forbidden loneliness, which will in time draw on with it a general discomfort and dejection of mind, not befeeming either chriftian profeffion or moral conversation, unprofitable and dangerous to the commonwealth, when the houfehold eftate, out of which muft flourish forth the vigour and spirit of all public enterprifes, is fo illcontented and procured at home, and cannot be fupported; fuch a marriage can be no marriage, whereto the most honeft end is wanting: and the aggrieved perfon fhall do more manly, to be extraordinary and fingular in claiming the due right whereof he is fruftrated, than to piece up his loft contentment by vifiting the ftews, or stepping to his neighbour's bed; which is the common fhift in this miffortune: or else by fuffering his useful life to wafte away, and be loft under a fecret affliction of an unconfcionable fize to human ftrength. Against all which evils the mercy of this Mofaic law was graciously exhibited. CHA P. III. The ignorance and iniquity of canon law, providing for the right of the body in marriage, but nothing for the wrongs and grievances of the mind. An objection, that the mind fhould be better looked to before contract, anfwered. How vain therefore is it, and how prepofterous in the canon law, to have made fuch careful provifion against the impediment of carnal performance, and to have had no care about the unconverfing inability of mind fo defective to the pureft and moft facred end of matrimony; and that the veffel of voluptuous enjoyment must be made good to him that has taken it upon truft, without any caution; whenas the mind, from whence must flow the acts of peace and love, a far more precious mixture than the quinteffence of an excrement, though it be found never fo deficient and unable to perform the best duty of marriage in a cheerful and agreeable converfation, shall be thought good enough, however flat and melancholious it be, and muft ferve, though to the eternal disturbance and languishing of him that complains! Yet wisdom and charity, weighing God's own inftitution, would think that the pining of a fad fpirit wedded to loneliness loneliness fhould deserve to be freed, as well as the impatience of a fenfual defire fo providently relieved. It is read to us in the liturgy, that "we must not marry to fatisfy the fleshly appetite, like brute beafts, that have no underflanding:" but the canon fo runs, as if it dreamed of no other matter than fuch an appetite to be fatisfied; for if it happen that nature hath stopped or extinguished the veins of fenfuality, that marriage is annulled. But though all the faculties of the understanding and converfing part after trial appear to be fo ill and fo averfely met through nature's unalterable working, as that neither peace, nor any fociable contentment can follow, it is as nothing; the contract fhall ftand as firm as ever, betide what will. What is this but fecretly to inftruct us, that however many grave reafons are pretended to the married life, yet that nothing indeed is thought worth regard therein, but the prescribed fatisfaction of an irrational heat? Which cannot be but ignominious to the state of marriage, difhonourable to the undervalued foul of man, and even to chriftian doctrine itfelf: while it seems more moved at the difappointing of an impetuous nerve, than at the ingenuous grievance of a mind unreasonably yoked; and to place more of marriage in the channel of concupifcence, than in the pure influence of peace and love whereof the foul's lawful contentment is the only fountain. But fome are ready to object, that the difpofition ought feriously to be confidered before. But let them know again, that for all the warinefs can be ufed, it may yet befal a difcreet man to be mistaken in his choice, and we have plenty of examples. The fobereft and best governed men are leaft practifed in these affairs; and who knows not that the bafhful mutenefs of a virgin may ofttimes hide all the unlivelinefs and natural floth which is really unfit for converfation; nor is there that freedom of accefs granted or prefumed, as may fuffice to a perfect difcerning till too late; and where any indifpofition is fufpected, what more ufual than the perfuafion of friends, that acquaintance, as it increases, will amend all? And lastly, it is not strange though many, who have spent their youth chaftely, are in fome things not fo quick-fighted, while they hafte too eagerly to light the nuptial torch; nor is it therefore that for a modeft errour a man fhould forfeit fo great a happiness, and no charitable means to release him: fince they who have lived most loosely, by reafon of their bold accuftoming, prove most fuccessful in their matches, because their wild affections unfettling at will, have been as fo many divorces to teach them experience. Whenas the fober man honouring the appearance of modefty, and hoping well of every focial virtue under that veil, may eafily chance to meet, if not with a body impenetrable, yet often with a mind to all other due converfation inacceffible, and to all the more estimable and fuperior purposes of matrimony useless and almoft lifelefs: and what a folace, what a fit help fuch a confort would be through the whole life of a man, is lefs pain to conjecture than to have experience. CHA P. IV. The fecond reafon of this law, because without it, marriage as it happens oft is not a remedy of that which it promifes, as any rational creature would expect. That marriage, if we pattern from the beginning, as our Saviour bids, was not properly the remedy of lust, but the fulfilling of conjugal love and helpfulness. AND that we may further fee what a violent cruel thing it is to force the continuing of thofe together, whom God and nature in the gentleft end of marriage never joined; divers evils and extremities, that follow upon fuch a compulfion, shall here be fet in view. Of evils, the first and greatest is, that hereby a moft abfurd and rafh imputation is fixed upon God and his holy laws, of conniving and difpenfing with open and common adultery among his chofen people; a thing which the rankeft politician would think it fhame and difworship that his laws fhould countenance: how and in what manner that comes to pass I fhall referve till the courfe of method brings on the unfolding of many fcriptures. Next, the law and gospel are hereby made liable to more than one contradiction, which I refer alfo thither. Laftly, the fupreme dictate of charity is hereby many ways neglected and violated; which I fhall forthwith addrefs to prove. VOL. I. Аа Firft, Firft, we know St. Paul faith, It is better to marry than to burn. Marriage therefore was given as a remedy of that trouble; but what might this burning mean? Certainly not the mere motion of carnal luft, not the mere goad of a fenfitive defire: God does not principally take care for fuch cattle. What is it then but that defire which God put into Adam in Paradise, before he knew the fin of incontinence; that defire which God faw it was not good that man fhould be left alone to burn in, the defire and longing to put off an unkindly folitarinefs by uniting another body, but not without a fit foul to his, in the chearful fociety of wedlock? Which if it were fo needful before the fall, when man was much more perfect in himself, how much more is it needful now against all the forrows and cafualties of this life, to have an intimate and speaking help, a ready and reviving affociate in marriage? Whereof who miffes, by chancing on a mute and fpiritlefs mate, remains more alone than before, and in a burning lefs to be contained than that which is fleshly, and more to be confidered; as being more deeply rooted even in the faultless innocence of nature. As for that other burning, which is but as it were the venom of a lufty and over abounding concoction, ftrict life and labour, with the abatement of a full diet, may keep that low and obedient enough: but this pure and more inbred defire of joining to itself in conjugal fellowship a fit converfing foul (which defire is properly called love)" is ftronger than death," as the fpoufe of Chrift thought; "many waters cannot quench it, neither can the floods drown it." This is that rational burning that marriage is to remedy, not to be allayed with fafting, nor with any penance to be fubdued: which how can he affuage who by mishap hath met the most unmeet and unfuitable mind? Who hath the power to ftruggle with an intelligible flame, not in Paradise to be refifted, become now more ardent by being failed of what in reafon it looked for; and even then most unquenched, when the importunity of a provender burning is well enough appeafed; and yet the foul hath obtained nothing of what it juftly defires. Certainly fuch a one forbidden to divorce, is in effect forbidden to marry, and compelled compelled to greater difficulties than in a fingle life: for if there be not a more humane burning which marriage muft fatisfy, or elfe may be diffolved, than that of copu lation, marriage cannot be honourable for the meet reducing and terminating luft between two: feeing many beafts in voluntary and chofen couples live together as unadulterously, and are as truly married in that respect. But all ingenuous men will fee that the dignity and bleffing of marriage is placed rather in the mutual enjoyment of that which the wanting foul needfully feeks, than of that which the plenteous body would joyfully give away. Hence it is that Plato in his feftival difcourfe brings in Socrates relating what he feigned to have learned from the prophetefs Diotima, how Love was the fon of Penury, begot of Plenty in the garden of Jupiter. Which divinely forts with that which in effect Mofes tells us, that Love was the fon of Loneliness, begot in Paradife by that fociable and helpful aptitude which God implanted between man and woman toward each other. The fame alfo is that burning mentioned by St. Paul, whereof marriage ought to be the remedy: the flesh hath other mutual and easy curbs, which are in the power of any temperate man. When therefore this original and finlefs penury or lonelinefs of the foul cannot lay itfelf down by the fide of fuch a meet and acceptable union as God ordained in marriage, at leaft in fome proportion, it cannot conceive and bring forth love, but remains utterly unmarried under a formal wedlock, and ftill burns in the proper meaning of St. Paul. Then enters Hâte, not that hate that fins, but that which only is natural diffatisfaction, and the turning afide from a mistaken object: if that mistake have done injury, it fails not to difmifs with recompenfe; for to retain ftill, and not be able to love, is to heap up more injury. Thence this wife and pious law of difmiffion now defended, took beginning: he therefore who lacking of his due in the most native and humane end of marriage, thinks it better to part than to live fadly and injurioufly to that cheerful covenant (for not to be beloved, and yet retained, is the greatest injury to a gentle fpirit) he I fay, who therefore A a 2 feeks |
