Richard Baxter - A Christian Directory, Part 2 - Christian Economics

Direct. XI. Be sure that God be the ultimate end of your marriage, and that you principally choose that state of life, that in it you may be most serviceable to him; and that you heartily devote yourselves and your families unto God; that so it may be to you a sanctified condition. It is nothing but making God our guide and end that can sanctify our state of life. They that unfeignedly follow God's counsel, and aim at his glory, and do it to please him, will find God owning and blessing their relation. But they that do it principally to please the flesh, to satisfy lust, and to increase their estates, and to have children surviving them to receive the fruits of their pride and covetousness, can expect to reap no better than they sow; and to have the flesh, the world, and the devil the masters of their family, according to their own desire and choice.

Direct. XII. At your first conjunction (and through the rest of your lives) remember the day of your separation. And think not that you are settling yourselves in a state of rest, or felicity, or continuance, but only assuming a companion in your travels. Whether you live in a married or an unmarried life, remember that you are hasting to the everlasting life, where there is neither "marrying nor giving in marriage," 1 Cor. vii. 29, 30. You are going as fast to another world in one state of life as in the other. You are but to help each other in your way, that your journey may be the easier to you, and that you may happily meet again in the heavenly Jerusalem. When worldlings marry, they take it for a settling themselves in the world; and as regenerate persons begin the world anew, by beginning to lay up a treasure in heaven, so worldlings call their marriage their beginning the world, because then, as engaged servants to the world, they set themselves to seek it with greater diligence than ever before. They do but in marriage begin (as seekers) that life of foolery, which when he had found what he sought, that rich man ended, Luke xii. 19, 20, with a "This I will do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater, and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods; and I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years, take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry: but God said unto him, Thou fool, this night shall thy soul be required of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?" If you would not die such fools, do not marry and live such worldlings.

Quest. I. What should one follow as a certain rule, about the prohibited degrees of consanguinity or affinity? seeing, 1. The law of Moses is not in force to us. 2. And if it were, it is very dark, whether it may by parity of reason be extended to more degrees than are named in the text. 3. And seeing the law of nature is so hardly legible in this case. 7 7 The case of polygamy is so fully and plainly resolved by Christ, that I take it not to be necessary to decide it, especially while the law of the land doth make it death.

Answ. 1. It is certain that the prohibited degrees are not so statedly and universally unlawful, as that such marriage may not be made lawful by any necessity. For Adam's sons did lawfully marry their own sisters.

2. But now the world is peopled, such necessities as will warrant such marriages must needs be very rare, and such as we are never like to meet with.

3. The law of nature is it which prohibiteth the degrees that are now unlawful; and though this law be dark as to some degrees, it is not so as to others.

4. The law of God to the Jews, Lev. xviii. doth not prohibit those degrees there named, because of any reason proper to the Jews, but as an exposition of the law of nature, and so on reasons common to all.

5. Therefore, though the Jewish law cease (yea, never bound other nations) formally as that political national law; yet as it was God's exposition of his own law of nature, it is of use, and consequential obligation to all men, even to this day; for if God once had told but one man, This is the sense of the law of nature, it remaineth true, and all must believe it; and then the law of nature itself, so expounded, will still oblige.

6. The world is so wide for choice, and a necessity of doubtful marriage is so rare, and the trouble so great, that prudence telleth every one that it is their sin, without flat necessity, to marry in a doubtful degree; and therefore it is thus safest, to avoid all degrees that seem to be equal to those named Lev. xviii. and to have the same reason, though they be not named.

7. But because it is not certain that indeed the unnamed cases have the same reason, (while God doth not acquaint us with all the reasons of his law,) therefore when the thing is done, we must not censure others too deeply, nor trouble ourselves too much about those unnamed, doubtful cases. We must avoid them beforehand, because else we shall cast ourselves into doubts and troubles unnecessarily; but when it is past, the case must be considered of as I shall after open.

Quest. II. What if the law of the land forbid more or fewer degrees than Lev. xviii. doth?

Answ. If it forbid fewer, the rest are nevertheless to be avoided as forbidden by God. If it forbid more, the forbidden ones must be avoided in obedience to our rulers.

Quest. III. Is the marriage of cousin-germans, that is, of brothers' children, or sisters' children, or brothers' and sisters' children, unlawful?

Answ. I think not; 1. Because not forbidden by God. 2. Because none of that same rank are forbidden; that is, none that on both sides are two degrees from the root. I refer the reader for my reasons to a Latin Treatise of Charles Butler on this subject, for in those I rest. As all the children of Noah's sons did marry their cousin-germans, (for they could not marry in any remoter degree,) so have others since without reproof, and none are forbidden. 3. But it is safest to do otherwise, because there is choice enough beside, and because many divines being of the contrary opinion, may make it matter of scruple and trouble afterwards, to those that venture upon it without need.

Quest. IV. What would you have those do that have married cousin-germans, and now doubt whether it be lawful so to do?

Answ. I would have them cast away such doubts, or at least conclude that it is now their duty to live peaceably in the state in which they are; and a great sin for them to be separated on such scruples. The reason is, because, if it be not certain that the degree is lawful, at least no man can be sure that it is unlawful. And for husband and wife to break their covenants and part, without a necessary cause, is a great sin; and that which no man can prove to be a sin, is no necessary or lawful cause of a divorce. Marriage duties are certainly commanded to the married, but the marriage of cousin-germans is not certainly forbidden. Therefore if it were a sin to marry so, to them that doubted; or if they are since fallen into doubt whether it was not a sin; yet may they be sure that the continuance of it is a duty, and that all they have to do is to repent of doing a doubtful thing, but not to part, nor to forbear their covenanted duties. No, nor to indulge or suffer those troublesome scruples, which would hinder the cheerful discharge of their duties, and the comfortable serving of God in their relations.

Quest. V. What should those do that are married in those degrees which are not forbidden by name in Lev. xviii. and yet are at the same distance from the root with those that are named, and seem to have the same reason of unlawfulness?

Answ. If there be clearly a parity of degree, and also of the reason of the prohibition, then no doubt but they must part as incestuous, and not continue in a forbidden state. But because divines are disagreed whether there be in all instances a parity of the reason of the prohibition, where there is an equal distance as to degrees; and so in those cases some think it a duty to be separated, and others think it enough to repent of their conjunction and not to be separated, because the case is doubtful, (as the controversy showeth,) I shall not venture to cast in my judgment in a case, where so many and such men are disagreed; but shall only advise all to prevent such troublesome doubts beforehand, and not by rashness to run themselves into perplexities, when there is no necessity; unless they will call their carnal ends or sinful passions a necessity.