open adultery by law. And albeit lawyers write, that some political edicts, though not approved, are yet allowed to the scum of the people, and the necessity of the times; these excuses have but a weak pulse for first, we read, not that the scoundrel people, but the choicest, the wisest, the holiest of that nation have frequently used these laws, or such as these, in the best and holiest times. Secondly, be it yielded, that in matters not very bad or impure, a human law-giver may slacken something of that which is exactly good, to the disposition of the people and the times: but if the perfect, the pure, the righteous law of God, (for so are all his statutes and his judgments,) be found to have allowed smoothly, without any certain reprehension, that which Christ afterward declares to be adultery, how. can we free this law from the horrible indictment of being both impure, unjust, and fallacious?

CHAP. II.

How divorce was permitted for hardness of heart, cannot be understood by the common exposition. That the law cannot permit, much less enact a permission of sin.

NEITHER Will it serve to say this was permitted for the hardness of their hearts, in that sense as it is usually explained: for the law were then but a cor

rupt and erroneous schoolmaster, teaching us to dash against a vital maxim of religion, by doing foul evil in hope of some certain good.

This only text is not to be matched again throughout the whole scripture, whereby God in his perfect law should seem to have granted to the hard hearts of his holy people, under his own hand, a civil immunity and free charter to live and die in a long successive adultery, under a covenant of works, till the Messiah, and then that indulgent permission to be strictly denied by a covenant of grace; besides, the incoherence of such a doctrine cannot, must not be thus interpreted, to the raising of a paradox never known till then, only hanging by the twined thread of one doubtful scripture, against so many other rules and leading principles of religion, of justice, and purity of life. For what could be granted more either to the fear, or to the lust of any tyrant or politician, than this authority of Moses thus expounded; which opens him a way at will to dam up justice, and not only to admit of any Romish or Austrian dispenses, but to enact a statute of that which he dares not seem to approve, even to legitimate vice, to make sin itself, the ever alien and vassal sin, a free citizen of the commonwealth, pretending only these or similar plausible reasons? And well he might, all the while that Moses shall be alledged to have done as much without showing any reason at all. Yet this could not

enter into the heart of David, Psal. xciv. 20, how any such authority, as endeavours to fashion wickedness by a law,' should derive itself from God. And Isaiah says woe unto them that decree unrighteous decree,' chap. x. 1. Now which of these two is the better law-giver, and which deserves most a wo, he that gives out an edict singly unjust, or he that confirms to generations a fixed and unmolested impunity of that which is not only held to be unjust, but also unclean, and both in a high degree; not only as they themselves affirm, an injurious expulsion of one wife, but also an unclean freedom by more than a patent to wed another adulterously? How can we therefore with safety thus dangerously confine the free simplicity of our Saviour's meaning to that which merely amounts from so many letters, whenas it can consist neither with its former and cautionary words, nor with other more pure and holy principles, nor finally with a scope of charity, commanding by his express commission in a higher strain? But all rather of necessity must be understood as only against the abuse of that wise and ingenuous liberty, which Moses gave, and to terrify a roving conscience from sinning under that pretext.

CHAP. III.

That to allow sin by law, is against the nature of law, the end of the law-giver, and the good of the people. Impossible therefore in the law of God. That it makes God the author of sin more than any thing objected by the Jesuits or Arminians against predestination.

BUT let us yet further examine upon what consideration a law of licence could be thus given to a holy people for the hardness of heart. I suppose all will answer, that for some good end or other. But here the contrary shall be proved. First, that many ill effects, but no good end of such a sufferance can be shewn; next, that a thing unlawful can for no good end whatever, be either done or allowed by a positive law. If there were any good end aimed at, that end was then good either to the law or to the law-giver licensing; or as to the person licensed. That it could not be the end of the law, whether moral or judicial, to licence a sin, I prove easily out of Rom. v. 20: The law entered, that the offence might abound,' that is, that sin might be made abundantly manifest to be heinous and displeasing to God, that so his offered grace might be the more esteemed. Now if the law, instead of aggravating and terrifying sin, shall give out licence, it foils itself, and turns recreant from its

own end it forestalls the pure grace of Christ, which is through righteousness, with impure indulgencies, which are through sin. And instead of discovering sin, for by the law is the knowledge thereof,' saith St. Paul; and that by certain and true light for men to walk in safety, it holds out false and dazzling fires to stumble men; or, like those miserable flies, to run into with delight and be burnt for how many souls might easily think that to be lawful which the law and magistrate allowed them? Again, we read, 1 Tim. i. 5, The end of the commandment is charity out of a pure heart, and of a good conscience, and of faith unfeigned.' But never could that be charity, to allow a people what they could not use with a pure heart, but with conscience and faith both deceived, or else despised. The more particular end of the judicial law is set forth to us clearly, Rom. xiii. That God hath given to that law, a sword not in vain, but to be a terror to evil works, a revenge to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.' If this terrible commission should but forbear to punish wickedness, where it other to be accounted than partial and unjust? but if it begin to write indulgence to vulgar uncleanness, can it do more to corrupt and shame the end of its own being? Lastly, if the law allow sin, it enters into a kind of covenant with sin; and if it do, there is not a greater sinner in the world than the law itself. The law, to use an allegory something different