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

Supposing 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 prieft's confecration. It is not man, but GOD, 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 fervice, 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 respect to the mutual promises made to each other, which the facred scriptures call betrothing or espousing; but the

The cuftody of the male.] It feems there fhould be added-for the fake of procreation, and of mutual help. Acceffit fides.] Tacite fignificat fidem quam dat maritus uxori non effe a natura, fed ab inftituto.

Acceded a folemn contract.] Here is tacitly fignified, that the faith which the bufband pledges to the wife, is not from nature, but by (pofitive) inftitution.

C4

contract

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 styled -the confummation.

As to the perfon celebrating the marriage -the place where-the manner how; it is very certain, that these things are wholly of human invention, and therefore not only various in different parts of the world, but alfo in the fame country. We have amongst us Jews, Papifts, Quakers; all these observe an outward form or ceremony different from each other. As for the church of England, we have differed from ourselves; for the fame ceremony which would have constituted a legal marriage before the 26th of the late King George II. will not do it now, unless certain circumstances, introduced and infifted upon by act of parliament, be observed.

But the all-wife Legislator of the universe hath not left His divine inftitutions on fo vague, fo precarious, fo uncertain a footing. But fee, faid He to Mofes, that thou make all things according to the pattern shewn thee in the mount. Heb. viii. 5. We find every particular, down to the very pins in the tabernacle, every rite and ceremony, even to the minutest circumftance, exactly delineated and revealed. But we find no marriage-fervice, or religious ceremony of an outward kind, fo

much

As for the manner of celebrating marriage, Mofes has left no direction about it. We do not find it ac

companied

much as mentioned.

The business of mar

riage, by which I understand, the parties actually becoming one flesh in God's fight, was left as at first ordained, to the one fimple act of union. A conclufive proof this, that nothing else is of divine inftitution; confequently, that nothing else is effential to constitute a marriage in the fight of GOD, but that this is.

Should the Reader retain the least doubt of the truth of what has been faid, or be under any difficulty in understanding what is meant by those words-They shall be one flesh, we may refer to a very clear explanation of the matter, not only by reviewing St. Paul's words, 1 Cor. vi. 15, 16. but also by confidering more minutely what is meant by those paffages mentioned before, from the law of Mofes; but as the texts are not cited at length, I will here fet them down as they ftand in the places referred to.

Exod. xxii. 16, 17.

If a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall furely endow her to be bis wife. If her father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins.

By this paffage, as from many others in the facred fcriptures, it appears, that fathers, during the minority of their daughters, as in every other inftance (fee Numb. xxx. 3,4, 5.) fo in the bufinefs of contracting marriage, companied with any religious ceremony, fuch as going to the Tabernacle or Temple, offering facrifices, or even that it was performed by or before a priest. See Ant. Univ. Hift. vol. iii. p. 145.

had

*

had a negative in their own power: therefore if a woman being in her father's houfe in her youth, i. e. being under age, as we term it, betrothed or efpoufed herself to a man, the former by verba de futuro, the latter by verba de prafenti, as the civilians fpeak; both which were held fo facred, that defiling either a betrothed or efpoufed woman was a fpecies of adultery, and to be punished with death: -yet if the father withheld his confent, neither the betrothing nor efpoufals, nor any contract arifing from them, could lawfully be carried into execution. But in the paffage before us, matters were gone too far to be recalled. The man had not only enticed the maid, but had actually lain with her; and therefore God commands that he shall SURELY endow her n 1 fibi in uxorem. Mont. for his wife. For now the primary inftitution took place, they shall be one flesh; and what GOD had joined together (by pronouncing them one flesh) man could not put afunder. Therefore the 17th verfe doth not fay-" If the father utterly refuse to give her unto him, fuch marriage fhall be null and void; but

man

*Spoufals de futuro are, according to our ecclefiaftical law, a mutual promife, or covenant of marriage, to be had afterwards; as when the man faith to the wo"I will take thee to my wife;" and fhe then anfwereth, "I will take thee to my husband."-Efpoufals de præfenti are a mutual promife or contract of present matrimony; as when the man doth fay to the woman

"I do take thee to my wife,"-and fhe then anfwereth-" I do take thee to my husband." 2 Burn 16.

if-or-* though the father utterly refuse to give her unto him, he shall pay money according to the dowry of virgins. Which is but explanatory of what goes before, he fhall SURELY endow her to be his wife, by paying the dower, into the hands of the father after becoming one flesh with her, as he ought to have done, and was ufually done, before-hand. is fuppofed to be a dowry or portion which the husband paid into the hands of the bride, or her father, as a kind of purchase of her perfon. This is, to this day, the practice of feveral eastern nations; and this was not

to

* So N is often rendered, as in Judg. xiii. 16. Pf. xxvii. 3. Ifa. x. 22. Jer. xv. 1. Lam. iii. 32. & al. freq. i and fo I think it ought to be understood here, (however I may differ from the Talmudists) in order to make this verfe confiftent with the preceding, where it is faid

, endowing he fhall endow her, &c. as well as to avoid the very great difficulty of fuppofing that fuch an action as enticing the maid, lying with her, and then leaving her on the father's refufal, was of no higher confequence than paying a small fum of money; for the 50, or filver paid, amounted to very little, and rather feems to be payable as an acknowledgment of the contract, than any thing elfe, See Nold. Heb. Part. ON, No. 13. tranflated by quamvis-although:-where the reader will find many authorities.

+ See Parkhurst's Heb. Lex. fub voc..

Tacitus L. de Mor. Germ. mentions fuch a custom among the Germans. Dotem non uxor marito, fed 'uxori maritus offert, interfunt parentes & propinqui, ac munera probant: In hæc munera uxor accipitur, hoc maximum vinculum, hæc arcana facra, hoc conjugales Deos arbitrantur. "The wife doth not bring a dower

to the husband, but the husband to the wife; the pa"rents and relations are prefent, and approve the gifts. "On thefe gifts the wife is accepted; this is the chiefeft

bond thefe are facred myfteries, with which they

" think