[In the Image of God created he him. ] It is enough determin'd, that this Image of God wherin Man was created, is meant Wisdom, Purity, Justice, and rule over all creatures. All which being lost in Adam, was recover'd with gain by the merits of Christ. For albeit our first parent had lordship over sea, and land, and aire, yet there was a law without him, as a guard set over him. But Christ having cancell'd the hand writing of ordinances which was against us, Coloss. 2.14. and interpreted the fulfilling of all through charity, hath in that respect set us over law, in the free custody of his love, and left us victorious under the guidance of his living Spirit, not under the dead letter; to follow that which most edifies, most aides and furders a religious life, makes us holiest and likest to his immortall Image, not that which makes us most conformable and captive to civill and subordinat precepts; whereof the strictest observance may oftimes prove the destruction not only of many innocent persons and families, but of whole Nations. Although indeed no ordinance human or from heav'n can binde against the good of man; so that to keep them strictly against that end, is all one with to breake them. Men of most renowned vertu have sometimes by transgressing, most truly kept the law; and wisest Magistrates have permitted and dispenc't it; while they lookt not peevishly at the letter, but with a greater spirit at the good of mankind, if alwayes not writt'n in the characters of law, yet engrav'n in the heart of man by a divine impression. This Heathens could see, as the well-read in story can recount of Solon and Epaminondas, whom Cicero in his first booke of invention nobly defends. All law, saith he, we ought to referr to the common good, and interpret by that, not by the scrowl of letters. No man observes law for laws sake, but for the good of them for whom it was made. The rest might serv well to lecture these times, deluded through belly-doctrines into a devout slavery. The Scripture also affords us David in the shew-bread, Hezechiah in the passeover sound and safe transgressors of the literall command, which also dispenc'd not seldom with it self; and taught us on what just occasions to doe so: until our Saviour, for whom that great and God-like work was reserv'd, redeem'd us to a state above prescriptions, by dissolving the whole law into charity. And have we not the soul to understand this, and must we against this glory of Gods transcendent love towards us be still the servants of a literall indightment?

[ Created he him. ] It might be doubted why he saith, In the Image of God created he him, not them, as well as male and female them; especially since that Image might be common to them both, but male and female could not, however the Jewes fable, and please themselvs with the accidentall concurrence of Plato's wit, as if Man at first had bin created Hermaphrodite: but then it must have bin male and female created he him. So had the Image of God bin equally common to them both, it had no doubt bin said, In the Image of God created he them. But St. Paul ends the controversie, by explaining that the woman is not primarily and immediatly the image of God, but in reference to the man. The head of the woman, saith he, 1 Cor. 11. is the man: he the image and glory of God, she the glory of the man: he not for her, but she for him. Therefore his precept is, Wives be subject to your husbands as is fit in the Lord, Coloss. 3. 18. In every thing, Eph. 5. 24. Nevertheless man is not to hold her as a servant, but receives her into a part of that empire which God proclaims him to, though not equally, yet largely, as his own image and glory: for it is no small glory to him, that a creature so like him, should be made subject to him. Not but that particular exceptions may have place, if she exceed her husband in prudence and dexterity, and he contentedly yeeld; for then a superior and more naturall law comes in, that the wiser should govern the lesse wise, whether male or female. But that which far more easily and obediently follows from this verse, is that, seeing woman was purposely made for man, and he her head, it cannot stand before the breath of this divine utterance, that man the portraiture of God, joyning to himself for his intended good and solace an inferiour sexe, should so becom her thrall, whose wilfulnes or inability to be a wife frustrates the occasionall end of her creation, but that he may acquitt himself to freedom by his naturall birth-right, and that indeleble character of priority which God crown'd him with. If it be urg'd that sin hath lost him this, the answer is not far to seek, that from her the sin first proceeded, which keeps her justly in the same proportion still beneath. She is not to gain by being first in the transgression, that man should furder loose to her, because already he hath lost by her means. Oft it happens that in this matter he is without fault; so that his punishment herein is causeles: and God hath the praise in our speeches of him, to sort his punishment in the same kind with the offence. Suppose he err'd; it is not the intent of God or man, to hunt an error so to the death with a revenge beyond all measure and proportion. But if we argue thus, this affliction is befaln him for his sin, therefore he must bear it, without seeking the only remedy; first it will be false that all affliction comes for sin, as in the case of Job, and of the man born blind, Joh. 9.3. was evident: next by that reason, all miseries comming for sin, we must let them all lye upon us like the vermin of an Indian Catharist, which his fond religion forbids him to molest. Were it a particular punishment inflicted through the anger of God upon a person, or upon a land, no law hinders us in that regard, no law but bidds us remove it if we can: much more if it be a dangerous temptation withall; much more yet, if it be certainly a temptation, and not certainly a punishment, though a pain. As for what they say we must bear with patience, to bear with patience, and to seek effectuall remedies, implies no contradiction. It may no lesse be for our disobedience, our unfaithfulnes, and other sins against God, that wives becom adulterous to the bed; and questionles we ought to take the affliction as patiently as christian prudence would wish; yet hereby is not lost the right of divorcing for adultery. No you say, because our Saviour excepted that only. But why, if he were so bent to punish our sins, and try our patience in binding on us a disastrous mariage, why did he except adultery? Certainly to have bin bound from divorce in that case also had bin as plentifull a punishment to our sins, and not too little work for the patientest. Nay, perhaps they will say it was too great a sufferance, and with as slight a reason, for no wise man but would sooner pardon the act of adultery once and again committed by a person worth pity and forgivenes, then to lead a wearisom life of unloving & unquiet conversation with one who neither affects nor is affected, much lesse with one who exercises all bitternes, and would commit adultery too, but for envy lest the persecuted condition should thereby get the benefit of his freedom. 'Tis plain therefore, that God enjoyns not this supposed strictnes of not divorcing either to punish us, or to try our patience.

Moreover, if man be the image of God, which consists in holines, and woman ought in the same respect to be the image and companion of man, in such wise to be lov'd as the Church is belov'd of Christ, and if, as God is the head of Christ, and Christ the head of man, so man is the head of woman; I cannot see by this golden dependance of headship and subjection, but that Piety and Religion is the main tye of Christian Matrimony: so as if there be found between the pair a notorious disparity either of wickedness or heresie, the Husband by all manner of right is disingag'd from a creature, not made and inflicted on him to the vexation of his righteousness; the wife also, as her subjection is terminated in the Lord, being her self the redeem'd of Christ, is not still bound to be the vassall of him, who is the bond-slave of Satan: she being now neither the image nor the glory of such a person, nor made for him, nor left in bondage to him; but hath recurs to the wing of charity, and protection of the Church, unless there be a hope on either side; yet such a hope must be meant, as may be a rationall hope, and not an endless servitude. Of which hereafter.

But usually it is objected, that if it be thus, then there can be no true mariage between misbeleevers and irreligious persons? I might answer, let them see to that who are such; the Church hath no commission to judge those without, 1 Cor. 5. But this they will say perhaps, is but penuriously to resolv a doubt. I answer therefore, that where they are both irreligious, the mariage may be yet true enough to them in a civill relation. For there are left som remains of Gods image in man, as he is meerly man; which reason God gives against the shedding of mans bloud, Gen. 9. as being made in God's image, without expression whether he were a good man or a bad, to exempt the slayer from punishment. So that in those mariages where the parties are alike void of Religion, the wife owes a civill homage and subjection, the husband owes a civill loyalty. But where the yoke is mis-yok't, heretick with faithfull, godly with ungodly, to the grievance and manifest endangering of a brother or sister, reasons of a higher strain than matrimoniall bear sway; unlesse the Gospel instead of freeing us, debase it self to make us bondmen, and suffer evill to controule good.

[Male and female created he them. ] This contains another end of matching man and woman, being the right and lawfulnes of the mariage-bed; though much inferior to the former end of her being his image and helpe in religious society. And who of weakest insight may not see that this creating of them male and female, cannot in any order of reason, or Christianity, be of such moment against the better and higher purposes of their creation, as to enthrall husband or wife to duties or to sufferings, unworthy and unbeseeming the image of God in them? Now when as not only men, but good men, doe stand upon their right, their estimation, their dignity, in all other actions and deportments with warrant anough and good conscience, as having the image of God in them, it will not be difficult to determin what is unworthy and unseemly for a man to do or suffer in wedlock; and the like proportionally may be found for woman: if we love not to stand disputing below the principles of humanity. He that said, Male and female created he them, immediatly before that said also in the same verse, In the image of God created he him, and redoubl'd it, that our thoughts might not be so full of dregs as to urge this poor consideration of male and female, without remembring the noblenes of that former repetition; lest when God sends a wise eye to examin our triviall glosses, they be found extremly to creep upon the ground: especially since they confesse that what here concerns mariage is but a brief touch, only preparative to the institution which follows more expressely in the next Chapter: and that Christ so took it, as desiring to be briefest with them who came to tempt him, account shall be given in due place.

V. 28. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, be fruitfull and multiply, and replenish the earth, &c.

This declares another end of Matrimony, the propagation of mankind: and is again repeated to Noah and his sons. Many things might be noted on this place not ordinary, nor unworth the noting; but I undertook not a generall Comment. Hence therefore we see the desire of children is honest and pious; if we be not lesse zealous in our Christianity, then Plato was in his heathenism; who in the sixt of his Laws, counts off-spring therefore desirable, that we may leav in our stead sons of our sons, continuall servants of God: a religious and prudent desire, if people knew as well what were requir'd to breeding as to begetting; which desire perhaps was a cause why the Jews hardly could endure a barren wedlock: and Philo in his book of speciall Laws, esteems him only worth pardon that sends not barrennes away. Carvilius the first recorded in Rome to have sought divorce, had it granted him for the barrennes of his wife, upon his oath that he maried to the end he might have children; as Dionysius and Gellius are authors. But to dismisse a wife only for barrennes, is hard: and yet in some the desire of children is so great and so just, yea sometime so necessary, that to condemn such a one to a childles age, the fault apparently not being in him, might seem perhaps more strict then needed. Sometimes inheritances, crowns, and dignities are so interested and annext in their common peace and good to such or such lineall descent, that it may prove a great moment both in the affairs of men and of religion, to consider throughly what might be don herein, notwithstanding the waywardness of our School Doctors.

THis second Chapter is granted to be a Commentary on the first, and these verses granted to be an exposition of that former verse, Male and female created he them, and yet when this male and female is by the explicite words of God himselfe heer declar'd to be not meant other then a fit help, and meet society; some who would ingrosse to themselves the whole trade of interpreting, will not suffer the cleer text of God to doe the office of explaining it self.

[And the Lord God said, It is not good. ] A man would think that the consideration of who spake, should raise up the attention of our minds to enquire better, and obey the purpos of so great a Speaker: for as we order the busines of Mariage, that which he heer speaks is all made vain; and in the decision of matrimony, or not matrimony, nothing at all regarded. Our presumption hath utterly chang'd the state and condition of this ordinance: God ordain'd it in love and helpfulnes to be indissoluble, and we in outward act and formality to be a forc'd bondage; so that being subject to a thousand errors in the best men, if it prove a blessing to any, it is of meer accident, as mans law hath handl'd it, and not of institution.

[It is not good for man to be alone. ] Hitherto all things that have bin nam'd, were approv'd of God to be very good: lonelines is the first thing which Gods eye nam'd not good: whether it be a thing, or the want of somthing, I labour not; let it be their tendance, who have the art to be industriously idle. And here alone is meant alone without woman; otherwise Adam had the company of God himself, and Angels to convers with; all creatures to delight him seriously, or to make him sport. God could have created him out of the same mould a thousand friends and brother Adams to have bin his consorts; yet for all this till Eve was giv'n him, God reckon'd him to be alone.

[It is not good. ] God heer presents himself like to a man deliberating; both to shew us that the matter is of high consequence, and that he intended to found it according to naturall reason, not impulsive command; but that the duty should arise from the reason of it, not the reason be swallow'd up in a reasonlesse duty. Not good, was as much to Adam before his fall, as not pleasing, not expedient; but since the comming of sin into the world, to him who hath not receiv'd the continence, it is not only not expedient to be alone, but plainly sinfull. And therfore he who wilfully abstains from mariage, not being supernaturally gifted, and he who by making the yoke of mariage unjust and intolerable, causes men to abhorr it, are both in a diabolicall sin, equall to that of Antichrist who forbids to marry. For what difference at all whether he abstain men from marying, or restrain them in a mariage hapning totally discommodious, distastful, dishonest and pernicious to him without the appearance of his fault? For God does not heer precisely say, I make a female to this male, as he did briefly before; but expounding himselfe heer on purpos, he saith, because it is not good for man to be alone, I make him therefore a meet help. God supplies the privation of not good, with the perfect gift of a reall and positive good; it is mans pervers cooking who hath turn'd this bounty of God into a Scorpion, either by weak and shallow constructions, or by proud arrogance and cruelty to them who neither in their purposes nor in their actions have offended against the due honour of wedlock.

Now wheras the Apostle speaking in the Spirit, I Cor. 7. pronounces quite contrary to this word of God, It is good for a man not to touch a woman, and God cannot contradict himself, it instructs us that his commands and words, especially such as bear the manifest title of som good to man, are not to be so strictly wrung, as to command without regard to the most naturall and miserable necessities of mankind. Therfore the Apostle adds a limitation in the 26 v. of that chap. for the present necessity it is good; which he gives us doubtlesse as a pattern how to reconcile other places by the generall rule of charity.

[For man to be alone. ] Som would have the sense heerof to be in respect of procreation only: and Austin contests that manly friendship in all other regards had been a more becomming solace for Adam, then to spend so many secret years in an empty world with one woman. But our Writers deservedly reject this crabbed opinion; and defend that there is a peculiar comfort in the maried state besides the genial bed, which no other society affords. No mortall nature can endure either in the actions of Religion, or study of wisdome, without somtime slackning the cords of intense thought and labour: which lest we should think faulty, God himself conceals us not his own recreations before the world was built; I was, saith the eternal wisdome, dayly his delight, playing alwayes before him. And to him indeed wisdom is as a high towr of pleasure, but to us a steep hill, and we toyling ever about the bottom: he executes with ease the exploits of his omnipotence, as easie as with us it is to will: but no worthy enterprise can be don by us without continuall plodding and wearisomnes to our faint and sensitive abilities. We cannot therefore always be contemplative, or pragmaticall abroad, but have need of som delightfull intermissions, wherin the enlarg'd soul may leav off a while her severe schooling; and like a glad youth in wandring vacancy, may keep her hollidaies to joy and harmles pastime: which as she cannot well doe without company, so in no company so well as where the different sexe in most resembling unlikenes, and most unlike resemblance, cannot but please best, and be pleas'd in the aptitude of that variety. Wherof lest we should be too timorous, in the aw that our flat sages would form us and dresse us, wisest Salomon among his gravest Proverbs countenances a kinde of ravishment and erring fondnes in the entertainment of wedded leisures; and in the Song of Songs, which is generally beleev'd, even in the jolliest expressions to figure the spousals of the Church with Christ, sings of a thousand raptures between those two lovely ones farre on the hither side of carnall enjoyment. By these instances, and more which might be brought, we may imagine how indulgently God provided against mans lonelines; that he approv'd it not, as by himself declar'd not good; that he approv'd the remedy therof, as of his own ordaining, consequently good; and as he ordain'd it, so doubtles proportionably to our faln estate he gives it; els were his ordinance at least in vain, and we for all his gift still empty handed. Nay, such an unbounteous giver we should make him, as in the fables Jupiter was to Ixion, giving him a cloud instead of Juno, giving him a monstrous issue by her, the breed of Centaures, a neglected and unlov'd race, the fruits of a delusive mariage; and lastly, giving him her with a damnation to that wheele in hell, from a life thrown into the midst of temptations and disorders. But God is no deceitfull giver, to bestow that on us for a remedy of lonelines, which if it bring not a sociable mind as well as a conjunctive body, leavs us no lesse alone then before; and if it bring a minde perpetually avers and disagreeable, betraies us to a wors condition then the most deserted lonelines. God cannot in the justice of his own promise and institution so unexpectedly mock us, by forcing that upon us as the remedy of solitude, which wraps us in a misery worse than any wildernes, as the Spirit of God himself judges, Prov. 19. especially knowing that the best and wisest men amidst the sincere and most cordiall designes of their heart, doe dayly erre in choosing. We may conclude therfore seeing orthodoxall Expositors confesse to our hands, that by lonelines is not only meant the want of copulation, and that man is not lesse alone by turning in a body to him, unlesse there be within it a minde answerable, that it is a work more worthy the care and consultation of God to provide for the worthiest part of man which is his minde, and not unnaturally to set it beneath the formalities and respects of the body, to make it a servant of its owne vassall, I say we may conclude that such a mariage, wherin the minde is so disgrac't and vilify'd below the bodies interest, and can have no just or tolerable contentment, is not of Gods institution, and therfore no mariage. Nay in concluding this, I say we conclude no more then what the common Expositors themselves give us, both in that which I have recited, and much more hereafter. But the truth is, they give us in such a manner as they who leav their own mature positions like the eggs of an Ostrich in the dust; I do but lay them in the sun; their own pregnancies hatch the truth; and I am taxt of novelties and strange producements, while they, like that inconsiderat bird, know not that these are their own naturall breed.

[I will make him a help-meet for him. ] Heer the heavnly instituter, as if he labour'd, not to be mistak'n by the supercilious hypocrisie of those that love to maister their brethren, and to make us sure that he gave us not now a servil yoke, but an amiable knot, contents not himself to say, I will make him a wife, but resolving to give us first the meaning before the name of a wife, saith graciously, I will make him a help meet for him. And heer again, as before, I do not require more full and fair deductions then the whole consent of our Divines usually raise from this text, that in matrimony there must be first a mutuall help to piety, next to civill fellowship of Love and amity, then to generation, so to houshold affairs, lastly the remedy of incontinence. And commonly they reck'n them in such order, as leavs generation and incontinence to be last consider'd. This I amaze me at, that though all the superior and nobler ends both of mariage and of the maried persons be absolutely frustrat, the matrimony stirs not, looses no hold, remains as rooted as the center: but if the body bring but in a complaint of frigidity, by that cold application only, this adamantine Alpe of wedlock has leav to dissolve; which els all the machinations of religious or civill reason at the suit of a distressed mind, either for divine worship or humane conversation violated, cannot unfasten. What courts of concupiscence are these, wherin fleshly appetite is heard before right reason, lust before love or devotion? They may be pious Christians together, they may be loving and friendly, they may be helpfull to each other in the family, but they cannot couple; that shall divorce them though either party would not. They can neither serv God together, nor one be at peace with the other, nor be good in the family one to other, but live as they were dead, or live as they were deadly enemies in a cage together; tis all one, they can couple, they shall not divorce till death, no though this sentence be their death. What is this, besides tyranny, but to turn nature upside down, to make both religion, and the minde of man wait upon the slavish errands of the body, and not the body to follow either the sanctity, or the soveranty of the mind unspeakably wrong'd, and with all equity complaining? what is this but to abuse the sacred and misterious bed of mariage to be the compulsive stie of an ingratefull and malignant lust, stirr'd up only from a carnall acrimony, without either love or peace, or regard to any other thing holy or human. This I admire how possibly it should inhabit thus long in the sense of so many disputing Theologians, unlesse it be the lowest lees of a canonicall infection liver-grown to their sides; which perhaps will never uncling, without the strong abstersive of some heroick magistrat, whose mind equall to his high office dares lead him both to know and do without their frivolous case-putting. For certain he shall have God and this institution plainly on his side. And if it be true both in divinity and law, that consent alone, though copulation never follow, makes a mariage, how can they dissolv it for the want of that which made it not, and not dissolv it for that not continuing which made it, and should preserve it in love and reason, and difference it from a brute conjugality?

[Meet for him.] The originall heer is more expressive then other languages word for word can render it; but all agree effectuall conformity of disposition and affection to be heerby signify'd; which God as it were, not satisfy'd with the naming of a help, goes on describing another self, a second self, a very self it self. Yet now there is nothing in the life of man, through our misconstruction, made more uncertain, more hazardous and full of chance then this divine blessing with such favorable significance heer conferr'd upon us, which if we do but erre in our choice, the most unblamable error that can be, erre but one minute, one moment after those mighty syllables pronounc't which take upon them to joyn heavn and hell together unpardnably till death pardon, this divine blessing that lookt but now with such a human smile upon us, and spoke such gentle reason, strait vanishes like a fair skie, and brings on such a scene of cloud and tempest, as turns all to shipwrack without havn or shoar, but to a ransomles captivity. And then they tell us it is our sin; but let them be told again, that sin through the mercy of God hath not made such wast upon us, as to make utterly void to our use any temporall benefit, much less any so much availing to a peacefull and sanctify'd life, meerly for a most incident error which no warines can certainly shun. And wherfore servs our happy redemption, and the liberty we have in Christ, but to deliver us from calamitous yokes, not to be liv'd under without the endangerment of our souls, and to restore us in som competent measure to a right in every good thing both of this life, and the other. Thus we see how treatably and distinctly God hath heer taught us what the prime ends of mariage are, mutuall solace and help. That we are now, upon the most irreprehensible mistake in choosing, defeated and defrauded of all this originall benignity, was begun first through the snare of Antichristian canons long since obtruded upon the Church of Rome, and not yet scourd off by reformation, out of a lingring vain-glory that abides among us to make fair shews in formall ordinances, and to enjoyn continence & bearing of crosses in such a garb as no Scripture binds us, under the thickest arrows of temptation, where we need not stand. Now we shall see with what acknowledgment and assent Adam receiv'd this new associat, which God brought him.

V. 23. And Adam said this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, she shall be called Woman, because she was tak'n out of Man.

That there was a neerer alliance between Adam and Eve, then could be ever after between man and wife, is visible to any. For no other woman was ever moulded out of her husbands rib, but of meer strangers for the most part they com to have that consanguinity which they have by wedlock. And if we look neerly upon the matter, though mariage be most agreeable to holines, to purity and justice, yet is it not a naturall, but a civill and ordain'd relation. For if it were in nature, no law or crime could disannull it, to make a wife, or husband, otherwise then still a wife or husband, but only death; as nothing but that can make a father no father, or a son no son. But divorce for adultery or desertion, as all our Churches agree but England, not only separats, but nullifies, and extinguishes the relation it self of matrimony, so that they are no more man and wife; otherwise the innocent party could not marry else-where, without the guilt of adultery; next, were it meerly naturall why was it heer ordain'd more then the rest of morall law to man in his originall rectitude, in whose breast all that was naturall or morall was engrav'n without externall constitutions and edicts. Adam therfore in these words does not establish an indissoluble bond of mariage in the carnall ligaments of flesh and bones, for if he did, it would belong only to himself in the literall sense; every one of us being neerer in flesh of flesh, and bone of bones to our parents then to a wife; they therfore were not to be left for her in that respect. But Adam, who had the wisdom giv'n him to know all creatures, and to name them according to their properties, no doubt but had the gift to discern perfectly, that which concern'd him much more; and to apprehend at first sight the true fitnes of that consort which God provided him. And therfore spake in reference to those words which God pronounc't before; as if he had said, this is she by whose meet help and society I shall no more be alone; this is she who was made my image, ev'n as I the Image of God; not so much in body, as in unity of mind and heart. And he might as easily know what were the words of God, as he knew so readily what had bin don with his rib, while he slept so soundly. He might well know, if God took a rib out of his inside, to form of it a double good to him, he would far sooner disjoyn it from his outside, to prevent a treble mischief to him: and far sooner cut it quite off from all relation for his undoubted ease, then nail it into his body again, to stick for ever there a thorn in his heart. When as nature teaches us to divide any limb from the body to the saving of his fellows, though it be the maiming and deformity of the whole; how much more is it her doctrin to sever by incision, not a true limb so much, though that be lawfull, but an adherent, a sore, the gangrene of a limb, to the recovery of a whole man. But if in these words we shall make Adam to erect a new establishment of mariage in the meer flesh, which God so lately had instituted, and founded in the sweet and mild familiarity of love and solace, and mutuall fitnes, what do we but use the mouth of our generall parent, the first time it opens, to an arrogant opposition, and correcting of Gods wiser ordinance. These words therfore cannot import any thing new in mariage, but either that which belongs to Adam only, or to us in reference only to the instituting words of God which made a meet help against lonelines. Adam spake like Adam the words of flesh and bones, the shell and rinde of matrimony; but God spake like God, of love and solace and meet help, the soul both of Adams words and of matrimony.

V. 24. Therefore shall a man leav his father and his mother, and shall cleav unto his wife; and they shall be one flesh.

This verse, as our common heed expounds it, is the great knot tier, which hath undon by tying, and by tangling, millions of guiltles consciences: this is that greisly Porter, who having drawn men and wisest men by suttle allurement within the train of an unhappy matrimony, claps the dungeon gate upon them, as irrecoverable as the grave. But if we view him well, and hear him with not too hasty and prejudicant ears, we shall finde no such terror in him. For first, it is not heer said absolutely without all reason he shall cleave to his wife, be it to his weal or to his destruction as it happens, but he shall do this upon the premises and considerations of that meet help and society before mention'd, Therfore he shall cleave to his wife, no otherwise a wife then a fit help. He is not bid to leave the dear cohabitation of his father, mother, brothers and sisters, to link himself inseparably with the meer carcas of a Mariage, perhaps an enemy. This joyning particle Therefore is in all equity, nay in all necessity of construction to comprehend first and most principally what God spake concerning the inward essence of Mariage in his institution, that we may learn how far to attend what Adam spake of the outward materials therof in his approbation. For if we shall bind these words of Adam only to a corporall meaning, and that the force of this injunction upon all us his sons to live individually with any woman which hath befaln us in the most mistak'n wedlock, shall consist not in those morall and relative causes of Eves creation, but in the meer anatomy of a rib, and that Adams insight concerning wedlock reacht no furder, we shall make him as very an idiot as the Socinians make him; which would not be reverently don of us. Let us be content to allow our great forefather so much wisdom, as to take the instituting words of God along with him into this sentence, which if they be well minded, will assure us that flesh and ribs are but of a weak and dead efficacy to keep Mariage united where there is no other fitnes. The rib of Mariage, to all since Adam, is a relation much rather then a bone; the nerves and sinews therof are love and meet help, they knit not every couple that maries, and where they knit they seldom break, but where they break, which for the most part is where they never truly joyn'd, to such at the same instant both flesh and rib cease to be in common; so that heer they argue nothing to the continuance of a false or violated Mariage, but must be led back to receive their meaning from those institutive words of God which give them all the life and vigour they have.