Page:The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce - Milton (1644).djvu/58

 to sin by, should enact a dispensation as long liv'd as a law wherby to live in priviledg'd adultery for hardnes of heart, and yet this obdurat disease cannot bee conceiv'd how it was the more amended by this unclean remedy, is the most deadly and Scorpion like gift that the enemy of mankind could have given to any miserable sinner, and is rather such a dispence as that was which the serpent gave to our first parents. God gave Quails in his wrath, and Kings in his wrath, yet neither of these things evill in themselves, but that hee whose eyes cannot behold impurity, should in the book of his holy covnant, his most unpassionat law, give licence, and statute for uncontroul'd adultery, although it goe for the receiv'd opinion, I shall ever disswade my soul from such a creed, such an indulgence as the shop of Antichrist never forg'd a baser.

 

Ut if we must needs dispence, let us for a while so farre dispence with truth, as to grant that sinne may be dispenc't: yet there will be copious reason found to prove that the Jew had no more right to such a suppos'd indulgence, then the Christian, whether we look at the clear knowledge wherin he liv'd, or the strict performance of works wherto he was bound. Besides visions and prophesies they had the Law of God, which in the Psalmes and Proverbs is chiefly prais'd for surenesse and certainty both easie and perfect to the enlightning of the simple. How could it be so obscure then, or they so sottishly blind in this plain morall and houshold duty? They had the same precepts about mariage, Christ added nothing to their clearnesse, for that had argu'd them imperfect; hee opens not the Law, but removes the Pharisaick mists rais'd between the law and the peoples eyes: the onely sentence which he addes, What God hath joyn'd let no man put asunder, is as obscure as any clause fetcht out of Genesis, and hath encreast a yet undecided controversie of Clandestine mariages. If we examine over all his sayings, we shall find him not so much interpreting the Law with his words, as referring his owne words to be interpreted by the Law, and oftner obscures his mind in short, and vehement, and compact sentences, to blind and puzzle them the more who would not understand the Law. The Jewes therfore were as little to be dispenc't with for lack of morall knowledge, as we.

Next, none I think will deny, but that they were as much bound to