pital punishment, a qualification, by bill of divorce, to marry again. Our Lord throughout the sermon on the Mount, illustrates the new principle, as well as the beauty and excellence of his doctrines, by placing his precepts in contrast with the particular laws he quotes or refers to. The Law was, in its moral and political branch, given for the government of the Jews as a nation, and to regulate the outward conduct of its individuals towards its supreme governor, as well as towards each other; enforcing its injunctions by punishments of extreme severity. So long as his outward conduct did not infringe the letter of the Law, or no breach of it could be proved against him, the individual might harbour the most wicked thoughts and designs, and be guilty of the most vicious secret practices; nay, like the Pharisees, he might hypocritically, by an outward appearance of punctilious observance of the letter of the Law, claim credit for superior sanctity of character. The ruling principle of obedience to the Law, was fear of its vengeance and penalties. The new principle of thought and action our Lord promulgated, was that of love. He ascended to and purified the fountain head of the stream, and in lieu of a slavish and cautious compliance with the legal prohibitions and injunctions, he seeks to create an active impulse in a contrary direction; substituting, as the ruling motive, the noble desire of doing good for the base fear of doing evil, and extinguishing every thought and inclination to the latter in its birth. Thus, while the Law can reach no further than the regulation of the outward conduct, his precepts take their root in and regulate the seat of thought and origin of action, the heart. All his injunctions are calculated to excite voluntary movements, to inflame the mind with the love of virtue, and impel it to active benevolence, not from fear, but of its free choice and as its ruling passion. All his subjects he invites to be, and seeks to make free men; instead of being, as heretofore, the slaves of sin and the terrors of the Law. His soldiers are all to be volunteers, and their distinctive badge is zeal for good works. To them may be applied the poet's line: "Oderunt peccare boni virtutis amore," and not " pœnæ timore." Our Lord's design was to restore, or rather recreate the divine image in the soul of man; and the soul, thus renewed, must be full fraught with love and admiration, and imbued with a taste for and a desire of imitation of the divine perfections. Our Lord, in his discourse on the Mount, after describing in the beatitudes the dispositions of mind and heart, which are to qualify for the kingdom of Heaven, and declaring that he came not to destroy but fulfil the Law, (i. e. as well in its prophetic signification as in exact conformity to its precepts in principle and conduct,) and that the righteousness of his disciples must be of a different character from that of the Scribes and Pharisees, (the whole of which consisted in a scrupulous observance of its ceremonial part, while they allowed themselves to neglect or violate the true meaning of its moral injunctions; conforming to its letter while they evaded its spirit,) proceeds to delineate the conduct he prescribes to his followers, by quoting (as for example,) some particular legal precepts, partly from the Mosaic code and partly from the traditional code, (held of equal authority by the Jewish doctors, and particularly the Scribes and Pharisees,) and placing in contrast with the severity of their justice, the mild and benevolent system of conduct he sought to inculcate: a conduct not only fulfilling or conforming to the letter, but pursuing a course the opposite to that the Law was designed to restrain; and not merely avoiding the wrong or offence prohibited, but extinguishing the first movements of any thought pointing towards the commission of it. The Law prescribes the line drawn by justice, discriminating the boundary between right and wrong, and not to be overstepped with impunity. Our Lord's injunction to his disciples is, not to content themselves with not trespassing beyond or even approaching that line, but to seek and practise the contrary of whatsoever it prohibits. Thus he quotes the Law: "Thou shalt not kill," and whosoever shall kill shall deserve to be punished with the judgment. He preaches in opposition, an abstinence from anger, even to the utterance of words which tend to generate the cause of it, and an unlimited forgiveness of injuries. "But I say unto you, that whosoever shall be angry with his brother, shall deserve to be punished by the judgment; that whosoever shall say Raca to his brother, shall deserve to be punished by the council, (meaning the council of 75 persons, or Sanhedrim); and whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall deserve hell fire:" and he restrains the offering the gift upon God's altar till the party has made reconciliation with his brother. In quoting the commandment, "Thou shalt not commit adultery," he subjoins, "But I say unto you, that whosoever looketh upon a woman with an eye of concupiscence, hath already committed adultery in his heart:" and then, by the figure of pulling out an eye and cutting off a right hand, he recommends the forcible and absolute extirpation of every evil inclination, or the strangling it in its very birth or conception. He then, in the same strain, quotes the saying, that "whosoever shall put away his wife, let him give her a bill of divorce."; "But I say unto you, whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the

The judgment here referred to, is understood to be that of the council in each town, consisting of 23 persons.

2 The language of this quotation is from the Vulgate.

The introductory words used in quoting this sentence are, "It hath been said," as to others: "Ye have heard it hath been said to those of old;" the former probably refer to the traditions, the latter to the Law.

cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery; and whoso ever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery." Meaning on the same principle, that a man was guilty of the crime of adultery, who looked on a woman with an adulterous eye. So he who availed himself of the permission in practice, and under color of the precept of Moses, to put away his wife; though he should give his discarded wife a bill of divorce; yet, in foro conscientia he caused her to commit adultery in marrying again, and the husband would be guilty of the same crime who should marry her: and this (as he explains in the 19th chap.) by reason of the indissolubility of marriage, by the law of God pronounced on the creation of man; although Moses, for the hardness of the hearts of the Jews, had permitted a dispensation from its observance in the case put in the 24th Deuteronomy. Implying, that though he might plead that permission before an earthly tribunal in his defence, and screen himself from the vengeance of the Law, it would not excuse him at the bar of his own conscience, or at that tribunal where the secrets of all hearts shall be opened. As to the exception of the case of fornication, if the reason of it before assigned is well-founded, its introduction harmonises with the spirit of his doctrine, and removes all appearance of inconsistency. If the marriage was void by reason of the anterior licentious intercourse, in his putting her away the husband would not incur or be the cause of the crime of adultery, in foro conscientia, more than he would by the Law.

Remarks on the Conversation with the Pharisees and Disciples, as related in the 19th of St. Matthew and 10th of St. Mark.

ВотH passages appear to be intended to describe one and the same transaction, but the two relations differ in essential particulars.

In both it is stated, that the Pharisees asked the question, tempting our Lord: i. e. with intent to draw from him an answer that would entrap him.

They probably had heard of his saying concerning the putting away of a wife, in his sermon on the Mount, and considered it to amount to a denial of the law or precept of Moses in the 24th chap. of Deuteronomy, of which there had been so many interpretations; and that whatsover answer he should give would draw on him an evil or unpleasant consequence. If his doctrine amounted to a denial or direct contradiction of the Law, it would expose him to capital punishment; if it put a strict construction on the Law, it would rob him of his popularity by depriving the people of the privilege, then and long in common practice, of putting away their wives ad libitum; and if he adopted that construction, he would offend the sects, who held it to be allowed in certain specified cases, or for infamous conduct only: but his answer kept him clear of each of these snares, and the aim of the Pharisees appears to have been completely defeated.

The question of the Pharisees is differently put in the two passages. In St. Matthew the question is, " Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause?" (in the Vulgate the words are, " for any cause whatever").

In St. Mark-" Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?" The two questions are of very different import. quires, whether a man has an unlimited liberty to wife, i. e. for every cause, or for any cause whatever. whether he has liberty to put her away at all? or in for any cause whatever?

The one enput aw away his The other, any case, or

In St. Matthew, Christ begins his answer by introducing the passage from Genesis, by way of quotation; whether they had not read it: adding, as his own commentary, the conclusive inference from it, viz. "Those whom God hath joined together, let not man put asunder;" which being a self-evident and undeniable conclusion, could not be laid hold of or excepted to, otherwise than by placing in opposition to it the precept of Moses. Why then hath Moses commanded to put away a wife, giving her a bill of divorce? This Christ parries by observing, that it was "because of the hardness of their hearts that Moses permitted (not commanded) them to put away their wives; but it was not so in the beginning."

In St. Mark, in answer to their question, " Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife?" Christ asks them what Moses commanded them? They reply, "Moses hath suffered a man to put away his wife by giving a bill of divorcement." Jesus replies (not denying the generality of the permission) " for the hardness of your hearts he hath given you

The Jews, as well as the rest of mankind, were so brutalised by giving loose to their passions, that it was by a prudent course of discipline only, that they could be brought under the government of reason, and a preparatory course of severity was necessary before they could be induced to listen to its dictates. The nation God selected for the eventual instruction of the rest of the world, was accordingly treated like children under a schoolmaster and the government of the rod. Moses was accordingly appointed by God to that office, and with the necessary authority to lay down precepts for their government and to punish for disobedience. Among the multitude of vicious habits he had to correct, was the cruel and unfeeling one of shaking off their wives whenever they grew tired of them, treating them only as instruments of pleasure or servitude; and this habit was so rooted, their minds were so obstinate, and their hearts so hardened to the feelings of humanity, that Moses foresaw that it could not be at once put a stop to,

;

this command," and he then refers and partly (though in different words) quotes the passage in Genesis, adding his own inference (in the form of precept) as in St. Matthew: and here, according to St. Mark, the conversation with the Pharisees ended; and Christ's final opinion or declaration is by him stated to have been delivered to his disciples in the house into which he had entered with them, and consequently when the Pharisees were no longer present: and to have been given in answer to the enquiry of the disciples, who had evidently been surprised and staggered by a doctrine so at variance with established usage, and which went to annul the Law of Moses; and it was natural for them to ask for explanation of what appeared so difficult to understand, since it implied, that the original law of marriage still remained in force, notwithstanding the liberty of divorce granted by the Law of Moses.

But in St. Matthew, Christ's final sentence or opinion is addressed to, and a continuation of the conversation with the Pharisees. The difference of the terms in which the opinion is expressed need not be here repeated.

Either these narratives cannot be relations of the same transaction, or else one of them must be erroneous..

The difference remarked in the question of the Pharisees, essential as it is in itself, is the less material, since our Lord may be considered as having given no direct or specific answer to either; and because, with reference to his doctrine, whether the latitude of the construction of the Law was greater or less, was of no consequence, since it forbid to his followers the use of the privilege altogether.

7

But whether in point of fact the final opinion was as stated by

without producing still worse consequences; for if they could not get rid of their wives by fair means, they would not scruple to do it by foul ones. He judged it therefore expedient not totally to prohibit the practice, but to allow it under certain circumstances, and then under a condition in favor of the dismissed wife, by restoring her, as nearly as practicable, to her condition before marriage, and qualifying her for entering into another marriage. This was the meaning and intended effect of the bill of di

vorcement.

Moses, in the terms of his Law, allows this proceeding in one specified case only, the precise meaning of the terms be used to describe which, in after times became misunderstood, and the subject of all the variety of interpretations of the different schools of the Rabbins; but whatever were their opinions, the practice of arbitrary divorce became general and unlimited, as appears by the prophet Malachi, and is to be inferred from the language in which our Saviour condemns it. Moses seems to have allowed it in one case only. The Jews allowed it to themselves ad libitum-so rooted was the habit even in our Saviour's time, that when he wholly forbid it to those who were candidates for his kingdom, his own disciples considered the

married state itself, under such a prohibition, intolerable.

VOL. XVII.

Pam.

NO. XXXVI.