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customs may be compared to the bill of divorcement, which put afunder thofe whom God hath joined together; fo that if a man take a virgin, (not betrothed) and lie with her, he is under no obligation to her whatfoever, he may put her away for every caufe-she may go and be another

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"jury, not only to pay her father fifty fhekels of filbut to marry and retain her for life." "it poffible," fays he, "to devife a law that more ftrongly protected female chastity?"-It certainly was not poffible-and the abolition of this law is equally ruinous to the female fex, and an infult to that GOD who fo_graciously confulted their fecurity and protection. This is beft accounted for, by confidering that our present system of law, with respect to the commerce of the fexes, has, in a great measure, been handed down to us from the church of Rome-that the churchmen thereof, in former ages, had the framing and fashioning matters as they pleafed-that as all marriage was forbidden them, they took fpecial care to make themselves amends, by keeping thofe laws out of fight, which, had they been retained, muft have fadly interrupted their monftrous debaucheries, as well with regard to virgins as married women, "which were often carried to fuch lengths as we "fhould fcarcely credit (fays our author) were we "not affured of them by the most authentic records." Had the law of Lev. xx. 10. been retained, the churchmen could not very fafely have defiled other men's wives-and as they could not take any woman for their own, the laws of Exod. xxii. 16. and Deut. xxii. 28, 29. could not poffibly be obeyed-therefore it was expedient to leave them out of their fyftem They now, from long difufe, have funk into oblivion, and perhaps there are thousands of thofe, who call themselves Chriftians, who do not recollect that there are fuch laws as thefe in the Bible.

VOL. II.

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man's wife; and this fo far from being reckoned adultery, as by GoD's law it certainly is, is accounted a virtuous action; it makes her an honest woman, as the phrafe is; fuch a marriage (though doubtless adultery, in the fight of GOD, in the man who by putting her away caufed her to commit it—in the man who marries her who is fo put away -and in the woman who marries another man, living the first who poffeffed her) is accounted a cleanfer, as it were, of all former defilement, takes out the spots from the woman's character, and has been by fome ludicrously styled "the fuller's earth of "reputation.' All this monstrous wickedness is, as to the guilt of it, as much kept out of our fight, by our laws and customs, as the guilt of the divorcing Jews was kept out of theirs by the bill of divorcement. Well might our Bleffed LORD fay, Luke xvi. 15. That which is highly ef teemed among men is abomination in the fight of GOD! The place which those words stand in, fhews them to relate in a particular manner to what He fays at the 18th verfe, touching the point of unjust divorce, they stand in the fame context; which plainly reaches from the words-And He faid unto them, ver. 15. to the end of

ver. 18.

As to the confequences of fuch taking and unjuft divorcement, with refpect to far

the

the greater number of feduced females, who (abandoned to all that infamy, want, disease, and even death itself can bring upon them)

are

At once the prey and fcorn of all they meet, Swarm in each brothel, and infest each streetas I fhall confider their fituation, with its effects and confequences, both to themfelves and the public, in the conclufion of this work, I will fay no more of it here, but proceed to confider the commerce of the fexes, as it concerns fociety in general, and is therefore the object of human laws, more particularly with regard to marriage as a civil contract.

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CHAP. VII.

Of MARRIAGE confidered in a CIVIL VIEW, as the OBJECT of HUMAN LAWS. EXAMINATION of the PRINCIPLES and TENDENCY of the MARRIAGE-ACT.

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AVING before confidered marriage

as a divine inftitution, as ordained of GOD, and by Him defined in what it shall confift (fee before vol. i. p. 18-20.) I cannot help once more observing, that, in this view of it, no human power has the least authority to interfere, so as to make that null and void which God hath made valid and binding; or to say that thofe are not

one

* Some have properly diftinguished marriage as two-fold, confifting in a two-fold bond, called vincu lum internum-an internal bond, and vinculum externum-an outward, or external bond. The first of these arifes from the union of the male and female in one body, and is rendered indiffoluble by the command -they fhall be one flesh. Compare Gen. ii. with 1 Cor. vi. 16. This cannot be diffolved during the lives of the parties, but by an act of adultery in the woman, which totally vacates it, and releases the man from all obligation whatsoever. The vinculum externum, or outward bond, arifes from the recognition of the other by fome outward rite or ceremony

24.

in

one flesh whom His word hath made fo; or to put afunder those whom God, by his own ordinance and command, hath joined together. Nor hath any human legislature the leaft authority to determine who fhall, or who shall not, marry together, unless its law be declarative of or coincident with the law of GOD.

But forafmuch as marriage muft, in the very nature of the thing, concern the outward order of fociety, it becomes, in that point of view only, an object of human laws in the light of a civil contract; the recognition of which, as to civil purposes, is of much confequence to the state; therefore certainly every state has a power, not only to require fuch recognition, but under fuch terms, and under fuch conditions, and by fuch means as may appear to the legislature moft expedient for the fecurity of inheritances, family defcents, pe

in the fight of men. This, as to the mode of administration, is different according to the various customs of mankind, and is the object of human laws; but the other is one and the fame, as to its effence and obligation, in all ages and places, and no more controulable, in these refpects, by human laws, than any other works of creation or providence. To affert the contrary, is that fpecies of atheism which ftrikes at the wifdom, holiness, perfection, purity, and ftability of the DIVINE LAW, as well as at the uncontroulable fovereignty and immutability of the DIVINE LAW-GIVER.

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