THE LAW OF ADULTERY
“Ye have heard that it was said, Thou shalt not commit adultery: but I say unto you, that every one that looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.”
We notice that our Lord here brings to light a fresh principle. In the case of the sixth commandment He notes the sin of allowing even the feeling of hatred; but he distinguishes the guilt of an allowed feeling, not only from that of an act, but also from that of a word. But here our Lord identifies with the overt act in guilt even the desire of the heart when it reaches the point of deliberate intention to sin. The man whom our Lord is here considering must be supposed to have the deliberate intention to sin;he looks on the woman in order to[41] excite his lust;he is only restrained from action (if it be so) by lack of opportunity or fear of consequences; in his will and intention he has already committed the act. Our Lord then says that to will to sin and deliberately to stimulate sin in oneself has in His sight all the guilt of sin, even though circumstances may restrain one from the actual commission of it. This again is a principle which applies to other commandments besides the seventh.
Then, in view of the difficulty of sexual purity, our Lord goes on to urge men to take those necessary steps in the way of self-discipline, which will enable them to be preserved from sin:
“And if thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body be cast into hell. And if thy right hand causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not thy whole body go into hell.”
Here our Lord lays down the important principle of asceticism or self-discipline, and we should carefully notice some points in His teaching about it.
1. What our Lord tells us is that a safe life is better than a complete life.All parts of our nature were made by God. The best thing is that we should be able to exercise freely all our faculties; but we must be safe at the centre before we can be free at the circumference. And if we find that any one of our faculties is so disordered in fact that it is destroying the roots of our life, we must be remorseless in limiting ourselves; a limited life is better than a life insecure at the roots. Whatever exposes us to temptation that is too strong for us must at all costs be abandoned. Bengel says, with much insight, “How many there are who have been destroyed by neglecting the mortification of one single member.”
This principle is easy of application to questions which are constantly coming up. Is it right to go to the theatre, or to this or that theatre? Is this or that particular sort of art or literature legitimate and justifiable? Now to a certain extent these questions can be answered on general principles. But it does not at all follow, because on general principles I can justify this or that drama, or this or that literature, or this or that kind of art, that therefore it is justified for me. That is quite another question. Thequestion for me is, what is its effect on me? does it in me stimulate what is bad? does it put my moral nature to a disadvantage? does it in fact betray me into sin? If so, I have no right at all to excuse myself from abstinence on general grounds—unless, indeed, I am one of those people in whose case conscientiousness has a tendency to become a morbid scrupulosity. In such cases of mental disease the individual conscience often needs rectifying by reference to a more healthy common sense. But these for the moment are not under consideration. The peril which our Lord has in view is the more usual one of moral carelessness. And His warning is very solemn. Speaking of course in metaphor, but speaking metaphor which means something terribly real, He says it is better to live a maimed life than with all our faculties about us to be destined to moral death.
2. Here is the distinctive principle of Christian asceticism. If we go to India, we still find ascetics there whose asceticism is based on the oriental idea that the body is in itself an evil thing, and that to be spiritual is to be separated frommaterial things. That is not the Christian idea. The Christian idea is that the whole of this material nature, including our bodies, is good in itself and meant to be consecrated to spiritual uses. We are never to mortify any faculty as if it were an evil thing to be got rid of. The end of all Christian self-discipline is that we may have the freedom of our whole nature. But freedom is only possible where there is rational control. Thus any sacrifice is worth making sooner than that the lower part of our nature should lord it over the higher.
Next, as a sequence to this treatment of the seventh commandment, our Lord deals with the question of divorce.
“It was said also, Whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a writing of divorcement; but I say unto you, that every one that putteth away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, maketh her an adulteress: and whosoever shall marry her when she is put away committeth adultery.”
The Jewish law of divorce is given in Deuteronomy xxiv. 1, 2:
“When a man taketh a wife, and marrieth her, then it shall be, if she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some unseemly thing in her, that he shall write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.And when she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife.”
This, especially as interpreted in Jewish tradition, had given a great liberty of divorce, which our Lord here abolishes or restrains. What we may truly call His legislation on this subject is repeated in St. Matthew xix. 3–9:
“And there came unto him Pharisees, tempting him, and saying, Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? And he answered and said, Have ye not read, that he which made them from the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and the twain shall become one flesh. So that they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. They say unto him, Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorcement, and to put her away? He saith unto them, Moses for your hardness of heart suffered you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it hath not been so. And I say unto you, Whosoever shall put away his wife, except for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that marrieth her when she is put away committeth adultery.”
Now leaving out of question the clause in both passages in which an exception seems to be made, we notice, first of all, that our Lord proclaimed, as a prominent law of His new kingdom, the indissolubility of marriage. And for us asChristians it is perfectly plain that not all the parliaments or kings on earth can alter the law of our Lord. And if any ministers of Christ, or persons claiming to represent the Church of Christ, ever dare to let the commandment of men, in however high places, override the law of Christ, they are simply behaving in a way which brings them under the threat which our Lord so solemnly uttered:“Whosoever shall be ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also shall be ashamed of him, when he cometh in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”[42] Beyond all question, for the Church, and for all who desire to call themselves Christians, it is absolutely out of the question to regard those as married who, having been divorced, have been married again, contrary to the law of Christ, during the lifetime of their former partner. It is quite true that this indissolubility of marriage may press hardly upon individuals in exceptional cases. But so does every law which is for the welfare of mankind in general; and, press it hardly or softly, the words ofour Lord are quite unmistakable. He who refused to legislate on so many subjects legislated on this, and the simple question arises whether we prefer the authority of Christ to any other authority whatever.
But, secondly, our Lord appears in both passages to make an exception, and the exception would seem to sanction, or, more strictly, not to prohibit, the re-marriage of an innocent man who has put away his wife for adultery.
Various attempts have been made to obviate the force of this exception.But to the present writer they do not commend themselves as at all satisfactory.[43] Chiefly it is pleaded that the exception does not appear in St. Luke’s Gospel or in St. Paul’s epistles where marriage is dealt with. But it is a law of interpretation that a command with a specific qualification is more precise than a general command without any specific qualification;and that the one where the qualification occurs must interpret the other where this qualification does not occur.[44]We must recognize also that in the undivided Church there was great difference of opinion on this subject, that in the Eastern Church at least the re-marriage of the innocent party has been allowed, and that, though not tolerated in the Western Church or in the canons of the English Church, the bishops of the Anglican communion assembled at Lambeth in 1888 have allowed its recognition. Their resolutions are as follows:—
“1. That, inasmuch as our Lord’s words expressly forbid divorce, except in the case of fornication or adultery, the Christian Church cannot recognize divorce in any other than the excepted case, or give any sanction to the marriage of any person who has been divorced contrary to this law, during the life of the other party.
2. That under no circumstances ought the guilty party, in the case of a divorce for fornication or adultery, to be regarded, during the lifetime of the innocent party, as a fit recipient of the blessing of the Church on marriage.
3. That, recognizing the fact that there always has been a difference of opinion in the Church on the question whether our Lord meant to forbid marriage to the innocent party in a divorce for adultery, the Conference recommends that the clergy should not be instructed to refuse the sacraments or other privileges of the Church to those who, under civil sanction, are thus married.”
I have dealt only with the interpretation of St. Matthew’s Gospel; not directly with the present duty of English churchmen. But there is perhaps no matter which threatens so seriously the peace of the Church of England as this matter of divorce. And I venture to state my own view of the best way to meet the difficulty.
I have stated above that the unaltered law of the Church of England—as distinct from the State—allows no exception to the indissolubility of marriage. Those who assent to the interpretation of the passages in St. Matthew’s Gospel which has just been given, will recognize that the church law of England might be modified in the sense of the Lambeth decisions without any disloyalty to Christ.But it has not been modified, and, as it stands, it ought to control our action. Moreover in the present state of feeling, in view of our present social experiences, and of the difficulty of maintaining the distinction between the innocent and guilty party, it is probably undesirable to attempt to modify it by canon. The best course, in my judgement, is to maintain the existing church law by refusing to allow any re-marriage, even of the innocent party in a divorce for adultery, with the rites or in the consecrated buildings of the Church. This would still leave it open for bishops to act upon the third clause of the recommendation of the Lambeth Conference, and to instruct their clergy to admit to communion such “innocent parties” as have been re-married under civil sanction.