But, however this may be, even if there is an exception in the case of such sin, to the general law against putting away, there is no exception whatever to the general law against re-marriage in each other’s lifetime. “Whosoever shall put away his wife” (“except it be for fornication,” belongs only to these words, most clearly not to those that follow), “and shall marry another, committeth adultery; and whoso marrieth her which is put away” (this means in the original Greek any divorced woman) “doth commit adultery.” You get the full force of this whole prohibition, if you bear in mind that our Lord is answering the Pharisees’ reference to the permission given by Moses in the first and second verses of the 24th chapter of Deuteronomy, and showing what was to be observed in future. With reference to the first verse, which recognises putting away in certain cases, Christ says, “Whoso putteth away his wife (except it be for fornication), and marrieth another, committeth adultery.” In answer to the second verse, in which Moses permits, “When she is departed out of his house, she may go and be another man’s wife,” Christ says, “Whosoever marrieth any divorced woman, committeth adultery.” This, then, is the sum of the matter:—Perhaps Christ permits a man so to put away a faithless wife, as no longer to have his home and children contaminated by her presence, or to be responsible for her maintenance and recognition as his wife: but He does not allow him to take another wife in her lifetime; and if any one marries her, He counts him an adulterer, a sinner of that odious class which God, when He ruled temporally, commanded to be stoned to death, and whom He still condemns to spiritual and eternal death, saying through His apostle, that they “shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” [12]
In the face of all this, and I have urged but a tithe of what might be said, can a Christian State provide for the divorce of Christians, and their re-marriage with others, during the lives of their only lawful husbands or wives? I say most confidently, No! In my Master’s name I protest most loudly against such dishonour to His commands, and entreat you protest with me. But suppose the State insists upon her civil power, alleging the rule of expediency, which is so lamentably urged in these days, and maintaining that we cannot legislate now according to the law of God. Suppose she legalises such divorces and reunions. What then? Why, let her take the responsibility wholly on herself: let her treat them as civil contracts, and not require the Church to join in such spiritual adultery against Christ. I crave your earnest attention and warm sympathy, dearly beloved, in the terrible alternative which threatens us, the ministers of Christ. If this bill passes, without a proviso, that the Church shall not be called on to celebrate or sanction such unions, then we must either wholly renounce our allegiance to Christ in this behalf, or brave the law of the land by becoming rebels against it, in not marrying adulterers and adulteresses, and not admitting them to Holy Communion.
A politician of the nineteenth century may urge (and be applauded for it), that you cannot legislate now by the Decalogue. “You cannot put down atheism,” he may tell you, “or idolatry, or blasphemy, or Sabbath desecration.” That may be, though the admission is a fearful one. But you do not call upon the officers of religion to take part in those sins. Now, if you make me marry adulterers, or administer to them the blessed Body and Blood of Christ, it is all the same thing as if you compelled me to preach atheism from this pulpit, or to worship an idol before God’s altar, or to blaspheme His holy name in His sanctuary, or set the example of Sabbath desecration. Look at the Church’s service for Holy Matrimony. It requires the respective parties to say before God, that there is no disqualification in His sight to their union. It pledges them to take each other for better or worse, till death parts them. It unites them with the solemn words, “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.” It makes the priest say to God, that it shall never be lawful to put asunder those whom He by matrimony has made one, and it requires him to pronounce, as by God’s authority and in God’s name, two solemn benedictions on the union of those before him. Is not this an awful profanation if used in the case of adulterers? Is it not, in the memorable language of the Archbishop of Canterbury, [14] “beyond the power of charity itself to hope for God’s blessing on an union which had its origin in a guilty passion, and was only rendered possible by the commission of a heinous crime?”
A few words in answer to the objection: “Has not the state of things you deprecate, been already lawful for some three hundred years? Is not the only change proposed now, the substitution of a judicial court to try the case and pronounce sentence, for the direct legislation of the Houses of Parliament?” Brethren, there is as yet no common law of this land which allows divorce and re-marriage. There is indeed an imitation now and then of one of the great corruptions of Popery. The Church of Rome pronounces marriage absolutely indissoluble, and utters a loud anathema against any one who presumes to say that it may ever be dissolved. But if she is well paid for it, she will readily grant the Pope’s dispensation (at least she has often done this to those whom she has a mind to favour), and allow of their divorce and re-marriage. A relic of this Popery, I say, exists among us. The law of Holy Scripture, echoed by the Church, is generally recognized by the State, who therefore has no statute on her books permitting divorce and re-marriage; but if any one will go to the expense and prove his case, she will grant a special dispensation, passing a “private act,” which nullifies, in that individual case, the law of the land. The toleration of this kind of legislation for more than three hundred years, is a shameful reproach to those who brought it about, and to those who do not seek to alter it; but it is no precedent for a general dispensation with the law: unless it be a good plea for continuing in sin, and plunging deeper into it, that we have already sinned, and more than once. Neither is the effect of such a private act anything like so great or so injurious as a general law would be. Whoever has heard of these special dispensations, either in righteous indignation, or in jealousy because he is not rich enough to secure a like privilege, has cried “shame” on them. But let the State utter with her whole strength of voice, and to all, that the marriage bond can be easily cancelled, and fresh unions formed; let her add this sanction, this favouring of adulterers to the encouragement they already derive, from knowing that the State does not regard their sin as a crime, though God calls it a deadly one, and—not at once; probably English decency will long delay it, but surely ultimately—the Word of God will be made of none effect; married life will lose all its privileges, and safeguards, and charms; morality will be outraged; evil called good, and good evil. This view, my brethren, is illustrated by the effect of a similar licence in Prussia: and it is awfully corroborated by the past Providence of God, Who has ever smitten with judicial blindness, those who would not see, and has left them to grope in foul darkness, and to fall into destruction.
My dear brethren, I trust that none of you will think that I have taken up your time unprofitably this morning. With so few opportunities of speaking to you of our common salvation, and urging you to lay hold of it, we should be very blameable if we misused any of them. But the glory of God in Christ in the assertion of His holy law; the vindication of His Church; the preservation of His ministers from unworthy temporizing, or from conflict with the secular powers; the welfare of the State, and the defence of our dear English domestic life from the heaviest blow that ever threatened it, and the foulest blot that ever assayed to stain it, is surely a Christian minister’s most legitimate use of his time and opportunity; and I, for one, most strongly feel, that I should have been fearfully guilty had I not so employed it; and that my position would have been an unaccountable one, if I had been now silent, and yet, if this bill becomes law, had ventured to say (as may God give me grace to do!) “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak (and do) the things which we have heard and seen.”
F. Shoberl, Printer to H.R.H. Prince Albert, 51, Rupert Street.
Footnotes.
[3] Mal., ii.
[5] Gen., ii, 24.
[7] See Considerations on Divorce a Vinculo Matrimonii. By a Barrister. London: Stewart.