IMAGE EVALUATION TEST TARGET (MT-3) // {./ ^j- .% ^^ ^^^ U. 4 1.0 I.I ^ Bits ui mk lU ■■■■ u 1.25 ! — 6" 75 11 2.0 11^ 1.4 il.6 y Vi V % /A 'W Photographic Sciences Corporation A* tAJBCT UAIkl CTVIIT XJ rrr-* ■ WIBSTIRNY M5M (7I«) 173-4)03 '^ fe CIHM/ICMH Microfiche Series. CIHM/ICiVIH Collection de microfiches. Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproducticns / Institut Canadian de microreproductions historlques ^ vV Technical and Bibliographic Notes/Notes techniques et bibliographiques The Institute has attempted to obtain the best original copy available for filming. Features of this copy which may be bibliographically unique, which may alter any of the images in the reproduction, or which may significantly change the usual method of filming, are checked below. L'Institut c< microfilm^ le meilleur exemplaire qu'il lui a atA possible de se procurer. Les details dnt la couverture an papier eat imprin^^ sont fiimte an commandant par la premier plat at an tarminant soit par la derniAre page qui comporta una amprainte j'linpreaaion ou d'iiiuatration, soit par ie sacona plat, salon Ie cas. Tous las sutras axamplairas originaux sont filmte an commandant par la premiere page qui comporte une ampreinta d'impraaaion ou d'iiiuatration 9t an tarminant par la darniire page qui comporte une telle empreinte. The laat recorded frame on each microfiche shall contain the symbol —•» (meaning "CON- TINUED"), or the symbol ▼ (meaning "END"), whichever appliea. Un dee symboiaa suivants apparaftra sur la demiAre imecje de cheque microfiche, selon Ie caa: la symbols -«• signifie "A SUIVRE", Ie symbols ▼ signifie "FIN". Mapa. platea. charts, etc.. mey be filmed at different reduction ratioa. Those too large to be entirely included in one axpoaura are filmed beginning in the upper left heiid comer, left to right and top to bottom, as many framee aa required. The following diagrama illustrate the method: Lee cartea. pianchea. tabiarux. ate, pauvent itrm fiimie A dee taux de rMuction diffirents. Lorsque Ie document est trop grand pour itre reproduit an un seui cliche, il est film* k partir de I'angle sup4rieur gauche, de gaucfie i droite, et de haut an baa. an prenant la nnmpre d'imagea nteeaaaire. Lea diagrammea suivants illuatrent la mithoda. 1 2 3 32X 1 2 3 4 S 6 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