room. your wis Secondly, The gifts of God are all perfect, and certainly the law is of all his other gifts one of the perfectest. But if it give that outwardly which it takes away really, and give that seemingly, which, if a man take it, wraps him into sin and damns him; what gift of an enemy can be more dangerous and destroying than this? "Moses because of the hardness of your hearts suf- | me. Keep therefore and do them, for this is fered you."] Hence the divinity now current argues, dom and your understanding. For what nation hath that this judicial law of Moses is abolished. But sup- God so nigh unto them, and what nation hath statutes pose it were so, though it hath been proved otherwise, and judgments so righteous as all this law, which I set the firmness of such right to divorce, as here pleads is before ye this day?" Is it imaginable there should be fetched from the prime institution, does not stand or among these a law which God allowed not, a law givfall with the judicial Jew, but is as moral as what is ing permissions laxative to unmarry a wife, and marry moralest. Yet as I have shewn positively, that this a lust, a law to suffer a kind of tribunal adultery? law cannot be abrogated, both by the words of our Sa- Many other scriptures might be brought to assert the viour pronouncing the contrary, and by that unabol- purity of this judicial law, and many I have alleged ishable equity which it conveys to us; so I shall now before; this law therefore is pure and just. But if it bring to view those appearances of strength, which permit, if it teach, if it defend that which is both unjust are levied from this text to maintain the most gross and impure, as by the common doctrine it doth, what and massy paradox that ever did violence to reason think we? The three general doctrines of Justinian's and religion, bred only under the shadow of these law are, "To live in honesty, To hurt no man, To give words, to all other piety or philosophy strange and in- every one his due." Shall the Roman civil law observe solent, that God by act of law drew out a line of adul- these three things, as the only end of law, and shall a tery almost two thousand years long: although to de- statute be found in the civil law of God, enacted simtect the prodigy of this surmise, the former book set ply and totally against all these three precepts of naforth on this argument hath already been copious. I ture and morality? shall not repeat much, though I might borrow of mine own; but shall endeavour to add something either yet untouched, or not largely enough explained. First, it shall be manifest, that the common exposition cannot possibly consist with christian doctrine: next, a truer meaning of this our Saviour's reply shall be left in the The received exposition is, that God, though not approving, did enact a law to permit adultery by divorcement simply unlawful. And this conceit they feed with fond supposals, that have not the least footing in Scripture as that the Jews learned this custom of divorce in Egypt, and therefore God would not unteach it them till Christ came, but let it stick as a notorious botch of deformity in the midst of his most perfect and severe law. And yet he saith, Lev. xviii. "After the doings of Egypt ye shall not do." Another while they invent a slander, (as what thing more bold than teaching ignorance when he shifts to hide his nakedness?) that the Jews were naturally to their wives the cruellest men in the world; would poison, brain, and do I know not what, if they might not divorce. Certain, if it were a fault heavily punished, to bring an evil report upon the land which God gave, what is it to raise a groundless calumny against the people which God made choice of? But that this bold interpretament, how commonly soever sided with, cannot stand a minute with any competent reverence to God, or his law, or his people, nor with any other maxim of religion, or good manners, might be proved through all the heads and topics of argumentation; but I shall willingly be as concise as possible. First the law, not only the moral, but the judicial, given by Moses, is just and pure; for such is God who gave it. "Hearken, O Israel," saith Moses, Deut. iv. "unto the statutes and the judgments which I teach you, to do them, that ye may live, &c. Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish aught from it, that ye may keep the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you." And onward in the chapter," Behold, I have taught you statutes and judgments, even as the Lord my God commanded Thirdly, Moses every where commends his laws, prefers them before all of other nations, and warrants them to be the way of life and safety to all that walk therein, Lev. xviii. But if they contain statutes which God approves not, and train men unweeting to commit injustice and adultery under the shelter of law; if those things be sin, and death sin's wages, what is this. law but the snare of death? Fourthly, The statutes and judgments of the Lord, which, without exception, are often told us to be such, as doing we may live by them, are doubtless to be counted the rule of knowledge and of conscience. "For I had not known lust," saith the apostle," but by the law." But if the law come down from the state of her incorruptible majesty to grant lust his boon, palpably it darkens and confounds both knowledge and conscience; it goes against the common office of all goodness and friendliness, which is at least to counsel and admonish; it subverts the rules of all sober education, and is itself a most negligent and debauching tutor. Fifthly, If the law permits a thing unlawful, it permits that which elsewhere it hath forbid; so that hereby it contradicts itself, and transgresses itself. But if the law become a transgressor, it stands guilty to itself, and how then shall it save another? It makes a confederacy with sin, how then can it justly condemn a sinner? And thus reducing itself to the state of neither saving nor condemning, it will not fail to expire solemnly ridiculous. Sixthly, The prophets in Scripture declare severely against the decreeing of that which is unjust, Psal. xciv. 20; Isaiah x. But it was done, they say, for hardness of heart: to which objection the apostle's rule, “not to do evil that good may come thereby," | gives an invincible repulse; and here especially, where it cannot be shown how any good came by doing this evil, how rather more evil did not hereon abound; for the giving way to hardness of heart hardens the more, and adds more to the number. God to an evil and adulterous generation would not "grant a sign;" much less would he for their hardness of heart pollute his law with adulterous permission. Yea, but to permit evil, is not to do evil. Yes, it is in a most eminent manner to do evil where else are all our grave and faithful sayings, that he whose office is to forbid and forbids not, bids, exhorts, encourages? Why hath God denounced his anger against parents, masters, friends, magistrates, neglectful of forbidding what they ought, if law, the common father, master, friend, and perpetual magistrate, shall not only not forbid, but enact, exhibit, and uphold with countenance and protection, a deed every way dishonest, whatever the pretence be? If it were of those inward vices, which the law cannot by outward constraint remedy, but leaves to conscience and persuasion, it had been guiltless in being silent: but to write a decree of that which can be no way lawful, and might with ease be hindered, makes law by the doom of law itself accessory in the highest degree. Seventhly, It makes God the direct author of sin: for although he be not made the author of what he silently permits in his providence, yet in his law, the image of his will, when in plain expression he constitutes and ordains a fact utterly unlawful; what wants he to authorize it, and what wants that to be the author? Eighthly, To establish by law a thing wholly unlawful and dishonest, is an affirmation was never heard of before in any law, reason, philosophy, or religion, till it was raised by inconsiderate glossists from the mistake of this text. And though the civilians have been contented to chew this opinion, after the canon had subdued them, yet they never could bring example or authority, either from divine writ, or human learning, or human practice in any nation, or well-formed republic, but only from the customary abuse of this text. Usually they allege the epistle of Cicero to Atticus; wherein Cato is blamed for giving sentence to the scum of Romulus, as if he were in Plato's commonwealth. Cato would have called some great one into judgment for bribery; Cicero, as the time stood, advised against it. Cato, not to endamage the public treasury, would not grant to the Roman knights, that the Asian taxes might be farmed them at a less rate. Cicero wished it granted. Nothing in all this will be like the establishing of a law to sin: here are no laws made, here only the execution of law is craved might be suspended between which and our question is a broad difference. And what if human lawgivers have confessed they could not frame their laws to that perfection which they desired? We hear of no such confession from Moses concerning the laws of God, but rather all praise and high testimony of perfection given them. And although man's nature cannot bear exactest laws, yet still within the confines of good it may and must, so : long as less good is far enough from altogether evil. As for what they instance of usury, let them first prove usury to be wholly unlawful, as the laws allow it; which learned men as numerous on the other side will deny them. Or if it be altogether unlawful, why is it tolerated more than divorce? He who said divorce not, said also, “Lend, hoping for nothing again,” Luke vi. 35. But then they put in, that trade could not stand; and so to serve the commodity of insatiable trading, usury shall be permitted: but divorce, the only means ofttimes to right the innocent and outrageously wronged, shall be utterly forbid. This is egregious doctrine, and for which one day charity will much thank them. Beza not finding how to solve this perplexity, and Cameron since him, would secure us; although the latter confesses, that to "permit a wicked thing by law, is a wickedness which God abhors; yet to limit sin, and prescribe it a certain measure, is good." First, this evasion will not help here; for this law bounded no man he might put away whatever found not favour in his eyes. And how could it forbid to divorce, whom it could not forbid to dislike, or command to love? If these be the limits of law to restrain sin, who so lame a sinner, but may hop over them more easily than over those Romulean circumscriptions, not as Remus did with hard success, but with all indemnity? Such a limiting as this were not worth the mischief that accompanies it. This law therefore, not bounding the supposed sin, by permitting enlarges it, gives it enfranchisement. And never greater confusion, than when law and sin move their landmarks, mix their territories, and correspond, have intercourse, and traffic together. When law contracts a kindred and hospitality with transgression, becomes the godfather of sin, and names it lawful; when sin revels and gossips within the arsenal of law, plays and dandles the artillery of justice that should be bent against her, this is a fair limitation indeed. Besides, it is an absurdity to say that law can measure sin, or moderate sin; sin is not in a predicament to be measured and modified, but is always an excess. The least sin that is exceeds the measure of the largest law that can be good; and is as boundless as that vacuity beyond the world. If once it square to the measure of law, it ceases to be an excess, and consequently ceases to be a sin; or else law conforming itself to the obliquity of sin, betrays itself to be not straight, but crooked, and so immediately no law. And the improper conceit of moderating sin by law will appear, if we can imagine any lawgiver so senseless as to decree, that so far a man may steal, and thus far be drunk, that moderately he may couzen, and moderately commit adultery. To the same extent it would be as pithily absurd to publish, that a man may moderately divorce, if to do that be entirely naught. But to end this moot; the law of Moses is manifest to fix no limit therein at all, or such at least as impeaches the fraudulent abuser no more than if it were not set; only requires the dismissive writing without other caution, leaves that to the inner man, and the bar of conscience. But it stopped other sins. This is as vain as the rest, and dangerously uncertain: the contrary laymen images instead of books and preaching. Sloth to be feared rather, that one sin, admitted courteously | first polluted Christendom with idolatry, permitting to by law, opened the gate to another. However, evil must not be done for good. And it were a fall to be lamented, and indignity unspeakable, if law should become tributary to sin her slave, and forced to yield up into his hands her awful minister. punishment; should buy out our peace with sin for sin, paying as it were her so many Philistian foreskins to the proud de-cerned them alike: for wherein hath the gospel altered mand of transgression. But suppose it any way pos- the nature of matrimony? All these considerations, or sible to limit sin, to put a girdle about that Chaos, sup- many of them, have been further amplified in "the pose it also good; yet if to permit sin by law be an Doctrine of Divorce." And what Rivetus and Paræus abomination in the eyes of God, as Cameron acknow- have objected, or given over as past cure, hath been ledges, the evil of permitting will eat out the good of there discussed. Whereby it may be plain enough to limiting. For though sin be not limited, there can but men of eyes, that the vulgar exposition of a permitevil come out of evil; but if it be permitted and de- tance by law to an intire sin, whatever the colour may creed lawful by divine law, of force then sin must pro-be, is an opinion both ungodly, unpolitic, unvirtuous, ceed from the infinite good, which is a dreadful thought. But if the restraining of sin by this permission being good, as this author testifies, be more good than the permission of more sin by the restraint of divorce, and that God weighing both these like two ingots, in the perfect scales of his justice and providence, found them so, and others, coming without authority from God, shall change this counterpoise, and judge it better to let sin multiply by setting a judicial restraint upon divorce which Christ never set; then to limit sin by this permission, as God himself thought best to permit it, it will behove them to consult betimes whether these their balances be not false and abominable; and this their limiting that which God loosened, and their loosening the sins that he limited, which they confess was good to do and were it possible to do by law, doubtless it would be most morally good; and they so believing, as we hear they do, and yet abolishing a law so good and moral, the limiter of sin, what are they else but contrary to themselves? For they can never bring us to that time wherein it will not be good to limit sin, and they can never limit it better than so as God prescribed in his law. Others conceive it a more defensible retirement to say, this permission to divorce sinfully for hardness of heart was a dispensation. But surely they either know not, or attended not to what a dispensation means. A dispensation is for no long time, is particular to some persons, rather than general to a whole people; always hath charity the end, is granted to necessities and infirmities, not to obstinate lust. This permission is another creature, hath all those evils and absurdities following the name of a dispensation, as when it was named a law; and is the very antarctic pole against charity, nothing more adverse, ensnaring and ruining those that trust in it, or use it; so lewd and criminous as never durst enter into the head of any politician, Jew, or proselyte, till they became the apt scholars of this canonistic exposition. Aught in it, that can allude | in the least manner to charity, or goodness, belongs with more full right to the Christian under grace and liberty, than to the Jew under law and bondage. To Jewish ignorance it could not be dispensed, without a horrid imputation laid upon the law, to dispense foully, instead of teaching fairly; like that dispensation that and void of all honesty and civil sense. It appertains therefore to every zealous Christian, both for the honour of God's law, and the vindication of our Saviour's words, that such an irreligious depravement no longer may be soothed and flattered through custom, but with all diligence and speed solidly refuted, and in the room a better explanation given; which is now our next endeavour. "Moses suffered you to put away," &c.] Not commanded you, says the common observer, and therefore cared not how soon it were abolished, being but suffered; herein declaring his annotation to be slight, and nothing law-prudent. For in this place "commanded" and "suffered" are interchangeably used in the same sense both by our Saviour and the Pharisees. Our Saviour, who here saith, " Moses suffered you," in the 10th of Mark saith, "Moses wrote you this command." And the Pharisees, who here say, "Moses commanded,” and would mainly have it a command, in that place of Mark say, "Moses suffered," which had made against them in their own mouths, if the word of "suffering" had weakened the command. So that suffered and commanded is here taken for the same thing on both sides of the controversy: as Cameron also and others on this place acknowledge. And lawyers know that all the precepts of law are divided into obligatory and permissive, containing either what we must do, or what we may do; and of this latter sort are as many precepts as of the former, and all as lawful. Tutelage, an ordainment than which nothing more just, being for the defence of orphans, the Institutes of Justinian say " is given and permitted by the civil law :" and "to parents it is permitted to choose and appoint by will the guardians of their children." What more equal, and yet the civil law calls this "permission." So likewise to "manumise," to adopt, to make a will, and to be made an heir, is called "permission" by law. Marriage itself, and this which is already granted, to divorce for adultery, obliges no man, is but a permission by law, is but suffered. By this we may see how weakly it hath been thought, that all divorce is utterly unlawful, because the law is said to suffer it: whenas to "suffer" is but the legal phrase denoting what by law a man may do or not do. "Because of the hardness of your hearts."] Hence they argue that therefore he allowed it not; and there- | say the very prosecution of our right by way of civil justice can no more be suffered among Christians, for the hardness of heart wherewith most men pursue it. And that would next remove all our judicial laws, and this restraint of divorce also in the number; which would more than half end the controversy. But if it be plain, that the whole juridical law and civil power is only suffered under the gospel, for the hardness of our hearts, then wherefore should not that which Moses suffered, be suffered still by the same reason? In a second signification, hardness of heart is taken for a stubborn resolution to do evil. And that God ever makes any law purposely to such, I deny; for he vouchsafes to enter covenant with them, but as they fortune to be mixed with good men, and pass undiscovered; much less that he should decree an unlawful thing only to serve their licentiousness. But that God "suffers" this reprobate hardness of heart I affirm, not only in this law of divorce, but throughout all his best and purest commandments. He commands all to worship in singleness of heart according to all his ordinances; and yet suffers the wicked man to perform all the rites of religion hypocritically, and in the hardness of his heart. He gives us general statutes and privileges in all civil matters, just and good of themselves, yet suffers unworthiest men to use them, and by them to prosecute their own right, or any colour of right, though for the most part maliciously, covetously, rigor fore it must be abolished. But the contrary to this will sooner follow, that because he suffered it for a cause, therefore in relation to that cause he allowed it. Next, if he in his wisdom, and in the midst of his severity, allowed it for hardness of heart, it can be nothing better than arrogance and presumption to take stricter courses against hardness of heart, than God ever set an example; and that under the gospel, which warrants them to do no judicial act of compulsion in this matter, much less to be more severe against hardness of extremity, than God thought good to be against hardness of heart. He suffered it, rather than worse inconveniences; these men wiser, as they make themselves, will suffer the worst and heinousest inconveniences to follow, rather than they will suffer what God suffered. Although they can know when they please, that Christ spake only to the conscience, did not judge on the civil bench, but always disavowed it. What can be more contrary to the ways of God, than these their doings? If they be such enemies to hardness of heart, although this groundless rigour proclaims it to be in themselves, they may yet learn, or consider, that hardness of heart hath a twofold acceptation in the gospel. One, when it is in a good man taken for infirmity, and imperfection, which was in all the apostles, whose weakness only, not utter want of belief, is called hardness of heart, Mark xvi. Partly for this hardness of heart, the imperfection and decay of man from original righteous-ously, revengefully. He allowed by law the discreet ness, it was that God suffered not divorce only, but all that which by civilians is termed the "secondary law of nature and of nations." He suffered his own people to waste and spoil and slay by war, to lead captives, to be some masters, some servants, some to be princes, others to be subjects; he suffered propriety to divide all things by several possession, trade, and commerce, not without usury; in his commonwealth some to be undeservedly rich, others to be undeservingly poor. | All which till hardness of heart came in was most unjust; whenas prime nature made us all equal, made us equal coheirs by common right and dominion over all creatures. In the same manner, and for the same cause, he suffered divorce as well as marriage, our imperfect anful degenerate condition of necessity requiring this law among the rest, as a remedy against intolerable wrong and servitude above the patience of man to bear. Nor was it given only because our infirmity, or if it must be so called, hardness of heart, could not endure all things; but because the hardness of another's heart might not inflict all things upon an innocent person, whom far other ends brought into a league of love, and not of bondage and indignity. If therefore we abolish divorce as only suffered for hardness of heart, we may as well abolish the whole law of nations, as only suffered for the same cause; it being shewn us by St. Paul, I Cor. vi. that the very seeking of a man's | right by law, and at the hands of a worldly magistrate, is not without the hardness of our hearts. "For why do ye not rather take wrong," saith he, " why suffer ye not rather yourselves to be defrauded?" If nothing now must be suffered for hardness of heart, I | father and husband to forbid, if he thought fit, the religious vows of his wife or daughter, Numb. xxx.; and in the same law suffered the hardheartedness of impious and covetous fathers or husbands abusing this law, to forbid their wives or daughters in their offerings and devotions of greatest zeal. If then God suffer hardness of heart equally in the best laws, as in this of divorce, there can be no reason that for this cause this law should be abolished. But other laws, they object, may be well used, this never. How often shall I answer, both from the institution of marriage, and from other general rules in Scripture, that this law of divorce hath many wise and charitable ends besides the being suffered for hardness of heart, which is indeed no end, but an accident happening through the whole law; which gives to good men right, and to bad men, who abuse right under false pretences, gives only sufferance. Now although Christ express no other reasons here, but only what was suffered, it nothing follows that this law had no other reason to be permitted but for hardness of heart. The Scripture seldom or never in one place sets down all the reasons of what it grants or commands, especially when it talks to enemies and tempters. St. Paul permitting marriage, 1 Cor. vii. seems to permit even that also for hardness of heart only, lest we should run into fornication: yet no intelligent man thence concludes marriage allowed in the gospel only to avoid an evil, because no other end is there expressed. Thus Moses of necessity suffered many to put away their wives for hardness of heart; but enacted the law of divorce doubtless for other good causes, not for this only sufferance. He permitted not of smile at. Undoubtedly as to point of judicial law, divorce was more permissive from the beginning before Moses than under Moses. But from the beginning, that is to say, by the institution in Paradise, it was not intended that matrimony should dissolve for every trivial cause, as you Pharisees accustom. But that it was not thus suffered from the beginning ever since the race of men corrupted, and laws were made, he who will affirm must have found out other antiquities than are yet known. Besides, we must consider now, what can be so as from the beginning, not only what should be so. In the beginning, had men continued perfect, it had been just that all things should have remained as they began to Adam and Eve. But after that the sons of men grew violent and injurious, it altered the lore of justice, and put the government of things into a new frame. While man and woman were both perfect each to other, there needed no divorce; but when they both degenerated to imperfection, and ofttimes grew to be an intolerable evil each to other, then law more justly did permit the alienating of that evil which estate made proper, than it did the appropriating of that good which nature at first made common. For if the absence of outward good be not so bad as the presence of a close evil, and that propriety, whether by covenant or possession, be but the attainment of some outward good, it is more natural and righteous that the law should sever us from an intimate evil, than appropriate any outward good to us from the community of nature. The gospel indeed tending ever to that which is perfectest, aimed at the restorement of all divorce by law as an evil, for that was impossible to divine law, but permitted by accident the evil of them who divorced against the law's intention undiscoverably. This also may be thought not improbably, that Christ, stirred up in his spirit against these tempting Pharisees, answered them in a certain form of indignation usual among good authors; whereby the question or the truth is not directly answered, but something which is fitter for them, who ask, to hear. So in the ecclesiastical stories, one demanding how God employed himself before the world was made? had answer, that he was making hell for curious questioners. Another (and Libanus the sophist, as I remember) asking in derision some Christian, What the carpenter, meaning our Saviour, was doing, now that Julian so prevailed? had it returned him, that the carpenter was making a coffin for the apostate. So Christ being demanded maliciously why Moses made the law of divorce, answers them in a vehement scheme, not telling them the cause why he made it, but what was fittest to be told them, that " for the hardness of their hearts" he suffered them to abuse it. And albeit Mark say not "he suffered" you, but," to you he wrote this precept;" Mark may be warrantably expounded by Matthew the larger. And whether he suffered, or gave precept, being all one as was heard, it changes not the trope indignation, fittest account for such askers. Next, for the hardness of "your hearts, to you he wrote this precept," infers not therefore for this cause only he wrote it, as was paralleled by other Scriptures. Lastly, it may be worth the observing, that Christ, speaking to the Pharisees, does not say in general that for hard-things as they were in the beginning; and therefore ness of heart he gave this precept, but " you he suffered, and to you he gave this precept, for your hardness of heart." It cannot be easily thought, that Christ here included all the children of Israel under the person of these tempting Pharisees, but that he conceals wherefore he gave the better sort of them this law, and expresses by saying emphatically" To you" how he gave it to the worser, such as the Pharisees best represented, that is to say, for the hardness of your hearts: as indeed to wicked men and hardened hearts he gives the whole law and the gospel also, to harden them the more. Thus many ways it may orthodoxally be understood how God or Moses suffered such as the demanders were, to divorce for hardness of heart. Whereas the vulgar expositor, beset with contradictions and absurdities round, and resolving at any peril to make an exposition of it, (as there is nothing more violent and boisterous than a reverend ignorance in fear to be convicted,) rushes brutely and impetuously against all the principles both of nature, piety, and moral goodness; and in the fury of his literal expounding overturns them all. "But from the beginning it was not so."] Not how from the beginning? Do they suppose that men might not divorce at all, not necessarily, not deliberately, except for adultery, but that some law, like canon law, presently attached them, both before and after the flood, till stricter Moses came, and with law brought licence into the world? that were a fancy indeed to all things were in common to those primitive Christians in the Acts, which Ananias and Sapphira dearly felt. That custom also continued more or less till the time of Justin Martyr, as may be read in his second Apology, which might be writ after that act of communion perhaps some forty years above a hundred. But who will be the man that shall introduce this kind of commonwealth, as Christianity now goes? If then marriage must be as in the beginning, the persons that marry must be such as then were; the institution must make good, in some tolerable sort, what it promises to either party. If not, it is but madness to drag this one ordinance back to the beginning, and draw down all other to the present necessity and condition, far from the beginning, even to the tolerating of extortions and oppressions. Christ only told us, that from the beginning it was not so; that is to say, not so as the Pharisees manured the business; did not command us that it should be forcibly so again in all points, as at the beginning; or so at least in our intentions and desires, but so in execution, as reason and present nature can bear. Although we are not to seek, that the institution itself from the first beginning was never but conditional, as all covenants are: because thus and thus, therefore so and so; if not thus, then not so. Then moreover was perfectest to fulfil each law in itself; now is perfectest in this estate of things, to ask of charity how much law may be fulfilled: else the fulfilling ofttimes is the greatest breaking. If any therefore de |