confesse was good to doe: and were it possible to doe by law, doubtlesse it would be most morally good; and they so beleeving, as we heare they do, and yet abolishing a law so good and moral, the limiter of sin, what are they else but contrary to themselves? For they can never bring us to that time wherein it will not be good to limit sinne, and they can never limit it better then so as God prescrib'd in his law.
Others conceav it a more defensible retirement to say this permission to divorce sinfully for hardnesse of heart was a dispensation. But surely they either know not, or attend not to what a dispensation means. A dispensation is for no long time, is particular to som persons, rather then generall to a whole people; alwaies hath charity the end, is granted to necessities and infirmities, not to obstinat lust. This permission is another creature, hath all those evils and absurdities following the name of a dispensation, as when it was nam'd a law; and is the very antarctic pole against charity, nothing more advers, ensnaring and ruining those that trust in it, or use it; so leud and criminous as never durst enter into the head of any Politician, Jew, or Proselyte, till they became the apt Schollers of this canonistic exposition. Ought in it, that can allude in the lest manner to charity, or goodnes, belongs with more full right to the christian under grace and liberty, then to the Jew under law and bondage. To Jewish ignorance it could not be dispenc't, without a horrid imputation laid upon the law, to dispence fouly, in stead of teaching fairly; like that dispensation that first polluted Christendom with idolatry, permitting to lay men images in stead of bookes and preaching. Sloth or malice in the law would they have this calld? But what ignorance can be pretended for the Jewes, who had all the same precepts about mariage, that we now: for Christ refers all to the institution. It was as reasonable for them to know then as for us now, and concern'd them alike: for wherein hath the gospel alter'd the nature of matrimony? All these considerations, or many of them, have bin furder amplify'd in the doctrine of divorce. And what Rivetus and Paræus hath objected, or giv'n over as past cure hath been there discusst. Whereby it may be plain anough to men of eyes, that the vulgar exposition of a permittance by law to an entire sin, what ever the colour may be, is an opinion both ungodly, unpolitic, unvertuous, and void of all honesty & civil sense. It appertaines therefore to every zealous Christian both for the honour of Gods law & the vindication of our Saviours words, that such an irreligious depravement no longer may be sooth'd and flatter'd through custome, but with all diligence and speed solidly refuted, and in the room a better explanation giv'n; which is now our next endeavour.
