[i]Quest.[/i]V. May husband and wife part by mutual consent, if they find it be for the good of both?
[i]Answ.[/i] If you speak not of dissolving the bond of their relations, but withdrawing as to cohabitation, I answer, 1. it is not to be done upon passions and discontents, to feed and gratify each others vicious distempers or interest: for then both the consent and the separation are their sins: but if really such an uncurable unsuitableness be between them, as that their lives must needs be miserable by their cohabitation, I know not but they may live asunder; so be it, that (after all other means used in vain) they do it by deliberate, free consent. But if one of them should by craft or cruelty constrain the other to consent, it is unlawful to the constrainer. Nor must impatience make either of them ungroundedly despair of the cure of any unsuitableness which is really curable. But many sad instances might be given, in which cohabitation may be a constant calamity to both, and distance may be their relief, and further them both in God's service, and in their corporal concernments. Yet I say not that this is no sin; for their unsuitableness is their sin: and God still obligeth them to lay down that sin which make them unsuitable; and therefore doth not allow them to live asunder, it being still their duty to live together in love and peace; and saying they cannot, freeth them not from the duty. But yet that moral impotency may make such a seperation as foresaid, to be lesser sin than their unpeaceable cohabitation.
[i]Quest[/i].VI. May not the relation itself be dissolved by mutual, free consent, so that they may marry others?
[i]Answ.[/i] As to the relation, they will still be related as those that did not covenant to live in conjugal society, and are still allowed it and obliged to it, if the impediments were but removed; and it is but the exercise which is hindered. And they may not consent to marry others: 1. Because the contracted relation was for life, Rom vii.2, and God's law accordingly obligeth them. Marriages [i]pro tempore,[/i] dissoluble by consent, are not of God's institution, but contrary to it. 2. They know not but their impediments of cohabitation may be removed. 3. If he that marrieth an innocent divorced woman commit adultery, by parity of reason (with advantage) it will be so here. If you say, what if either of them cannot contain? I answer, he that will not take heed before, must be patient afterwards, and not make advantage of his own folly, to the fulfilling of his lusts. If he will do what he ought to do in the use of all means, he may live chastely. And, 4. The public interest must overrule the private, and that which would be unjust in private respects, may for public good become a duty: it seemeth unjust here with us, that the innocent country should repay every man his money, who between sun and sun is robbed on the road; and yet because it will engage the country to watchfulness, it is just, as for the common good: and he that consenteh to be a member of the commonwealth, doth thereby consent to submit his own right to the common interest. So here, if all should have leave to marry others when they consent to part, it would bring utter confusion, and it would encourage wicked men to abuse their wives, till they forced them to consent. Therefore some must bear the trouble which their folly hath brought on themselves, rather than the common order should be confounded.
[i]Quest.[/i] VII. Doth adultery dissolve the bond of marriage, or not? Amesius saith it doth: Mr. Whateley having said so, afterward recanted it by the persuasion of other divines.
[i]Answ.[/i] The difference is only about the name, and not the matter itself. The reason which moved Dr. Ames is, because the injured person is free; therefore not bound: therefore the bond is dissolved. The reason which Mr. Whateley could not answer is, because it is not fornication, but lawful, if they continue their conjugal familiarity after adultery: therefore that bond is not dissolved. In all which is easy to perceive, that one of them taketh the word [i]vinculum[/i] or bond in one sense, that is "for their covenant obligation to continue their relation and mutual duties." And the other taketh it in another sense, that is, "for the relation itself as by it they are allowed conjugal familiarity, if the injured person will continue it." The first [i]vinculum[/i] or bond is dissolved, the second is not. In the matter we are agreed, that the injured man may put away an adulterous wife (in a regular way) if he please; but withal that he may continue the relation if he please. So that his continued consent shall suffice to continue it a lawful relation and exercise; and his will, on the contrary, shall suffice to dissolve the relation, and disoblige him. (Saving the public order.)
[i]Quest.[/i] VIII. But is not the injured party at all obliged to separate, but left free?
[i]Answ.[/i] Considering the thing simply in itself, he is wholly free to do as he please. But for all that accidents or circumstances may make it one man's duty to divorce, and another's duty to continue the relation; according as it is like to do more good or hurt. Sometimes it may be a duty to expose the sin to public shame, for the prevention of it in others; and also to deliver oneself from calamity. And sometimes there may be so great repentance, and hope of better effects by forgiving, that it may be a duty to forgive: and prudence must lay one thing with another, to discern on which side the duty lieth.
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