herfelf cries aloud, that this primitive reafon, this confulted promife of God, to make a meet help,' is the only caufe that gives authority to this command of not divorcing, to be a command. And it might be further added, that if the true definition of a wife were afked at good earnest, this claufe of being a meet help' would thow itself fo neceffary and fo effential, in that demonftrative argument,

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that it might be logically concluded: therefore fhe who naturally and perpetually is no 'meet help,' can be no wife; which clearly takes away the difficulty of difmifling fuch a one. If this be not thought enough, I anfwer yet further, that marriage, unless it mean a fit and tolerable marriage, is not infeparable neither by nature nor inftitution. Not by nature, for then Mofaic divorces had been against nature, if feparable and infeparable be contraries, as who doubts they be? and what is against nature is againft law, if foundest philosophy abuse us not: by this reckoning Mofes fhould be moft unmofaic, that is most illegal, not to fay moft unnatural. Nor is it infeparable by the firft inftitution: for then no fecond inftitution of the fame law for fo many caufes could diffolve it; it being moft unworthy a human, (as Plato's judgment is in the fourth book of his laws) much more a divine lawgiver, to write two several decrees upon the fame thing. But what would Plato have deemed, if one of these were good, and the other evil to be done? Laftly, fuppofe it to be infeparable by institution, yet in competition with higher things, as religion and charity in maineft matters, and when the chief end is fruftrate for which it was ordained, as hath been shown; if ftill it muft remain infeparable, it holds a strange and lawlefs propriety from all other works of God under Heaven. From thefe many confiderations, we may fafely gather, that fo much of the firft inftitution as our Saviour mentions, for he mentions not all, was but to quell and put to nonplus the tempting Pharifees, and to lay open their ignorance and fhallow understanding of the fcriptures. For, faith be, have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and faid, for this caufe fhall a man cleave to his wife?' which thefe blind ufurpers of Mofes's chair could not gainfay: as if this fingle refpect of male and female were fufficient againft a thoufand inconveniences and mifchiefs, to clog a rational creature to his endless forrow unrelinquifhably, under the guileful fuperfcription of his intended folace and comfort. What if they had thus anfwered? mafter, if thou mean to`make wedlock as infeparable as it was from the beginning, let it be made alfo a fit fociety, as God meant it, which we fhall

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