that divorce was permitted, another while affirming, that it was permitted for the wives sake. and after all distrusts himself. And for his surest retirement, betakes him to those old suppositions, that Christ abolisht the Mosaic Law of divorce; that the Jews had not sufficient knowledge in this point, through the darknes of the dispensation of heavenly things; that under the plenteous grace of the Gospel, wee are ty'd by cruellest compulsion to live in mariage till death, with the wickedest, the worst, the most persecuting mate. These ignorant and doting surmises he might have read confuted at large, eevn in the first Edition, but found it safer to pass that part over in silence. So that they who see not the sottishness of this his new and tedious Exposition, are worthy to love it dearly.
His Explanation done, hee charges mee with a wicked gloss, and almost blasphemy, for saying that Christ in teaching, meant not always to bee tak'n word for word; but like a wise Physician, administring one excess against another, to reduce us to a perfect mean. Certainly to teach thus, were no dishonest method: Christ himself hath often us'd hyperbolies in his teaching; and gravest Authors, both Aristotle in the second of his Ethics to Nichomachus, and Seneca in his seventh De Beneficiis, advise us to stretch out the line of precept oft times beyond measure, that while wee tend furder, the mean might bee the easier attain'd. And who-ever comments that fifth of Matthew, when hee comes to the turning of cheek after cheek to blows, and the parting both with cloak and coat, if any please to bee the rifler, will bee forc't to recommend himself to the same Exposition, though this chattering Law-monger bee bold to call it wicked. Now note another precious peece of him; Christ, saith hee, doth not say that an unchast look is adultery, but the lusting after her; as if the looking unchastly could bee without lusting. This gear is Licenc't for good reason: Imprimatur.
Next hee would prove that the speech of Christ is not utter'd in excess against the Pharises, First, Because hee speaks it to his Disciples, Matth. 5. which is fals, for hee spake it to the multitude, as by the first vers. is evident, among which in all likelihood were many Pharises, but out of doubt, all of them Pharisæan disciples, and bred up in their Doctrin; from which extremes of error and falsity, Christ throughout his whole Sermon labours to reclaim the people. Secondly, saith he, Because Christ forbidds not only putting away, but
marry-
