bour of the word, into the unteaching ease of lordship ove consciences and purses. But he proceeds: "God enticed the Israelites with the promise of Canaan ;" did not the prelates bring as slavish minds with them, as the Jews brought out of Egypt, they had left out that instance. Besides that it was then the time, whenas the best of them, as St. Paul saith, " was shut up unto the faith under the law, their schoolmaster," who was forced to entice them as children with childish enticements. But the gospel is our manhood, and the ministry should be the manhood of the gospel, not to look after, much less so basely to plead for earthly rewards.

But God incited the wisest man, Solomon, with these means." Ah, confuter of thyself, this example hath undone thee; Solomon asked an understanding heart, which the prelates have little care to ask. He asked no riches, which is their chief care; therefore was the prayer of Solomon pleasing to God: he gave him wisdom at his request, and riches without asking, as now he gives the prelates riches at their seeking, and no wisdom, because of their perverse asking. But he gives not over yet. "Moses had an eye to the reward." To what reward, thou man that lookest with Balaam's eyes? To what reward had the faith of Moses an eye? He that had forsaken all the greatness of Egypt, and chose a troublesome journey in his old age through the wilderness, and yet arrived not at his journey's end. His faith ful eyes were fixed upon that incorruptible reward, promised to Abraham and his seed in the Messiah; he sought a heavenly reward, which could make him happy, and never hurt him; and to such a reward every good may have a respect; but the prelates are eager of such rewards as cannot make them happy, but can only make them worse. Jacob, a prince born, vowed that if God would "but give him bread to eat, and raiment to put on, then the Lord should be his God." But the prelates of mean birth, and ofttimes of lowest, making shew as if they were called to the spiritual and humble ministry of the gospel, yet murmur, and think it a hard service, unless, contrary to the tenor of their profession, they may eat the bread and wear the honours of princes: so much more covetous and base they are than Simon Magus, for he proffered a reward to be admitted to that work, which they will not be meanly hired to.

But, saith he, "Are not the clergy members of Christ: why should not each member thrive alike?" Carnal text man! as if worldly thriving were one of the privileges we have by being in Christ, and were not a providence ofttimes extended more liberally to the infidel than to the Christian. Therefore must the ministers of Christ not be over rich or great in the world, because their calling is spiritual, not secular; because they have a special warfare, which is not to be entangled with many impediments; because their master, Christ, gave them this precept, and set them this example, told them this was the mystery of his coming, by mean things and persons to subdue mighty ones; and lastly, because a middle estate is most proper to the office of teaching, whereas higher dignity teaches far less, and blinds the teacher. Nay, saith the confuter, fetching his last endeavour, "the prelates will be very loath to let go their baronies, and votes in parliament," and calls it "God's cause," with an insufferable impudence. "Not that they love the honours and the means," good men and generous!" but that they would not have their country made guilty of such a sacrilege and injustice!"

A worthy patriot for his own corrupt ends. That which he imputes as sacrilege to his country, is the only way left them to purge that abominable sacrilege out of the land, which none but the prelates are guilty of; who for the discharge of one single duty, receive and keep that which might be enough to satisfy the labours of many painful ministers better deserving than themselves; who possess huge benefices* for lazy performances, great promotions only for the execution of a cruel disgospelling jurisdiction; who engross many pluralities under a non-resident and slubbering dispatch of souls; who let hundreds of parishes famish ir. one diocess, while they, the prelates, are mute, and yet enjoy that wealth that would furnish all those dark places with able supply: and yet they eat, and yet they live at the rate of earls, and yet hoard up; they who chase away all the faithful shepherds of the flock, and

The love of pluralities descended as an inheritance from the Roman catholic to the protestant church. Even in this matter, however, some reformation has been effected; for no clergyman, we believe, can now be reproached with equalling, in ambition and the love of lucre, Mansel, chaplain to Henry III., who is said to have held seven hundred ecclesiastical living at once.-Hume, Hist. of England chap. xii.-ED

bring in a dearth of spiritual food, robbing thereby the church of her dearest treasure, and sending herds of souls starveling to hell, while they feast and riot upon the labours of hireling curates, consuming and purloining even that which by their foundation is allowed, and left to the poor, and to reparations of the church. These are they who have bound the land with the sin of sacrilege, from which mortal engagement we shall never be free, till we have totally removed, with one labour, as one individual thing, prelacy and sacrilege. And herein will the king be a true defender of the faith, not by paring or lessening, but by distributing in due proportion the maintenance of the church, that all parts of the land may equally partake the plentiful and diligent preaching of the faith; the scandal of ceremonies thrown out that delude and circumvent the faith; and the usurpation of prelates laid level, who are in words the fathers, but in their deeds the oppugners of the faith. This is that which will best confirm him in that glorious title.

Thus ye have heard, readers, how many shifts and wiles the prelates have invented to save their ill-got booty. And if it be true, as in scripture it is foretold, that pride and covetousness are the sure marks of those false prophets which are to come; then boldly conclude these to be as great seducers as any of the latter times. For between this and the judgmentday do not look for any arch deceivers, who in spite of refor. mation will use more craft, or less shame to defend their love of the world and their ambition, than these prelates have done. And if ye think that soundness of reason, or what force of argument soever, will bring them to an ingenuous silence, ye think that which will never be. But if ye take that course which Erasmus was wont to say Luther took against the pope and monks; if ye denounce war against their mitres and their bellies, ye shall soon discern that turban of pride, which they wear upon their heads, to be no helmet of salvation, but the mere metal and hornwork of papal jurisdiction; and that they have also this gift, like a certain kind of some that are possessed, to have their voice in their bellies, which being well-drained and taken down, their great oracle, which is only there, will soon be dumb; and the divine right of episcopacy, forthwith expiring, will put us no more to trouble with tedious antiquities and disputes.

OF

DIVORCE;

RESTORED TO THE GOOD OF BOTH SEXES, FROM THE BONDAGE OF CANON LAW, AND OTHER MISTAKES, TO THE TRUE MEANING OF SCRIPTURE IN THE LAW AND GOSPEL COMPARED.

WHEREIN ALSO ARE SET DOWN THE BAD CONSEQUENCES OF ABOLISHING, OR CONDEMNING AS SIN, THAT WHICH THE LAW OF GOD ALLOWS, AND CHRIST ABOLISHED NOT. NOW THE SECOND TIME REVISED AND MUCH AUGMENTED. IN TWO BOOKS:/

TO THE PARLIAMENT OF ENGLAND WITH THE ASSEMBLY.

MATTH. Xiii. 52. "Every scribe instructed in the kingdom of heaven is like the master of a house, which bringeth out of his treasury things new and old."

PROV. Xviii. 13. "He that answereth a matter before he heareth it, it is folly and shame unto him."

EDITOR'S PRELIMINARY REMARKS

THIS great work on Divorce, with the three parasitical treatises, "Tetrachordon,' "The Opinions of Martin Bucer," and "Colasterion," may be said nearly to exhaust all the philosophy and learning of the subject. Still it produced no sensible effect on the laws or manners of the country, the Roman catholic theory of marriage, namely, that it is a sacrament, having in reality prevailed ever since, though now at length repudiated by perhaps a majority of those who are able to think for themselves. Well, however, might Milton inveigh against custom. That which has been long established is usually invested by us with a sacred character; on which account we continue to submit to it, though conscious of the innumerable evils of which it may be the cause to us and others. In combating the received doctrines on divorce, he had to encounter more difficulties than at present beset us, since we generally content ourselves with investigating the reason of the matter, and trouble ourselves very little about authority. We have the advantage, however, of witnessing among our neighbours the working of a more natural theory of divorce, which, owing to the concurrence of a number of unfavourable circumstances, has not proved so satisfactory as mankind anticipated. In discussing the question therefore, we can expect to derive very little aid from experience, and must rely chiefly on reason and the nature of things, unless we will have recourse to that vast mass of evidence supplied by the history of marriage throughout Europe, with the incalculable evils which have arisen from its being considered indissoluble. The object of marriage must be admitted to be the happiness of those who enter into it, not their mere worldly prosperity, or the well ordering of their household and families, but, in a moral and intellectual sense, their own individual delight and tranquillity of mind; where this is not aimed at, marriage degenerates into a mere social connexion for economical purposes, and in which both husband and wife become subservient The man beto the property they bring together, or may happen to amass. comes the steward of the estate, the wife degenerates into a house keeper, and both plod on more or less comfortably together, according to he accidents of their temper, and the value they set on their worldly acquisitions. This, how. ever, is not really marriage, but a partnership in business, of which the husband and wife constitute the firm, the former attending to the external relations of the

house, the latter to the internal. If they have children, these are by degrees taken into partnership, and the great work of money-making, or accumula. tion of property, proceeds pari pasu with the multiplication of the partners. In such industrial connexions divorce is seldom needed, money being the great ruling divinity of all the parties concerned. Love has no opportunity to intrude itself, to introduce disorder, or disturb their calculations. The husband may perhaps, in some few cases, and then rather in obedience to fashion than to feeling, encumber himself with a mistress; but she also must be economical; and if she does not add to the general stock, must be careful to diminish it as little as possible. Otherwise she is soon cashiered, Mammon not easily enduring the ostentatious intrusion of passion into his dominions. For this class of people facility of divorce is not much required. Love is most troublesome in the houses of the wealthy who have accumulated property, and have ceased to carry on the process, or have inherited it from their forefathers. To the same class also belong, not in property but in feeling, all men of intellectual pursuits, who, in cultivating their minds, cultivate also their passions, as the great active powers which put the microcosm in motion. Persons of this cast, corresponding with that of the Brahmans in Hindostan, seek for a large share of their happiness in the love of women, about which, for their greater satisfaction, they build up a whirl of metaphysical subtleties, refining, purifying, and elevating their favourite passion till it is lost too frequently in the clouds. With them marriage becomes a very different contract from what it is among the under classes. Men of speculative minds have always sought to combine the celestial with the terrestrial sphere; and knowing that the apogæum of the latter is love, they have imagined that they should find in marriage the ultimate development of their natures, and a happiness not altogether appertaining to earth: but a thousand causes concur to obstruct the designs of man in the construction of this moral Babel: neither materially nor spiritually can we escape from the conditions of our existence. The marriage even of the wisest men is found to be a lottery, and the union of suitable persons is consequently not the rule, but the exception. When men, therefore, seek for all their happiness in marriage, and are disappointed, not through the imperfection of the institution itself, but through their own haste, ignorance, or bad fortune, it seems perfectly consistent with every consideration of justice and equity that they should be allowed to repair their mistake or misfortune through the instrumentality of divorce. Nor let it be supposed that women are less interested in this matter than men, since experience shews that unfortunate marriages are productive, if possi ble, of more misery to them than to their husbands, in proportion as they nave fewer external resources, a much more limited sympathy, and have their conduct and demeanour subjected to an infinitely severer scrutiny. In these matters of marriage and divorce, the laws should, as far as possible, place both sexes on terms of perfect equality; or, rather, should shew more favour to women, to make amends for the other disadvantages to which they are exposed by the constitution of society. In enacting a law of divorce, care should be taken to guard against the effects of temporary caprice. But whenever it clearly appears that man and wife can no longer live together in peace and harmony, their separation would be far more beneficial :o themselves, and favourable to morals, than their compulsory union. It is to be regretted that Milton's language should now, in course of time, have