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CHAP. I.

Of MARRIAGE as a Divine Inflitution.

WHEN the great and all-wife Creator had formed man upon the earth,

male and female, He bleffed them, and faid unto them, be fruitful and multiply, and replenish the earth. Gen. i. 28. This command was to be fulfilled in a way of God's own appointment; that is to fay, by the union of the man and woman in perfonal knowledge of each other. This is the only marriage-ordinance which we find revealed in the facred fcriptures. Wherever this union fhould come to pafs, though two diftinct and independent perfons before, they now were to become as one. They fhall be one* flesh, Gen. ii. 24. and so indiffolubly

one,

Tab-as one fleft-ass σapna μlav, Gr. Teft. The Hebrew prefixed, hath often this sense. See Jofh. vii. 5. Lam. i. 17. So the Greek prepofition is, which anfwers to it. Compare 2 Sam. vii. 14. with Heb. i. 5. where the band of the Old Teftament, are rendered by its ralepa and èts ûsov in the New Testament; and clearly evince the names of Father and Son to be economical names of office in the covenant of redemption, not defcriptive of an inferiority and fubordination in the perfons of the GODHEAD. Compare Luke i. 35.

Alfo

one, as to be infeparable. What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. Matth. xix. 6.

That this oneness arose from this act of union, and from the command confequent upon it, that they should be one flesh, is evivident from the Apostle's reasoning, 1 Cor. vi. 15, 16. Know ye not that your bodies are the members of CHRIST? Shall I then take the members of CHRIST, and make them the members of an * barlot? God forbid! What, know ye not that he that is JOINED to an harlot is ONE BODY? for two, faith he, shall be ONE FLESH.

This question of the Apoftle's-Know ye not that be that is joined to an harlot is one body? and what follows, being taken together, have a plain reference to what Adam faid, Gen. ii. 23, 24. This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh, &c. and feems very fully to determine, not only the strictness

Alfo with, and a noun following, denotes fome change of condition, ftate, or quality, and fignifies-to become. Gen. ii. 7. 24. xvii. 4. Exod. iv. 4. & al. freq.

πορνη, from περνημι, οι περνάω, to fell. A whore, a woman who prostitutes her body for gain. So the Latin meretrix is from mereor, to earn, get money: and our English word whore, from the German buren (Dutch bueren) to hire. Thus Ovid, lib. i. eleg. 10.

Stat meretrix certo cuivis mercabilis ære,
Et miferas juffo corpore quærit opes.

See Parkhurst's Gr. Lex.

of the marriage-union, but that which constitutes it in the fight of GOD. In all which there is not the leaft hint, or most distant allufion, to any outward rite or ceremony administered by any perfon whatfoever; but the whole is made to reft fimply and only in the perfonal union of the man and woman. It is this alone which, according to the Apostle, makes them one flesh.

If the licentious and temporary union with an harlot, makes a man to become

*It may be prefumed, that in what Adam faid, Gen. ii. 23. he had an immediate reference to her formation out of a part of himself; but that there was also an allufion to the perfonal union of the male and female, in what he says, ver. 24. is clearly proved by the Apostle's argument, 1 Cor. vi. 16; otherwife his citing this paffage of Gen. ii. 24. would have been nothing to the purpose to fhew that this makes them one flefb. The Hebrew na pat is rendered by the LXX, ΠΡΟΣΚΟΛΛΗΘΗΣΕΤΑΙ, προς την γυναίκα vs. in Matt. xix. 5. ΠΡΟΣΚΟΛΛΗΘΗΣΕΤΑΙ ΤΗ γυναικι αυ] Let the reader compare all this with the Apofle's ὁ ΚΟΛΛΩΜΕΝΟΣ τῇ πόρνη, and it will be very easy to fee that the fame idea runs through the whole; which is, that those who are thus joined, are ne body, and pronounced by GoD-one flesh. This will appear ftill the more evidently, if we confider OUR LORD's expreffion, as reprefented by the Evangelift, Matt. xix. 6. where he uses the word EtneZETZEN, hath joined, or yoked together, as the effect of the cau/e expreffed by Προσκολληθήσεται. All this will appear ftill more evidently, if, with the accurate Ar. Mont. we tranflate N pan, adharebit IN

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one body, and one flesh with her, we may fuppofe that the fin of fornication receives no fmall fhare of its malignity, from the abuse thereby committed of the ordinance of marriage as established by GoD: as entering into it without any intention of abiding by it, but merely to gratify a tranfient luft, and that with a woman who departs from one to another, as gain or evil defire may lead her. Nevertheless the Apoftle, on the authority of Gen. ii. 23, 24. fays, that he that is joined to an harlot, is one body, and one flesh with her, by being engaged in that ordinance, of which these things are declared, in the paffage referred to, to be the inevitable confequences.

From what has been faid, it appears, that marriage, as inftituted of GoD, fimply confifts (as to the effence of it) in the union of the man and woman as one body; for which plain and evident reason, no outward forms or ceremonies of man's invention, can add to or diminish from the effects of this union in the fight of GOD. What ends these things may ferve, as to civil purposes, I fhall not difpute: but I cannot fuppofe that the matrimonial-fervice in our church, or any other, can make the parties more one flesh in the fight of GOD, fuppofing them to have been united, than the burial-fervice can make the corpfe C 3

over

over which it is red more dead than it was before.

Suppofing they have not been united, they are not one flesh in the fight of GOD, by any virtue in the words of the fervice, any more than a piece of wafer becomes flesh and blood by a Popish priest's confecration. It is not man, but Gop, which makes the twain one flesh; neither is it man's ordinance, but God's inftitution, which brings that to pass. If this be not fo, why, notwithstanding the words of the service, does incapacity, inability, or impotency, in either party, render all that has been done null and void? See Burn, Eccl. Law, vol. ii. p. 39.

By obferving the outward ordinance, the intention of the parties is publickly recognized, and they are pronounced man and wife in the fight of the world; but they are not fo in GoD's fight, unless by anticipation, as it were, with refpect to the mutual promifes made to each other, which the facred fcriptures call betrothing or ef poufing; but the contract is then, and only then, complete in the fight of GOD, when the only ordinance which He has appointed has paffed between them; and therefore it is very properly ftyled-the confum

mation.

As to the perfon celebrating the marriage-the place where the manner how;

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