Page:The Doctrine and Discipline of Divorce - Milton (1644).djvu/67

 peculiar people should be let wallow in adulterous mariages almost two thousand yeares, for want of a direct Law to prohibit them; 'tis rather to be confidently assum'd that this was granted to apparent necessities, as being of unquestionable right and reason in the Law of nature, in that it stil passes without inhibition, ev'n when greatest cause is giv'n to us to expect it should be directly forbidd'n.

 

Ut it was not approv'd. So much the worse that it was allow'd; as if sin had over-masterd the law of God, to conform her steddy and strait rule to sins crookednesse, which is impossible. Besides, what needed a positive grant of that which was not approv'd? it restrain'd no liberty to him that could but use a little fraud, it had bin better silenc't, unlesse it were approv'd in some case or other. but still it was not approv'd. Miserable excusers! He who doth evil that good may come thereby, approves not what he doth, and yet the grand rule forbids him, and counts his damnation just if hee doe it. The Sorceresse Medea did not approve her owne evill doings, yet lookt not to be excus'd for that; and it is the constant opinion of Plato in Protagoras, and other of his dialogues agreeing with that proverbiall sentence among the Greeks, that no man is wicked willingly; which also the Peripateticks doe rather distinguish then deny. What great thank then if any man reputed wise and constant, will neither doe nor permit others under his charge to doe that which hee approves not, especially in matter of sinne. But for a Judge, but for a Magistrate the Shepheard of his people to surrender up his approbation against law & his own judgment, to the obstinacie of his heard, what more un-Iudge-like, more un-Magistrate-like, and in warre more un-commander-like? Twice in a short time it was the undoing of the Roman State, first when Pompey, next when Marcus Brutus had not magnanimity anough but to make so poore a resignation of what they approv'd, to what the boisterous Tribunes and Souldiers bawl'd for. Twice it was the saving of two the greatest Common-wealths in the world, of Athens by Themistocles at the Sea fight of Salamis; of Rome by Fabius Maximus in the Punick warre, for that these two matchlesse Generalls had the fortitude at home against the rashnes and the clamours of their own Captains and confederates to withstand the doing or permitting of what they  Rh