Imatges de pàgina
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he should seem to be the imposer of a new command, stays not for method, but with an abrupt speed inserts the declaration of their liberty in this

matter.

"But if the unbelieving depart, let him depart; a brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases: but God hath called us to peace."

"But if the unbelieving depart."] This cannot be restrained to local departure only for who knows not that an offensive society is worse than a forsaking? If his purpose of cohabitation be to endanger the life, or the conscience, Beza himself is half persuaded, that this may purchase to the faithful person the same freedom that a desertion may; and so Gerard and others whom he cites. If therefore he depart in affection; if he depart from giving hope of his conversion; if he disturb, or scoff at religion, seduce or tempt; if he rage, doubtless not the weak only, but the strong may leave him: if not for fear, yet for the dignity's sake of religion, which cannot be liable to all base affronts, merely for the worshipping of a civil marriage. I take therefore "departing" to be as large as the négative of being well pleased: that is, if he be not pleased for the present to live lovingly, quietly, inoffensively, so as may give good hope; which appears well by that which follows.

"A brother or a sister is not under bondage in such cases."] If St. Paul provide seriously against the bondage of a Christian, it is not the only bondage to live unmarried for a deserting infidel, but to endure his presence intolerably, to bear indignities against his religion in words or deeds, to be wearied with seducements, to have idolatries and superstitions ever before his eyes, to be tormented with impure and profane conversation; this must needs be bondage to a Christian: is this left all unprovided for, without remedy, or freedom granted? Undoubtedly no; for the apostle leaves it further to be considered with prudence, what bondage a brother or sister is not under, not only in this case, but as he speaks himself plurally, "in such cases."

“But God hath called us to peace."] To peace, not to bondage, not to brabbles and contentions with him who is not pleased to live peaceably, as marriage and Christianity require. And where strife arises from a cause hopeless to be allayed, what better way to peace than by separating that which is ill joined? It is not divorce that first breaks the peace of a family, as some fondly comment on this place; but it is peace already broken, which, when other cures fail can only be restored to the faultless person by a necessary divorce. And St. Paul here warrants us to seek peace, rather than to remain in bondage. If God hath called us to peace, why should we not follow him, why should we miserably stay in perpetual discord under a servitude not required?

"For what knowest thou, O wife, whether thou shalt save thy husband," &c.] St. Paul having thus cleared himself, not to go about the mining of our Christian liberty, not to cast a snare upon us, which to do he so much hated, returns now to the second reason of that law, to put away an infidel for fear of seducement, which he does not here contradict with a command now to venture that; but if neither the infirmity of the Christian, nor the strength of the unbeliever, be feared, but hopes appearing that he may be won, he judges it no breaking of that law, though the believer be permitted to forbear divorce, and can abide, without the peril of seducement, to offer the charity of a salvation to wife or husband, which is the fulfilling, not the transgressing, of that law; and well worth the undertaking with much hazard and patience. For what knowest thou, whether thou shalt save thy wife; that is, till all means convenient and possible with discretion and pro

bability, as human things are, have been used. For Christ himself sends not our hope on pilgrimage to the world's end; but sets it bounds, beyond which we need not wait on a brother, much less on an infidel. If after such a time we may count a professing Christian no better than a heathen, after less time perhaps we may cease to hope of a heathen, that he will turn Christian. Otherwise, to bind us harder than the law, and tell us we are not under bondage, is mere mockery. If, till the unbeliever please to part, we may not stir from the house of our bondage, then certain this our liberty is not grounded in the purchase of Christ, but in the pleasure of a miscreant. What knows the loyal husband, whether he may not save the adulteress? he is not therefore bound to receive her. What knows the wife, but she may reclaim her husband who hath deserted her? Yet the reformed churches do not enjoin her to wait longer than after the contempt of an ecclesiastical summons. Beza himself here befriends us with a remarkable speech, "What could be firmly constituted in human matters, if under pretence of expecting grace from above, it should be never lawful for us to seek our right?" And yet in other cases not less reasonable to obtain a most just and needful remedy by divorce, he turns the innocent party to a task of prayers beyond the multitude of beads and rosaries, to beg the gift of chastity in recompense of an injurious marriage. But the apostle is evident enough, "we are not under bondage;" trusting that he writes to those who are not ignorant what bondage is, to let supercilious determiners cheat them of their freedom. God hath 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 profane, 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 freedom from paganism, into a general freedom from any desertion. Secondly, they reason from the likeness of either fact, "the same law redounds to the deserted by a Christian, as by an infidel, the same peril of temptation." 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 persuasion, 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 deserter, but the desertion of the infidel, from which the apostle gives this freedom" and I join, that the apostle 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 dispute, 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 dullness 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 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, who in their time were able to carry what they taught, had they urged it, through all Christendom; or to have left it such a credit with all good men, as they who could not boldly use the opinion, would have feared to censure it. But since by his appointment on whom the times and seasons wait, every point of doctrine is not fatal to be thoroughly sifted out in every age; it will be enough for me to find, that the thoughts of wisest heads heretofore, and hearts no less reverenced for devotion, have tended this way, and contributed their lot in some good measure towards this which hath been here attained. Others of them, and modern especially, have been as full in the assertion, though not so full in the reason; so that either in this regard, or in the former, I shall be manifest in a middle fortune to meet the praise or dispraise of being something first.

But I defer not what I undertook to show, that in the church both primitive and reformed, the words of Christ have been understood to grant divorce for other causes than adultery; and that the word fornication, in marriage, hath a larger sense than that commonly supposed.

Justin Martyr in his first Apology, written within fifty years after St. John died, relates a story which Eusebius transcribes, that a certain matron of Rome, the wife of a vicious husband, herself also formerly vicious, but converted to the faith, and persuading the same to her husband, at least the amendinent of his wicked life; upon his not yielding to her daily entreaties and persuasions in this behalf, procured by law to be divorced from him. This was neither for adultery, nor desertion, but as the relation says, "esteeming it an ungodly thing to be the consort of bed with him, who against the law of nature and of right sought out voluptuous ways." Suppose he endeavoured some unnatural abuse, as the Greek admits that meaning, it cannot yet be called adultery; it therefore could be thought worthy of di vorce no otherwise than as equivalent, or worse; and other vices will appear in other respects as much divorcive. Next, it is said her friends. advised her to stay a while; and what reason gave they? not because they held unlawful what she purposed, but because they thought she might longer yet hope his repentance. She obeyed, till the man going to Alexandria, and from thence reported to grow still more impenitent, not for any adultery or desertion, whereof neither can be gathered, but saith the Martyr, and speaks it like one approving, "lest she should be partaker of his unrighteous and ungodly deeds, remaining in wedlock, the communion of bed and board with such a person, she left him by a lawful divorce." This cannot but give us the judgment of the church in those pure and next to apostolic times. For how else could the woman have been permitted, or here not reprehended? and if a wife might then do this without reproof, a husband certainly might no less, if not more.

Tertullian in the same age, writing his fourth Book against Marcion, witnesses that Christ, by his answer to the Pharisees, protected the constitution of Moses as his own, and directed the institution of the Creator," for I alter not his Carthaginian phrase; "he excused rather than destroyed the constitution of Moses; I say, he forbid conditionally, if any one therefore put away, that he may marry another: so that if he prohibited conditionally, then not wholly: and what he forbad not wholly, he permitted otherwise, where the cause ceases for which he prohibited:" that is, when a inan makes it not the cause of his putting away, merely that he may marry VOL. I.

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again. "Christ teaches not contrary to Moses, the justice of divorce hath Christ the asserter: he would not have marriage separate, nor kept with ignominy, permitting then a divorce;" and guesses that this vehemence of our Saviour's sentence was chiefly bent against Herod, as was cited before. Which leaves it evident how Tertullian interpreted this prohibition of our Saviour: for whereas the text is, "Whosoever putteth away, and marrieth another," wherefore should Tertullian explain it, "Whosoever putteth away that he may marry another," but to signify his opinion, that our Saviour did not forbid divorce from an unworthy yoke, but forbid the malice or the lust of a needless change, and chiefly those plotted divorces then in use? Origen in the next century testifies to have known certain who had the government of churches in his time, who permitted some to marry, while yet their former husbands lived, and excuses the deed, as done "not without cause, though without Scripture," which confirms that cause not to be adultery; for how then was it against Scripture that they married again? And a little beneath, for I cite his seventh homily on Matthew, saith he, "to endure faults worse than adultery and fornication, seems a thing unreasonable;" and disputes therefore that Christ did not speak by "way of precept, but as it were expounding." By which and the like speeches, Origen declares his mind, far from thinking that our Saviour confined all the causes of divorce to actual adultery.

Lactantius, of the age that succeeded, speaking of this matter in the 6th of his "Institutions," hath these words: "But lest any think he may circumscribe divine precepts, let this be added, that all misinterpreting, and occasion of fraud or death may be removed, he commits adultery who marries the divorced wife; and besides the crime of adultery, divorces a wife that he may marry another." To divorce and marry another, and to divorce that he may marry another, are two different things; and imply that Lactantius thought not this place the forbidding of all necessary divorce, but such only as proceeded from the wanton desire of a future choice, not from the burden of a present affliction.

About this time the council of Eliberis in Spain decreed the husband excommunicate, "if he kept his wife being an adulteress; but if he left her, he might after ten years be received into communion, if he retained her any while in his house after the adultery known." The council of Neocæsaria, in the year 314, decreed, That if the wife of any laic were convicted of adultery, that man could not be admitted into the ministry: if after ordination it were committed, he was to divorce her; if not he could not hold his ministry. The council 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?

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