CHAP. XXVIII.
That our Lord Christ intended not to make new Laws of mariage and divorce, or of any civil matters.
IT is agreed by all who determine of the Kingdom, and offices of * 1.1 Christ by the holy Scriptures, as all godly men ought to doe, that our Saviour upon earth took not on him either to give new laws in ci∣vil affairs, or to change the old. But it is certain that matrimony and divorce are civil things. Which the Christian Emperours knowing, gave conjugal laws; and reserv'd the administration of them to thir own Courts; which no true ancient Bishop ever condemn'd.
Our Savour came to preach repentance, and remission; seeing ther∣fore those who put away thir wives without any just cause, were not toucht with conscience of the sin, through misunderstanding of the law, he recall'd them to a right interpretation, and taught that the woman in the beginning was so joyn'd to the man, that there should be a perpetual union both in body and spirit: where this is not, the matrimony is already broke, before there be yet any divorce made or second mariage.