Baxters Narrative of His Life and Times, Part 2 · Section 13
To this Case I drew up the following Answer, and sent it to Sir John Trevor, to be by him conveyed to my Lord Ashley.
SIR,
THough I cannot be insensible how inconvenient to my self the Answer of this Case may possibly prove, by displeasing those who are concerned in it, and medling about a Case of Persons utterly unknown to me, yet because I take it to be a thing which Fidelity to the Truth, and Charity to a Christian Soul requireth, I shall speak my Judgment whatever be the Consequents, But I must crave the pardon of that Noble Lord, who desired my Answer might be Subscribed to the Case, because Necessity requireth more words than that Paper will well contain.
The Question about the Marriage, is not An factum valeat? but An fieri debeat? There is no affirming or denying without these necessary Distinctions. 1. Between a Case of Necessity and of no Necessity. 2. Between a Case where the Motives are from the Publick Commodity of Church or State, and where they are only Personal or Private. 3. Between one who is otherwise sober, ingenuous and pious, and a faithful Lover of the Lady, and one that either besides his Opinion is of an ungodly Life, or seeketh her only to serve himself upon her Estate. 4. Between a Lady well grounded and fixed in Truth and Godliness, and one that is weak and but of ordinary setledness. Hereupon I answer,
Prop. 1. In general,… Case. It cannot be said to be simply and in all Cases unlawful to marry an Infidel or Heathen; much less a Papist.
2. In particular, It is lawful in these following Cases:
1. In Case of true Necessity: when all just means have been used,1 Cor. 7. …. and yet the Party hath a necessity of Marriage, and can have no better. If you ask, Who is better? I answer, A suitableness in things of greatest moment to the Party's good determineth that: An impious hypocritical Protestant is worse than a sober godly Papist (for such I doubt not but some be): But he that is sound both in Judgment and in Life is better than either.
2. In case it be very likely to prove some great Commodity to Church or State.Esth. 2. 17. For so I doubt not but a Protestant Lady might marry a Papist Prince or other Person, on whom the Publick Good doth eminently depend; so be it 1. That she be stable and of good Understanding her self: 2. And like to keep such Interest in him as may conduce to his own and the Publick Good: 3. And in case she may not be as well disposed of to the Good of the Publick other ways. When all these concur, the probability of Publick Utility is so great, that the Person (I think) may trust God to make up Personal Incommodities, and preserve the Soul who aimeth at his Glory, and keepeth in his way. But small inconsiderable Probabilities are not enough to move one to hazard their Soul in so perillous a way.
3. Besides these two Cases (of real Necessity and Publick Utility) I remember no Case at the present, in which it is lawful for such a Protestant Lady to marry a Papist: At least in the ordinary Case of Persons in this Land, I take it to be undoubtedly sinful, what hopes soever may be imagined of his Conversion: My Reasons are these,
1. A Husband is especially to be a Meet-helper in Matters of the greatest moment:Gen. 2. 18, 20. And this help is to be daily given,1 Cor. 14. 35. in counselling in the things that concern Salvation,Eph. 4. 29. & 5. 11, 15, 19, 2…, 25, 26, 27. to the end. instructing in the Scriptures, exciting Grace, subduing Sin, and helping the Wife in the constant course of a Holy Life, and in her preparation for Death and the Life to come! And a humble Soul that is conscious of its own weakness, will find the need of all this Help! which how it can be expected from one who only promiseth not to disturb her in her Religion, I cannot understand! I should as soon advise her to take a Physician in her Sickness,Col. 3. 16. who only promimiseth not to meddle with her Health,Hebr. 3. 13. as a Husband who only promiseth not to meddle with her in Matters of Religion.1 Cor. 1. 1….
2. A Husband, who is no helper in Religion,Rom. 15. 6. must needs be a hinderer! For the very Diversions of the Mind from holy Things, by constant talk of other Matters, will be a very great Impediment! And as not to go forward is to go backward, so not to help is to hinder, in one of so near relation. How hard it is to keep up the Love of God, and a Delight in Holiness, and heavenly Desires, and a fruitful Life, even under the greatest Helps in the World, much more among Hinderances, and especially such as are in our Bosom, and continually with us, I need not tell a humble and self-knowing Christian. And of what Importance these things are, I shall not declare till I am speaking to an Infidel or Impious Person.
3. And as for the Conversion of another, Marriage is none of the means that God hath commanded for that end (that ever I could find): Preaching, or Conference with judicious Persons,2. Cor. 6. 14, 15. Unequal yoking with others, as well as Unbelievers, by parity of reason, is proportionably evil: Righteousness with Unrighteousness, Light with Darkness hath no Communion. are the means of such Conversion! And if it be a hopeful thing, it may be tried and accomplished first: There are enow of us who are ready to meet any Man of the Papal way, and to evince the Errours of their Sect (by the allowance of Authority): If Reason, or Scripture, or the Church, or Sense it self may be believed, we shall quickly lay that before them that hath evidence enough to convince them: But if none of this can do it before hand, how can a Wife hope to do it? she ought not to think a Husband so fond and weak, as in the Matters of his Salvation to be led by his Affections to a Woman, against his Reason, his Party and his Education. Or if she can do more than a Learned Man can do, let her do it first, and marry him after. I had rather give my Money or my House and Land in Charity, than to give my self in Charity, meerly in hope to do good to another. It is a Love of Friendship and Complacence, and not a love of meer Benevolence, which belongeth to this Relation. Moreover, Errour and Sin are deep rooted things, and it is God only that can change such hearts, and Women are weak, and Men are the Rulers; and therefore to marry, if it were a vicious ungodly Protestant, meerly in hope to change him, is a Course which I think not meet here to name or aggravate as it deserveth.
4. Yea, she may justly fear rather to be changed by him: For he hath the advantage in Authority, Parts and Interest. And we are naturally more prone to Evil than to Good. It's easier to infect twenty Men than to cure one. And if he speak not to her against her Religion, enow more will.
5. Or if she be so happy as to escape Perversion, there is little hope of her escaping a sad calamitous Life: Partly by guilt, and partly by her grief for a Husband's Soul, and partly by Family-disorders and sins, and also by daily temptations, disappointments, and want of those helps and comforts in the way to Heaven, which her Weakness needeth, and her Relation should afford. So that if her Soul scape, she must look that her great Affliction should be the means: And yet we cannot so confidently expect from God, that he sanctifie to us a self-chosen Affliction as another.
6. Supposing him to be one that loveth her Person truly, and not only her Estate (for else she must expect to stand by as a contemned thing) yet his Religion will not allow him otherwise to love her, than as a Child of the Devil, in a state of Damnation may be loved. For their Religion teacheth them, That none can be saved but the Subjects of the Pope.
If it be objected [It seemeth it is no sin, in that you can allow it in a Case of Necessity, or for the notable benefit of the Church or State]. I answer, It is no sin in those Cases: but out of them it is: It is no sin, but my duty, to lay down my Life for my King or Country: but it followeth not that I may therefore do it without sufficient Cause: So it is in this Case.
Having plainly given you my judgment in the proposed Case, I leave it to that Noble Lord who sent for it, to use it, or conceal it, or burn it, as he please. For it being not the Lady that sent to desire my Resolution, but he, my Answer is not hers, but his that sent for it. But I humbly crave, that if she be at all acquainted with my Answer, (or any one else) it may not be by report, but by shewing it her entire, as I have written it. And as I doubt not but his Honour will find it self engaged to preserve me from the displeasure of such as he acquaineth with it (it being but the answer of his desire, and not an Employment which I sought for) so it must be remembred 1. That I have purposely avoided the medling with the particular Errours of the Romanists Religion. 2. That I speak not a word against any Christian Love to Papists, or amicable Correspondence with them as our Neighbours: much less am I passing any Sentence on their Souls, or Countenancing those who run from them into any contrary Extreme. But a Husband and a bosome Friend, are Relations which require such a special suitableness, as is not to be found in all whom we must love. 3. And what I say of the Papist, I say also of any debaucht ungodly Protestant: For it is not Names and Parties that make Men good, or save their Souls. A Papist who is holy, heavenly, of an upright mortified Life, and not of a bloody or uncharitable Mind to those that differ from him, is in a far happier state as to himself; though I think that the Heart and Life of the one, and the Iudgment of the other, do make them both unsuitable to such a Lady as the Case describeth. And though God may possibly convert and make suitable, and do wonders hereafter, yet it being things likely, and not things only possible which reason must expect, I must say that the Consequents of such an unsuitable Match, are like to be bitterer to her, than one that is indifferent and regardless of the Concernments of a Soul can understand. 4. Change but the Tables, and put the Case to a judicious Papist, and he will resolve it as I have done; and tell you that a Dispensation may be given but in such Cases. 5. If the Case had been, Whether such a Lady might give all her Estate to a Papist without her Person, I should not think she had half so much reason to be willing.
Ri. Baxter. Action, Iuly 21. 1665.
§ 445. And now after all the Breaches on the Churches, the Ejection of the Ministers, and Impenitency under all, Wars and Plague and danger of Famine began all at once on us. War with the Hollanders, which yet continueth: And the driest Winter, Spring and Summer that ever Man alive knew, or our Forefathers mention of late Ages: so that the Grounds were burnt like the High-ways, where the Cattle should have fed! The Meadow Grounds where I lived bare but four Loads of Hay,About 10000 a Week died, accounting the Quakers, Anabaptists, and others, who were not numbred in the Weekly Bills. which before bare forty: The Plague hath seized on the famousest and most excellent City of Christendom; and at this time 8000 and near 300 die of all Diseases in a Week: It hath scattered and consumed the Inhabitants: Multitudes being dead and fled: The Calamities and Cries of the diseased and impoverished are not to be conceived by those that are absent from them! Every Man is a terrour to his Neighbour and himself: for God for our Sins is a Terrour to us all. O how is London, the place which God hath honoured with his Gospel above all Places of the Earth, laid low in Horrours, and wasted almost to Desolation, by the Wrath of God, whom England hath contemned; and a God-hating Generation are consumed in their Sins, and the Righteous are also taken away as from greater Evil yet to come. Strange Comets (which filled the Thoughts and Writings of Astronomers) did in the Winter and Spring a long time appear before these Calamities. Yet under all these Desolations the Wicked are hardened, and cast all on the Fanaticks: and the true dividing Fanaticks and Sectaries are not yet humbled for former Miscarriages, but cast all on the Prelates and Imposers: And the ignorant Vulgar are stupid, and know not what use to make of any thing they feel: But thousands of the sober, prudent, faithful Servants of the Lord, are mourning in secret, and waiting for his Salvation; in Humility and Hope they are staying themselves on God, and expecting what he will do with them. From London it is spread through many Counties, especially next London, where few places, especially Corporations, are free: which makes me oft groan and wish, That LONDON AND ALL THE CORPORATIONS OF ENGLAND WOULD REVIEW THE CORPORATION ACT AND THEIR OWN ACTS, AND SPEEDILY REPENT. Leaving most of my Family at Action compassed about with the Plague, at the writing of this through the mercy of my dear God and Father in Christ, I am hitherto in Safety and Comfort, in the House of my dearly beloved and honoured Friend Mr. Richard Hampden of Hampden in Bucking hamshire, the true heir of his famous Father's Sincerity, Piety and Devotedness to God; whose Person and Family the Lord preserve, and honour them that honour him, and be their Everlasting Rest and Portion.
Hampden, Septemb. 28. 1665.