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St. Paul," and have not charity, it profits me nothing." So, though the body prostitute itself to whom the mind affords no other love or peace, but constant malice and vexation, can this bodily benevolence deserve to be called a marriage between Christians and rational creatures?

Melancthon, the third great luminary of reformation, in his book "Concerning Marriage," grants divorce for cruel usage, and danger of life, urging the authority of that Theodosian law, which he esteems written with the grave deliberation of godly men; "and that they who reject this law, and think it disagreeing from the gospel, understand not the difference of law and gospel; that the magistrate ought not only to defend life, but to succour the weak conscience; lest, broke with grief and indignation, it relinquish prayer, and turn to some unlawful thing." What if this heavy plight of despair arise from other discontents in wedlock, which may go to the soul of a good man more than the danger of his life, or cruel using, which a man cannot be liable to? suppose it be ingrateful usage, suppose it be perpetual spite and disobedience, suppose a hatred; shall not the magistrate free him from this disquiet which interrupts his prayers, and disturbs the course of his service to God and his country all as much, and brings him such a misery, as that he more desires to leave his life, than fears to loose it? Shall not this equally concern the office of civil protection, and much more the charity of a true church, to remedy?

Erasmus, who for learning was the wonder of his age, both in his Notes on Matthew, and on the first to the Corinthians, in a large and eloquent discourse, and in his answer to Phimostomus, a papist, maintains (and no protestant then living contradicted him) that the words of Christ comprehend many other causes of divorce under the name of fornication.

Bucer, (whom our famous Dr. Rainolds was wont to prefer before Calvin,) in his comment on Matthew, and in his second book "of the Kingdom of Christ," treats of divorce at large, to the same effect as is written in "the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce" lately published, and the translation is extant: whom, lest I should be thought to have wrested to mine own purpose, take something more out of his 49th chapter, which I then for brevity omitted. "It will be the duty of pious princes, and all who govern church or commonwealth, if any, whether husband or wife, shall affirm their want of such, who either will or can tolerably perform the necessary duties of married life, to grant that they may seek them such, and marry them; if they make it appear that such they have not." This book he wrote here in England, where he lived the greatest admired man; and this he dedicated to Edward the VIth.

Fagius, ranked among the famous divines of Germany, whom Frederic, at that time the Palatine, sent for to be the reformer of his dominion, and whom afterwards England sought to, and obtained of him to come and teach her, differs not in this opinion from Bucer, as his notes on the Chaldee Paraphrast well testify.

The whole church of Strasburgh in her most flourishing time, when Zellius, Hedio, Capito, and other great divines, taught there, and those two renowned magistrates, Farrerus and Sturmius, governed that commonwealth and academy to the admiration of all Germany, hath thus in the 21st article: "We teach, that if according to the word of God, yea, or against it, divorces happen, to do according to God's word, Deut. xxiv. 1; Matt. xix.; 1 Cor. vii.; and the observation of the primitive church, and the Christian constitution of pious Cæsars."

Peter Martyr seems in word our easy adversary, but is indeed for us: toward which, though it be something when he saith of this opinion, "that

it is not wicked, and can hardly be refuted," this which follows is much more; "I speak not here" saith he, "of natural impediments, which may so happen, that the matrimony can no longer hold:" but adding, that he often wondered "how the ancient and most Christian emperors established those laws of divorce, and neither Ambrose, who had such influence upon the laws of Theodosius, nor any of those holy fathers found fault, nor any of the churches, why the magistrates of this day should be so loth to constitute the same. Perhaps they fear an inundation of divorces, which is not likely; whenas we read not either among the Hebrews, Greeks, or Romans, that they were much frequent where they were most permitted. If they judge Christian men worse than Jews or pagans, they both injure that name, and by this reason will be constrained to grant divorces the rather; because it was permitted as a remedy of evil, for who would remove the medicine, while the disease is yet so rife?" This being read both in "his Commonplaces," and on the first to the Corinthians, with what we shall relate more of him yet ere the end, sets him absolutely on this side. Not to insist that in both these, and other places of his commentaries, he grants divorce not only for desertion, but for the seducement and scandalous demeanour of an heretical consort.

Musculus, a divine of no obscure fame, distinguishes between the religious and the civil determination of divorce; and leaving the civil wholly to the lawyers, pronounces a conscionable divorce for impotence not only natural, but accidental, if it be durable. His equity it seems, can enlarge the words of Christ to one cause more than adultery; why may not the reason of another man, as wise, enlarge them to another cause?

Gualter of Zuric, a well-known judicious commentator, in his homilies on Matthew, allows divorce for "leprosy, or any other cause which renders unfit for wedlock," and calls this rather "a nullity of marriage than a divorce." And who, that is not himself a mere body, can restrain all the unfitness of marriage only to a corporeal defect?

Hemingius, an author highly esteemed, and his works printed at Geneva, writing of divorce, confesses that learned men "vary in this question, some granting three causes thereof, some five, others many more;" he himself gives us six, "adultery, desertion, inability, error, evil usage, and impiety," using argument "that Christ under one special contains the whole kind, and under the name and example of fornication, he includes other causes equipollent." This discourse he wrote at the request of many who had the judging of these causes in Denmark and Norway, who by all likelihood followed his advice.

Hunnius, a doctor of Wittenberg, well known both in divinity and other arts, on the 19th of Matt. affirms, "That the exception of fornication expressed by our Saviour, excludes not other causes equalling adultery, or destructive to the substantials of matrimony; but was opposed to the custom of the Jews, who made divorce for every light cause.'

Felix Bidenbachius, an eminent divine in the duchy of Wirtemberg, affirms, "That the obstinate refusal of conjugal due is a lawful cause of divorce" and gives an instance, "that the consistory of that state so judged."

Gerard cites Harbardus, an author not unknown, and Arnisæus cites Wigandus, both yielding divorce in case of cruel usage; and another author, who testifies to "have seen, in a dukedom of Germany, marriages disjointed for some implacable enmities arising."

Beza, one of the strictest against divorce, denies it not "for danger of life from a heretic, or importunate solicitation to do aught against religion:" VOL. I. 2 E 2

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and counts it "all one whether the heretic desert, or would stay upon intolerable conditions." But this decision, well examined, will be found of no solidity. For Beza would be asked why, if God so strictly exact our stay in any kind of wedlock, we had not better stay and hazard a murdering for religion at the hand of a wife or husband as he and others enjoin us to stay and venture it for all other causes but that? and why a man's life is not as well and warrantably saved by divorcing from an orthodox murderer, as an heretical? Again, if desertion be confessed by him to consist not only in the forsaking, but in the unsufferable conditions of staying, man may as well deduce the lawfulness of divorcing from any intolerable conditions, (if his grant be good, that we may divorce thereupon from a heretic,) as he can deduce it lawful to divorce from any deserter, by finding it lawful to divorce from a deserting infidel. For this is plain, if St. Paul's permission to divorce an infidel deserter infer it lawful for any malicious desertion, then doth Beza's definition of a deserter transfer itself with like facility from the cause of religion, to the cause of malice, and proves it as good to divorce from him who intolerably stays, as from him who purposely departs; and leaves it as lawful to depart from him who urgently requires a wicked thing, though professing the same religion, as from him who urges a heathenish or superstitious compliance in a different faith. For if there be such necessity of our abiding, we ought rather to abide the utmost for religion, than for any other cause; seeing both the cause of our stay is pretended our religion to marriage, and the cause of our suffering is supposed our constant marriage to religion. Beza therefore, by his own definition of a deserter, justifies a divorce from any wicked or intolerable conditions rather in the same religion than in a different.

Aretius, a famous divine of Bern, approves many causes of divorce in his "Problems," and adds, "that the laws and consistories of Switzerland approve them also." As first, "adultery, and that not actual only, but intentional;" alleging Matthew v. "Whosoever looketh to lust, hath committed adultery already in his heart. Whereby," saith he, "our Saviour shows, that the breach of matrimony may be not only by outward act, but by the heart and desire; when that hath once possessed, it renders the conversation intolerable, and commonly the fact follows." Other causes to the number of nine or ten, consenting in most with the imperial laws, may be read in the author himself, who avers them "to be grave and weighty." All these are men of name in divinity; and to these, if need were, might be added more. Nor have the civilians been also blinded by the canon, as not to avouch the justice of those old permissions touching divorce.

Alciat of Milain, a man of extraordinary wisdom and learning, in the sixth book of his "Parerga," defends those imperial laws, "not repuguant to the gospel," as the church then interpreted. "For," saith he, "the ancients understood him separate by man, whom passions and corrupt affections divorced, not if the provincial bishops first heard the matter, and judged as the council of Agatha declares:" and on some part of the Code he names Isidorus Hispalensis, the first computer of canons, "to be in the same mind." And in the former place gives his opinion, "that divorce might be more lawfully permitted than usury.

Corasius, recorded by Helvicus among the famous lawyers, hath been already cited of the same judgment.

Wesembechius, a much-named civilian, in his comment on this law defends it, and affirms, "That our Saviour excluded not other faults equal to adultery; and that the word fornication signifies larger among the Hebrews

than with us, comprehending every fault, which alienates from him to whom obedience is due, and that the primitive church interpreted so."

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Grotius, yet living, and of prime note among learned men, retires plainly from the canon to the ancient civility, yea, to the Mosaic law, as being most just and undeceivable." On the 5th of Matth. he saith, "That Christ made no civil laws, but taught us how to use law: that the law sent not a husband to the judge about this matter of divorce, but left him to his own conscience that Christ therefore cannot be thought to send him ; that adultery may be judged by a vehement suspicion; that the exception of adultery seems an example of other like offences;" proves it "from the manner of speech, the maxims of law, the reason of charity, and common equity."

These authorities, without long search, I had to produce, all excellent men, some of them such as many ages had brought forth none greater: almost the meanest of them might deserve to obtain credit in a singularity; what might not then all of them joined in an opinion so consonant to reason? For although some speak of this cause, others of that, why divorce. may be, yet all agreeing in the necessary enlargement of that textual straitness, leave the matter to equity, not to literal bondage; and so the opinion closes. Nor could I have wanted more testimonies, had the cause needed a more solicitous inquiry. But herein the satisfaction of others hath been studied, not the gaining of more assurance to mine own persuasion: although authorities contributing reason withal be a good confirmation and a welcome. But God (I solemnly attest him!) withheld from my knowledge the consenting judgment of these men so late, until they could not be my instructors, but only my unexpected witnesses to partial men, that in this work I had not given the worst experiment of an industry joined with integrity, and the free utterance, though of an unpopular truth. Which yet to the people of England may, if God so please, prove a memorable informing; certainly a benefit which was intended them long since by men of highest repute for wisdom and piety, Bucer and Erasmus. Only this one authority more, whether in place, or out of place, I am not to omit; which if any can think a small one, I must be patient, it is no smaller than the whole assembled authority of England both church and state; and in those times which are on record for the purest and sincerest that ever shone yet on the reformation of this island, the time of Edward the Sixth. That worthy prince, having utterly abolished the canon law out of his dominions, as his father did before him, appointed by full vote of parliament a committee of two-and-thirty chosen men, divines and lawyers, of whom Cranmer the archbishop, Peter Martyr, and Walter Haddon, (not without the assistance of Sir John Cheeke the king's tutor, a man at that time counted the learnedest of Englishmen, and for piety not inferior,) were the chief, to frame anew some ecclesiastical laws, that might be instead of what was abrogated. The work with great diligence was finished, and with as great approbation of that reforming age was received; and had been doubtless, as the learned preface thereof testifies, established by act of parliament, had not the good king's death, so soon ensuing, arrested the further growth of religion also, from that season to this. Those laws, thus founded on the memorable wisdom and piety of that religious parliament and synod, allow divorce and second marriage, "not only for adultery or desertion, but for any capital enmity or plot laid against the other's life, and likewise for evil and fierce usage:" nay, the twelfth chapter of that title by plain consequence declares, "that lesser contentions, if they be perpetual, may obtain divorce:" which is all one really with the position by me held in the former treatise published on this argument, herein only differing, that there the cause of perpetual strife was put for example in the

unchangeable discord of some natures; but in these laws intended us by the best of our ancestors, the effect of continual strife is determined no unjust plea of divorce, whether the cause be natural or wilful. Whereby the wariness and deliberation, from which that discourse proceeded, will appear, and that God hath aided us to make no bad conclusion of this point; seeing the opinion, which of late hath undergone ill censures among the vulgar, hath now proved to have done no violence to Scripture, unless all these famous authors alleged have done the like; nor hath affirmed aught more than what indeed the most nominated fathers of the church, both ancient and modern, are unexpectedly found affirming; the laws of God's peculiar people, and of primitive Christendom found to have practised, reformed churches and states to have imitated, and especially the most pious churchtimes of this kingdom to have framed and published, and, but for sad hinderances in the sudden change of religion, had enacted by the parliament. Henceforth let them, who condemn the assertion of this book for new and licentious, be sorry; lest, while they think to be of the graver sort, and take on them to be teachers, they expose themselves rather to be pledged up and down by men who intimately know them, to the discovery and contempt of their ignorance and presumption.

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TO A NAMELESS ANSWER AGAINST THE DOCTRINE AND DISCIPLINE OF

DIVORCE.

WHEREIN THE TRIVIAL AUTHOR OF THAT ANSWER IS DISCOVERED, THE LICENSER CONFERRED WITH, AND THE OPINION, WHICH THEY TRADUCE, DEFENDED.

Prov. xxvi. 5. "Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit."

[FIRST PUBLISHED, 1645.]

AFTER many rumors of confutations and convictions, forthcoming against the Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce, and now and then a by-blow from the pulpit, feathered with a censure, strict indeed, but how true, more beholden to the authority of that devout place, which it borrowed to be uttered in, than to any sound reason which it could oracle; while I still hoped as for a blessing, to see some piece of diligence, or learned discretion, come from them, it was my hap at length, lighting on a certain parcel of queries, that seek and find not, to find, not seeking, at the tail of anabaptistical, antinomian, heretical, atheistical epithets, a jolly slander, called "Divorce at Pleasure." I stood awhile and wondered what we might do to a man's heart, or what anatomy use, to find in it sincerity; for all our wonted marks every day fail us, and where we thought it was, we see it is not, for alter

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