to the analogous relation between them, husbands should love their wives as, i. e. as being, or because they are, their own bodies. Christ loves his church because it is his body. Husbands should love their wives because they are their bodies. ‘Qs, as, before the latter member of the sentence is not comparative, but argumentative. It does not indicate the measure of the husband’s love, as though the meaning were, he should love his wife as much as he loves his own body. But it indicates the nature of the relation which is the ground of his love. He should love his wife, because she is his body.
How is this to be understood? In what sense does the apostle say that the wife is the body of the hus- band, or, in the following verse, that they are one flesh? It is plain—1. That this does not refer to any material identification. When Adam said of Eve, “ This is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh,” Gen. 2, 23, reference was no doubt had to her being formed out of his substance. But as these terms are used to ex- press the relation of all wives to their husbands, they must have some other meaning than sameness of sub- stance. 2. It is also plain that these terms are not to be understood in any sense inconsistent with the sepa- rate subsistence of husband and wife as distinet persons. The consciousness of the one is not the con- sciousness of the other. 3. It is further plain that the marriage relation is not essential to the completeness or perfection of our nature, in all states of its existence. It is to cease at the resurrection. In the future state