A26796:641
The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption…
The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, or, Discourses wherein is showed how the wisdom, mercy, justice, holiness, power, and truth of God are glorified in that great and blessed work / by William Bates.The harmony of the divine attributes in the contrivance and accomplishment of man's redemption by the Lord Jesus Christ, or, Discourses wherein is shewed how the wisdom, mercy, justice, holiness, power, and truth of God are glorified in that great and blessed work / by William Bates.
London: printed by J. Darby for Nathaniel Ranew and Jonathan Robinson and Brabazon Aylmer, 1674
Modern spelling is a reading aid: the words are the author’s, only the spelling is modernized. Original shows the page as printed, with the transcription marks.
3. The indulgence of Polygamy and Divorce that was granted to the Jews, is taken away by Christ, and Marriage restored to the purity of its first Institution. The permission of these was by a political Law, and the effect was temporal Impunity. For God is to be considered not only in the relation of a ⟨p. 337⟩Creator and universal Governor, that gave Laws to regulate Conscience, but in a special relation to the Jews as their King. And as in a Civil State a prudent Governor permits a less evil, for the prevention of a greater, without an approbation of it; So God was pleased in his Wisdom to tolerate those things, in condescension to their carnal and perverse humours, for the hardness of their Hearts, 1lest worse inconveniences should follow: But our Saviour reduces Marriage to the Sanctity of its original, when man was formed according to the Image of God's Holiness. He that made them at the beginning, made them Male and Female: for this cause shall a Man leave Father and Mother, and cleave to his Wife, 2and they twain shall be one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no Man put asunder. From the unity of the Person, that one Male was made and one Female, it follows that the super-inducing of another into the Marriage-bed is against the first Institution. And the Union that is between them not being only civil in a consent of wills, but natural by the joining of two bodies, something natural must intervene to dissolve it, viz. the Adultery of one party. Excepting that case, our Saviour severely forbids the putting the Wife away.
3. The indulgence of Polygamy and Divorce that was granted to the Jews, is taken away by Christ, and Marriage restored to the purity of its first Institution. The permission of these was by a political Law, and the effect was temporal Impunity. For God is to be considered not only in the relation of a ⟨p. 337⟩Creator and universal Governour, that gave Laws to regulate Conscience, but in a special relation to the Jews as their King. And as in a Civil State a prudent Governour permits a less evil, for the prevention of a greater, without an approbation of it; So God was pleased in his Wisdom to tolerate those things, in condescension to their carnal and perverse humors, for the hardness of their Hearts,