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fuffer the weed to grow up to any pleafurable or contented height upon what pretext foever, it faftens the root, it prunes and dreffes vice, as if it were a good plant. Let no man doubt therefore to affirm, that it is not fo hurtful or dishonourable to a commonwealth, nor fo much to the hardening of hearts, when thofe worfe faults pretended to be feared are committed, by who fo dares under ftrict and executed penalty, as when those less faults tolerated for fear of greater harden their faces, not their hearts only, under the protection of public authority. For what lefs indignity were this, than as if juftice herself, the queen of virtues (defcending from her fcep tred royalty), inftead of conquering, fhould compound and treat with fin, her eternal adverfary and rebel, upon ignoble terms? or as if the judicial law were like that untrusty steward in the gospel, and inftead of calling in the debts of his moral mafter, fhould give out fubtile and fly acquittances to keep himself from begging? or let us perfon him like fome wretched itinerary judge, who to gratify his delinquents before him, would let them bafely break his head, left they should pull him from the bench, and throw him over the bar. Unlefs we had rather think both moral and judicial, full of malice and deadly purpose, confpired to let the debtor Ifraelite, the feed of Abraham, run on upon a bankrupt score, flattered with infufficent and enfnaring difcharges, that fo he might be hailed to a more cruel forfeit for all the indulgent ar rears, which thofe judicial acquittances had engaged him in. No, no, this cannot be, that the law whofe integrity and faithfulness is next to God, fhould be either the fhameless broker of our impunities, or the intended inftrument of our deftruction. The method of holy correction, fuch as became the commonwealth of Ifrael, is not to bribe fin with fin, to capitulate and hire out one crime with another; but with more noble and graceful severity than Popilius the Roman legate ufed with Antiochus, to limit and level out the direct way from vice to virtue, with straightest and exacteft lines on either side, not winding or indenting fo much as to the right hand of fair pretences. Violence indeed and infurrection may force the law to fuffer what it cannot mend; but to write D 2 a decree

a decree in allowance of fin, as foon can the hand of juf tice rot off. Let this be ever concluded as a truth that will outlive the faith of those that feek to bear it down.

CHAP. XV.

That divorce was not given for wives only, as Beza, and Paraus write. More of the Inftitution.

LASTLY, if divorce were granted, as Beza and others fay, not for men, but to release afflicted wives; certainly, it is not only a difpenfation, but a moft merciful law; and why it fhould not yet be in force, being wholly as needful, I know not what can be in caufe but fenfelefs cruelty. But yet to fay, divorce was granted for relief of wives rather than of husbands, is but weakly conjec tured, and is manifeftly the extreme fhift of a huddled expofition. Whenas it could not be found how hardness of heart fhould be leffened by liberty of divorce, a fancy was devised to hide the flaw, by commenting that divorce was permitted only for the help of wives. Palpably uxorious! who can be ignorant, that woman was created for man, and not man for woman, and that a husband may be injured as infufferably in marriage as a wife? What an injury is it after wedlock not to be beloved? what to be flighted? what to be contended with in point of houserule who fhall be the head; not for any parity of wisdom, for that were something reasonable, but out of a female pride? I fuffer not,' faith St. Paul, the woman to ufurp authority over the man.' If the apostle could not fuffer it, into what mould is he mortified that can? Solomon faith, that a bad wife is to her husband as rottennefs to his bones, a continual dropping. Better dwell in the corner of a houfe-top, or in the wilderness,' than with fuch a one. C Whofo hideth her, hideth the wind,

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and one of the four mifchiefs which the earth cannot bear.' If the fpirit of God wrote fuch aggravations as thefe, and (as may be gueffed by thefe fimilitudes) counfels the man rather to divorce than to live with fuch a colleague; and yet on the other fide expreffes nothing

of the wife's fuffering with a bad husband: is it not moft likely that God in his law had more pity towards man thus wedlocked, than towards the woman that was created for another? The fame fpirit relates to us the courfe, which the Medes and Perfians took by occafion of Vashti, whofe mere denial to come at her husband's fending, loft her the being queen any longer, and fet up a wholesome law, that every man fhould bear rule in his own houfe.' And the divine relater fhews us not the leaft fign of dif liking what was done; how fhould he, if Mofes long before was nothing lefs mindful of the honour and preeminence due to man? So that to fay divorce was granted for woman rather than man, was but fondly invented. Efteeming therefore to have afferted thus an injured law of Mofes, from the unwarranted and guilty name of a difpenfation, to be again a most equal and requifite law, we have the word of Chrift himself, that he came not to alter the least tittle of it; and fignifies no fmall displeasure against him that fhall teach to do fo. On which relying, I thall not much waver to affirm, that those words, which are made to intimate as if they forbad all divorce, but for adultery, (though Mofes have conftituted otherwise) those words taken circumfcriptly, without regard to any precedent law of Mofes, or atteftation of Chrift himself, or without care to preferve thofe his fundamental and fuperior laws of nature and charity, to which all other ordinances give up their feal, are as much against plain equity and the mercy of religion, as thofe words of Take, eat, this is my body,' elementally underftood, are againft nature and fenfe.

And furely the reftoring of this degraded law hath well recompenfed the diligence was used by enlightening us further to find out wherefore Chrift took off the Pharifees from alleging the law, and referred them to the firft inftitution; not condemning, altering, or abolishing this precept of divorce, which is plainly moral, for that were against his truth, his promife, and his prophetic office; but knowing how fallaciously they had cited and concealed the particular and natural reafon of the law, that they might juftify any froward reafon of their own, he lets go that fophiftry unconvinced; for that had been

to teach them elfe, which his purpose was not. And fincé they had taken a liberty which the law gave not, he amufes and repels their tempting pride with a perfection of Paradife, which the law required not; not thereby to oblige our performance to that whereto the law never enjoined the fallen eftate of man: for if the firft inftitution must make wedlock, whatever happen, infeparable to us, it must make it also as perfect, as meetly helpful, and as comfortable as God promised it should be, at least in fome degree; otherwise it is not equal or proportionable to the strength of man, that he fhould be reduced into fuch indiffoluble bonds to his affured mifery, if all the other conditions of that covenant be manifeftly altered.

CHAP. XVI.

How to be understood, that they must be one flesh; and how that those whom God hath joined, Man fhould not funder.

NEXT he faith, they must be one flesh' which, when all conjecturing is done, will be found to import no more but to make legitimate and good the carnal act, which elfe might feem to have fomething of pollution in it; and infers thus much over, that the fit union of their fouls be fuch as may even incorporate them to love and amity: but that can never be where no correfpondence is of the mind; nay, instead of being one flesh, they will be rather two carcaffes chained unnaturally together; or, as it may happen, a living foul bound to a dead corpse; a punishment too like that inflicted by the tyrant Mezentius, fo little worthy to be received as that remedy of loneliness, which God meant us. Since we know it is not the joining of another body will remove loneliness, but the uniting of another compliable mind; and that it is no bleffing but a torment, nay a base and brutish condition to be one flesh, unless where nature can in fome measure fix a unity of difpofition. The meaning therefore of thefe words, 'For this caufe fhall a man leave his father and his mother, and fhall cleave to his wife,' was firft to fhew us the dear affection which naturally grows

in every not unnatural marriage, even to the leaving of parents, or other familiarity whatfoever. Next, it justi fies a man in fo doing, that nothing is done undutifully to father or mother. But he that should be here fternly commanded to cleave to his errour, a difpofition which to his he finds will never cement, a quotidian of forrow and discontent in his houfe; let us be excufed to pause a little, and bethink us every way round ere we lay fuch a flat folecifm upon the gracious, and certainly not inexorable, not ruthless and flinty ordinance of marriage. For if the meaning of these words must be thus blocked up within their own letters from all equity and fair deduction, they will ferve then well indeed their turn, who affirm divorce to have been granted only for wives; whenas we fee no word of this text binds women, but men only, what it binds. No marvel then if Salomith (fifter to Herod) fent a writ of eafe to Coftobarus her husband, which (as Jofephus there attefts) was lawful only to men. No marvel though Placidia, the fister of Honorius, threatened the like to earl Conftantius for a trivial caufe, as Photius relates from Olympiodorus. No marvel any thing, if letters must be turned into palifadoes, to stake out all requifite fenfe from entering to their due enlargement.

Laftly,Chrift himfelftells who should not be put afunder, namely, those whom God hath joined. A plain folution of this great controverfy, if men would but use their eyes; for when is it that God may be faid to join? when the parties and their friends confent? No furely, for that may concur to lewdeft ends. Or is it when church rites are finished? Neither; for the efficacy of those depends upon the prefuppofed fitness of either party. Perhaps after carnal knowledge: leaft of all; for that may join perfons whom neither law nor nature dares join. It is left, that only then when the minds are fitly difpofed and enabled to maintain a cheerful converfation, to the folace and love of each other, according as God intended and promised in the very first foundation of matrimony, 'I will make him a help-meet for him;' for furely what God intended and promifed, that only can be thought to be his joining, and not the contrary. So likewife the

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