called us to peace, and so doubtless hath left in our hands how to obtain it seasonably: if it be not our own choice to sit ever like novices wretchedly servile.

Thus much the apostle in this question between Christian and pagan, to us now of little use; yet supposing it written for our instruction, as it may be rightly applied, I doubt not but that the difference between a true believer and a heretic, or any one truly religious either deserted or seeking divorce from any one grossly erroneous or prophane, may be referred hither. For St. Paul leaves us here the solution not of this case only, which little concerns us, but of such like cases, which may occur to us. For where the reasons directly square, who can forbid why the verdict should not be the same? But this the common writers allow us not. And yet from this text, which in plain words give liberty to none, unless deserted by an infidel, they collect the same freedom, though the desertion be not for religion, which, as I conceive, they need not do; but may, without straining, reduce it to the cause of fornication. For first, they confess that desertion is seldom without a just suspicion of adultery: next, it is a breach of marriage in the same kind, and in some sort worse: for adultery, though it give to another, yet it bereaves not all; but the deserter wholly denies all right, and makes one flesh twain, which is counted the absolutest breach of matrimony, and causes the other, as much as in him lies, to commit sin, by being so left. Nevertheless, those reasons, which they bring of establishing by this place the like liberty from any desertion, are fair and solid: and if the thing be lawful, and can be proved so, more ways than one, so much the safer. | Their arguments I shall here recite, and that they may not come idle, shall use them to make good the like freedom to divorce for other causes; and that we are no more under bondage to any heinous default against the main ends of matrimony, than to a desertion: first they allege that 1 to Tim. v. 8, " If any provide not for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel." But a deserter, say they, "can have no care of them who are most his own'; therefore the deserted party is not less to be righted against such a one, than against an infidel." With the same evidence I argue, that man or wife, who hates in wedlock, is perpetually unsociable, unpeaceful, or unduteous, either not being able, or not willing to perform what the main ends of marriage demand in help and solace, cannot be said to care for who should be dearest in the house; therefore is worse than an infidel in both regards, either in undertaking a duty which he cannot perform, to the undeserved and unspeakable injury of the other party so defrauded and betrayed, or not performing what he hath undertaken, whenas he may or might have, to the perjury of himself, more irreligious than heathenism. The blameless person therefore hath as good a plea to sue out his delivery from this bondage, as from the desertion of an infidel. Since most writers cannot but grant that desertion is not only a local absence, but an intolerable society; or if they grant it not, the reasons of St. Paul grant it, with as much leave as they grant to enlarge a particular free

dom from paganism, into a general freedom from any
desertion. Secondly, they reason from the likeness of
either fact," the same loss redounds to the deserted by
a Christian, as by an infidel, the same peril of tempta-
tion." And I in like manner affirm, that if honest and
free persons may be allowed to know what is most to
their own loss, the same loss and discontent, but worse
disquiet, with continual misery and temptation, resides
in the company, or better called the persecution of an
unfit, or an unpeaceable consort, than by his desertion.
For then the deserted may enjoy himself at least. And
he who deserts is more favourable to the party whom
his presence afflicts, than that importunate thing, which
is and will be ever conversant before the eyes, a loyal
and individual vexation. As for those who still rudely
urge it no loss to marriage, no desertion, so long as the
flesh is present, and offers a benevolence that hates, or
is justly hated; I am not of that vulgar and low per-
suasion, to think such forced embracements as these
worth the honour, or the humanity of marriage, but
far beneath the soul of a rational and freeborn man.
Thirdly, they say, “It is not the infidelity of the de-
serter, but the desertion of the infidel, from which the
apostle gives this freedom :" and I join, that the apos-
tle could as little require our subjection to an unfit and
injurious bondage present, as to an infidel absent. To
free us from that which is an evil by being distant, and
not from that which is an inmate, and in the bosom
evil, argues an improvident and careless deliverer.
And thus all occasions, which way soever they turn,
are not unofficious to administer something which may
conduce to explain or to defend the assertion of this
book touching divorce. I complain of nothing, but
that it is indeed too copious to be the matter of a dis-
pute, or a defence, rather to be yielded, as in the best
ages, a thing of common reason, not of controversy.
What have I left to say? I fear to be more elaborate in
such a perspicuity as this; lest I should seem not to
teach, but to upbraid the dulness of an age; not to
commune with reason in men, but to deplore the loss
of reason from among men this only, and not the
want of more to say, is the limit of my discourse.
Who among the fathers have interpreted the words of
Christ concerning divorce, as is here interpreted;
and what the civil law of christian emperors in the
primitive church determined.

Although testimony be in logic an argument rightly called "inartificial," and doth not solidly fetch the truth by multiplicity of authors, nor argue a thing false by the few that hold so; yet seeing most men from their youth so accustom, as not to scan reason, nor clearly to apprehend it, but to trust for that the names and numbers of such, as have got, and many times undeservedly, the reputation among them to know much; and because there is a vulgar also of teachers, who are as blindly by whom they fancy led, as they lead the people, it will not be amiss for them who had rather list themselves under this weaker sort, and follow authorities, to take notice that this opinion, which I bring, hath been favoured, and by some of those affirmed,

cil of Nantes condemned in seven years' penance the husband, that would reconcile with an adulteress. But how proves this that other causes may divorce? It proves thus: There can be but two causes why these councils enjoined so strictly the divorcing of an adulteress, either as an offender against God, or against the husband; in the latter respect they could not impose on him to divorce; for every man is the master of his own forgiveness; who shall hinder him to pardon the injuries done against himself? It follows therefore, that the divorce of an adulteress was commanded by these three councils, as it was a sin against God; and by all consequence they could not but believe that other sins as heinous might with equal justice be the ground of a divorce.

Basil in his 73d rule, as Chamier numbers it, thus determines; "That divorce ought not to be, unless for adultery, or the hinderance to a godly life." What doth this but proclaim aloud more causes of divorce than adultery, if by other sins besides this, in wife or husband, the godliness of the better person may be certainly hindered and endangered?

bond of matrimony; that the faith of marriage is not to be kept with such." If these contorted sentences be aught worth, it is not the desertion that breaks what is broken, but the impiety; and who then may not for that cause better divorce, than tarry to be deserted ? or these grave savings of St. Ambrose are but knacks. Jerom on the 19th of Matthew explains, that for the cause of fornication, or the "suspicion thereof, a man may freely divorce." What can breed that suspicion, but sundry faults leading that way? By Jerom's consent therefore divorce is free not only for actual adultery, but for any cause that may incline a wise man to the just suspicion thereof.

:

Austin also must be remembered among those who hold, that this instance of fornication gives equal inference to other faults equally hateful, for which to divorce and therefore in his books to Pollentius he disputes, "that infidelity, as being a greater sin than adultery, ought so much the rather cause a divorce." And on the sermon on the mount, under the name of fornication, will have "idolatry, or any harmful superstition," contained, which are not thought to disturb matrimony so directly as some other obstinacies and disaffections, more against the daily duties of that covenant, and in the Eastern tongues not unfrequently called fornication, as hath been shewn. “Hence is un

Epiphanius no less ancient, writing against heretics, and therefore should himself be orthodoxal above others, acquaints us in his second book, Tom. 1, not that his private persuasion was, but that the whole church in his time generally thought other causes of divorce law-derstood," saith he," that not only for bodily fornicaful besides adultery, as comprehended under that name: "If," saith he, "a divorce happen for any cause, either fornication or adultery, or any heinous fault, the word of God blames not either the man or wife marrying again, nor cuts them off from the congregation, or from life, but bears with the infirmity; not that he may keep both wives, but that leaving the former he may be lawfully joined to the latter: the holy word, and the holy church of God, commiserates this man, especially if he be otherwise of good conversation, and live according to God's law." This place is clearer than exposition, and needs no comment.

Ambrose, on the 16th of Luke, teaches "that all wedlock is not God's joining :" and to the 19th of Prov. "That a wife is prepared of the Lord," as the old Latin translates it, he answers, that the Septuagint renders it," a wife is fitted by the Lord, and tempered to a kind of harmony; and where that harmony is, there God joins; where it is not, there dissension reigns, which is not from God, for God is love." This he brings to prove the marrying of Christian with Gentile to be no marriage, and consequently divorced without sin: but he who sees not this argument how plainly it serves to divorce any untunable, or unatonable matrimony, sees little. On the first to the Cor. vii. he grants a woman may leave her husband not only for fornication, "but for apostacy, and inverting nature, though not marry again; but the man may;" here are causes of divorce assigned other than adultery. And going on, he affirms, "that the cause of God is greater than the cause of matrimony; that the reverence of wedlock is not due to him who hates the author thereof; that no matrimony is firm without devotion to God; that dishonour done to God acquits the other being deserted from the

tion, but for that which draws the mind from God's law, and foully corrupts it, a man may without fault put away his wife, and a wife her husband; because the Lord excepts the cause of fornication, which fornication we are constrained to interpret in a general sense." And in the first book of his " Retractations," chap. 16, he retracts not this his opinion, but commends it to serious consideration; and explains that he counted not there all sin to be fornication, but the more detestable sort of sins. The cause of fornication therefore is not in this discourse newly interpreted to signify other faults infringing the duties of wedlock, besides adultery.

Lastly, the council of Agatha in the year 506, Can. 25, decreed, that "if laymen who divorced without some great fault, or giving no probable cause, therefore divorced, that they might marry some unlawful person, or some other man's, if before the provincial bishops were made acquainted, or judgment passed, they presumed this, excommunication was the penalty." Whence it follows, that if the cause of divorce were some great offence, or that they gave probable causes for what they did, and did not therefore divorce, that they might presume with some unlawful person, or what was another man's, the censure of church in those days did not touch them.

Thus having alleged enough to shew, after what manner the primitive church for above 500 years understood our Saviour's words touching divorce, I shall now, with a labour less dispersed, and sooner dispatched, bring under view what the civil law of those times constituted about this matter: I say the civil law, which is the honour of every true civilian to stand for, rather than to count that for law, which the ponti

fical canon had enthralled them to, and instead of in- | terpreting a generous and elegant law, made them the drudges of a blockish Rubric.

and peace, a more holy union than that of the flesh; and the dignity of an honest person was regarded not to be held in bondage with one whose ignominy was infectious. To this purpose was constituted Cod. 1. 5, tit. 17, and Authent. collat. 4, tit. i. Novell. 22, where Justinian added three causes more. In the 117 Novell. most of the same causes are allowed, but the liberty of divorcing by consent is repealed: but by whom? by Justinian, not a wiser, not a more religious emperor than either of the former, but noted by judicious writers for his fickle head in making and unmaking laws; and how Procopius, a good historian, and a counsellor of state then living, deciphers him in his other actions, I willingly omit. Nor was the church then in better case, but had the corruption of a hundred declining years swept on it, when the statute of "Consent" was called in; which, as I said, gives us every way more reason to suspect this restraint, more than that liberty which therefore in the reign of Justin, the succeeding emperor, was recalled, Novell. 140, and established with a preface more wise and christianly than for those times, declaring the necessity to restore that Theodosian law, if no other means of reconcilement could be found. And by whom this law was abrogated, or how long after, I do not find; but that those other causes remained in force as long as the Greek empire subsisted, and were assented to by that church, is to be read in the canons and edicts compared by Photius the patriarch, with the avertiments of Balsamon and Matthæus Monachus thereon.

Theodosius and Valentinian, pious emperors both, ordained that, as by consent lawful marriages were made, so by consent, but not without the bill of divorce, they might be dissolved; and to dissolve was the more difficult, only in favour of the children." We see the wisdom and piety of that age, one of the purest and learnedest since Christ, conceived no hinderance in the words of our Saviour, but that a divorce, mutually consented, might be suffered by the law, especially if there were no children, or if there were, careful provision was made. And further saith that law, (supposing there wanted the consent of either,) “We design the causes of divorce by this most wholesome law; for as we forbid the dissolving of marriage without just cause, so we desire that a husband or a wife distressed by some adverse necessity, should be freed though by an unhappy, yet a necessary relief." What dram of wisdom or religion (for charity is the truest religion) could there be in that knowing age, which is not virtually summed up in this most just law? As for those other christian emperors, from Constantine the first of them, finding the Roman law in this point so answerable to the Mosaic, it might be the likeliest cause why they altered nothing to restraint; but if aught, rather to liberty, for the help and consideration of the weaker sex, according as the gospel seems to make the wife more equal to her husband in these conjugal respects, than the law of Moses doth. Therefore "if a man were absent from his wife four years, and in that space not heard of, though gone to war in the service of the empire," she might divorce, and marry another, by the edict of Constantine to Dalmatius, Cod. 1. 5, tit. 17. And this was an age of the church, both ancient and eried up still for the most flourishing in knowledge and pious government since the apostles. turn to this law of Theodosius, with this observation by the way, that still as the church corrupted, as the clergy grew more ignorant, and yet more usurping on the magistrate, who also now declined, so still divorce grew more restrained; though certainly if better times permitted the thing that worse times restrained, it would not weakly argue that the permission was bet-be to the good of man, should teach and ordain those ter, and the restraint worse. This law therefore of Theodosius, wiser in this than the most of his successors, though no wiser than God and Moses, reduced the causes of divorce to a certain number, which by the judicial law of God, and all recorded humanity, were left before to the breast of each husband, provided that the dismiss was not without reasonable conditions to the wife. But this was a restraint not yet come to extremes. For besides adultery, and that not only actual, but suspected by many signs there set down, any fault equally punishable with adultery, or equally infamous, might be the cause of a divorce. Which informs us how the wisest of those ages understood that place in the gospel, whereby not the pilfering of a benevolence was considered as the main and only breach of wedlock, as is now thought, but the breach of love

But to re

But long before those days, Leo, the son of Basilius Macedo, reigning about the year 886, and for his excellent wisdom surnamed the "Philosopher," constituted, "that in case of madness, the husband might divorce after three years, the wife after five." Constit. Leon. 111, 112. This declares how he expounded our Saviour, and derived his reasons from the institution, which in his preface with great eloquence are set down; whereof a passage or two may give some proof, though better not divided from the rest. "There is not," saith he," a thing more necessary to preserve mankind, than the help given him from his own rib; both God and nature so teaching us: which doing so, it was requisite that the providence of law, or if any other care

things which are to the help and comfort of married persons, and confirm the end of marriage purposed in the beginning, not those things which afflict and bring perpetual misery to them." Then answers the objection, that they are one flesh; "If matrimony had held so as God ordained it, he were wicked that would dissolve it. But if we respect this in matrimony, that it be contracted to the good of both, how shall he, who for some great evil feared, persuades not to marry though contracted, not persuade to unmarry, if after marriage a calamity befall? Should we bid beware lest any fall into an evil, and leave him helpless who by human errour is fallen therein? This were as if we should use remedies to prevent a disease, but let the sick die without remedy." The rest will be worth reading in the author.