Papists, and other Heretics elder then they. Some think there is a high mystery in those words, from that which Paul saith of them, Ephes. 5. This is a great mystery, but I speak of Christ and the Church: and thence they would conclude mariage to be inseparable. For me I dispute not now whether matrimony bee a mystery or no; if it bee of Christ and his Church, certainly it is not meant of every ungodly and miswedded mariage, but then only mysterious, when it is a holy, happy, and peacefull match. But when a Saint is joyn'd with a Reprobate, or both alike wicked with wicked, fool with fool, a hee-drunkard with a she; when the bed hath bin nothing els for twenty yeares or more, but an old haunt of lust and malice mixt together, no love, no goodnes, no loyalty, but counterplotting, and secret wishing one anothers dissolution; this is to me the greatest mystery in the world, if such a mariage as this can be the mystery of ought, unless it bee the mystery of iniquity: According to that which Paræus cites out of Chrysostom, that a bad Wife is a help for the devill, and that like may be said of a bad husband. Since therfore none but a fit and pious matrimony can signify the union of Christ and his Church, ther cannot hence be any hindrance of divorce to that wedlock wherin there can be no good mystery. Rather it might to a Christian Conscience bee matter of finding it self so much less satisfy'd then before, in the continuance of an unhappy yoke, wherein there can be no representation either of Christ, or of his Church.
Thus having enquir'd the institution how it was in the beginning, both from the I Chap. of Gen. where it was only mention'd in part, and from the second, where it was plainly and evidently instituted; and having attended each clause and word necessary with a diligence not drousy, wee shall now fix with som advantage; and by a short view backward gather up the ground wee have gon, and summ up the strength wee have, into one argumentative head, with that organic force that logic proffers us. All arts acknowledge that then only we know certainly, when we can define; for definition is that which refines the pure essence of things from the circumstance. If therfore we can attain in this our Controversy to define exactly what mariage is, wee shall soon lern when there is a nullity thereof, and when a divorce.
The part therfore of this Chapter which hath bin heer treated, doth orderly and readily resolv it self into a definition of mariage, and a
