wealth, pretending only thefe or thefe plaufible reafons? And well he might, all the while that Mofes fhall be alledged to have done as much without showing any reafon at all. Yet this could not enter into the heart of David, Pfal. xciv, 20, how any fuch authority, as endeavours to 'fashion wickednefs by a law,' fhould derive itself from God. And Ifaiah fays' wo upon them that decree unrighteous decrees,' chap. x, 1. Now which of these two. is the better lawgiver, and which deserves moft a wo, he that gives out an edict fingly unjuft, or he that confirms to generations a fixed and unmolefted impunity of that which is not only held to be unjuft, but also unclean, and both in a high degree; not only as they themselves affirm, an injurious expulfion of one wife, but also an unclean freedom by more than a patent to wed another adulteroufly? How can we therefore with fafety thus dangerously confine the free fimplicity of our Saviour's meaning to that which merely amounts from fo many letters, whenas it can confift 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 exprefs commiffion in a higher strain? But all rather of neceffity must be understood as only against the abufe of that wife and ingenuous liberty, which Mofes gave, and to terrify a roving confcience from finning under that pretext.

CHAP. III.

That to allow fin by law, is against the nature of law, the end of the lawgiver, and the good of the people. Impoffible therefore in the law of God. That it makes God the author of fin more than any thing objected by the Jefuits or Arminians against predeftination.

BUT let us yet further examine upon what confideration a law of licence could be thus given to a holy people for the hardness of heart. I fuppofe all will answer, that for fome good end or other. But here the contrary thall be proved. First, that many ill effects, but no good

end of fuch a fufferance can be fhewn; next, that a thing unlawful can for no good end whatever, be either done or allowed by a pofitive law. If there were any good end aimed at, that end was then good either to the law or to the lawgiver licenfing; or as to the perfon licenfed. That it could not be the end of the law, whether moral or judicial, to license a fin, I prove easily out of Rom. v, 20: The law entered, that the offence might abound,' that is, that fin might be made abundantly manifeft to be heinous and difpleafing to God, that fo his offered grace might be the more efteemed. Now if the law, inftead of aggravating and terrifying fin, fhall give out licence, it foils itself, and turns recreant from its own end: it foreftalls the pure grace of Chrift, which is through righteousness, with impure indulgences,which are through fin. And inftead of difcovering fin, for by the law is the knowledge thereof,' faith St. Paul; and that by certain and true light for men to walk in fafety, it holds out falfe and dazzling fires to ftumble men; or, like thofe miferable flies, to run into with delight and be burnt: for how many fouls might eafily think that to be lawful which the law and magiftrate 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 confcience, and of faith unfeigned.' But never could that be charity, to allow a people what they could not ufe with a pure heart, but with confcience and faith both deceived, or elfe defpifed. The more particular end of the judicial law is fet forth to us clearly Rom. xiii. That God hath given to that lawa fword not in vain, but to be a terrour to evil works, a revenge to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.' If this terrible commiffion fhould but forbear to punish wickedness, were it other to be accounted than partial and unjust? but if it begin to write indulgence to vulgar uncleannefs, can it do more to corrupt and fhame the end of its own being? Laftly, if the law allow fin, it enters into a kind of covenant with fin; and if it do, there is not a greater finner in the world than the law itfelf. The law, to use an allegory fomething different from that in Philo-Judæus concerning Amalek, though haply more fignificant, the

law is the Ifraelite, and hath this abfolute charge given it, Deut. xxv: To blot out the memory of fin, the Amalekite, from under heaven, not to forget it.' Again, the law is the Ifraelite, and hath this express repeated command to make no covenant with fin, the Canaanite,' but to expel him left he prove a fnare. And to fay truth, it were too rigid and reafonless to proclaim fuch an enmity between man and man, were it not the type of a greater enmity between law and fin. I fpeak even now, as if fin were condemned in a perpetual villanage never to be free by law, never to be manumitted: but fure fin can have no tenure by law at all, but is rather an eternal outlaw, and in hoftility with law past all atonement: both diagonal contraries, as much allowing one another, as day and night together in one hemifphere. Or if it be poffible, that fin with his darknefs may come to compofition, it cannot be without a foul eclipfe and twilight to the law, whofe brightnefs ought to furpafs the noon. Thus we fee how this unclean permittance defeats the facred and glorious end both of the moral and judicial law.

As little good can the lawgiver propofe to equity by fuch a lavish remiffness as this: if to remedy hardnefs of heart, Paræus and other divines confefs it more increafes by this liberty, than is leffened: and how is it probable, that their hearts were more hard in this, that it thould be yielded to, than in any other crime? Their hearts were fet upon ufury, and are to this day, no nation more; yet that which was the endamaging only of their estates was narrowly forbid; this which is thought the extreme injury and difhonour of their wives and daughters, with the defilement alfo of themfelves, is bounteously allowed. Their hearts were as hard under their best kings to offer in high places, though to the true God: yet that, but a fmall thing, it ftrictly forewarned; this, accounted a high offence againft one of the greatefi moral duties, is calmly permitted and established. How can it be evaded, but that the heavy cenfure of Chrift fhould fall worfe upon this lawgiver of theirs, than upon all the Scribes and Pharifees? For they did but omit judgment and mercy to trifle in mint and cummin, yet all according to

B 4

law;

law; but this their lawgiver, altogether as punctual in' fuch niceties, goes marching on to adulteries, through the violence of divorce by law against law. If it were fuch a curfed act of Pilate a fubordinate judge to Cæfar, overfwayed by thofe hard hearts, with much ado to fuffer one tranfgreifion of law but once, what is it then with lefs ado 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 thofe his facred ordidances out of the bottomlefs treafures of his wifdom and infinite pureness, to patch up an ulcerous and rotten commonwealth with strict and ftern injunctions, to wash the fkin and garments for every unclean touch; and fuch eafy permiffion given to pollute the foul with adulteries by public authority, without difgrace or queftion? No, it had been better that man had never known law or matrimony, than that fuch foul iniquity fhould be fastened upon the holy one of Ifrael, the judge of all the earth; and fuch a piece of folly as Belzebub would not commit, to divide against himfelf, and prevent his own ends: or if he, to compass more certain mifchief, might yield perhaps to feign fome good deed, yet that God fhould enact a licence of certain evil for uncertain good against his own glory and purenefs, is abominable to conceive. And as it is deftructive to the end of law, and blafphemous to the honour of the lawgiver licenfing, fo is it as pernicious to the perfon licensed. If a private friend admonifh not, the fcripture faith, he hates his brother, and lets him perish;' but if he foothe him and allow him in his faults, the Proverbs teach us he spreads a net for his neighbour's feet, and worketh ruin.' If the magiftrate or prince forget to adminifter due justice, and restrain not fin; Eli himfelf could fay, it made the Lord's people to tranfgrefs.' But if he countenance them against law by his own example, what havoc it makes both in religion and virtue among the people may be gueffed, by the anger it brought upon Hophni and Phineas not to be appeafed with facrifice nor offering for ever.' If the law be filent to declare fin, the people muft needs generally go aftray, for the apoftle himself faith, <he had not known luft but by the law:' and furely fuch a nation

anation feems not to be under the illuminating guidance of God's law, but under the horrible doom rather of fuch as defpife the Gospel; he that is filthy, let him be filthy ftill.' But where the law itself gives a warrant for fin, I know not what condition of mifery to imagine miferable enough for fuch a people, unless that portion of the wicked, or rather of the damned, on whom God threatens, in Pfal. xi, 'to rain fnares;' but that queftionless cannot be by any law, which the apoftle faith is a miniftry ordained of God for our good,' and not fo many ways and in fo high a degree to our deftruction, as we have now been graduating. And this is all the good can come to the perfon licensed in his hardness of heart.

I am next to mention that, which because it is a ground in divinity, Rom. iii, will fave the labour of demonftrat. ing, unless her given axioms be more doubted than in other hearts (although it be no less firm in the precepts of philofophy) that a thing unlawful can for no good whatfoever be done, much lefs allowed by a positive 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 took a harlot to wife: because God, being a pure fpirit, 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 wholesome and perhaps a converting parable to many an Ifraelite. Yet that he commanded the allowance of adulterous and injurious divorces for hardness of heart, a reafon obfcure and in a wrong fenfe, they can very favourably perfuade themfelves; fo tenacious is the leaven or an old conceit. But they fhift 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, itself judging? For though we fhould grant, that it approves not, yet it wills; and the lawyers maxim is, that the will compelled is yet the will,' And though Ariftotle in his ethics calls this a mixed action,' yet he concludes it to be voluntary and inexcufable, if it be evil. How juftly then might human law and philofophy rife up against the righteoufnefs of Mofes, if this be true which our vulgar divinity fathers upon him, yea upon God himself, not

filently,