that but a small thing is ftrictly forwarn'd; this accounted a high offence against one of the greatest moral duties, is calmely permitted and establisht. How can it be evaded but that the heavie cenfure of Christ should fall worse upon this lawgiver of theirs, then. upon all the Scribes and Pharises? For they did but omit Judgment and Mercy to trifle in Mint and Cummin, yet all according to Law; but this their Lawgiver altogether as punctuall in fuch niceties, goes marching on to adulteries, through the violence of divorce by Law against Law. If it were fuch a cursed act of Pilat a fubordinate Judge to Cæfar, overfwayed by those hard hearts with much a doe to fuffer one tranfgreffion of Law but once, what is it then with leffe a doe to publish a Law of tranfgreffion for many ages? Did God for this come down and cover the Mount of Sinai with his glory, uttering in thunder those his facred Ordinances out of the bottomleffe treasures of his wifdome and infinite purenes to patch up an ulcerous and rott'n common-wealth with strict and stern injunctions, to wash the skin and garments for every unclean touch, and fuch eafie permiffion giv'n to pollute the foule with adulteries by publick authority, without difgrace, or queftion? No it had bin better that man had never known Law or matrimony, then that such foul iniquity should be faft'nd upon the holy One of Ifrael, the Judge of all the earth, and fuch a peece of folly as Belzebub would not commit, to divide against himself and pervert his own ends; or if he to compaffe more certain mischief, might yeild perhaps to fain fome good deed, yet that God fhould enact a licence of certain evill for uncertain good against His owne glory and purenes, is abominable to conceive. And as it is deftructive to the end of Law, and blafphemous to the honour of the lawgiver licencing, fo is it as pernicious to the perfon licenc't. If a private

friend admonifh not, the Scripture faith he hates his brother and lets him perish; but if he sooth him, and allow him in his faults, the Proverbs teach us he Spreads a net for his neibours feet, and worketh ruin. If the Magiftrate or Prince forget to administer due juftice and restrain not fin, Eli himself could say it made the Lord's people to tranfgresse. But if he count'nance them against law by his owne example, what havock it makes both in Religion and vertue among the people, may be gueft by the anger it brought upon Hophni and Phineas not to be appeas'd with facrifice nor offring for ever. If the Law be fi

lent to declare fin, the people muft needs generally goe aftray, for the Apostle himself faith, he had not known luft but by the Law: and furely such a Nation seems not to be under the illuminating guidance of Gods law, but under the horrible doom rather of fuch as despise the Gospel, he that is filthy let him be filthy fill. But where the Law it felf gives a warrant for fin, I know not what condition of mifery to imagine miferable anough for fuch a people, unlesse that portion of the wicked, or rather of the damned, on whom God threatens in 11. Pfalm, to rain fnares: but that questionleffe cannot be by any Law, which the Apostle faith is a miniftery ordain'd of God unto our good, and not fo many waies and in fo high a degree to our destruction, as we have now bin graduating. And this is all the good can come to the perfon licenc't in his hardneffe of heart.

I am next to mention that which because it is a ground in divinity, Rom. 3. will fave the labour of demonftrating, unleffe her giv'n axioms be more doubted then in other Arts (although it be no leffe firme in the precepts of Philofophy) that a thing unlaw full can for no good whatsoever be done, much leffe allow'd by a pofitive law. And this is the matter why Interpreters upon that paffage in Hofea will

not confent it to be a true ftory, that the Prophet tooke a Harlot to wife, becaufe God being a pure Spirit could not command a thing repugnant to his own nature, no not for fo good an end as to exhibit more to the life a wholfome and perhaps a converting parable to many an Ifraelite. Yet that he commanded the allowance of adulterous and injurious divorces for hardneffe of heart, a reason obfcure and in a wrong fenfe, they can very favourily perfwade themselves; fo tenacious is the leven of an old conceit. But they shift it, he permitted only. Yet filence in the Law is confent, and confent is acceffory; why then is not the Law being filent, or not active against a crime, acceffory to its own conviction, it felfe judging? For though we should grant; that it approves not, yet it wills; and the Lawyers maxim is, that the will compell'd is yet the will. And though Ariftotle in his Ethicks call this a mixt action, yet he concludes it to be voluntary and inexcusable, if it be evill. How justly then might human law and Philofophy rise up against the righteoufneffe of Mofes, if this be true which our vulgar Divinity fathers upon him, yea upon God himselfe; not filently and onely negatively to permit, but in his law to divulge a written and generall priviledge to commit and perfift in unlawfull divorces with a high hand, with fecurity and no ill fame: for this is more then permitting and contriving, this is maintaining; this is warranting, this is protecting, yea this is doing evill, and fuch an evil as that reprobate lawgiver did, whose lafting infamy is ingrav'n upon him like a surname he who made Ifrael to fin. This is the lowest pitch contrary to God that publicke fraud and injustice can defcend.

If it be affirm'd that God as being Lord may doe what he will; yet we must know that God hath not two wills, but one will, much leffe two contrary. If

he once will'd adultery should be finfull, and to be punisht by death, all his omnipotence will not allow him to will the allowance that his holiest people might as it were by his own Antinomie, or counterstatute live unreprov'd in the fame fact as he himfelfe esteem'd it, according to our common explainers. The hidden wayes of his providence we adore and search not; but the law is his revealed will his compleat, his evident and certain will; herein he appeares to us as it were in human shape, enters into cov'nant with us, fwears to keep it, binds himselfe like a juft lawgiver to his own prescriptions, gives himselfe to be understood by men, judges and is judg'd, measures and is commensurat to the right reafon; cannot require leffe of us in one cantle of his Law then in another, his legall justice cannot be fo fickle and fo variable, fometimes like a devouring fire, and by and by connivent in the embers, or, if I may fo fay, ofcitant and fupine. The vigor of his Law could no more remit, then the hallowed fire upon his altar could be let go out. The Lamps that burnt before him might need fnuffing, but the light of his Law never. Of this alfo more beneath, in difcuffing a folution of Rivetus.

The Jefuits and that sect among us which is nam'd of Arminius, are wont to charge us of making God the author of finne in two degrees especially, not to fpeake of his permiffion. 1. Becaufe we hold that he hath decreed fome to damnation, and confequently to finne, fay they: Next, because those meanes which are of faving knowledge to others, he makes to them an occafion of greater finne. Yet confidering the perfection wherein man was created, and might have stood, no decree neceffitating his free will, but fubsequent though not in time yet in order to causes which were in his own power, they might, me thinks be perfwaded to abfolve both God and us. When

as the doctrine of Plato and Chryfippus with their followers the Academics and the Stoics, who knew not what a confummat and most adorned Pandora was bestow'd upon Adam to be the nurse and guide of his arbitrary happinesse and perseverance, I mean his native innocence and perfection, which might have kept him from being our true Epimetheus, and though they taught of vertue and vice to be both the gift of divine deftiny, they could yet find reasons not invalid, to juftifie the councells of God and Fate from the infulfity of mortall tongues: That mans own free will felfe corrupted is the adequat and fufficient cause of his difobedience befides Fate; as Homer also wanted not to expreffe both in his Ilead and Odiffei. And Manilius the Poet although in his fourth book he tells of fome created both to finne and punishment; yet without murmuring and with an induftrious cheerfulnes acquits the Deity. They were not ignorant in their heathen lore, that it is most God-like to punish those who of his creatures became his enemies with the greatest punishment; and they could attain also to think that the greatest, when God himselfe throws a man furtheft from him; which then they held hee did, when he blinded, hard'n'd, and stirr'd up his offendors to finish, and pile up their desperate worke fince they had undertak'n it. To banish for ever into a locall hell, whether in the aire or in the center, or in that uttermost and bottomleffe gulph of Chaos, deeper from holy bliffe then the worlds diameter multiply'd, they thought not a punishing so proper and proportionate for God to inflict, as to punish finne with finne. Thus were the common fort of Gentiles wont to thinke, without any wry thoughts caft upon divine governance. And therefore Cicero not in his Tufculan or Campanian retirements among the learned wits of that age; but ev'n in the Senat to a mixt auditory