use of Divorce a liberty granted by it for serious causes, had been thrown wide to include the slightest, and now it is restored and restricted to the exclusive occurrence of

one.

Jesus Christ did not, as some have contended, abrogate the Mosaic law; he was a careful observer of it. His doctrine is not that of hostility and opposition to the latter, but of superiority; a superiority rendered necessary by circumstances, as were the less rigid enactments of the Judaical institutes. This is the manner in which Eusebius, Tertullian, Grotius, and numerous other writers regard it, stating the law from the Mount of Galilee, to have succeeded to that from Mount Sinai, to be the same rule of moral action, expounded and perfected; and as Grabe observes, though its provisions have a novelty, and a difference of sanctity, yet their object is not to throw

*

• Grotius has stated this forcibly in the subjoined passage. "Nullam juris per Mosem promulgati partem a Christo infringi, at præcepta interim meliora quam lex illa, præsertim quatenus in judiciis observabatur, exigebat." And, on the very subject before us, he adds, "Sensus enim est lex Mosis ne quid gravius eveniret tibi de uxore judicium indulsit; tu vide ut tantâ potestate humanè utaris, certus nulla Deo placere Divortia nisi quæ summa necessitas extorsit."

contempt on the former institution, but to excuse its unavoidable imperfection, and to complete what it had but begun.

It is thus the Saviour himself explains the old permission; for on the next occasion where we find the Pharisees (disciples, doubtless, of the school of Hillel) approaching Christ, for the determination of the reality of this liberty, or whether its existence had not, in virtue of his interposition, altogether ceased, he expresses himself in a manner which more fully confirms the doctrine delivered by him on the Mount. The passage is in Matthew.* "Then came the Pharisees, tempting him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" This question brings all the fluctuating opinions on Divorce to a point; and the reply of the Saviour should be attentively considered; the "every cause" in the question, evidently alludes to slight causes, some infirmity, some unpleasantness in temper or person, or of the same kind and equally trivial. The Saviour commences his answer, by referring to the original institution of marriage, as the correct standard by which opinions on such matters should be regulated, every deviation from which was an evil and

* Matt. xix. 3-9.

+ Κατα πασαν αιτίαν.

an abuse. That origin marked the union as one of a character the most close, intimate, and permanent; if not indissoluble, yet as near the verge of indissolubility, as possible, and certainly not dissoluble on frivolous pretences. "Have ye not read that He which made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh?" "Wherefore," (this is the Saviour's conclusion,) they are no more twain, but one flesh;" that is, as Leigh remarks, in that sense of the term which implies not the gross and carnal, but the union of the purest chastest love. " What, therefore, God hath joined together, let not man put asunder."†

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The reply of Christ is thus far clear, and

Leigh's Critica Sacra, on the word, par, Gen. ii. 24. In strict accordance with this view is Dr. Clarke's derivation of the term husband. "It comes," he says, "from the two Anglo-Saxon terms, hus and band; the bond of the house, anciently spelt housebond." And he adds; " lamentable is it, when he, who should be the bond of union of the family, scatters and ruins it by his dissipation, riot, and excess."

↑ Man; the term in the original is avopamos; the article is not prefixed; intending, thereby, man, in the abstract and universal acceptation of the term,-no exception by reason

conclusive against the Pharisees. To this they immediately objected the regulations of the Mosaic law, which admitted the separation of the married parties.

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It is necessary to blend here the two narratives of St. Matthew and St. Mark.* They say unto him, why then did Moses command" (EVETSINATO) (for the corrupt and licentious glosses of the Jewish interpreters had extended the privilege to imply an obligation) "to give her a writing of Divorcement," (the form of that Bill has already been stated,)" and to put her away? And he said unto them,” as if to rebuke their perversion of his expressions, "What did Moses command you?" How is it you read his words? The Pharisees repeat their statement, though with a little alteration, which, perhaps, the manner of the Saviour, indignant at the gross misapplication of the permission, had compelled. They said,

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of sex or condition. Neither the will of the individual, nor the operation of the laws, can dissolve a bond like this, unless where the permission originates from the very source by which the bond itself was sealed. No judicial tribunal, on earth, however wise; no custom, however prevalent; no act of legislature, however imperative, can sever a compact, which the God of all has ratified, save for causes which he has intimated, as demanding and justifying the measure.

* Matt. xix. 3-9., and Mark x. 2-12.

Moses suffered (ETETρEVE) to write a Bill of Divorcement, and to put her away." The reply of Christ contains the explanation already given. Now you state the matter more correctly; it was only a permission, and this was the reason; 66 Moses, for the hardness" (προς την σκληροκαρδίαν υμων επέτρεψεν υμιν, hardness, i. e. such an obstinate and unalterable obduracy of disposition, as to beget its certain offspring bitterness and cruelty towards such as stand in the way of a man's wishes) for the hardness of your hearts, wrote unto you this precept, and suffered you to put away your wives, but from the beginning it was not so." These separations are a deviation from the spirit of the original institution, and that spirit I mean to revive and restore. Because politic laws are constrained to bear with some things, it followeth not that God alloweth them.'† This sufferance of Divorce was so far from

* Dr. Clarke interprets this, Brashith. The Jews named the books of their law from the first word in each. Genesis they termed Brashith, from the first word in it, n'w, which signifies beginning; and that Christ spake in this way here. In Brashith it was not so; intimating, that the account given in Genesis was widely different, and that there was no divorce nor polygamy in the first family.

+ Beza in loco.