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WIBSTIRNY M5M
(7I«) 173-4)03

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32X

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Harold Campbell Vaughan Memorial Library
Acadia University.

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Acadia University.

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32X

Extracts from a Charge delivered at a Meeting of the
Synod of the Diocese of Fredericton by the Metropolitan,
relative to a late Bill introduced into the Parliament of
Canada legalizing forbidden marriage&.

Every one must see the necessity of some restraint on human
passion in reijard to niariiage, for where no law existed in old
times, mankind invariably ran into the most revolting excesses.
*' Tliey took them wives," we read in the Scriptures, " of all
which they chose," not only us many as thay chose, but with-
out any restraint in re.sj)ect of attiiiity or consanguinity. These
vile practices wore continued after the flood among the Canaan-
ites, ;\nd formed one of the chief reasons for their disinheritance
by tlie hand of God. To counteract this detestable profligacy
among the Jews, and give Divine sanction to a purer code of
morals in respect, to marriage, Moses was commissioned in the
name of God, and an His mouth-piece, to write a table of de-
grees for restraint of mairiage within certain limits, founded on
this princi})le announced in the beii:inning of the table — " None
of you siiall approach, (i. e. by maniage) to any that is near of kin
to him. I am the Lord." The table then gives instances of such
iitfinity or consanguinity, for no diflerence is made between
them. It is not an exhaustive table, for marriages with a man's
own daughter or his grandmother are not forbidden, and the
prohibitions are given exclusively to men, though women are
e(]ually concerned. But it is evidently governed bythe principle
which the LoKD lays down as the true foundation of the
marriage relation that man id wife become one flesb, and con-
fcecpiently all the blood relationships which would be forbidden
Hre equally unlawful after Uianiage to relations by aflinity.
This simple and di vinely authorized rule in contradiction to the
loose pra'^uces of the heathen, and even of some of the Patri-
archs, is the rule of Christian morals given to us by our Loud.
Even if it could le shown — which is contradicted by the whole
sense of the 18th cliapter of Ijeviticus — that this is a part of the
ceremonial, 'lot of the moral law of the Jews, we must remem-
ber that the whole object of the sermon on the Mount was to
pui'ify Cluiatian morals from the loose glosses and interpre-
tations which the Rabbis and othei-s had put uimn it, and
that to give our sanction to any marriage connection
less pure than tlie law here enforced on the Jews is
to road God's dispensations Itackwards, and to lower
Christianity in favor, not of Judaism, but of Heathenism.
Those, therefore, who argue that all Jewish laws are obsolete,
need to be reminded that the law of the Ten ( 'ommandments is
X'eail in our (iiiurches every Huiiday, and that tlie (hmpel spirit
not only binds us to receive them in sulistjuice, b\jt to carry
tliem out on a higher, purer and more exacting princiide than a
8ervil(^ adherence to the letter would indicate. Polygamy, for
instance, and an easy system of divcn-ce, were tolerated among
tho Jews because of the " liardneKs of num's hearts," but the
Christian system supposes a higher power of self-reHtraint, and
therefore denuinds n higher, not a lower code of morals. The
very incest with a fatiier's wife, which has l)een treated with so
much levity in our Colonial Parliament, is by St. Paul looked
on with the deepest abhorrence, and is punished with unmediato
excommunication.

So that if wo were not bound by tho table of degrees in

.9 -t.

Leviticus, wiiicli is impossible to be provecI,'if that table be part/
of God's moral law, given for the guidance ot other nations be-
side the Jews as iiS there indicated, we are bound by a purer
and aholier law to Christ, and it would be a most strange argu- ,
raent that what the lower and less perfect rule of life condemn*
as immoral, the higher and mere perfect rule may allow, Oit
this reasoning there is nothing whatever to prevent the legisla-
tive sanction being given to jwlygamy, man's psissions being
apparently the only admitted rule, and the word of Goi^ being
entirely thrown aside as the true basis of sound legislation in
religious matters.

I am aware that some kind of argument is attempted to be
built on the 18th verse of the chapter in Leviticus, wldch in-
cur translation is obscure. But this argument comes with a
very bad grace from persons who repeatedly assei-t that they ar&
not bound to consider the Levitical law at all, the whole being
obsolete. And, however that verse bt? translated {the tnte
meaning of it being, I believe, a condeuination of polygamy) it is
monstrous to suppose the legislator to sanction in this verse a.
principle which he had before condemned in the earlier part of the
chapter. The general argument is, however, sought to be set
aside by an assertion that marriage is simply a civil contract,
and that, therefore, the legislature has no religious obligation*
to deal with. Each sect, and each man, as it would seem, is to
deal with the matter so as to suit his own convenience, or his
conscience, if he have any. This notion of nmiriage being only
a civil contract resembling the renting a house or the purchase'
of a farm, only, be it observed, much more easily broken by
cheap and easy methods of divorce, is merely another mode of
getting rid of our obligations to the Divine law. In these
days of lawlessness each man who has a grievance, — and sinners
now call their transgi-essions grievances and endeavour to legalize
and justify them — desires an alteration of the law, not that they
may sit under it, but that they may sit upon it. And when they
have transgressed aqain, they will seek a new law to suit their
new passion. Thus marriage being, as they say, only a civil
contract, may be dealt with as we deal with a law of banki-upt-
cy. Yet even in bankruptcy there nuist be some liniit, some
restraint, or otherwise all debtor*! might proclaim themselves
absolved from payment. Pz-operty would be the only thief.

Our Church has taken the gi-eatest pains to shew us that
marriage is not merely a civil C/Utract, but a solemn, religious
obligation. It comman<ls the clergy to begin the marriage ser-
vice by tell'ng the people that marriage was " instituted of God
in the time of man's innocency, signifying to us the spiritual
nuirriag(* and unity between Christ and His Church.* How
can a civil contriict do this? It recpiiros of the poi-sons to be
married a most solenui alWrmation, for which they will have to
answer at the " di-eadful day of judgment," that tliey know of
no lawful impediment to their marriage. Lawful, not merely
logal , for the service immediately adds that " so many as are
cou[»led together otlierwise thiui God's word doth allow " are
not joined together in lawful matrimony. And what is lawful
or \inlawful accoi-ding to God's word, in the judgment of the
Church, is distinctly told us in the table of degrijes atlixed to
o»ir Prayer Books, wherein," it is said, " whosoever are rolat-
««1 are forbidden in Scriptm-e and our laws to .larry together."
Where is the civil contract hci-o ! I am aware tliat an attempt is
made to assign this table of degrees to the authority of Archbishop

Parker and the Bishops who drew up'the table ; but the tnarriages
forbidden by this table had always been held unlawful by the
Church of England, and for fifteen centuries such marriages were
held unlawful in the Church at large. To return tc the marriage
service. Every part of it, especially the two solemn benedictions
and the invitation to receive Holy Co^nmunion "at the time of
marriage, or at the first opportunity after marriage," prove that;
it is !i ) mere civil contract which the Church owns as marriage.
If, then, persons married "otherwise than God's word doth allow
are not joined together by God, neither is their matrimony law-
ful," and what God's word doth not allow is assured to us by
our Church in the table of degrees, and in the 99th Canon ; if
we, as Canadian clergy and laity, have acknowledged the Book
of Common Prayer (which contains the table of degree.-)) to be
" a true and faithful declaration of the doctrines contained in
Holy Scripture" ; if, moreover, a resolution of both houses of
our Provincial Synod declares, that no clergyman of this Eccles-
iastical Province shall knowingly solemnize a marriage forbid-
den by the 99th Canon of 1603, how can we deny the force of
such solemn obligations'! I do not hesitate to say that if a
clergvman of our Church do not consider himself bound by them,
I cannot conceive any other that would bind his conscience,
and I should distrust his declarations on any subject whatever.
Besides, are we going to stop in this downward coui-se of
license i Already our legislators propose to go beyond the de-
mands of agitatoi-s of the question tn England. Our bill proposes
to sanction the marriage of a woman to p. deceased hunband's
brother. " Why then," as Lord Hatherly says, " should not a
man's own bi'other desire his daughter in mairiage, or look even
to the reversion of his wife 1" We may be su^-e that ingenious
arguments would be found even for this revolting connection.
But some are prepared to go even beyond this, and even bid us
be of good courage and dare to do what St. Paul tells us " is
not so much as named among the heathen," to take in marriage
our father's wife. This language has, I understand, been sup-
posed to be said in a joke, as if no man would desire it. In
most instances it would, no doubt, be improbable, but i^ '-^ far
from being impossible. A man, we will suppose, marries early
in life and his wife boars him sons who are grown up when his
wife dies. He then selects a wife very many years younger
than himself. Meanwhile one of his sons marries early, and
his wife dies leaving children. Finally the fasher dies. Why
then, if man's appetite is to be his sole guide, may not the son
select his father's wife, no older than himself, to be the guardian
of his children ; and pretend that no one can possibly feel so
much afft^ction for them as his step-mother and be so suited
to be their giiide 1 Then if she bears children it is to one who
ought to consider himself her son, and her children would be
brothers and sisters to his children. This may bo considered
an exaggerated case, but it is pet-fectly possible, and if we are
to follow advice given, either in seriousness or in sport, all
the hideous consequences would follow. When we try^principles
wo have a right to consider oxtrcjmo and possible cases. The
fact is, that the transgression of a Divine law always j)roceedB
in a downward course and never aaconds to the source of all
I)urity, to Him who says, " be ye holy, for I am ho'y." I shall
not (fwell much on the social discomfort of this law, great as it
undoubtedly would be. But 1 would observe that by it the
happiuesH of the many would be sacrificed to the passionH of the

few. And v^hy is the comfort and peace of a thousand homes
to be thus sacrificed 1 " Why are sistera-in-law living with

as sisters, to be ordered either

widowed brothers-in-law,

to quit the house or marry them ] Why is distrust to be sown
where perfect love, frank familiarity, sweet and pure affection
were before unrestrained 1" " As a general rule among decent
persons of all ranks," said the venerated author of the Christian
Year, " a law which v/ould place the wife's sister in the
same relation to the husband as any other unmarried woman,
not only might, but imtsU in all cases, separate the wife's sister
from the family, not only after the wife's ileath, but in case of
her long illness or absence. Slie will require the same protec-
tion that any other young- woman would in the like circum-
stances." So that the benefit of the law would be the enjoyment
of their transgressions by the present law breakers, and its
evils would be innumerable; among the chief of which would
be great distress to the keepers of the Divine rule, great bitter-
ness between families who keep and families who break the
^rule', great confusion and trouble among the clergy, and loosen-
ing of bonds of morality in various directions among the com-
munity at large. You may now ask of mo, perhaps, what are
we, the clergy, to do '( I answer plainly, you are to decline to
solemnize such marriages. If the State relax its obligations and
pronounces marriage a civil contract only, the Divine law and
the law of our Church is still binding upon you. You are to
Tse guardians and defenders, not betrayers of public morals. Nor
ought persons who live in incest to be admitted to Holy Commun-
ion. But there is more to be done. Between this time ,:nd the next
session of the Dominion Parliament tlie clergy should endeavor
to circulate among the laity sound and wholetiome truth on this
subject. I may mention such tracts as Lord Hatherly's " Vin-
dication of the Law Prohibiting Marriage with a Deceased Wife's
Sisttr," Mr. Keble's tract against " Profane Dealing with Holy
JIatrimony," the liOrd Bishop of Nova Scotia's " Reasons for
Rejecting the Proposed Marriage Law," and a ve^-y useful
catechism on marriage, with an appendix showing the Divine
authority for the table of prohibited degrees, by the Rev. J. J.
Curling and Rev. J. F. Pheljis of the Diocese of Newfoundland.

I think that petitioi should be prepared in all our Parishes
against the proposed Bill. And as Scotland always pronoiniced
against such an alteration of the marriage law, I entertain the
hope that the Presbyterian bodies here may stand with us in
this matter, as well as others who wish to prevent the evil
which will arise from an alteration in the law.

The opinions both of Roman Catiiolics and of Jews have been
quoted in favor of the proposed alteration of the law. As re-
gards the Roman Catholics, they must know that the Church
of Christ for many ages condemned such nuvrriages, and that
a Pope, of whose evil deeds there can be no doubt, was the
first to sanction them. Their present i)ractice, to prohibit
them in theory, but allow them by dispensation, on l)aying a
competent sum of money, can never commend itself to us.
Nor can we consider the Jew?; as such sound interpreters of
the Old Testament, as willingly to acquiesce in their conclusions
respecting the marriage law. Christians, one woitld sui)poso,
would be the last persons to l)e guided by their authority, when
our greac IVtaster so plainly condemned their customs in regard
to divoi"ce, tolerated only by Moses, " because of the hardness
of their hearts."