Page:Colasterion - Milton (1645).djvu/14

 and the next thing hee does, recants it again.

His eighth Argument shivers in the uttering, and hee confesses to bee not over confident of it; but of the rest it may bee sworn hee is. St. Paul, 1 Cor. 7. saith, that the married have trouble in the flesh, therfore wee must bear it, though never so intolerable.

I Answer, If this bee a true consequence, why are not all troubles to bee born alike? why are wee suffer'd to divorce adulteries, desertions, or frigidities? Who knows not that trouble and affliction is the decree of God upon every state of life? follows it therfore, that though they grow excessive, and insupportable, wee must not avoid them? if wee may in all other conditions, and not in mariage, the doom of our suffering ties us not by the trouble, but by the bond of mariage; and that must bee prov'd inseparable from other reasons, not from this place. And his own confession declares the weaknes of this Argument, yet his ungovern'd arrogance could not bee disswaded from venting it.

His ninth Argument is, That a husband must love his wife as himself, therfore hee may not divorce for any disagreement, no more then hee may separat his soul from his body.

I Answer, if hee love his wife as himself, hee must love her so farre as hee may preserv himself to her in a cherfull and comfortable manner, and not so as to ruin himself by anguish and sorrow, without any benefit to her. Next, if the husband must love his wife as himself, shee must bee understood a wife in som reasonable measure, willing, and sufficient to perform the cheif duties of her Covnant, els by the hold of this Argument, it would bee his great sin to divorce either for adultery, or desertion. The rest of this will run circuit with the union of one flesh, which was answer'd before. And that to divorce a relative and Metaphorical union of two bodies into one flesh, cannot bee likn'd in all things to the dividing of that natural union of soul and body into one person, is apparent of it self.

His last Argument hee fetches from the inconveniences that would follow upon this freedom of divorce, to the corrupting of mens mindes, and the overturning of all human society.

But for mee, let God and Moses answer this blasphemer, who dares bring in such a foul endightment against the divine Law. Why did God permit this to his people the Jewes, but that the right and good which came directly therby, was more in his esteem, then the wrong and