truth to falfhood-in ufurping an empire over the human mind, which is inimical to GOD'S glory, to the reverence we owe His commandments, as well as to the folid peace, comfort, and happiness of mankind. Whether therefore fuperftition appears in the shape of a brazen image of an old man at Carthage, receiving infants into his arms, and letting them drop through into a pit of fire-or of an old man, made of flesh and blood, at Rome, commanding people to renounce the evidence of their outward fenfes-or of a primitive father of the Chriftian church, declaring against marriage as "unlawful under "the gospel," and that all fecond mar 66 riages are only a more fpecious and de"corous kind of adultery"—or of a grave and learned English statesman, enacting a law to put thofe afunder whom God hath joined together-or of a reverend divine, whether Popish or Proteftant, maintaining that certain moral actions which God allowed, and in fome cases commanded under the law, are finful under the gospel-fuperftition is still the minister of Satan, who is the God of this world, (2 Cor. iv. 4.) carrying on his grand defign to destroy the human fpecies; nor is there fo probable a way of effecting this, as in interfering with thofe wife regulations which the Most High hath made for the prefervation of the female fex, as may appear from much that has been faid, but from more which will be faid in the conclufion of this treatise. It is greatly to be lamented, that fuperfti- tion tion has found its advocates, not only among the defigning and weak, but even among the learned, and wife, and pious part of mankind; many melancholy inftances of this ftand upon record, not only in the annals of Popish, but of Proteftant literature. Here I find myself constrained to animadvert on fome paffages of the two fermons * before mentioned,-with a few ftrictures on which, I shall conclude this chapter. The learned and pious author feems, in a note at the bottom of one of the pages, to infinuate that no marriage is valid in the fight of GOD, where the "ceremony doth not pafs through the hands of a priest; who," he tells us, "acts in GOD's flead."-Where is fcripture-proof for this? No whereThere is not a fingle instance of fuch a thing either in the Old or New Teftament; neither the priests nor Levites under the law, nor the apoftles and other minifters under the gospel, appear to have interfered in any one inftance, nor is fuch a thing given in commiffion to any of them. Their feveral offices are most minutely fet forth in all the duties of them, but not a word about their marrying people; I am therefore apt to think, that the maxim -de non apparentibus & non exiftentibus eadem eft ratio is very applicable on this occafion. If fuch a thing had been, we must have met with it, when the administration of the public ordinances by the hands of the priests and *Sec vol. i. 262. Levites Levites was fixed under the Old Testament, to whom it was death to add to, or diminish from, the fettled inftitutions of GOD. As for the paffages in Gen. i. and ii. on which our author refts fo much of his doctrine, particularly, God's bringing the woman to the man aud bleffing them, and therefore priests are to do the fame-he might with equal strength of argument fay, that because we are told, Gen. iii. 21. Unto Adam and his wife did the Lord GOD make coats of fkins, and cloathed them, therefore we are only to wear fkins, and thofe are to be put on by a priest. However, if this author's doctrine be true, I defy him to fhew the record of one fingle lawful marriage (that of Adam and Eve not excepted) throughout the whole Bible; for there is not one mentioned in which a * priest appears to have been concerned: quite the contrary; the fimplicity of the primary inftitution is uniformly preferved throughout the * It should seem, that, among other things which the church of Rome borrowed from the Heathens, this of marriage by a priest was one. Soter, Bishop of Rome, in the end of the fecond century, feems to have taken the hint from that fpecies of marriage among the Romans, which was called confarreation, (See before, vol. i. p. 33.) from the bride-cake of falted bread, which was eaten on the occafion, and was a ceremony observed at the marriages of the pontiffs and other priests, as also at the marriages of thofe perfons whofe children were intended for the priesthood. These marriages were always celebrated by a priest." And here we difcover," fays a late author, "the firft inftance of priests having cele"brated the rites of that inftitution." See Alex. Hift. Wom. vol. ii. 251. Chambers's Dict. tit. Confarreation. whole, whole, and probably would have been fo ftill, if Pope Innocent the IIId had not thrown marriage into the hands of the priests, on Peter Lombard's finding it out to be a facrament. This was the origin of fo univerfally bringing an human ceremony into the place of a divine inftitution, and of course involving millions of the weaker fex in ruin and destruction, by fuppofing God's ordinance not binding, as in His fight, without the interference of human invention. Drawing any acts of GoD into precedents, without His authority fo to do, may appear to be very pious, but is in fact very profane, feeing that this cannot easily be done, without adding to, or diminishing from, what He hath exprefly commanded. This is a rock on which our author's fcheme must split; for he maintains that-" "Tis not the form "of words, which this or that church may "make use of in a matrimonial ceremony, "that conftitutes the marriage" (i. e. in the fight of GOD; for as to the civil contract, they certainly conftitute this)-which is very true; but not fo what follows-" but "it is the act of joining together, and pro"nouncing them one in the name of GOD, by one that is commiffioned to act in His "name."-In the first place, no fuch commiffion, with refpect to marriage, ever did. exist, nor, without a new revelation, ever can, as the smallest trace of fuch a thing is not to be found in that revelation which we are already poffeffed of. Secondly, The Bible, BECAUSE be bath - תחת אשר ענה et but gives a very different account of the matter; for the express and positive command, Deut. xxii. 29. faith-She fhall be his wife; not "because a priest joins them together, or pro"nounces them one in the name of GOD," "but he bumbled her. Quòd eam compreffit. Mont. Here then is the act of marriage itself, by which they become one flesh; therefore he may not put ber away all his days. Such is the pofitive precept of GOD-and yet it is to be fuppofed of no validity whatsoever, unless ratified by fome ordinance of human contrivance *When OUR SAVIOUR is converfing with the woman of Samaria, (John iv.) he fays to her-" Thou haft had five bufbands, and he whom thou now haft, is not thine husband"-from whence fome have inferred, that fomething befides cohabitation is neceffary to conftitute a marriage in the fight of GOD. But let us fuppose, that four of this woman's husbands were dead, or had divorced her for adultery, that, under either of these circumstances, she had married a fifth husband, whom she had deferted, and lived in adultery with another man. She certainly had had five husbands, and the man with whom she now lived in adulterous commerce, perhaps clandeftinely, could not be properly styled her husband, nor the his wife. See Rom. vii. 3. She therefore said truly, that The had no husband-having left him who was her lawful hufband, and living with an adulterer, who was not. As this fcripture does not explain itself, we can only guefs at its meaning; but then our conjectures fhould be regulated by the whole analogy of scripture, and not be the furmifes of our own fancy. We should fay (judging from the circumftances of things among us) that a woman who lived with a man without fome religious ceremony performed, had no husband; but this cannot be the meaning of this place, because the divine law conftituted no religious ceremony whatsoever on the |