is a sober continency; for without that, matrimonium jurata fornicatio, marriage is but a continual fornication, sealed with an oath and marriage was not instituted to prostitute the chastity of the woman to one man, but to preserve her chastity from the temptations of more men. Bathsheba was a little too fit for David, when he had tried her so far before; for there is no fitness where there is not continency. To end all, there is a moral fitness, consisting in those moral virtues, of which we have spoke enough; and there is a civil fitness, consisting in discretion, and accommodating herself to him; and there is a spirtual fitness, in the unanimity of religion, that they be not of repugnant professions that way. Of which, since we are well assured in both these, who are to be joined now, I am not sorry, if either the hour, or the present occasion call me from speaking anything at all, because it is a subject too mis-interpretable, and unseasonable to admit an enlarging in at this time. At this time therefore, this be enough, for the explication and application of these words.

SERMON LXXXIII.

PREACHED AT A MARRIAGE.

HOSEA ii. 19.

And I will marry thee unto me for ever.

THE word which is the hinge upon which all this text turns, is erash, and erash signifies not only a betrothing, as our later translation hath it, but a marriage; and so is it used by David, Deliver me my wife Michal, whom I married'; and so our former translation had it, and so we accept it, and so shall handle it, I will marry thee unto me for ever.

The first marriage that was made, God made, and he made it in paradise and of that marriage I have had the like occasion as

this to speak before, in the presence of many honourable persons in this company. The last marriage which shall be made, God shall make too, and in paradise too; in the kingdom of heaven: and at that marriage, I hope in him that shall make it, to meet, not some, but all this company. The marriage in this text hath relation to both those marriages: it is itself the spiritual and mystical marriage of Christ Jesus to the church, and to every marriageable soul in the church: and it hath a retrospect, it looks back to the first marriage; for to that the first word carries us, because from thence God takes his metaphor, and comparison, Sponsabo, I will marry; and then it hath a prospect to the last marriage, for to that we are carried in the last word, in æternum, I will marry thee unto me for ever. Be pleased therefore to give me leave in this exercise, to shift the scene thrice, and to present to your religious considerations three objects, three subjects: first, a secular marriage in paradise; secondly, a spiritual marriage in the church; and thirdly, an eternal marriage in heaven. And in each of these three we shall present three circumstances; first the persons, me and tibi, I will marry thee; and then the action, sponsabo, I will marry thee; and lastly the term, in æternum, I will marry thee to me for ever.

In the first acceptation then, in the first, the secular marriage in paradise, the persons were Adam and Eve: ever since they are he and she, man and woman: at first, by reason of necessity, without any such limitation, as now: and now without any other limitation, than such as are expressed in the law of God: as the apostles say in the first general council, We lay nothing upon you but things necessary, so we call nothing necessary but that which is commanded by God. If in heaven I may have the place of a man that hath performed the commandments of God, I will not change with him that thinks he hath done more than the commandments of God enjoined him. The rule of marriage for degrees and distance in blood, is the law of God; but for conditions of men, there is no rule given at all. When God had made Adam and Eve in paradise, God did not place Adam in a monastery on one side, and Eve in a nunnery on the other, and so a They that built walls and cloisters to

river between them.

2 Acts xv. 28.

frustrate God's institution of marriage, advance the doctrine of devils in forbidding marriage3. The devil hath advantages enough against us, in bringing men and women together: it was a strange and super-devilish invention, to give him a new advantage against us, by keeping men and women asunder, by forbidding marriage. Between the heresy of the Nicolaitans, that induced a community of women, any might take any; and the heresy of the Tatians that forbad all, none might take any, was a fair latitude. Between the opinion of the Manichean heretics, that thought women to be made by the devil, and your Collyridian heretics that sacrificed to a woman, as to God, there is a fair distance. Between the denying of them souls, which St. Ambrose is charged to have done, and giving them such souls, as that they may be priests, as your Peputian heretics did, is a fair way for a moderate man to walk in. To make them gods is ungodly, and to make them devils is devilish; to make them mistresses is unmanly, and to make them servants is ignoble; to make them as God made them, wives, is godly and manly too. When in your Roman church they dissolved marriage in natural kindred, in degrees where God forbids it not, when they dissolve marriage upon spiritual kindred, because my grandfather christened that woman's father; when they dissolve marriage upon legal kindred, because my grandfather adopted that woman's father: they separate those whom God hath joined so, as to give leave to join in lawful marriage. When men have made vows to abstain from marriage, I would they would be content to try a little longer than they do, whether they could keep that vow or no: and when men have consecrated themselves to the service of God in his church, I would they would be content to try a little farther than they do, whether they could abstain or no: but to dissolve marriage made after such a vow, or after orders, is still to separate those whom God hath not separated. The persons are he and she, man and woman; they must be so much; he must be a man, she must be a woman; and they must be no more; not a brother and a sister, not an uncle and a neice; adduxit ad eum, was the cause between Adam and Eve; God brought them together; God will not bring me a precontracted person, he will not 31 Tim. iv. 3.

have me defraud another; nor God will not bring me a misbelieving, a superstitious person, he will not have me drawn from himself: but let them be persons that God hath made, man and woman, and persons that God hath brought together, that is, not put asunder by any law of his, and all such persons are capable of this first, this secular marriage.

In which our second consideration is the action, sponsabo; where the active is a kind of passive, I will marry thee, is, I will be married unto thee, for we marry not ourselves. They are somewhat hard driven in the Roman church, when making marriage a sacrament, and being pressed by us with this question, If it be a sacrament, who administers it, who is the priest? They are fain to answer, the bridegroom and the bride, he and she are the priest in that sacrament‘. As marriage is a civil contract, it must be done so in public, as that it may have the testimony of men; as marriage is a religious contract, it must be so done, as that it may have the benediction of the priest in a marriage without testimony of men they cannot claim any benefit by the law; in a marriage without the benediction of the priest they cannot claim any benefit of the church: for how matrimonially soever such persons as have married themselves may pretend to love, and live together, yet all that love, and all that life is but a regulated adultery, it is not marriage.

Now this institution of marriage had three objects: first, In ustionem, it was given for a remedy against burning; and then, In prolem, for propagation, for children; and lastly, In adjutorium, for mutual help. As we consider it the first way, In ustionem, every heating is not a burning; every natural concupiscence does not require a marriage; nay every flaming is not a burning; though a man continue under the flame of carnal temptation, as long as St. Paul did, yet it needs not come presently to a Sponsabo, I will marry. God gave St. Paul other physic, Gratia mea sufficit, Grace to stand under that temptation; and St. Paul gave himself other physic, Contundo corpus, Convenient disciplines to tame his body. These will keep a man from burning; for Uri est desideriis vinci, desideria pati, illustris est, et perfecti; To be overcome by our concupiscences, that is to

VOL. IV.

Bellar de Matrimo. l. i. c. 6.

5 Ambrose.

D

burn, but to quench the fire by religious ways, that is a noble, that is a perfect work. When God at the first institution of marriage had this first use of marriage in his contemplation, that it should be a remedy against burning, God gave man the remedy, before he had the disease; for marriage was instituted in the state of innocency, when there was no inordinateness in the affections of man, and so no burning. But as God created rhubarb in the world, whose quality is to purge choler, before there was any choler to purge, so God according to his abundant forwardness to do us good, created a remedy before the disease, which he foresaw coming, was come upon us. Let him then that takes a wife in this first and lowest sense, in medicinam, but as his physic, yet make her his cordial physic, take her to his heart, and fill his heart with her, let her dwell there, and dwell there alone, and so they will be mutual antidotes and preservatives one to another, against all foreign temptations. And with this blessing, bless thou, O Lord, these whom thou hast brought hither for this blessing: make all the days of their life like this day unto them: and as thy mercies are new every morning, make them so to one another; and if they may not die together, sustain thou the survivor of them in that sad hour with this comfort, That he that died for them both, will bring them together again in his everlastingness.

:

The second use of marriage was In prolificationem, For children and therefore as St. Augustine puts the case, To contract before, that they will have no children, makes it no marriage but an adultery to deny themselves to another, is as much against marriage as to give themselves to another. To hinder it by physic, or any other practice; nay to hinder it so far, as by a deliberate wish, or prayer against children, consists not well with this second use of marriage. And yet in this second use, we do not so much consider generation as regeneration; not so much procreation as education, nor propagation as transportation of children. For this world might be filled full enough of children, though there were no marriage; but heaven could not be filled, nor the places of the fallen angels supplied, without that care of children's religious education, which from parents in lawful marriage they are likeliest to receive. How infinite, and how miserable a circle of sin do we make, if as we sinned in our parent's