amid this general approach of their language and moral provisions, your Lordship asserts, that “Christ lays down his own law "without regard to the law of Moses!"

This is what I would say to you on the subject of analogy between Judaism and Christianity and, if my method of looking at the Scripture has not misled me, the proper answer concerning the novelty of doctrine taught by the Gospel, will be this : It is a novelty, not by contradiction, but religious superiority. And what is my object in applying this deduction to the law of marriage? It is to point out the inference to which it so fairly leads, that the liberty of remarriage follows as a correspondent consequence from the power of divorce. For what is the question between Moses and Christ? It is not whether there shall be any power of divorce, since this is allowed by both; but who shall have it. The Gospel does not take away the authority

itself, but limits the number of the persons acting under it, and at the same time exalts its principle. The old provisions of the law, which were of a larger indulgence, are succeeded by others of a closer obligation. But here ends the change; for the power of divorce is substantially retained; and because it is thus retained, it will have that consequence which it ever had,-the power of remarriage. Under the law of Moses, these actions were, amidst all circumstances, inseparably connected; and the law of Christ, which must be viewed as a modification, and not as an utter subversion, of it, will allow the same inference in those few to which its limited permission extends. The Saviour evidently points out this conjunction of the two actions; for, announcing his own law, he declares himself upon both of them at once. "Whosoever shall put away his wife and shall marry another," ex

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under certain new circumstances, "is guilty of adultery."

A recurrence to the object of the two systems will confirm this reasoning. For what was that of the law of Moses? An amelioration of the old marriage system. And to this purpose it changed, as I have already shown, a vague and personal act into a fixed and public proceeding. What was aimed at by the corresponding part of Christ's Law? A farther amelioration of the marriage system. The license, therefore, which, from the viciousness of the former practice, Moses had been still compelled to allow, was now not utterly taken away indeed, (for we are also in our sins,) but contracted, in order to serve a greater moral purpose. But it is only contracted. The principle of the dissolution of the first marriage is still continued; and if so, the power of entering upon a second, attends it

in an equal proportion. The difference of the two laws, therefore, is not in the nature, but in the quantity, of the license granted. Under the former, it was great; by the latter, it is brought within a small compass. But, notwithstanding this restriction, the indissolubility of marriage is no more a doctrine of the Gospel than it had been of the law of Moses. With a view to the better execution of the Divine purposes on society, the power of divorce is, indeed, encumbered with greater difficulties than before, and the chance of administering to vice, through too great a facility of remarriage, is lessened; but divorce is still allowed. And, where that allowance is justly taken, the complete liberty of remarriage will follow, as a consequence, in that one case, as it did by the law of Moses, in every case. This single consideration, if there were no other, would induce me to suppose, that the clause, which you take to be entirely pro

hibitory of the remarriage (while you admit the power of divorce), must have another meaning: for, by an analogical interpretation, the correspondence with the law of Moses, which is thus granted by yourself, in one instance, (notwithstanding your general declaration,) is maintained in the other also;. and the limited power of divorce, still allowed by the Christian institution, is illustrated by an equal one of remarriage. And, what is a still farther inducement, by maintaining this correspondence, between the two institutions, we see the gracious approach they make, in common, towards the standing demands of civil legislation; the fundamental principle of which is (as the soundest lawyers inform us,) never to permit the dissolution of one marriage, without the legal prospect of another. I cannot but think this reasoning to be just. I will now leave it, and consider the subject in a point of view