feelings, to make place for a passionless calm. God's Law and the doctrine of the Church declare that it is the abuse, not the use, of the body that is wrong ; and, like the better forms of philosophy, occupy themselves with regulating, controlling, ruling man's passions, instead of vaialy attempting to kill them. "Marria"e is hoaourable in all, and the bed undefiled: but whorem.ongers and adulterers God will judge" (Heb. xiii. 4).1 J. MARRIAGE WAS INSTITUTED AB THE PBIHEVAL LAW AT THE CREATION 011' WOMAN. " So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth" (Gen. i. 27, 28). "And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh : she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto bis wife: and they shall be one flesh" (Gen. ii. 23, 24). II. PARALLEL BETWEEN THE HARRIAGE LAW AND THE SABBATICAL LAW. 1. The sab- batical law, in like manner as the marriage law, was instituted at the creation (Gen. ii. 3). 2. Both laws took a special form lor the patriarchal and Israelitish Churches. 3. In both cases an alteration was made by the authority of our Lord, the obligation of the laws still continuing as before. The form which the law of the sabbath took for the Jewish people may be seen in the seventh commandment and other Mosaic injunctions respecting the seventh day. The law of marriage likewise untler- went a change from its original character, and instead of eajoining monogamy, it allowed polygamy; and "because of the hardness of men's hearts,n it permitted divorce for light causes (see Matt. xix. 3-12). The manner of observing the sabbatical law was changed for Christians by the authority which our Lord declared himself to possess for the purpose (Matt. xii. 8), and which the constant habit of the earliest Christians, of assembling on the first day of the week and regarding it as the commemoration of the Resurrection day, proves him to have exercised. In like manner, he restored the law of monogamy (Matt. xix. 8), and withdrew the licence for divorce, except in the one case of adultery on the part of the wife (Matt. xii. 9). In respect to the Levitical restraints on marriage be made no change, as is again proved to UB by the universal recognition of these obligations on the part of the early Christians. Ill. ADDITIONAL SANCTITY WAS ADDED TO KABBIAGB BY CHRISTIANITY. In the Epistle to the Ephesians, St. Paul points out the analogy which exists between the relation of husbands to wives, and of wives to husbands, and the relation of Christ to the Church, and of the Church to Christ. " The husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church : ant! he is the saviour of the body. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every- thing. Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it. . , . For no man ever yet hated his own flesh ; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the Church: for we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery : but I speak concerning Christ and the Church" (Eph. v. 23-32). An inference has been drawn from these words that Christ instituted holy matrimony as a sacrament of the Christian Church. Such inference is altogether false. Marriage was not considered one of seven sacraments until the days of the Schoolmen; but the passago exhibits the holi- ness of marriage in a new light, and gives a new reason for its being regarded as holy. The " mystery" is the analogy which exists between married persons and Christ and the Church. St. Paul quotes the words of institution from the Dook of Genesis, showing what a high estate matrimony is, and gives this further reason for its holiness, which had not previously been known to exist. Such a thought as this takes marriage out of the sphere of carnal things, refining, purifying, and sanctifying it in a manner not yet appreciated wherever celibacy is regarded as a higher and holier condition. IV. THE 0AUBEB FOB WRlCII MATRWONY WAB ORDAINED. .. First, It was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord, and to the praise of his holy Name. Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication .• , . Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, 1 "Let me.rriage be had in honou, among e.11, 11nd let the bed be undefiled: for fornicatoril and adulterers God will judge."-Revised Version. 2i8 THE BOOK OF LEVITICUS. [ea. x.vm. 1-30.
and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity" (Form of Solemnization of Matrimony). The third of these causes has been too often forgotten in the Christian Church, and the second bas been too much dwelt upon; the consequence of which has been a low estimate of marriage, and therefore of woman. St. Paul's words ought to show 1lll that it is this characteristic which gives its Christian aspect to marriage. v. DUTIES OF HUSBANDS AND WIVES TOWARDS EACH OTHER. On the one side love and protection (Eph. v. 25); on the other side, love and submission (Eph. v. 24, 33). Vers. 19-23.-The preservation or the marriage relationship in its purity is the safeguard a.,crainst sins of lust, which will be sure to invade a society wherever licen- tiousness or asceticii;m has dishonoured marriage. Vers. 24-30.-Dissolute morals in respect to the relations of the sexes is always a symptom which precedes the ruin of an empire or the fall of a nation. It is both a sign and a cause-a sign of a general corruption, which will show itself elsewhere and under other forms; and a cause of the coming evils, as indulgence in bodily pleasures and Sybarite excesses takes away the firmness of will and readiness to endure hardness which are necessary conditions of both soldiers and citizens doing their duty to the State. When a country is sunk in dissoluteness there is, generally speakina, no reno- vation for it except by the irruption of a new race, as of the Israelites in c:naan, or of the barbarous nations on the breaking up of the old Roman Empire. The moral reason of the extermination of the Canaanites was the danger of their licentio111ness spreading, as has often been the case, to the conquerors (cf. Numb. x.xv, 17, 18).