and evil which came by accident. And for those weak supposes of Infants that would be left in their mothers belly, (which must needs bee good news for Chamber-maids, to hear a Serving-man grown so provident for great bellies) and portions, and joyntures likely to incurr imbezlement heerby, the ancient civil Law instructs us plentifully how to award, which our profound opposite knew not, for it was not in his Tenures.
His Arguments are spun, now follows the Chaplain with his Antiquities, wiser if hee had refrain'd, for his very touching ought that is lerned, soiles it, and lays him still more and more open, a conspicuous gull. There beeing both Fathers and Councels more ancient, wherwith to have serv'd his purpos better then with what hee cites, how may we doe to know the suttle drift that mov'd him to begin first with the twelfth Councel of Toledo? I would not undervalue the depth of his notion, but perhaps he had heard that the men of Toledo had store of good blade-mettle, and were excellent at cuttling; who can tell but it might bee the reach of his policy, that these able men of decision, would doe best to have the prime stroke among his testimonies in deciding this cause. But all this craft avails him not; forseeing they allow no cause of divorce but fornication, what doe these keen Doctors heer but cut him over the sinews with thir Toledo's, for holding in the precedent page other causes of divorce besides, both directly, and by consequence. As evil doth that Saxon Councel, next quoted, bestead him. For if it allow divorce precisely for no cause but fornication, it thwarts his own Exposition: and if it understand fornication largely, it sides with whom hee would confute. However, the autority of that Synod can bee but small, beeing under Theodorus, the Canterbury Bishop, a Grecian Monk of Tarsus, revolted from his own Church to the Pope. What have wee next? The Civil Law stufft in between two Councels, as if the Code had bin som Synod; for that hee understood himself in this quotation is incredible; where the Law, Cod. l. 3. tit. 38. leg. 11. speaks not of divorce, but against the dividing of possessions to divers heires, wherby the maried servants of a great family were divided perhaps into distant Countries, and Colonies, Father from Son, Wife from Husband, sore against their will. Somwhat lower hee confesses, that the Civill Law allows many reasons of divorce, but the Cannon Law decrees otherwise. A fair credit to his Cause; and I amaze me, though the fancy of this
