# The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce/Bk2 Chapter 9

CHAP. IX.
ANd to entertain a little their overweening arrogance as best befitted, and to amaze them yet furder, because they thought it no hard matter to fulfill the Law, he draws them up to that unseparable ​institution which God ordain'd in the beginning before the fall, when man and woman were both perfect, and could have no cause to separate: just as in the same Chap. he stands not to contend with the arrogant young man who boasted his observance of the whole Law, whether he had indeed kept it or not, but skrues him up higher, to a task of that perfection, which no man is bound to imitate. And in like manner that pattern of the first institution he set before the opinionative Pharises to dazle them and not to bind us. For this is a solid rule, that every command giv'n with a reason, binds our obedience no otherwise then that reason holds. Of this sort was that command in Eden; Therfore shall a man cleave to his wife, and they shall be one flesh: which we see is no absolute command, but with an inference, Therfore: the reason then must be first consider'd, that our obedience be not mis-obedience. The first is, for it is not single, because the wife is to the husband flesh of his flesh, as in the verse going before. But this reason cannot be sufficient of it self: for why then should he for his wife leave his father and mother, with whom he is farre more flesh of flesh and bone of bone, as being made of their substance. And besides it can be but a sorry and ignoble society of life, whose unseparable injunction depends meerly upon flesh and bones. Therfore we must look higher, since Christ himself recalls us to the beginning, and we shall finde that the primitive reason of never divorcing, was that sacred and not vain promise of God to remedy mans lonelines by making him a meet help for him, though not now in perfection, as at first, yet still in proportion as things now are. And this is repeated vers. 20 when all other creatures were fitly associated and brought to Adam, as if the divine power had bin in some care and deep thought, because there was not yet found an help meet for man. And can we so slightly depresse the all-wise purpose of a deliberating God, as if his consultation had produc't no other good for man but to joyn him with an accidentall companion of propagation, which his sudden word had already made for every beast? nay a farre lesse good to man it will be found, if she must at all aventures be fasten'd upon him individually. And therefore even plain sense and equity, and, which is above them both, the all-interpreting voice of Charity her self cries loud that this primitive reason, this consulted promise of God to make a meet help, is the onely cause that gives authority to this command of not divorcing, to be a command. And it might be further added, that if the true definition of a wife were askt in good earnest, this clause of being a meet help would shew it self ​so necessary, and so essential in that demonstrative argument, that it might be logically concluded: therfore she who naturally and perpetually is no meet help, can be no wife; which cleerly takes away the difficulty of dismissing of such a one. If this be not thought anough, I answer yet furder, that mariage, unlesse it mean a fit and tolerable mariage, is not inseparable neither by nature nor institution. Not by nature for then those Mosaick divorces had bin against nature, if separable and inseparable be contraries, as who doubts they be: and what is against nature is against Law, if soundest Philosophy abuse us not: by this reckning Moses should bee most unmosaick that is, most illegal, not to say most unnaturall. Nor is it inseparable by the first institution: for then no second institution in the same Law for so many causes could dissolve it: it being most unworthy a human (as Plato's judgement is in the fourth book of his Lawes) much more a divine Law-giver to write two several decrees upon the same thing. But what could Plato have deem'd if the one of these were good, the other evill to be done? Lastly, suppose it bee inseparable by institution, yet in competition with higher things, as religion and charity in mainest matters, and when the chiefe end is frustrat for which it was ordain'd, as hath been shown, if still it must remain inseparable, it holds a strange and lawlesse propriety from all other works of God under heaven. From these many considerations we may safely gather, that so much of the first institution as our Saviour mentions, for he mentions not all, was but to quell and put to non-plus the tempting Pharises; and to lay open their ignorance and shallow understanding of the Scriptures. For, saith he, have ye not read that he which made them at the beginning, made them male and female, and said, for this cause shall a man cleave to his wife? which these blind usurpers of Moses chair could not gainsay: as if this single respect of male and female were sufficient against a thousand inconveniences and mischiefes, to clogge a rationall creature to his endlesse sorrow unrelinquishably, under the guilefull superscription of his intended solace and comfort. What if they had thus answer'd, Master, if thou mean to make wedlock as inseparable as it was from the begining, let it be made also a fit society, as God meant it, which we shall soon understand it ought to be, if thou recite the whole reason of the law. Doubtlesse our Saviour had applauded their just answer. For then they had expounded this command of Paradise, even as Moses himselfe expounds it by his lawes of divorce, that is, with due and wise regard had to the premises and reasons of the first ​command, according to which, without unclean and temporizing permissions he instructs us in this imperfect state what we may lawfully doe about divorce.
But if it be thought that the Disciples offended at the rigour of Christs answer, could yet obtain no mitigation of the former sentence pronounc't to the Pharises, it may be fully answer'd, that our Saviour continues the same reply to his Disciples, as men leaven'd with the same customary licence, which the Pharises maintain'd, and displeas'd at the removing of a traditionall abuse wherto they had so long not unwillingly bin us'd: it was no time then to contend with their slow and prejudicial belief, in a thing wherin an ordinary measure of light in Scripture, with some attention might afterwards informe them well anough. And yet ere Christ had finisht this argument, they might have pickt out of his own concluding words, an answer more to their minds, and in effect the same with that which hath been all this while entreating audience. All men, said he, cannot receive this saying, save they to whom it is given, he that is able to receive it let him receive it. What saying is this which is left to a mans choice to receive or not receive? What but the married life. was our Saviour then so mild and favourable to the weaknesse of a single man, and is he turn'd on the sudden so rigorous and inexorable to the distresses and extremities of an ill wedded man? Did hee so graciously give leave to change the better single life for the worse maried life? Did he open so to us this hazardous and accidentall doore of mariage to shut upon us like the gate of death without retracting or returning, without permitting to change the worst, most insupportable, most unchristian mischance of mariage for all the mischiefes and sorrowes that can ensue, being an ordinance which was especially giv'n as a cordial and exhilarating cup of solace the better to beare our other crosses and afflictions? questionlesse this were a hardheartednesse of undivorcing, worse then that in the Jewes which they say extorted the allowance from Moses, and is utterly dissonant from all the doctrine of our Saviour. After these considerations therfore to take a law out of Paradise giv'n in time of originall perfection, and to take it barely without those just and equall inferences and reasons which mainly establish it, nor so much as admitting those needfull and safe allowances wherwith Moses himselfe interprets it to the faln condition of man, argues nothing in us but rashnesse and contempt of those meanes that God left us in his pure and chast Law without which it will not be ​possible for us to perform the strict imposition of this command: or if we strive beyond our strength, we shall strive to obay it otherwise then God commands it. And lamented experience daily teaches the bitter and vain fruits of this our presumption, forcing men in a thing wherin we are not able to judge either of their strength, or of their sufferance. Whom neither one vice nor other by natural addiction, but onely mariage ruins, which doubtlesse is not the fault of that ordinance, for God gave it as a blessing, nor alwayes of mans mis-choosing; it being an error above wisdom to prevent, as examples of wisest men so mistaken manifest: it is the fault therfore of a perverse opinion that will have it continu'd in despite of nature and reason, when indeed it was never truly joyn'd. All those expositers upon the fifth of Matthew confesse the Law of Moses to be the Law of the Lord wherin no addition or diminution hath place; yet coming to the point of divorce, as if they fear'd not to be call'd least in the kingdom of heav'n, any slight evasion will content them to reconcile those contradictions which they make between Christ and Moses, between Christ and Christ.
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