Page images
PDF
EPUB

CHA P. I.

Of MARRIAGE as a Divine Inflitution.

WHE

HEN the great and all-wife Creator had formed man upon the earth, male and female, He blessed 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 pass, though two distinct and independent perfons before, they now were to become as one. They fhall be one * flesh, Gen. ii. 24. and so

+ By this expreffion, I would be understood to mean, that by which the parties become one flesh in God's fight, fo as not to be put afunder. See Matth. xix. 5, 6.

[ocr errors]

The Hebrew

as one flesh-is σapna μiav, Gr. Test. prefixed, hath often this fenfe. See Josh. 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 and of the Old Teftament, are rendered by is Talepa and is útov in the New Teftament; and clearly evince the names of Father and Son to be œconomical 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 with, and a noun following, denotes fome change of condition, state, or quality, and fignifies -to become. Gen. ii. 7. 24. xvii. 4. Exod. iv. 4. & al. freq.

indiffolubly

indiffolubly one, as to be infeparable. What God bath joined together, let not man put afunder. Matt. xix. 6.

That this oneness arofe from this act of union, and from the command confequent upon it, that they should be one flesh, is evident from the Apostle's reafoning, 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.

ye

This question of the Apostle's-Know not that he 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. 24. and feems very fully to determine, not only the ftrictness of the marriage-union, but that which conftitutes it in the fight of GOD. In all which there is not the leaft hint, or moft diftant allufion, to any outward rite or ceremony administered by any perfon whatsoever; but the whole is made to reft fimply and only in the

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

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

See Parkhurst's Gr. Lex.
perfonal

C 2

perfonal union of the man and woman. It is this alone which, according to the Apoftle, makes them one flesḥ.

If

+ 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; otherwise his citing this paffage of Gen. ii. 24. would have been nothing to the purpofe to fhew that this makes them one flesh. The HeΠΡΟΣΚΟΛ

,is rendered by the LXX דבק באשתו brew

ΛΗΘΗΣΕΤΑΙ, προς την γυναικα αυτε, in Matt. xix. 5. ΠΡΟΣΚΟΛΛΗΘΗΣΕΤΑΙ τη γυναικι αυs. Let the reader compare all this with the Apofile's ὁ ΚΟΛΛΩΜΕΝΟΣ ΤΗ opy, and it will be very easy to see that the fame idea runs through the whole; which is, that those who are thus joined, are one body, and pronounced by GoD-one flesh. This will appear still the more evidently, if we confider OUR LORD's expreffion, as represented by the Evangelist, Matt. xix. 6. where he uses the word ETNEZETZEN, hath joined, or yoked together, as the effect of the cause exprefied by Προσκολληθήσεται. All this will appear fill more evidently, if, with the accurate Ar. Mont. we tranflate a pan, & adhærebit IN UXORE SUA.

A very candid critic on Thelyphthora, afks," how the "above idea (of xoλaμevos) is reconcileable with the "context, in which the fame word is applied to the Lord κι —Ὁ κολλώμενος τω κυρίω, He that is JOINED to the Lord," &c.? It is a pleasure to me to give a candid question as candid an answer.

The idea contended for, where xoλλdμevo, is made use of as denoting the union of a man with an harlot, cannot be the fame with that where it denotes the union of the believer in one fpirit with the Lord: the one is evidently a carnal idea, the other as evidently spiritual; yet the marriageunion is emblematical of the fpiritual union between CHRIST and the believer, as to the ftrictness and indiffolubility of the union itself, and many other particulars, which the reader may find, Eph. v. 22-33. where (v. 31.) the Apoftle quotes Gen. ii. 24. and exprefsly affimilates it to the union of CHRIST with the church, v. 32. Thus

are

If the licentious and temporary union with an barlot, makes a man to become one body, and one flesh with her, we may fuppofe that the fin of fornication receives no small share 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. Neverthelefs the Apoftle, on the authority of Gen. ii. 24. fays, that he that is JOINED to an barlot, 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

are earthly things made use of to teach us heavenly truths; and indeed in this dark and imperfect state of mortality, this is the only way by which we can become acquainted with them; they are therefore made use of for this gracious purpose, throughout the whole Bible.

The Apostle is fhewing, in this place of 1 Cor. vi. the horrid inconfiftency of believers, who, in a spiritual sense, are joined to the Lord, (compare John xv. 5.) and become one fpirit with him, (fo that their very bodies are temples of the Holy Ghost, ver. 19.) taking those bodies from the fanctified ufe (fee 1 Theff. iv. 4, 5.) to which they ought to be dedicated, and joining them in carnal commerce with an harlot, by which they become one body, and of course one flesh, with her.-This is not glorifying GOD in their bodies, and in their fpirit, &c. ver. 20. but a profanation and defilement of both.

C 3

plain

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 dispute but I cannot fuppofe that the * matrimonial

*Our marriage-ceremony, or form of folemnization of matrimony, was fettled by Archbishop Cranmer, and twelve others, in the reign of Ed. VI. i. e. about 232 years ago, or 1548 years after the canon of fcripture was clofed, and is certainly the method by which the civil contract is established among us, provided it be adminif tered agreeably to a fubfequent act of parliament (26 G.II. c. 33.); but how far muft the mind be gone in fuperftition and prejudice, to fuppofe, that a human ceremony can controul or alter the fixed and determinate laws of Heaven, or have the leaft influence on what does or does not make the parties one flesh in God's fight! Grot. de Jur. lib. ii. c. 5. § 8. faith-Conjugium naturaliter effe exiftimamus talem cohabitationem maris cum femina, quæ feminam conftituat quafi fub oculis & cuftodia maris. Nam tale confortium & in mutis animantibus quibufdam videre eft. In homine vero, qua animans est utens ratione, ad hoc acceffit fides, qua fe femina mari obftringit. Nec aliud, ut conjugium fubfiftat, natura videtur requirere.

We account marriage to be naturally fuch a cohabitation of the male with the female, as may place the female, as it were, under the eye and cuftody of the male; for fuch a fellowship [or intercourfe] is to be seen among certain brute animals. But as to man, as he is an animal having the ufe of reafon, to this (natural conjunction) has acceded a folemn contract, by which the female binds herfelf to the male. Nor does nature feem to require any thing elfe for the fubfiftence of marriage.

Gronovius notes on part of the above paffage, as follows, viz.

Cuftodia maris.] Videtur addendum, procreationis, & mutui auxilii caufa.

The

« PreviousContinue »