of Galilee is frequently alleged by the ancient writers in vindication of the dignity of marriage: and it is a just and unanswerable inference, that if there had been any thing impure in the celebration of the marriage feast, or any thing in the state of marriage not worthy of all honour, the offence would have been marked by the censure of our Lord; the marriage would not have been sanctified and honoured, adorned and beautified, with his presence; nor would his first miracle have been wrought for supplying the deficiencies of the nuptial entertainment.

The divine institution of marriage may also be inferred from the argument drawn by Saint Paul in favour of conjugal love and unity, from the unity and love of Christ to his Church: Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the Church, and gave himself for it. . . . So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies: he that loveth his wife loveth himself, 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 his Church. From this passage, the Romanists have collected the sacramental nature of marriage, not observing that Saint Paul expressly af

* See Gerhard, sect. 28. who recites the authorities of Epiphanius, Hæres, l. ii. 67. Augustin in quæst. Vet. et Nov. Test. q. 127. In Johan. tract. 9. Bede in Johan. ii.

h Ephes. v. 25, 28–32.

firms, that the great mystery, or sacrament, as it is translated in the Vulgate, of which he speaks, relates not to the marriage of the man with the woman, but to the union of Christ with his Church. The Church of England holds the more scriptural language and doctrine, that God hath consecrated the state of matrimony to such an excellent mystery, that in it is signified and represented the spiritual marriage and unity between Christ and his Church. This unity, according to the Jews', was typified in the primitive institution of marriage: and as the woman was originally taken out of Adam, being bone taken out of his bone, and flesh taken out of his flesh, so Christians, in virtue of their spiritual incorporation into the Church of Christ, are members of his body, and in the power of that relation, and of the infused life and strength which they receive from their union with him, they are as bone taken out of his bone, and flesh taken out of his flesh. As Christ therefore for the sake of his Church left the glories of his Father's kingdom', so the man and the woman forsake the dearest relations of life, and are united in the indissoluble union of marriage. The primary law of marriage is elevated by this sacred application as a type of Christ and his Church, which would be both incomplete and

See Grotius in Poole's Synops. on Eph. v. 32. and compare Pyle on the text, where he expresses a doubt of the antiquity of the tradition: but would the type have been admitted by the Jews after the coming of Christ and the allusion of the apostle? * Μελη εσμέν του σώματος αυτού, εκ της σαρκός αυτού και εκ των οστέων AUTOU. Cf. Gen. ii. 23. and 2 Sam. xix. 12.

I See Origen, Com. in Matt. tom. xiv. sect. 17.

unworthy of the dignity of the Son of God, if marriage itself was not of divine institution.

There is considerable difficulty in interpreting the words of the primary institution of marriage, as they are applied in the first Epistle to the Corinthians : Know ye not that your bodies are members of Christ? Shall I then take the members of Christ and make them the members of an harlot? God forbid! What, know ye not that he who is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh. But he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit". The objection which is inseparable from the ordinary interpretation of these words is, that the mere sexual intercourse, independent of the conjugal union, makes the man and the woman one flesh. This is certainly the tendency of the annotation of Whitby and of other commentators", from whom it might be deemed presumptuous to differ, if any authority could justify the opinion, that Saint Paul could in any case, and especially in an argument against fornication, as it is commonly understood, recite a sacred authority in favour of an intercourse, which, however it may in fact unite the sexes, cannot unite them by right or authority, or in conformity with the divine institution to which it is directly opposed°. It is necessary therefore to seek another interpretation; and a solution of the difficulty will be found, either in the equivocal and undefined meaning of the words one body, or in the

m 1 Cor. vi. 15—17.

n See Whitby and Poole's Synopsis in loc.

Lucas Brugensis in Poole's Synopsis on Matt. xix. 5.

peculiar and unusual sense of the word πόρνη, translated harlot.

It will not be denied, that the apostle alludes to the words of Moses, if he does not directly recite them and in the management of his argument concerning things lawful and things expedient, he anticipates in the form of a dialogue the objections which the Corinthians might allege against his doctrine. Having examined the case of food, he proceeds to the more difficult case, which he calls fornication, and it becomes his principal proposition, that the body is not for fornication, but the Lord, which he enforces upon the Corinthians, concealing the strongest affirmation in the form of a question: Know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ? This you cannot deny, and I therefore put the question, Shall I then take the body, which, by virtue of its acknowledged incorporation into the Church, is one of the members of Christ, and make his members the members of an harlot? We shall both exclaim against such profanation and say, God forbid! You will object, that the members of Christ are not thus made the members of an harlot: I ask again, therefore, Do ye not know, that he who is joined to an harlot is one body? for two, saith he, shall be one flesh: but he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. The authority in question is recited between the two assertions, that he who is joined to an harlot is one body, and he that is joined to the Lord is one spirit. And the first question which arises concerns the sense in which the apostle uses the words one body. If he means, that he who unites himself with an harlot is one body with her,

as he who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him, and if in this parallelism the word harlot is to be understood in its ordinary acceptation, then the words in the parenthesis must be interpreted of the meretricious union, and bear the awful sense which is imputed to them. But if, as in other texts, the one body means, the one body of Christ, or his Church, the text recited is no more than an authoritative reiteration of the preceding assertion; and the whole passage, being appropriated to the mystical union of Christ with his Church, teaches, that fornication, in whatever sense the word be interpreted, does make the members of Christ the members of an harlot. The words may thus be paraphrased: He who is joined to an harlot, sins in the prostitution of that body in which he is incorporated with Christ; for Christ and [his Church are one, in virtue of which he is also one Spirit with the Lord. This interpretation, by which the passage is recovered from the degraded sense which the commentators have fastened upon it, and elevated to the expression of a sacred mystery, has not only the authority of the ancient expositors, but the advantage of agreeing with the context. The body, which is not for fornication, but the Lord, is not the human body, but the mystical body of the Church, and in the succeeding clause, a man is required to flee fornication, because every other sin that a man doeth is without the body, but he that committeth forni

Rom. xii. 4, 5. 1 Cor. x. 17. Col. iii. 15. 1 Cor. xii. 13. Eph. ii. 16. iv. 4. In the three last texts there is mention of one body and one spirit.