James Galloway Cowan

“ No, brethren; God simply made the best of the evil. He set bounds to it, and so diminished it; in a measure condescending to human infirmities, and effecting through them His good and wise purposes. Thus He has ever done and still does: but not in the case of separation of man and wife for re-marriage; all sanction, all toleration of this breach of His commandment He has withdrawn for ever. “I say unto you” (they are Christ’s words) “whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery ”

“ 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 p. 15ever 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ In this sentence, observe He makes no exception; He allows neither adultery nor any other cause, as a justification of a breach of His prohibition. He positively forbids every human being to dissolve a union, which, as He shows, the Almighty designed to be indissoluble. [7]
His words were objected to by the Pharisees, as my interpretation of them will doubtless be by some, because in the Old Testament—in the Law given by Moses—there were distinct rules of divorce; not simply of putting away, but of marrying again. ”

“ When a man hath taken a wife and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her, then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house. ”

“ 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 p. ”