fhall foon underftand it ought to be, if thou recite the whole reafon of the law. Doubtlefs our Saviour had applauded their juft anfwer. For then they had expounded his command of Paradife, even as Mofes himself expounds it by the laws of divorce, that is, with due and wife regard to the premises and reasons of the firft command; according to which, without unclean and temporizing permiflions, he inftructs us in this imperfect ftate what we may lawfully do about divorce. But if it be thought, that the difciples, offended at the rigour of Chrift's anfwer, could yet obtain no mitigation of the former fentence pronounced to the Pharifees, it may be fully anfwered, that our Saviour continues the fame reply to his difciples, as men leavened with the fame cuftomary licence which the Pharifees maintained, and difpleafed at the removing of a traditional abuse, whereto they had fo long not unwillingly been ufed: it was no time then to contend with their flow and prejudicial belief, in a thing wherein an ordinary measure of light in fcripture, with fome attention, might afterwards inform them well enough. And yet ere Chrift had finished this argument, they might have picked out of his own concluding words an anfwer more to their minds, and in effect the fame with that which hath been all this while intreating audience: all men,' faith he, cannot receive this faying, fave they to whom it is given; he that is able to receive it, let him receive it.' What faying is this which is left to a man's choice to receive, or not receive? what but the married life? Was our Saviour fo mild and fo favourable to the weakness of a fingle man, and is he turned on the fudden fo rigorous and inexorable, to the diftreffes and extremities of an ill-wedded man? Did he fo gracioufly give leave to change the better fingle life for the worfe married life? Did he open fo to us this hazardous and accidental door of marriage, to fhut upon us like the gate of death, without retracting or returning, without permitting to change the worst, most infupportable, moft unchriftian mifchance of marriage, for all the mischiefs and forrows that can enfue, being an ordinance which was especially given as a cordial and exhilarating cup of folace, the better to bear our other other croffes and afflictions? Questionless this was a hardheartedness of divorcing, worse than that in the Jews, which they fay extorted the allowance from Mofes, and is utterly diffonant from all the doctrine of our Saviour. After thefe confiderations therefore, to take a law out of Paradife given in time of original perfection, and to take it barely without thofe juft and equal inferences and reafons which mainly establish it, nor fo much as admitting those needful and fafe allowances, wherewith Mofes himselfinterprets it to the fallen condition of man; argues nothing in us but rashness and contempt of those means that God left us in his pure and chafte law, without which it will not be poffible for us to perform the ftrict impofition of this command: or if we ftrive beyond our ftrength, we fhall ftrive to obey it otherwife than God commands it. And lamented experience daily teaches the bitter and vain fruits of this our prefumption, forcing men in a thing wherein we are not able to judge either of their strength or their fufferance. Whom neither one voice nor other by natural addiction, but only marriage ruins, which doubtlefs is not the fault of that ordinance, for God gave it as a bleffing, nor always of man's mifchoofing, it being an errour above wifdom to prevent, as examples of wifeft men fo mistaken manifeft : it is the fault therefore of a perverfe opinion, that will have it continued in defpite of nature and reason, when indeed it was never fo truly joined. All thofe expofitors upon the fifth Matthew confefs the law of Mofes to be the law of the Lord, wherein no addition or diminution hath place; yet coming to the point of divorce, as if they feared not to be called leaft in the kingdom of Heaven, any flight evafion will content them, to reconcile thofe contradictions, which they make between Chrift and Mofes, between Chrift and Christ. CHAP. CHAP. X. The vain fhift of those who make the law of divorce to be only the premifes of a fucceeding law. SOME will have it no law, but the granted premises of another law following, contrary to the words of Chrift, Mark x, 5, and all other tranflations of graveft authority, who render it in form of a law, agreeably to Mal. ii, 16, as it is moft anciently and modernly expounded. Befides, the bill of divorce, and the particular occafion therein mentioned, declares it to be orderly and legal. And what avails this to make the matter more righteous, if fuch an adulterous condition fhall be mentioned to build a law upon without either punishment or fo much as forbidding? They pretend it is implicitly reproved in thefe words, Deut. xxiv, 4,' after fhe is defiled;' but who fees not that this defilement is only in respect of returning to her former husband after an intermixed marriage? elfe why was not the defiling condition first forbidden, which would have faved the labour of this afterlaw? Nor is it feemly or piously attributed to the juftice of God and his known hatred of fin, that fuch a heinous fault as this through all the law fhould be only wiped with an implicit and oblique touch, (which yet is falfely fuppofed) and that his peculiar people fhould be let wallow in adulterous marriages almoft two thousand years, for want of a direct law to prohibit them: it is rather to be confidently affumed, that this was granted to apparent neceffities, as being of unquestionable right and reafon in the law of nature, in that it fti paffes without inhibition, even when the greateft caufe is given to us to expect it fhould be directly forbidden. CHAP. CHAP. XI. The other fhift of faying divorce was permitted by law, but not approved. More of the inftitution. BUT it was not approved. So much the worfe that it was allowed; as if fin had over-mastered the word of God, to conform her fteady and straight rule to fin's crookedness, which is impoffible. Befides, what needed a pofitive grant of that which was not approved? It reftrained no liberty to him that could butufe a little fraud; it had been better filenced, unlefs it were approved in fome cafe or other. But ftill it was not approved. Miferable excufers! he who doth evil, that good may come thereby, approves not what he doth; and yet the grand rule forbids him, and counts his damnation juft if he do it. The forcerefs Medea did not approve her own evil doings, yet looked not to be excufed for that: and it is the conftant opinion of Plato in Protagoras, and other of his dialogues, agreeing with that proverbial fentence among the Greeks, that no man is wicked willingly.' Which alfo the Peripatetics do rather diftinguish than deny. What great thank then if any man, reputed wife and conftant, will neither do, nor permit others under his charge to do that which he approves not, efpecially in matter of fin? but for a judge, but for a magiftrate the fhepherd of his people, to furrender up his approbation against law,and his own judgment, to the obstinacy of his herd; what more unjudgelike, unmagiftratelike, and in war more uncommanderlike? Twice in a fhort time it was the undoing of the Roman ftate, firft when Pompey, next when Marcus Brutus, had not magnanimity enough but to make so poor a refignation of what they approved, to what the boisterous tribunes and foldiers bawled for. Twice it was the faving of two of the greateft commonwealths in the world, of Athens by Themiftocles at the feafight of Salamis, of Rome by Fabius Maximus in the Punie war; for that these two matchlefs generals had the fortitude at home against the rashness rashness and the clamours of their own captains and confederates, to withstand the doing or permitting of what they could not approve in their duty of their great command. Thus far of civil prudence. But when we speak of fin, let us look again upon the old reverend Eli; who in his heavy punishment found no difference between the doing and permitting of what he did not approve. If hardness of heart in the people may be an excufe, why then is Pilate branded through all memory? Heapproved not what he did, he openly protefted, he wathed his hands, and laboured not a little ere he would yield to the hard hearts of a whole people, both princes and plebians, importuning and tumulting even to the fear of a revolt. Yet is there any will undertake his caufe? If therefore Pilate for fuffering but one act of cruelty against law, though with much unwillingness teftified, at the violent demand of a whole nation, fhall ftand fo black upon record to all pofterity; alas for Mofes! what fhall we fay for him, while we are taught to believe he fuffered not one act only both of cruelty and uncleanliness in one divorce, but made it a plain and lafting law againft law, whereby ten thousand acts accounted both cruel and unclean might be daily committed, and this without the leaft fuit or petition of the people, that we can read of? And can we conceive without vile thoughts, that the majefty and holinefs of God could endure fo many ages to gratify a ftubborn people in the practice of a foul polluting fin? and could he expect they fhould abftain, he not fignifying his mind in a plain command, at fuch time especially when he was framing their laws and them to all poffible perfection? But they were to look back to the firft inftitution; nay rather why was not that individual inftitution brought out of Paradife, as was that of the fabbath, and repeated in the body of the law, that men might have understood it to be a command? For that any fentence that bears the refemblance of a precept, fet there fo out of place in another world, at fuch a distance from the whole law, and not once mentioned there, fhould be an obliging command to us, is very difputable; and perhaps it might be denied to be a command without further difpute: however, it commands not abfolutely, as |