3. He may not leave her either without or with her own consent, when a greater hurt is like to come by it, than the gain will countervail. I shall say no more of this, because the rest may be gathered from what is said in the cases about duties to wives, where many other such are handled.
Quest. III. Is it lawful for young gentlemen to travel in other kingdoms, as part of their education?[160]
Answ. The many distinctions which were laid down for answer of the first question, must be here supposed, and the answer will be mostly the same as to that, and therefore need not be repeated.
1. It is lawful for them to travel that are necessarily driven out of their own country, by persecution, poverty, or any other necessitating cause.
2. It is lawful to them that are commanded by their parents (unless in former excepted cases, which I will not stay to name).
3. It is the more lawful when they travel into countries as good or better than their own, where they are like to get more good than they could have done at home.
4. It is more lawful to one that is prudent and firmly settled both in religion, and in sobriety and temperance, against all temptations which he is like to meet with, than to one that is unfurnished for a due resistance of the temptations of the place to which he goeth.
5. It is more lawful to one that goeth in sober, wise, and godly company, or is sent with a wise and faithful tutor and overseer, than to leave young, unsettled persons to themselves.
6. In a word, it is lawful when there is a rational probability, that they will not only get more good than hurt, (for that will not make it lawful,) but also more good than they could probably have other ways attained.
II. But the too ordinary course of young gentlemen's travels out of England now practised, I take to be but a most dangerous hazarding, if not a plain betraying them to utter undoing, and to make them afterwards the plagues of their country, and the instruments of the common calamity. For, 1. They are ordinarily sent into countries far worse and more dangerous than their own, where the temptations are stronger than they are fit to deal with; into some countries where they are tempted to sensuality, and into some where they are tempted to popery or infidelity. In some countries they learn to drink wine instead of beer; and arising from the smaller sort to the stronger, if they turn not drunkards, they contract that appetite to wine and strong drink, which shall prove (as Clemens Alexandrinus calleth gluttony and tippling) a throat-madness, and a belly-devil, and keep them in the sin of gulosity all their days. And in some countries they shall learn the art of gluttony, to pamper their guts in curious, costly, uncouth fashions, and to dress themselves in novel, fantastical garbs, and to make a business of adorning themselves, and setting themselves forth with proud and procacious fancies and affections, to be looked upon as comely persons to the eyes of others. In some countries they shall learn to waste their precious hours in stage-plays, and vain spectacles, and ceremonies, attendances, and visits, and to equalize their life with death, and to live to less use and benefit to the world than the horse that carrieth them. In most countries they shall learn either to prate against godliness, as the humour of a few melancholy fools, and be wiser than to believe God, or obey him, or be saved; or at least to grow indifferent and cold in holy affections and practices: for when they shall see papists and protestants, Lutherans and Calvinists, of contrary minds, and hear them reproaching and condemning one another, this cooleth their zeal to all religion, as seeming but a matter of uncertainty and contention. And when they also see how the wise and holy are made a scorn in one country, as bigots and Hugonots, and how the protestants are drunkards and worldlings in another country, and how few in the world have any true sense and savour of sound and practical religion, and of a truly holy and heavenly life, (as those few they are seldom so happy as to converse with,) this first accustometh them to a neglect of holiness, and then draweth their minds to a more low, indifferent opinion of it, and to think it unnecessary to salvation. For they will not believe that so few shall be saved as they find to be holy in the world; and then they grow to think it but a fancy and a troubler of the world.