I can foresee that marriage will greatly disadvantage me as to the service of God and my salvation?'

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Answ. 1. You must understand that no corporal necessity is absolute for there is no man so lustful but may possibly bridle his lust by other lawful means: by diet, labour, sober company, diverting business, solitude, watching the thoughts and senses, or at least by the physician's help; so that the necessity is but secundum quid,' or an urgency rather than a simple necessity. And then 2. This measure of necessity must be itself laid in the balance with the other accidents: and if this necessity will turn the scales by making a single life more disadvantageous to your ultimate end, your lust being a greater impediment to you, than all the inconveniences of marriage will be, then the case is resolved, "it is better to marry than to burn." But if the hindrances in a married state are like to be greater, than the hindrances of your concupiscence, then you must set yourself to the curbing and curing of that concupiscence; and in the use of God's means expect his blessing.

2. Children are not ordinarily, called of God to marry, when their parents do absolutely and peremptorily forbid it. For though parents' commands cannot make it a duty, when we are sure it would hinder the interest of God our ultimate end; yet parents' prohibitions may make it a sin, when there is a clear probability that it would most conduce to our ultimate end, were it not prohibited. Because (1.) Affirmatives bind not 'semper et ad semper' as negatives or prohibitions do. (2.) Because the sin of disobedience to parents will cross the tendency of it unto good, and do more against our ultimate end, than all the advantages of marriage can do for it. A duty is then to us no duty, when it cannot be performed without a chosen, wilful sin. In many cases we are bound to forbear what a governor forbiddeth, when we are not bound to do the contrary if he command it. It is easier to make a duty to be no duty, than to make a sin to be no sin. One bad ingredient may turn a duty into a sin, when one good ingredient will not turn a sin into a duty, or into no sin.

Quest. But may not a governor's prohibition be overweighed by some great degrees of incommodity? It is better to marry than to burn. 1. What if parents forbid chil

dren to marry absolutely until death, and so deprive them of the lawful remedy against lust? 2. And if they do not so, yet if they forbid it them when it is to them most seasonable and necessary, it seemeth little better. 3. Or if they forbid them to marry where their affections are so engaged, as that they cannot be taken off without their mutual ruin? May not children marry in such cases of necessity as these, without and against the will of their parents??

Answ. I cannot deny but some cases may be imagined or fall out, in which it is lawful to do what a governor forbiddeth, and to marry against the will of parents; for they have their power to edification, and not unto destruction. As if a son be qualified with eminent gifts for the work of the ministry, in a time and place that needeth much help; if a malignant parent, in hatred of that sacred office, should never so peremptorily forbid him, yet may the son devote himself. to the blessed work of saving souls: even as a son may not forbear to relieve the poor (with that which is his own) though his parents should forbid him; nor forbear to put himself into a capacity to relieve them for the future; nor forbear his own necessary food and raiment though he be forbidden. As Daniel would not forbear praying openly in his house, when he was forbidden by the king and law. When any inseparable accident doth make a thing, of itself indifferent, become a duty, a governor's prohibition will not discharge us from that duty, unless the accident be smaller than the accident of the ruler's prohibition, and then it may be overweighed by it; but to determine what accidents are greater or less is a difficult task.

And as to the particular questions, to the first I answer, If parents forbid their children to marry while they live, it is convenient and safe to obey them until death, if no greater obligation to the contrary forbid it: but it is necessary to obey them during the time that the children live under the government of their parents, as in their houses, in their younger years (except in some few extraordinary cases). But when parents are dead (though they leave commands in their wills) or when age or former marriage hath removed children from under their government, a smaller matter will serve to justify their disobedience here, than when the children in minority are less fit to govern themselves. For

though we owe parents a limited obedience still, yet at full age the child is more at his own dispose than he was before. Nature hath given us a hint of her intention in the instinct of brutes, who are all taught to protect, and lead, and provide for their young ones, while the young are insufficient for themselves; but when they are grown to self-sufficiency, they drive them away or neglect them. If a wise son that hath a wife and many children, and great affairs to manage in the world, should be bound to as absolute obedience to his aged parents, as he was in his childhood, it would ruin their affairs, and parents' government would pull down that in their old age, which they built up in their middle age.

And to the second question I answer, that, 1. Children that pretend to unconquerable lust or love, must do all they can to subdue such inordinate affections, and bring their lusts to stoop to reason and their parents' wills. And if they do their best, there are either none, or not one of many hundreds, but may maintain their chastity together with their obedience. 2. And if any say, 'I have done my best, and yet am under a necessity of marriage; and am I not then bound to marry though my parents forbid me?' I answer, it is not to be believed: either you have not done your best, or else you are not under a necessity. And your urgency being your own fault (seeing you should subdue it), God still obligeth you both to subdue your vice, and to obey your parents. 3. But if there should be any one that hath such an (incredible) necessity of marriage, he is to procure some others to solicit his parents for their consent, and if he cannot obtain it, some say, it is his duty to marry without it: I should rather say that it is minus malum,' 'the lesser evil :' and that having cast himself into some necessity of sinning, it is still his duty to avoid both, and to choose neither; but it is the smaller sin to choose to disobey his parents, rather than to live in the flames of lust and the filth of unchastity. And some divines say, that in such a case a son should appeal to the magistrate, as a superior authority above the father. But others think, 1. That this leaveth it as difficult to resolve what he shall do, if the magistrate also consent not and 2. That it doth but resolve one difficulty by a greater it being very doubtful whether in domestic cases the authority of the parent or the magistrate be the greater.

3. The same answer serveth as to the third Question, when parents forbid you to marry the persons that you are most fond of. For such fondness (whether you call it lust or love) as will not stoop to reason and your parents' wills, is inordinate and sinful. And therefore the thing that God bindeth you to, is by his appointed means to subdue it, and to obey but if you cannot, the accidents and probable consequents must tell you which is the lesser evil.

Quest. But what if the child have promised marriage, and the parents be against it? Answ. If the child was under the parents' government, and short of years of discretion also, the promise is void for want of capacity. And if the child was at age, yet the promise was a sinful promise, as to the promising act, and also as to the thing promised during the parents' dissent. If the actus promittendi' only had been sinful (the promise making') the promise might nevertheless oblige (unless it were null as well as sinful). But the 'materia promissa' being sinful ('the matter promised') to marry while parents do dissent, such a child is bound to forbear the fulfilling of that promise till the parents do consent or die. And yet he is bound from marrying any other (unless he be disobliged by the person that he made the promise to), because he knoweth not but his parents may consent hereafter; and whenever they consent or die, the promise then is obligatory, and must be performed.

The third Chapter of Numbers enableth parents to disoblige a daughter that is in their house, from a vow made to God, so be it they disavow it at the first hearing. Hence there are two doubts arise: 1. Whether this power extend not to the disobliging of a promise or contract of matrimony? 2. Whether it extend not to a son as well as a daughter. And most expositors are for the affirmative of both cases. But I have shewed before that it is upon uncertain grounds. 1. It is uncertain whether God, who would thus give up his own right in case of vowing, will also give away the right of others without their consent in case of promises or contracts. And 2. It is uncertain whether this be not an indulgence only of the weaker sex, seeing many words in the text seem plainly to intimate so much. And it is dangerous upon our own presumptions to stretch God's laws to

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every thing we imagine there is the same reason for seeing our imaginations may so easily be deceived: and God could have expressed such particulars if he would: and therefore (when there is not clear ground for our inferences in the text) it is but to say, 'Thus and thus God should have said, when we cannot say, 'Thus he hath said.' We must not make laws under pretence of expounding them: whatsoever God commandeth thee, take heed that thou do it: thou shalt add nothing thereto, nor take aught therefrome.

Quest. If the question therefore be not of the sinfulness, but the nullity of such promises of children, because of the dissent of parents, for my part I am not able to prove any such nullity. It is said, that they are not sui juris,' 'their own,' and therefore their promises are null. But if they have attained to years, and use of discretion, they are naturally so far sui juris' as to be capable of disposing even of their souls, and therefore of their fidelity. They can oblige themselves to God or man: though they are not so far sui juris' as to be ungoverned. For so For so no child, no subject, no man is 'sui juris;' seeing all are under the government of God. And yet if a man promise to do a thing sinful, it is not a nullity, but a sin: not no promise, but a sinful promise. A nullity is when the actus promittendi' is 'reputative nullus, vel non actus.' And when no promise is made, then none can be broken.

Quest. But if the question be only how far such promises must be kept? I answer, by summing up what I have said: 1. If the child had not the use of reason, the want of natural capacity, proveth the promise null: here'ignorantis non est consensus.' 2. If he was at age and use of reason, then 1. If the promising act only was sinful (as before I said of vows,) the promise must be both repented of, and kept. It must be repented of because it was a sin: it must be kept because it was a real promise, and the matter lawful. 2. If the promising act was not only a sin, but a nullity (by any other reason) then it is no obligation. 3. If not only the promising act be sin, but also the matter promised (as is marrying without parents' consent), then it must be repented of, and not performed until it become

e Deut. xii. 32.