command; If any brother hath an unbeleeving wife, and she be pleased to dwell with him, let him not put her away. For the Greek word συνευδοκει does not imply only her being pleas'd to stay, but his being pleas'd to let her stay; it must be a consent of them both. Nor can the force of this word be render'd less, without either much negligence or iniquity of him that otherwise tranlates it. And thus the Greek Church also and their Synods understood it, who best knew what their own language meant, as appears by Matthæus Monachus an author set forth by Leunclavius, and of antiquity perhaps not inferior to Balsamon who writes upon the canons of the Apostles: this Author in his chap. that mariage is not to be made with heretics, thus recites the second canon of the 6. Synod, As to the Corinthians Paul determins, If the beleeving wife choos to live with the unbeleeving husband, or the beleeving husband with the unbeleeving wife. Mark saith he, how the Apostle heer condescends, if the beleever please to dwell with the unbeleever; so that if he please not, out of doubt the mariage is dissolv'd. And I am perswaded it was so in the beginning, and thus preach't. And thereupon gives an example of one, who though not deserted, yet by the decree of Theodotus the Patriarch divorc't an unbeleeving wife. What therefore depends in the plain state of this question on the consent and well liking of them both, must not be a command. Lay next the latter end of the 11. v. to the twelf (for wherefore else is Logic taught us) in a discreet axiom, as it can be no other by the phrase, The Lord saith, let not the husband put away his wife, But I say let him not put away a misbeleeving wife; this sounds as if by the judgment of Paul, a man might put away any wife but the misbeleeving; or els the parts are not discrete, or dissentanie, for both conclude not putting away, and consequently in such a form the proposition is ridiculous. Of necessity therfore the former part of this sentence must be conceav'd, as understood, and silently granted, that although the Lord command to divorce an infidel, yet I, not the Lord command you? No, but give my judgment, that for som evangelic reasons a christian may be permitted not to divorce her. Thus while we reduce the brevity of St. Paul to a plainer sense, by the needful supply of that which was granted between him and the Corinthians, the very logic of his speech extracts him confessing that the Lords command lay in a seeming contrariety to this his counsel: and that he meant not to thrust out a command of the Lord by a new one of his own, as one nail drives another, but to release us from the rigor of it, by the right of the Gospel, so farre forth as a charitable cause leads us on in the
