I have been particular in extracting the reasons of MILTON for this new and dangerous opinion, that the judicious reader may form his own judgment. I will now quote the concluding paragraph of his pamphlet, which he doubtless intended should concentrate the strength of all his arguments :“Last of all,” he says, "to those whose mind is still to maintain textual restriction, whereof the bare sound cannot consist sometimes with humanity, much less with charity, I would ever answer by putting them in remembrance of a command above all commands, which they seem to have forgotten, and who spake it; in comparison whereof this [the law concerning marriage] which they exalt, is but a petty and subordinate precept. Let them go therefore with whom I am

vorce: wherein both sides are vindicated from all bondage of Canon Law, and other mistakes whatsoever and the unsound principles of the Author are examined, and fully confuted by authority of Holy Scriptures, the laws of this land and sound reason.-London 1644.

"To preserve the strength of the marriage bond, and the honour of that estate, against those sad breaches and dangerous abuses of it, which common discontents (on this side adultery) are likely to make in unstaid minds, and men given to change, by taking in or grounding themselves upon the opinion answered, and with good reason confuted in this treatise, I have sanctioned the printing and publishing of it.-JOSEPH CARYL."

"November 14, 1644."

loth to couple them, yet they will needs run into the same blindness with the Pharisees; let them go therefore and consider well what this lesson means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice for on that saying, all the law and prophets depend, much more the gospel, whose end and excellence is mercy and peace or if they cannot learn that, how will they hear this, which yet I shall not doubt to leave with them as a conclusion?" That God the Son hath put all other things under his own feet, but his commandments hath he left all under the feet of charity.

It may be first enquired, in reply to this plausible statement, whether positive commands are to be superseded by moral considerations; whether the cases were parallel of the Apostles on the sabbath-day rubbing out a few grains of wheat in their hands to check the cravings of hunger, or David eating the shew-bread when he was hungry, which was provided specially for the priests; and MILTON having, without assigning any such cause in the conduct of his wife as the Scriptures declare to be sufficient, resolved to dissolve the marriage union?—I trow not. His speaking of positive commands, especially of that which concerns marriage as "a petty and subordinate precept," is certainly to have undervalued the wisdom of God in that law; and his stating that "the Son of God hath left all his commandments under the feet of

charity;" as if positive commands were to be superseded by convenience, is a sentiment, to say the least of it, so lax and so capable of being abused, that there is no Antinomian licentiousness but may be sanctioned by it, under the name of Christian liberty. According to his reasoning, all other things, in regard to the welfare of the church and the rights of men, the Son of God hath authority to command and control; but the regulations concerning the duties of marriage, he has left to what every one who calls himself his disciple may keep or not keep, observe or not observe, according as it might agree with what in regard to the husband, not respecting at all the rights of the wife, appears to the party himself to be not duty, but charity. Was not this to say, in effect, "ergo, none but Pharisees will contend that I, JOHN MILTON, am not at liberty to repudiate my chaste wife, Mary Milton; and to marry another, without in my case violating the law of Christ, or committing adultery. If, in this unhappy affair, this greatest of men was not left of God to be proved, as in the case of Hezekiah, that he might learn what was in his heart," I am greatly mistaken in my view of his conduct. He probably learnt, by a comparison of his wife's three years' absence, with the domestic happiness he enjoyed after her return, that passion and not reason had guided his

course; and lamented, it may be hoped, that anger and resentment, and not forgiveness and forbearance, had so long biassed and governed his mind. I wish I could produce any express declaration from his subsequent writings, to prove that MILTON, like "Hezekiah, humbled himself for the pride of his heart;" for to this vice must be attributed the obstinacy and resentment, which interrupted his felicity.

The fact is, that MILTON had adopted a false principle of argument. He had argued upon the principle of expediency in reference to a point of revealed and positive law. And therefore, however specious his reasonings might have appeared to the inconsiderate, they could have had no weight with the judicious; nor do his sentiments seem to have prevailed to any considerable extent.* *

* Mr. Todd says, in his Life of MILTON, p. 52, “ Ephraim Pagitt, in his description of Hereticks and Sectaries of that period, mentions the sect of Divorcers, with him who wrote the Treatise on Divorce at their head." My copy of this most ridiculous book, written by "the late minister of St. Edmond's, Lumbard Street," is "the sixth edition, whereunto is added the last year, 1661," &c. I cannot find the paragraph quoted by Mr. Todd, but there is the following notice, p. 100, under the head Concerning Divorces: "Of Independents,― Mr. Milton permits a man to put away his wife upon his mere pleasure, without any fault in her, but for any dislike, or disparity of nature.”

Since writing the above remarks, I have met with the following sentiments of the venerable Bishop Hall, which I give in a note in confirmation of the correctness of the view which I have taken.*

* This work is entitled, "Resolutions and Decisions of divers practical cases of Conscience," printed in London, 1649. The bishop enquires, p. 388, "Whether marriage lawfully made, may admit of any cause of divorce, save only for the violation of the marriage bed by fornication and adultery?" He answers, "I have heard too much of, and once saw, a licentious pamphlet, throwne abroad in these lawless times, in the defence and encouragement of divorces, (not to be sued out, that solemnity needed not,) but to be arbitrarily given by the disliking husband to his displeasing and unquiet wife-upon this ground principally, that marriage was instituted for the help and comfort of man; when, therefore, the match proves such, as that the wife doth but pull downe a side, and by her innate peevishnesse, and either sullen, or pettish and forward disposition, brings rather discomfort to her husband, the end of marriage being hereby frustrate, why should it not, saith he, be in the husband's power (after some unprevailing means of reclaimation be attempted) to procure his own peace and contentment in a fitter match?

"Wo is me! to what a pass is the world come, that a Christian pretending to reformation should dare to render so loose a project to the publique. I must seriously professe, when I first did cast my eye upon the front of the booke, I supposed some great wit meant to try his skill in the maintainance of this so wild and improbable a paradoxe; but ere I could have run over some of those too-well penned pages, I found the author was in earnest, and meant