here below; whether all these jointly or singly meeting friendly or unfriendly in either party, I dare not with the men I am like to clash, appear so much a philosopher as to conjecture. The ancient proverb in Homer, less abstruse, entitles this work of leading each like person to his like peculiar to God himself, which is plain enough also by his naming of a meet or like help in the first espousal instituted; and that every woman is meet for every man, none so absurd as to affirm. Seeing then there is a two-fold seminary, or stock in nature, from whence are derived the issues of love and hatred, distinctly flowing through the whole mass of created things, and that God's doing ever is to bring the due likenesses and harmonies of his work together, except when out of two contraries met to their own destruction, he moulds a third existence; and that it is error or some evil angel which either blindly or maliciously hath drawn together, in two persons ill embarked in wedlock, the sleeping discords and enmities of nature, lulled on purpose with some false bait, that they may wake to agony and strife, later than prevention could have wished, if from the bent of just and honest intentions beginning what was begun and so continuing, all that is equal, all that is fair and possible hath been tried and no accommodation likely to succeed; what folly it is still to stand combating and battering against invincible causes and effects, with evil upon evil, till either the best of our days be lingered out, or ended with some speeding sorrow! The wise Ecclesiasticus advises rather, xxxvii, 27, 'My son, prove thy soul in thy life, see what is evil for it and give not that unto it.' Reason he had to say so, for if the noisomeness or disfigurement of body can soon destroy the sympathy of mind to wedlock duties, much more will the annoyance and trouble of mind infuse itself into all the faculties and acts of the body, to render them invalid, unkindly, and even unholy, against the fundamental law book of nature, which Moses never thwarts, but reverences; therefore he commands us to force nothing against sympathy or natural order, no not upon the most abject creatures; to show that such an indignity can not be offered to man without an impious crime. And certainly those divine meditating words of finding out a meet and like help to man have in them a consideration of more than the indefinite likeness of womanhood; nor are they to be made waste paper of, for the dullness of canon divinity; no, nor those other allegoric precepts of beneficence fetched out of the closet of nature, to teach us goodness and compassion in not compelling together unmatchable societies; or if they meet through mischance, by all consequence to disjoin them, as God and nature signifies, and lectures to us not only by those recited decrees, but even by the first and last of all his visible works; when by his divorcing command the world first rose out of chaos, nor can be renewed again out of confusion, but by the separating of unmeet consorts.

I can not therefore be so diffident, as not securely to conclude that he who can receive nothing of the most important helps in marriage, being thereby disenabled to return that duty which is his, with a clear and hearty countenance, and thus continues to grieve whom he would not, and is no less grieved, that man ought even for love's sake and peace to move divorce upon good and liberal conditions to the divorced. And it is a less breach of wedlock to part with wise and quiet consent betimes, than still to soil and profane that mystery

of joy and union with a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper: for it is not the outward continuing of marriage that keeps whole that covenant, but whosoever does most according to peace and love, whether in marriage or in divorce, he it is that breaks marriage least: it being so often written that 'Love only is the fulfilling of every commandment.'

No man urges the just divorcing of adultery as it is a sin, but as it is an injury to marriage; and though it be but once committed, and that without malice, whether through importunity or opportunity, the gospel does not therefore dissuade him who would therefore divorce; but that natural hatred, when ever it arises, is a greater evil in marriage than the accident of adultery, a greater defrauding, a greater injustice, and yet not blameable, he who understands not after all this representing, I doubt his will, like a hard spleen, draws faster than his understanding can well sanguify: nor did that man ever know or feel what it is to love truly, nor ever yet comprehended in his thoughts what the true intent of marriage is. And this also will be somewhat above his reach, but yet no less a truth for lack of his perspective, that as no man apprehends what vice is so well as he who is truly virtuous, no man knows hell like him who converses most in heaven; so there is none that can estimate the evil and the affliction of a natural hatred in matrimony, unless he have a soul gentle enough and spacious enough to contemplate what is true love,

And the reason why men so disesteem this wise-judging law of God, and count hate, or 'the not finding of favour,' as it is there termed, a humorous, a dishonest, and slight cause of divorce, is because themselves apprehend so little of what true concord means: for, if they did, they would be juster in their balancing between natural hatred and casual adultery: this being but a transient injury, and soon amended, I mean as to the party against whom the trespass is; but that other being an unspeakable and unremitting sorrow and offence, whereof no amends can be made, no cure, no ceasing but by divorce, which like a divine touch in one moment heals all, and (like the word of God) in one instant hushes outrageous tempests into a sudden stillness and peaceful calm. Yet all this so great a good of God's own enlarging to us is, by the hard reins of them that fit us, wholly diverted and embezzled from us. Maligners of mankind! But who hath taught you to mangle thus and make more gashes in a blameless creature, with the leaden daggers of your literal decrees, to whose ease you can not add the tithe of one small atom, but by letting alone your unhelpful surgery.

But marriage is more than human, 'the covenant of God,' therefore man can not dissolve it. I answer, if it be more than human, so much the more it argues the chief society thereof to be in fitness of mind rather than defect of body; for the body can have least affinity in a covenant more than human, so that the reason of dissolving holds good the rather.

What covenant more contracted with God and less in man's power, than the wow which has once passed his lips? Yet if it be found rash, if offensive, if unfruitful either to God's glory or the good of man, our doctrine forces not

here below; whether all these jointly or singly meeting friendly or unfriendly in either party, I dare not with the men I am like to clash, appear so much a philosopher as to conjecture. The ancient proverb in Homer, less abstruse, entitles this work of leading each like person to his like peculiar to God himself, which is plain enough also by his naming of a meet or like help in the first espousal instituted; and that every woman is meet for every man, none so absurd as to affirm. Seeing then there is a two-fold seminary, or stock in nature, from whence are derived the issues of love and hatred, distinctly flowing through the whole mass of created things, and that God's doing ever is to bring the due likenesses and harmonies of his work together, except when out of two contraries met to their own destruction, he moulds a third existence; and that it is error or some evil angel which either blindly or maliciously hath drawn together, in two persons ill embarked in wedlock, the sleeping discords and enmities of nature, lulled on purpose with some false bait, that they may wake to agony and strife, later than prevention could have wished, if from the bent of just and honest intentions beginning what was begun and so continuing, all that is equal, all that is fair and possible hath been tried and no accommodation likely to succeed; what folly it is still to stand combating and battering against invincible causes and effects, with evil upon evil, till either the best of our days be lingered out, or ended with some speeding sorrow! The wise Ecclesiasticus advises rather, xxxvii, 27, 'My son, prove thy soul in thy life, see what is evil for it and give not that unto it.' Reason he had to say so, for if the noisomeness or disfigurement of body can soon destroy the sympathy of mind to wedlock duties, much more will the annoyance and trouble of mind infuse itself into all the faculties and acts of the body, to render them invalid, unkindly, and even unholy, against the fundamental law book of nature, which Moses never thwarts, but reverences; therefore he commands us to force nothing against sympathy or natural order, no not upon the most abject creatures; to show that such an indignity can not be offered to man without an impious crime. And certainly those divine meditating words of finding out a meet and like help to man have in them a consideration of more than the indefinite likeness of womanhood; nor are they to be made waste paper of, for the dullness of canon divinity; no, nor those other allegoric precepts of beneficence fetched out of the closet of nature, to teach us goodness and compassion in not compelling together unmatchable societies; or if they meet through mischance, by all consequence to disjoin them, as God and nature signifies, and lectures to us not only by those recited decrees, but even by the first and last of all his visible works; when by his divorcing command the world first rose out of chaos, nor can be renewed again out of confusion, but by the separating of unmeet consorts.

I can not therefore be so diffident, as not securely to conclude that he who can receive nothing of the most important helps in marriage, being thereby disenabled to return that duty which is his, with a clear and hearty countenance, and thus continues to grieve whom he would not, and is no less grieved, that man ought even for love's sake and peace to move divorce upon good and liberal conditions to the divorced. And it is a less breach of wedlock to part with wise and quiet consent betimes, than still to soil and profane that mystery

of joy and union with a polluting sadness and perpetual distemper: for it is not the outward continuing of marriage that keeps whole that covenant, but whosoever does most according to peace and love, whether in marriage or in divorce, he it is that breaks marriage least; it being so often written that 'Love only is the fulfilling of every commandment."

No man urges the just divorcing of adultery as it is a sin, but as it is an injury to marriage; and though it be but once committed, and that without malice, whether through importunity or opportunity, the gospel does not therefore dissuade him who would therefore divorce; but that natural hatred, whenever it arises, is a greater evil in marriage than the accident of adultery, a greater defrauding, a greater injustice, and yet not blameable, he who understands not after all this representing, I doubt his will, like a hard spleen, draws faster than his understanding can well sanguify: nor did that man ever know or feel what it is to love truly, nor ever yet comprehended in his thoughts what the true intent of marriage is. And this also will be somewhat above his reach, but yet no less a truth for lack of his perspective, that as no man apprehends what vice is so well as he who is truly virtuous, no man knows hell like him who converses most in heaven; so there is none that can estimate the evil and the affliction of a natural hatred in matrimony, unless he have a soul gentle enough and spacious enough to contemplate what is true love,

And the reason why men so disesteem this wise-judging law of God, and count hate, or 'the not finding of favour,' as it is there termed, a humorous, a dishonest, and slight cause of divorce, is because themselves apprehend so little of what true concord means: for, if they did, they would be juster in their balancing between natural hatred and casual adultery: this being but a transient injury, and soon amended, I mean as to the party against whom the trespass is; but that other being an unspeakable and unremitting sorrow and offence, whereof no amends can be made, no cure, no ceasing but by divorce, which like a divine touch in one moment heals all, and (like the word of God) in one instant hushes outrageous tempests into a sudden stillness and peaceful calm. Yet all this so great a good of God's own enlarging to us is, by the hard reins of them that fit us, wholly diverted and embezzled from us. Maligners of mankind! But who hath taught you to mangle thus and make more gashes in a blameless creature, with the leaden daggers of your literal decrees, to whose ease you can not add the tithe of one small atom, but by letting alone your unhelpful surgery.

But marriage is more than human, 'the covenant of God,' therefore man can not dissolve it. I answer, if it be more than human, so much the more it argues the chief society thereof to be in fitness of mind rather than defect of body; for the body can have least affinity in a covenant more than human, so that the reason of dissolving holds good the rather.

What covenant more contracted with God and less in man's power, than the vow which has once passed his lips? Yet if it be found rash, if offensive, if unfruitful either to God's glory or the good of man, our doctrine forces not

error and unwillingness irksomely to keep it, but counsels wisdom and better thoughts boldly to break it; therefore to enjoin the indissoluble keeping of a marriage found unfit against the good of man, both soul and body, as hath been evidenced, is to make an idol of marriage, to advance it above the worship of God and the good of man, to make it a transcendent command, above both the second and first table; which is a most prodigious doctrine.

So every covenant between man and man, bound by oath, may be called the covenant of God, because God therein is attested. So of marriage he is the author and the witness; yet hence will not follow any divine astriction more than what is subordinate to the glory of God, and the main good of either party; for as the glory of God and their esteemed fituess one for another was the motive which led them both at first to think, without other revelation, that God had joined them together; so when it shall be found by their apparent unfitness that their continuing man and wife is against the glory of God and their mutual happiness, it may assure them that God never joined them; who hath revealed his gracious will not to set the ordinance above the man for whom it was ordained; not to canonize marriage either as a tyranness or a goddess over the enfranchised life and soul of man; for wherein can God delight, wherein be worshiped, wherein be glorified by the forcible continuing of an improper and ill-yoking couple? He that loveth not the disparity of several cattle at the plough, can not be pleased with vast unmeetness in marriage. Where can be the peace and love which must invite God to such a house?

Yet men whose creed is custom, I doubt not will be still endeavouring to hide the sloth of their own timorous capacities with this pretext, that for all this it is better to endure with patience and silence this affliction which God hath sent. And I agree it is true, if this be exhorted and not enjoined; but withal it will be wisely done to be as sure as may be, that what man's iniquity hath laid on be not imputed to God's sending, lest under the colour of an affected patience we detain ourselves at the gulf's mouth of many hideous temptations not to be withstood without proper gifts, which God gives not ordinarily, no! not to the most earnest prayers. Therefore we pray, 'Lead us not into temptation!' a vain prayer if, having led ourselves thither, we love to stay in that perilous condition. God sends remedies as well as evils, under which he who lies and groans, that may lawfully acquit himself, is accessory to his own ruin; nor will it excuse him though he suffer through a sluggish fearfulness to search thoroughly what is lawful, for fear of disquieting the secure falsity of an old opinion.