Page:The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce - Milton (1644).djvu/27

  man. When therfore this originall and sinles Penury or Lonelines of the soul cannot lay it selfe down by the side of such a meet and acceptable union as God ordain'd in marriage, at least in some proportion, it cannot conceive and bring forth Love, but remains utterly unmarried under a formall wedlock, and still burnes in the proper meaning of S. Paul. Then enters Hate, not that Hate that sins, but that which onely is naturall dissatisfaction, and the turning aside from a mistaken object: if that mistake have done injury, it fails not to dismisse with recompence; for to retain still, and not be able to love, is to heap up more injury. Thence this wise and pious Law of dismission now defended took beginning: He therfore who lacking of his due in the most native and human end of mariage, thinks it better to part then to live sadly and injuriously to that cheerfull covnant (for not to be belov'd & yet retain'd, is the greatest injury to a gentle spirit) he I say who therfore seeks to part, is one who highly honours the married life, and would not stain it: and the reasons which now move him to divorce, are equall to the best of those that could first warrant him to marry; for, as was plainly shewn, both the hate which now diverts him and the lonelinesse which leads him still powerfully to seek a fit help, hath not the least grain of a sin in it, if he be worthy to understand himselfe.

 

Hirdly, Yet it is next to be fear'd, if he must be still bound without reason by a deafe rigor, that when he perceives the just expectance of his mind defeated, he will begin even against Law to cast about where he may find his satisfaction more compleat, unlesse he be a thing heroically vertuous, and that are not the common lump of men for whom chiefly the Laws ought to be made, though not to their sins, yet to their unsinning weaknesses, it being above their strength to endure the lonely estate, which while they shun'd, they are fal'n into. And yet there follows upon this a worse temptation; for if he be such as hath spent his youth unblamably, and layd up his chiefest earthly comforts in the enjoyment of a contented mariage, nor did neglect that furderance which was to be obtain'd therein by constant prayers, when he shall find himselfe bound fast to  Rh