ordinance of GOD fhould be in fome ineafure recognized, as to its fcriptural import and validity, in our municipal laws; but human wifdom forbad it!

In antient Rome, there were three kinds of marriage, diftinguished from each other by the names of conferration, coëmption, and use the last of these came very near to the fimplicity of the divine inftitution. It was, when the accidental living together of a man and woman had been productive of children, and they found it neceffary or convenient to continue together; when, if they agreed on the matter between themselves, it became a valid marriage, and the children were confidered as legitimate.

Something fimilar to this is the present cuftom of Scotland; where, if a man and woman have lived together 'till they have children, if the man marry the woman, even upon his death-bed, all the antinuptial children become legitimated, and inherit the honours and estate of their father.

The cafe is the fame in Holland; with this difference only, that all the children. to be legitimated muft appear with the father and mother in the church, at the ceremony of their marriage. See the Hif tory of Women, by W. Alexander, M. Ď. vol. ii. p. 252, 267.

Our fyftem in England is very injurious

VOL. I.

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and

and cruel, as it deftroys one grand inducement to matrimony, where a man and woman have lived together and had children, by ftamping baftardy on the iffue without remedy. Whence fo inhuman a plan fhould be derived into the common law of the realm, cannot well be devifed; but it must be supposed to have commenced in fome of the darkeft ages of ignorance and barbarifm; for at the latter end of the twelfth century, Pope Alexander III. made a conftitution, that "children born before "the folemnization of matrimony, where

matrimony followed, fhould, to all in

tents and purpofes, be as legitimate as "those born after matrimony." By which it should feem, that the institution of Conftantine had been totally laid afide; alfo, that the church thought very differently of marriage, from what it did in the fourth century. See before, p. 31, note.

Upon the whole, it may be concluded, that fuch laws as are above mentioned, would never have been thought of, unless the propofers and framers of fuch schemes. of post-legitimation, had been convinced, that the conjugal cohabitation of the man and woman was a lawful marriage in GoD's account, confequently the iffue legitimate in His fight: therefore they were willing to reconcile matters as well as they could, between human invention and divine inftitution. Having,

Having, I truft, established this truth, that where a man and a virgin are united by the communication of their perfons to each other, they become one flesh in the fight of GOD, fo made by his exprefs command, infomuch that the man may not put her away all his days; it follows, that they are indiffolubly united, beyond the power of difunion by any human authority whatso

ever.

which is

It is the contempt of this law, this primary law of nature, or rather of the GOD of nature, established from the beginning, and afterwards enforced and explained by the pofitive laws above-mentioned, which lies at the root of the evils complained of. For, if a man w the facred fcripture's way of faying any man, every man, without diftinction (for GOD makes none in the texts we have been confidering, nor in any other) was deemed the bufband of the virgin he lay with, and was obliged to make a public recognition of it, as enjoined by GoD fo to do, without any liberty to put her away all his days; if the law of the land was as positive as to this, as the law delivered from GoD to Mofes above-cited, we should fee a wonderful change in the manners of the people, as well as a stop put to the daily ruin of innocent girls. Would the lent debauch their tenant's or labourer's

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great and opu

daughters,

daughters, or their own fervant-maids, if they knew that this put it into the power of fuch poor creatures to claim their feducers as their husbands? Certainly not, at least not in one inftance of ten thousand where it now happens. Muft we not fuppofe, that the great and merciful Creator, enacted, His laws for the protection of the weaker. fex against the stronger, as well as for the prevention of confufion and every evil work, which muft enfue from men and women's coming together and parting ὡς ἄλογα ζώα Quod (as the Apostle fays) like natural brute beafts which are without reafon? As therefore a contempt of the laws of heaven, is evidently the caufe of the evil, it is as evident that nothing but restoring their due refpect and efficacy can ever cure it.

How great an impediment to matrimony doth this alfo prove, amongst the profligate and licentious part of mankind ?. (which, as the world goes, I do not fuppofe to conftitute a very fmall -for if men can gratify their paffions, and part of it) indulge their love of variety, without the leaft danger of much further trouble than it cofts them to feduce a poor unwary girl,: they will hardly bind themselves to the painful œconomy of a family-life, or confine themselves to the attention and concern which a family muft require.

In every point of view, the contempt of GOD's law is very fhocking; but be it remembered, that, though we have no municipal law to enforce its obligation, it ought to be binding and obligatory on every man's confcience in the fight of the divine law-giver.

There is no ftatute which punishes the defilement of our neighbour's wife, though it is a capital offence by GoD's law, and punished with the death of both the parties; yet furely none will fay, that it is the lefs criminal before GOD: or, because the feventh commandment has no human municipal law to enforce its rigour, that therefore the confciences of individuals are under lefs obligation to obferve it, or have more liberty to tranfgrefs it, than if it had.

But it fometimes happens, that a man having enticed a maid, &c. lives with her for a feason, and then turns her off for another, not perhaps without making fome provifion for the first, and the confcience of the man is falved by this piece of generofity, as it is called. But the law of GoD is directly against fuch a proceeding-He fball SURELY endow her to be his wife, faith the most High: and the reafon given for this, can never alter nor cease, because the act from which it arifes can never be recalled. The law of GOD therefore as much remains