Page:The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce - Milton (1644).djvu/42

 ''for the good of man. Mariage the Papists Sacrament, and unfit mariage the Protestants Idoll.''

Inthly, I suppose it will be allow'd us that mariage is a human Society, and that all human society must proceed from the mind rather then the body, els it would be but a kind of animall or beastish meeting; if the mind therfore cannot have that due company by mariage, that it may reasonably and humanly desire, that mariage can be no human society, but a certain formality; or guilding over of little better then a brutish congresse, and so in very wisdome and purenesse to be dissolv'd.

But mariage is more then human, the Covnant of God, Prov. 2. 17. therfore man cannot dissolve it. I answer, if it be more then human so much the more it argues the chiefe society thereof to be in the soule rather then in the body, and the greatest breach therof to be unfitnesse of mind rather then defect of body: for the body can have least affinity in a covnant more then human, so that the reason of dissolving holds good the rather. Again, I answer, that the Sabbath is a higher institution, a command of the first Table, for the breach wherof God hath farre more and oftner testify'd his anger then for divorces, which from Moses to Malachy he never took displeasure at, nor then neither, if we mark the Text, and yet as oft as the good of Man is concern'd, he not onely permits, but commands to break the Sabbath. What covnant more contracted with God, and lesse in mans power, then the vow which hath once past his lips? yet if it be found rash, if offensive, if unfruitfull either to Gods glory or the good of man, our doctrine forces not error and unwillingnes irksomly to keep it, but counsels wisedom and better thoughts boldly to break it; therfore to enjoyn the indissoluble keeping of a mariage found unfit against the good of man both soul and body, as hath been evidenc't, is to make an Idol of mariage, to advance it above the worship of God and the good of man, to make it a transcendent command, above both the second and first Table, which is a most prodigious doctrine.

Next, Whereas they cite out of the Proverbs, that it is the Covnant of God, and therfore more then human, that consequence is manifestly false; for so the covnant which Zedechiah made with the Infidell King of Babel, is call'd the Covnant of God, Ezek. 17. 19. which would be strange to heare counted more then a human covnant. So every covnant between man and man, bound by oath, may be call'd the covnant