were divinely inspired, the words in this application may be primarily referred to God, and shewn to possess a divine force and authority". The greatest of all commentators has, however, ascertained and defined their meaning and exclusive appropriation: He who made them at the beginning, made them male and female; and said, For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave unto his wife; and they two shall be one flesh1. In dependence upon this divine comment, it has been suggested, that the twenty-third verse should be read in a parenthesis; and thus the law of marriage will be brought into immediate connexion with the formation of the woman, and her introduction to the man, which is only interrupted by the eager and passionate epithalamium of Adamk.

Thus, says Gerhard in the recapitulation of his argument, we have seen how God consulted, as it were, concerning the formation of woman, and the institution of marriage; how he gave effect to his counsel and decree; how he formed the woman as it were with his own hands; how, having formed her, he conducted her to Adam in Paradise; how he himself united the first pair; how he blessed them when they were united; how he delivered the law of marriage: and the result of the argument is, that God was the author and primary cause of marriage'.

The sentiments of the Jewish Church concerning

↳ See the Commentators in Poole's Synops.

Matt. xix. 4, 5.

* Gerhard, s. 45.

Ibid. s. 48.

the divine institution of marriage, are explicitly declared in the prayer of Tobias, on the night of his marriage: Blessed art thou, O God of our fathers, and blessed is thy holy and glorious name for ever: let the heavens bless thee, and all thy creatures : thou blessedst Adam and gavest him Eve his wife for an helper and stay: of them came mankind: thou hast said, It is not good that man should be alone; let us make unto him an aid like unto himself. And now, O Lord, I take not this my sister for lust, but uprightly, therefore mercifully ordain, that we may become aged together".

There is an obscure and indistinct assertion of the divine institution of marriage, and a secret allusion to the text of Moses, in a perplexed and intricate passage of the prophet Malachi, who, in reproving the foreign marriages and multiplied divorces which were common to the age, observes with indignation, The Lord hath been witness between thee and the wife of thy youth, against whom thou hast dealt treacherously; yet she is thy companion, and the wife of thy youth. And did he not make one? Yet had he the residue of the Spirit. And wherefore one? That he might seek a godly seed. Therefore take heed to your spirit, and let none deal treacherously against the wife of his youth". The exposition which Lowth° considers the most probable of various interpretations is, that the prophet

m Tobit viii. 4-7.

" Malachi ii. 14, 15.

• Lowth in loc. See also the commentators in Poole's Synops. Abarbinel in Pocock's Commentary. The marginal note in the Bishops' Bible, ed. 1634. and in Annot. Tremellii et Junii.

puts the Jews in mind of the first institution of marriage in paradise, as Christ did afterwards upon a like occasion', and tells them that God made but one man at first, and made the woman out of him, when he could have created more women, if he had pleased to instruct them, that this was the true pattern of marriage, ordained for true love and undivided affection, and best serving the chief end of matrimony, viz. the religious education of children. Other commentators agree in recognizing the allusion to the divine institution of marriage, and to the offensive nature of divorce considered as the violation of that institution.

It would be a very contracted and imperfect view of the evidence borne in the Jewish Scriptures to the divine institution of marriage, which should be restricted to the history of its primary institution. Allusions are frequently made to the violation of the law of marriage, as an offence against God. It is in this spirit, that Malachi reproves the practice of divorce, and exhorts the people to beware of violating the intention and purpose of the divine institution. Adultery is also represented to be a sin against God, whose anger would not be provoked, but by the transgression of his own institutions. It is one of the chief motives which preserved the chastity of Joseph, that he could not sin against God': and it was the aggravation of the complicated crime of David, that he sinned against the Lord, and despised the commandment of the Lords. The chief

P Matt. xix. 5. $ 2 Sam. xii. 9, 13.

Malachi ii. 14, 15.

'Gen. xxxix. 9.

offence of the adulteress is, that she disobeys the law of the Most Hight: and the wise man is supposed to recognize the divine institution of marriage, when he describes the adulteress as forsaking the guide of her youth, and the covenant of her God"; that covenant, which is divine in respect of its primary institution and religious celebration, which is contracted under the authority of God, not without the intervention of his providence and the solemn invocation of his name. The Lord also interfered upon various occasions, and took upon himself the direct protection and vindication of his own institution*: and not only delivered generally a sentence of capital punishment upon the adulterer and the adulteress > who should be convicted, but interposed his special providence in the extraordinary operations of the waters of jealousy", suspending their power, or calling it into action, as was due to the innocence or guilt of the accuser and the accused. In a variety of precepts and prohibitions he also regulated the law of marriage, and purified it among his chosen people from the different pollutions which had been introduced into the practice of the heathen. It is unreasonable, it is not authorized by the sacred history, it is an unworthy conception of the providence of God, to suppose that there would have been this frequent revision, this jealous care, of the purity of a law which was not originally divine. The Jews,

Ecclus. xxiii. 23.

" Prov. ii. 17. See Geier. in Poli Synops. in loc.

* Gen. xii. 17. xx. 18.

'Lev. xx. 10. Deut. xxii. 22.

2 Numbers v. 11-31.

under the instruction of their inspired teachers, were sensible, not only in general of the divine institution of marriage, but of the particular interposition of the Divine Providence in the affairs of marriage. Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing, and obtaineth favour of the Lord". House and riches are the inheritance of fathers, and a prudent wife is from the Lord"; or, according to the version of the Seventy, It is from the Lord that a wife is fitted, is conjoined, or betrothed, as by a parent to a husband: as Solomon describes the special favour and peculiar providence of God in marriage, in opposition to the ordinary distribution of worldly good. The patriarchs also acknowledged the same divine interposition in the arrangement of marriage, as it were by the mediation of angels. It was Abraham's instruction to his servant, that the Lord God of heaven should send his angel before him, and that he should take him a wife unto his son; and the same Eleazar in his prayer makes mention of the damsel, whom the Lord had appointed, or destined, for his servants. The angel also advised Tobias, that Sara had been prepared for him from the beginning.

If there had been any defect in the evidence, or any difficulty in the interpretation, of the Old Testament concerning the divine institution of marriage, that difficulty would have been removed, and that defect supplied, by the clear and explicit manner in

a Prov. xviii. 23.

b Prov. xix. 14. See Biel. Lex. under agua. Ainsworth on Gen. ii. 22. Gerhard, sect. 48.

• Gen. xxiv. 7, 14.

d Tobit vi. 17.