it is given; but he that is able to receive it, let him receive it." And thus the best commentators have ever understood it. Selden affixes this meaning to it. So do Hammond, Beza, Doddridge, Scott, and many others.

66

Selden says, "Priore notione ad conjugium seu Divortium attinere nequit fornicatio, nisi de Divortiæ ob stuprum ante nuptias, seu sponsalia admissere capias," and this idea he rejects; and adds, Secunda igitur, seu quæ significat Adulterium, seu conjugii violationem denotat, hic auferenda, si recte fornicatio illicitum conjugis concubitum." And then he subjoins the readings of several versions which all bear the same way.

Ut tam Syro quam Arabi sic acceptam legislati, et interpretatur plerique, (the Syriac and Arabic.) And also the translation of the old Gallican Church. It is subjoined for its curiosity; "Tut cil que lerout leur femmes hors pur acheson de fornication, i la fait estre fornicaire, et cil que prenont femme en tel manier lessie, fit advoutire."

Selden's inference is very just on the con

"Avoutire est Adulterium."

"Florentini avolterio dicunt."

Du Cange.

vertible terms employed in the first and second divisions of this version. "Plane Adulterium et fornicatio hic sumentur pro synonimis." Another old version makes them still more clear, by reciprocally employing the terms. "lecherie et advowterie." Luther's old version has it "whordom and advowtry." And the references in the margins of our English Bibles, while, in many instances, they show the use of the term fornication to be in its generic character, yet, in others, absolutely require the interpretation of it to be exclusively Adultery.

Taverner's translation has the verse thus; "Whosoever shall put away his wyfe, excepte it bee for whoredome, causeth her to play the whore; and whoso marrieth her that is devorced, is an whoremonger." That is, as fornication signifies no more than the unlawful connexion of unmarried persons; this term cannot be used in this sense with propriety, when speaking of those who are married.

The meaning of the dered sufficiently clear.

word is now consiDivorce is allowed,

but exclusively for the incontinence of the married parties; all other is for ever barred. And with regard to this permission, it may be here remarked, that some light may be thrown on the note in page 26, on the law of

Divorce, and that which made Adultery capital; since this allowance for divorcing the adulteress seems to imply, that the law for putting the guilty person to death, was not considered indispensable, at least, under the New Testament.

The next thing that demands attention, is the sort of Divorce which is here permitted. Whether it is such a dissolution of the marriage bond, as to vest a power of re-marriage, or only a separation of intercourse, without affecting the vinculum or bond.

To examine this with accuracy, we must once more go back to the Mosaic law. By that law, the Divorce for inferior causes was such a dissolution, as to give full liberty to both parties to marry again.* By the law of Christ, the only alteration that has occurred, respects the trivial reasons for separation; such separation being obtained, it is of the same character, and attended by the same results, as that of the old dispensation: the path to it may be narrowed,

In the case of Salome, before alluded to, when she divorced Costobarus, the words used by Josephus are, πέμπει μεν αυτω γραμματιον ΑΠΟΛΥΟΜΕΝΗ τον γαμον. She sent him a Bill of Divorce to dissolve the marriage.

Joseph. Antiq. lib. xv. cap. 7.

but the issue to which that path conducts, is the same as before; the consequences remain untouched.*

One difference is observable, however, between us and the Jews; for, in case of fornication, the Jews expected no sentence of the consistory; but the power was lodged in the husband to dismiss his wife; he might himself give the Bill of Divorce; but this was never allowed to Christians, they have ever required some judicial declaration; with this exception, the results are the same.

The causes of Divorce, Christ restricts to one, and as he abstains from any observation on the sequel, the liberty which flowed as a necessary result from the exercise of this liberty, it is fairly to be concluded that it continues the same. This is the presumption arising, primâ facie, from the Saviour's statement of his alteration, and silence as to the rest. But it has been asked, Would the Divorce obtained by the innocent against the offending party, liberate fully the persons of both? Or does not the crime of Adultery, committed against the first nuptial vow, attach to itself, at least as far as the guilty party

* See observation of Lightfoot, in page 107.

is concerned, an incapacity of all subsequent marriage?

To this we answer, that as Christ has not restricted it, we cannot do so. The new covenant has not swept away the natural and necessary consequence of re-marriage which flowed from Divorce under the old covenant. The toleration of the latter was more ample, the permission given by Christ is more restricted; but this is the entire of the alteration, and whether the licence now granted be wide as formerly, or narrower than before, it is a licence granted for the same purposes, and to attain the same ends; to be accompanied by the same powers, and followed by the same results. The inference, once extended to the many, still extends to the few; for the law of Christ is a modification, not a subversion, of that of Moses, (which latter, by the way, was equally the law of God,) a modification which altered circumstances have since permitted; and where no alteration is specified, the provisions of the former remain the same. The Saviour himself alludes to the conjoining of the two acts, Divorce and re-marriage. "Whoso shall put away and marry again," except under certain circumstances, is guilty of Adultery. It is clear, therefore, that the meaning attached by Him to the term Divorce, is not merely a