for the whole third part of the year: neither doth the account fall less, if we reckon from the Advent to the Ephiphany; from Septuagesima Sunday to the Octaves of Easter; and from three days before the Ascension to the Octaves of Pentecost: all which had wont to be strictly kept; besides the feast of St. John Baptist added by some, and the four Ember Weeks by others: But now, of late, upon second thoughts, their Council of Trent have found it meet to shorten the restraint, and somewhat to enlarge the liberty of the seasons for marriage; having exempted the two only solemn feasts of Easter and the Nativity, and abridged some previous weeks of the former. And for us, how observant the Consistories had wont to be of those inhibitions, for their own gain, every Almanack can witness. Some worthy Divines in our Church did not stick to profess their great dislike of our conforming herein to the Church of Rome, to the scandal of the Reformed. Concerning both which I must say, that if either we or they do put any holiness in the time exempted, or any unholiness in the act inhibited, we cannot be excused from superstition. Can any time be more holy, than God's own day? yet, on that day, we do commonly both publish marriages and celebrate them. But, if, as in solemn fasts indicted by the Church for some public humiliation, we both do and enjoin to abstain from all conjugal society; so, in a desire the more devoutly to celebrate the memory of God's infinite mercy to mankind in sending a Saviour into the world for our redemption, and of the glorious resurrection of that Son of God for our justification, we shall take off ourselves from all worldly cares or delights, I see not why it should not be both lawful and commendable.

But, to say as it is, as the Romanists are guilty of too much scruple in this kind; so too many of our own are no less faulty, in a careless disregard of the holiest occasions of restraint: which I would to God it did not too palpably appear, in the scandalous carnality of many, otherwise inoffensive professors.

It is a common practice, which I have long wished an opportunity to censure, that husbands and wives forget one another too soon. Scarce are their consorts fully cold, ere they are laying for a second match; and too few months are enough for the consummation of it. Let me be bold to say, this haste hath in it too much, not immodesty only, but inhumanity.

If we look abroad into the world, we shall find, not among God's peculiar people only, but even amongst the very heathens, a meet, and not niggardly, intermission, betwixt the decease of the one husband or wife, and the marriage of another. A whole year was found little enough for the wife to mourn for her husband departed: and so is still amongst the very Chineses,

k Concil. Trid. Sess. 24.

though atheous pagans. And, by the Civil Laws, a woman marrying within a year after her husband's death, is counted infamous'.

It was no short time, that Abraham, though now very old, breathed upon Sarah, the first of wives mentioned as mourned for, before he took Keturah; and yet the Hebrew Doctors observe that there is a short letter" in the midst of that word, which signifies his mourning; to imply, say they, that his mourning was but moderate. I am sure his son Isaac (Gen. xxiv. 67.) was not comforted concerning the death of that his good mother, till three years after her decease: at which time he brought his Rebekah into that tent, which even still retained the name of Sarah's. Whereas, with us, after the profession of the greatest dearness, the old poesy of the death's ring tells what we may trust to; "Dead and forgotten." Who can but blush, to read that some heathens were fain to make laws, that the wife might not be allowed to continue her solemn mourning for her husband above ten months; and to see, that our women had need of a law, to enforce them so to mourn for the space of one?

In other Reformed Churches, there is a determinate time of months set, until the expiration whereof widows, especially the younger, are not suffered to marry. It were more than requisite, that these loose times were, here with us, curbed with so seasonable a constitution: but, it were yet more happy, if a due regard of public honesty and Christian modesty could set bounds to our inordinate desires; and so moderate our affections, that the world may see we are led by a better guide than appetite.

CASE VIII.

Whether it be necessary, that marriages should be celebrated by a Minister; and whether they may be valid and

lawful without him.

It is no marvel, if the Church of Rome, which holds matrimony a Sacrament, conferring grace by the very work wrought, require an absolute necessity of the priest's hand in so holy an act: but, for us, who, though reverently esteeming that sacred institution, yet set it in a key lower, it admits of too much question, whether we need to stand upon the terms of a minister's agency in the performance of that solemn action.

Alex. ab Alex. 1. iii. Gen. Dier. c. 7. Cod. 1. ii. tit. 12.

As appears by comparing of Gen. xxiii. 2. with xxv. 1.

.2 .Gen. xxiii לבנתה

There are those, in these wild times, that have held it sufficiently lawful, for the parties, having agreed upon the bargain before friends and witnesses, to betake themselves to bed: others have thought this act of conjoining the married persons in wedlock, a fitter act for the magistrate to undertake.

. And, certainly, if there were nothing in marriage but mere nature, it could not be amiss, that men and women should, upon their mutual agreement, couple themselves together, after the manner of brute creatures: and, if there were nothing in marriage but mere civility, the magistrate might be meet to be employed in this service. But, now that we Christians know matrimony to be a holy institution of God himself; which he not only ordained, but actually celebrated betwixt the first innocent pair; and which, being for the propagation of a holy seed, requires a special benediction; how can we, in reason, think any man meet for this office, but the man of God, set over us in the Lord, to derive the blessings of heaven upon our heads?

From hence, therefore, have our wholesome laws taken a just hint, to appropriate this service to a lawful minister only so as, whatever private contract may be transacted in corners betwixt the parties affected to each other, yet the marriage knot cannot be publicly knit by any other hand than God's ministers.

And herein, certainly, we have just cause to bless the wisdom both of the Church and State; which hath so regulated these matrimonial affairs, as that they are not only orderly, but safely managed: for, doubtless, were not this provision carefully made, the world would be quite overrun with beastliness and horrible confusion.

And, in this point, we may well give the Church of Rome her due; and acknowledge the wise care of her Lateran and Tridentine Councils, which have enacted so strict decrees against clandestine marriages, and have taken so severe a course for the reforming of many foul disorders in these matrimonial proceedings, as may be of good use for the Christian world. Had they done the like in other cases, their light had not gone out in a snuff.

As, therefore, it is generally both decreed and observed, not without excellent reason, in all Christian Churches, that marriages should be solemnized in the public congregation of God's people; so it cannot but be requisite, that it should be done by him, who is ordained to be the mouth of the congregation to God, and the mouth of God to the congregation. And, as under the Law, the priest was the man, who must convey blessings from God to his people; so, under the Gospel, who can be so apt for this divine office, as he, that serves at the evangelical altar? And, if all our marriages must be, according to the Apostle's charge, made in the Lord, who is

so meet to pronounce God's ratification of our marriages, as he, who is the professed herald of the Almighty?

As it is therefore requisite, even according to the Roman Constitutions, that he, who is betrusted with the cure of our souls, should, besides other witnesses, be both present and active in and at our domestic contracts of matrimony; so, by the laws both of our Church and Kingdom, it is necessary he should have his hand in the public celebration of them.

There may, then, be firm contracts; there cannot be lawful marriages, without God's ministers.

CASE IX.

Whether there be any necessity or use of thrice publishing the contract of marriage in the congregation, before the celebration of it; and whether it be fit, that any dispensation should be granted for the forbearance of it.

THERE were, amongst the Jews, certain ceremonial obser vations, besides the precepts, which they called the Hedge of the Law; and such there cannot want amongst Christians; whose prudence must direct them, both to the ordaining and keeping of some such expedient rules, as may best preserve God's laws from violation.

Of that kind is this, which we now have in hand.

This public and reiterated denunciation of Banns before matrimony, is an institution required and kept, both by all the Churches of the Roman Correspondence, and by all the Reformed.

Amongst which, as ours, is most eminent, so it hath still expressed the most zeal and care of the due observing of so wholesome a rite. Six several Canons were made in our Provincial Synod, under the authority of King James, of blessed memory, in the year 1603, to this purpose; with as strict charges, restrictions, and cautions, as the wit of man could in this case devise. And the late Directory hath found cause to second so useful and laudable a constitution.

For the convenience, if not necessity whereof, we need no other argument, than the grievous mischiefs, that have followed upon the neglect of this ordinance. That one were enough, which is instanced by the Tridentine Synod itself"; that some lewd persons, having secretly married themselves to one, take liberty to leave that match, and publicly join themselves to another, with whom they live wickedly in a perpetual adultery; the

• Concil. Trident. Sess. 24. Decret. de Reformat. Matrimon. P Constit. 62, 63, 101, 102, 103, 104.

1 Concil. Trid. ubi suprà.

frequent practice whereof in those hotter climates we may easily believe, when we see, that, in our own more temperate region, the fear of hanging cannot hold some off from so foul a sin.

Let me add hereunto the late experiments of some odiously incestuous marriages, which, even by the relation of our diurnalists, have, by this means, found a damnable passage, to the great dishonour of God and shame of the Church. And hereupon the sad issue of stolen marriages, wherein parents have been most feloniously robbed of their children, are too feelingly known, and irrecoverably lamented. But, as for unfitness and inequality of matches, both for age and condition, to the too late repentance and utter undoing of both parties, they are so ordinary, that they are every day's occurrences.

And all these evils have sensibly grown, from the want of these public denunciations of Banns; partly upon the unhappy throwing open of the fence of discipline, and partly upon the surreption of secretly misgotten dispensations.

And, though that forementioned Synod of ours, seconded by royal authority, took the most probable course that could be conceived', the liberty of those faculties being continued, for the preventing of these abuses; as the restraint of the grant of them by any other, save those who have episcopal authority; and security to be given upon good bonds, that the coast is clear from all pre-contracts, suits of law, and prohibited degrees; that the full consent of parents or guardians is had; that the marriage shall be celebrated in the parish church, where one of the parties dwelleth; and, lastly, the oaths required of two sufficient witnesses, one whereof known to the judge, that the express consent of parents or guardians goes along with the match intended, and that there is no impediment from any pre-contract, kindred or alliance: yet, notwithstanding all this prudent caution, we have, by woeful experience, found our offices cheated, faculties corruptly procured, and matches illegally struck up, contrary to the pretended conditions; whereas all this mischief might have been avoided, if, as no marriage may be allowed but public, so those public marriages might not be celebrated, but after thrice publication of the contract in both the parish churches where the persons contracted are known to inhabit: for so, both the parents of either side cannot but be acquainted with the engagements of their children; and, if there be any just hindrance, either by pre-contract or by proximity of blood or affinity, it cannot be concealed; that so the snare of either an unlawful or prejudicial matrimony may be seasonably eschewed.

To this good purpose, therefore, it is no less than necessary,

Constit. and Canons, ut suprà. Can. 101, 102, 103.