Page:Tetrachordon - Milton (1645).djvu/44

 as might move a good and honest and faithfull man then to divorce, when it can no more bee peace or comfort to either of them continuing thus joyn'd. And although it could not be avoided, but that men of hard hearts would abuse this liberty, yet doubtles it was intended, as all other privileges in Law are, to good men principally, to bad only by accident. So that the sin was not in the permission, nor simply in the action of divorce (for then the permitting also had bin sin) but only in the abuse. But that this Law should, as it were, bee wrung from God and Moses, only to serve the hardheartednes, and the lust of injurious men, how remote it is from all sense, and law, and honesty, and therfore surely from the meaning of Christ, shall abundantly be manifest in due order.

Now although Moses needed not to adde other reason of this law then that one there exprest, yet to these ages wherin Canons, and Scotisms, and Lumbard Laws, have dull'd, and almost obliterated the lively Sculpture of ancient reason, and humanity, it will be requisit to heap reason upon reason, and all little enough to vindicat the whitenes and the innocence of this divine Law, from the calumny it findes at this day, of beeing a dore to licence and confusion. When as indeed there is not a judicial point in all Moses, consisting of more true equity, high wisdom, and God-like pitty then this Law; not derogating, but preserving the honour and peace of Mariage, and exactly agreeing with the sense and mind of that institution in Genesis.

For first, if Mariage be but an ordain'd relation, as it seems not more, it cannot take place above the prime dictats of nature; and if it bee of natural right, yet it must yeeld to that which is more natural, and before it by eldership and precedence in nature. Now it is not natural that Hugh marries Beatrice, or Thomas Rebecca, beeing only a civill contract, and full of many chances; but that these men seek them meet helps, that only is natural, and that they espouse them such, that only is mariage. But if they find them neither fit helps nor tolerable society, what thing more natural, more original and first in nature then to depart from that which is irksom, greevous, actively hateful, and injurious eevn to hostility, especially in a conjugal respect, wherin antipathies are invincible, and wher the forc't abiding of the one can bee no true good, no real comfort to the other? For if hee find no contentment from the other, how can he Rh