A defence of the judgment of the Reformed churches. That a man may lawfully…A defence of the iudgment of the Reformed churches. That a man may lawfullie…

whose oversight he should have done better to acknowledge & friendly to excuse it by his haste in writing; for haste is unadvised & blind (as^q one said well) than by his name to countenance so weak a reason in it self, so dangerous in consequence, which overthroweth all administering of Justice & judgment. And sith^r himself teacheth against S.^s Jeromes judgment that a man whose wife enticeth him to heresy, or to wicked deeds, may be divorced from her because although the woman's chastity should come thereby into hazard, yet less is the peril & hurt of her adultery then of his wickedness or heresy, & the church provideth rather for the innocent party, then for the nocent: he might with a little indifferency & equity of an unpartial eye, have seen that the Church should by the same reason allow the innocent to marry: at least that S. Jeromes credit cannot prejudice us more in the one point than him in the other. True is that (I cannot deny) which he addeth true, most true & certain, that the⁸ offenders should gain by their sin, if they might also marry, as well as the innocent. They should gain in deed. But as^t Daniel said unto Nebuchadnezzar; the dream be to them that hate thee & the interpretation thereof to thine enemies: In like sort may I say, this gain be to the enemies of God & of his Church. For adulterers & adulteresses do gain. first, dishonesty,^u defiling their bodies & souls with an heinous & detestable crime. Then^x hardly scape they, but they gain beggary too: the man if he be a whoremonger, wasting all commonly as the^y prodigal child did; the woman losing her dowry. Beside^z