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| If It Be Granted that Second Marriage is Lawful, Yet All Things Lawful are Not Expedient.
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Chapter VIII.—If
It Be Granted that Second Marriage is Lawful, Yet All Things Lawful are
Not Expedient.
Let it now be granted that repetition of marriage
is lawful, if everything which is lawful is good. The same
apostle exclaims: “All things are lawful, but all are not
profitable.”546
Pray, can what
is “not profitable” be called good? If even things
which do not make for salvation are “lawful,” it follows
that even things which are not good are “lawful.” But
what will it be your duty rather to choose; that which is good because
it is “lawful,” or that which is so because it is
“profitable?” A wide difference I take to exist
between “licence” and salvation. Concerning the
“good” it is not said “it is lawful;” inasmuch
as “good” does not expect to be permitted, but to be
assumed. But that is “permitted” about which a doubt
exists whether it be “good;” which may likewise not
be permitted, if it
have not some first (extrinsic) cause of its being:—inasmuch as
it is on account of the danger of incontinence that second
marriage, (for instance), is permitted:—because, unless the
“licence” of some not (absolutely) good thing were subject
(so our choice), there were no means of proving who rendered a willing
obedience to the Divine will, and who to his own power; which of us
follows presentiality, and which embraces the opportunity of
licence. “Licence,” for the most part, is a trial of
discipline; since it is through trial that discipline is proved, and
through “licence” that trial operates. Thus it comes
to pass that “all things are lawful, but not all are
expedient,” so long as (it remains true that) whoever has a
“permission” granted is (thereby) tried, and is
(consequently) judged during the process of trial in (the case of the
particular) “permission.” Apostles, withal, had a
“licence” to marry, and lead wives about (with
them547
). They had a “licence,”
too, to “live by the Gospel.”548
But he who, when occasion required,549
“did not
use this right,” provokes us to imitate his own example; teaching
us that our probation consists in that wherein “licence”
has laid the groundwork for the experimental proof of
abstinence.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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