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 L I B RARY 
 
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 EXTRACT FROM THE LATE 
 
 CHARGE 
 
 OF 
 
 JOHN, LORD BISHOP OF PREDERICTOX, 
 
 OX 
 
 THE ATTEMPT MADE TO LEGALIZE THE 
 • MARRIAGE OF A WIDOWER WITH 
 HIS LATE WIFE'S SISTER 
 
 Bg prtmission of t^r Bi3f)ap of iFrfticn'rton- 
 
 EXETER : 
 
 WILLIAM rOLLARD, PRINTER, NORTH STREET, 
 
 1880.
 
 SHORT PREFACE. 
 
 AVe have been induced to repiint and largely circulate 
 this extract from the late Charge of the Bishop of 
 Fredericton, on the proposed alteration of the Law of 
 Marriage by which a widoA\er may lie allowed to marry 
 his Deceased Wife's Sister. 
 
 Believing that such an alteration of the Law of Marriage 
 would be fatal to the social happiness and domestic purity 
 of English homes, we eaiiiestly connnend it to the serious 
 considei ation of the Meinbers of the Legislature as con- 
 taining in a condensed and vigorous form the reasons for 
 the rejection of such a Bill whenever, and by whomsoever, 
 it may be submitted to either House of Parliament. 
 S. U. B. LEE, 
 
 Canon Residentiary of Exeter. 
 CH. CH. BARTHOLOMEW, 
 
 Prebendary of Exeter.
 
 E XT R ACT 
 
 Every one must see the necessity of some restraint on 
 human passion in regard to marriage, for where no law 
 existed in old times, mankind invariably ran into the most 
 revolting excesses. " They took tln'm wives," wo read in 
 the Scriptures, " of all which they chose," not only as many 
 a.s they chose, but Avithout any restraint in respect of 
 affinity or consanguinity. Tliese vile practices Avere con- 
 tinued after the flood among the Canaanites, and formed 
 one of tlie chii-f reasons for their disinheritance by the 
 hand of God.' To counteract tliis detestable profligacy 
 among the Jews, antl give Divine sanction to a purer code 
 of m(n-als in respect io m.arviage, Moses Avas connnissioned 
 in the name of God, and as His mouth-piece, to Avrite a table 
 of degrees for restiaint of marraige Avithin certain limits, 
 founded on this principle announced in the beginning of 
 the table — " None of you shall approach, (i. e. by marriage) 
 to any that is near of kin to him. I am the Lord." The 
 table then gives instances of such affinity or consanguinity, 
 for no difference is made between them. It is not an ex- 
 haustive table, f(.)r marriages Avith a man's OAvn daughter 
 or his grandmother are not forbidden, and the prohibitions 
 are gi\^en exclusiA'ely to men, though Avomen are equally 
 concerned. But it is evidently goA-erned l)y the principle 
 Avhich the Lord lays doAvn as the true foundation of the 
 marriage relation that man and Avife become one flesh, and 
 consequently all the blood relationships Avhich Avould T)e 
 forbidden are equally imlaAvfid after marriage to relations 
 by affinity. This simple and divinely authorised rule in 
 contradiction to the loose practises of the heathen, and cAen 
 of some of the Patriarchs, is the rule of Christian morals 
 given to us by our Lord. Even if it could be shoAvn — 
 Avhich is contradicte<l by the Avhole sense of the l.Sth 
 chapter of Leviticu.s— that this is a part of the ceremonial,
 
 not of the moral law of the Jews, we must remember that 
 the whole object of the sermon on the Mount was to pm-ify 
 Christian morals troni the loose glosses and interpretations 
 which the Rabbis and others had put upon it, and that to 
 give our sanction to any marriage connection less pure than 
 the law here enforced on the Jews is to read God'.s dispen- 
 sations backwards, and to lower Christianity in favor, not 
 of Judaism, but of Heathenism. Those, therefore, who 
 argue that all Jewish laws are absolete, need to be reminded 
 that the law of the Ten Commandments is read in our 
 Churches every Sunday, and that the Gospel spirit not only 
 binds us to receive them in substance, but to carry them 
 out on a higher, purer and more exacting principle than a 
 servile adherence to the letter would indicate. Polygamy, 
 for instance, and an easy system of divorce, were tolerated 
 among the Jews because of the " hardness of men's hearts," 
 but the Christian system supposes a higher power of self- 
 restraint, and therefore demands a higher, not a lower code 
 of morals. The very incest with a father's wife, which lias 
 been treated with so much levity in our Colonial Parliament, 
 is by St. Paul hxjked on Avith the deepest abhorrence, and 
 is punished with iunnediate excomnmnication. 
 
 So that if we were not bound by the table of degrees in 
 Leviticus, which is impossible to be proved, if that table be 
 part of God's moral law, given for the guidance of other 
 nations beside the Jews as is there indicated, we are bound 
 by a puTcr and holier law to Christ, and it would be a most 
 strange argument that Avhat the lower and less perfect rule 
 of life condeunis as innnoral, the higher and more perfect 
 rule may allovi'. ( )n this reasoning there is nothing what- 
 ever to prevent the legislative sanction being given to 
 Polygamy, man's passions being apparently the only ad- 
 mitted rule, and the word of God being entirely thrown 
 aside as the true 1)asis of sound legislation in religious 
 matters. 
 
 I am aware that some kind of argument is attempted to 
 be built on the ISth verse of the chapter in Leviticus, which 
 in our translation is obscure. But this argument comes 
 with a very bad grace from persons who repeatedly assert 
 that they are not bound to consider the Levitical law at all, 
 
 ;uiuc'
 
 the wliole being obsolete. And, however that verse be 
 translated (the true meaning of it being, I believe, a con- 
 demnation of polygamy) it is monstrous to suppose the 
 legislator to sanction in this verse a principle which he had 
 before condemned in the rest of the chapter. The general 
 argument is, however, sought to be set aside by an assertion 
 that marriage is simply a civil contract, and that, therefore, 
 the legislature has no religious obligations to deal with. 
 Each sect, and each man, as it would seem, is to deal with 
 the matter so as to suit his own conwnience, or his con- 
 science, if he have any. This notion of marriage being 
 onl}' a civil contract resembling the renting a house or the 
 purchase of a farm, only, be it observed, much more easily 
 broken by cheap and easy methods of divorce, is merely 
 another mode of getting rid of our obligations to the 
 Divine law. In these days of lawlessness each man who 
 has a grievance, — and sinners now call their transgressions 
 grievances and endeavour to legalise and justify them — 
 desires an alteration of the law, not that they may sit 
 under it, but that they may sit upon it. And when they 
 have transgressed again, they will seek a new law to suit 
 their new passion. Thus marriage being, as they say, only 
 a civil contract, may l)e dealt with as we deal with a law of 
 bankruptcy. Yet even in bankruptcy there nuist be some 
 limit, some restraint, or otherwise all debtors might pro- 
 claim themselves absolved from payment. Property would 
 be the only thief. 
 
 Our Church has taken the greatest pains to shew us that 
 marriage is not merely a civil contract, but a solemn, re- 
 ligious obligation. It commands the clergy to l)egin the 
 marriage service by telling the people that marriage was 
 " instituted of Ood in the time of man's innoccncy, signify- 
 ing to us the spiritual marriage and unity between Christ 
 and His Church." How can a civil contract do this ? It 
 requires of the persons to be married a most solemn affir- 
 mation, for which they will have to answer at the "Dreadful 
 day of judgdment," that they knoAv of no lawful impedi- 
 ment to their marringe. Lawful, not merely legal ; for the 
 service immediately adds that "so many as are coupled 
 together othei'wisi! than God's woi'<l doth allow " are not
 
 6 
 
 joined together in lawful matrimony. And what is lawful 
 or unlawful according to God's word, in the judgment of 
 the Church, is distinctly told us in the table of degrees 
 affixed to our Prayer Books, "wherein," it is said, " whoso- 
 ever are related are forbidden in Scripture and our 
 laws to marry together." AVhere is the civil contract 
 here ? I am aA\-are that an attempt is made to assign 
 this table of degrees to the authority of Archbishop 
 Parker oulji. But the mai'riages forbidden by this table 
 had always been held imlawfid by the Church of Eng- 
 land, and for lift^en centuries such marriages were held 
 unlawful in the C'hurch at laro-e. To ret\n-n to the marriage 
 sprvice. Every part of it, especially the two solemn bene- 
 dictions and the invitation to receive Holy Communion " at 
 the time of -marriage, or at the first opportunity after 
 marriage," prove that it is no mere civil contract which the 
 Church owns as marriage. If, then, persons married " other- 
 wise than Cod's word doth allow are not joined together by 
 God, neither is their matrimony lawful," and what God's 
 word doth not allow is assured to us liy our Chiu'ch in the 
 table of degrees, and in the DUth Canon ; if we, as Canadian 
 clergy and lait}^, have acknowledged the Book of Common 
 Prayer (which contains the table of degrees) to be "a true 
 and faithful declaration of the doctrines contained in Holy 
 Scripture ;" if, moreover, a resolution of both houses of our 
 Provincial Synod declares, that no clergyman of this Eccle- 
 siastical Province shall knowingh' solenniize a marriage 
 forbidden by the 99th Canon of 1G03, how can we deny the 
 force of such solemn obligations ? I do not hesitate to say 
 that if a clergyman of our Church do not consider himself 
 bound by them, I cannot conceive any other that would 
 bind his conscience, and I should distrust his declarations 
 on any subject whatever. Besides, are we going to stop in 
 this downward course of license ? Already our legislators 
 propose to go beyond the demands of agitators of the 
 question in England. Our 1)111 proposes to sanction the 
 marriage of a woman to a deceased husband's brother. 
 " Why then," as Lord Hatherly says, " .should not a man's 
 own brother desire his daughter in marriage, or look even 
 to the reversion of his wife." We may l)e sure that
 
 ingenious arguments would V)e found even for this revolting 
 connection. But some are prepared to go e\en beyond this, 
 and even Lid us be of good courage and dare to do what St. 
 Paul tells us " is not so much as named among the heathen," 
 to take in marriage our father's wife. This language has, I 
 understand, been supposed to be said in a joke, as if no man 
 would desire it. In most instances it would, no doubt, be 
 improbable, but it is far from l>eing impossible. A man, 
 we will suppose, marries early in life, and his wife bears 
 him sons who are grown up when his wife dies. He then 
 selects a wife very many years younger than himself. Mean- 
 while one of his sons marries early, and his wife dies 
 leaving children. Finally the father dies. Why then, if 
 man's appetite is to be his sole guide, may not the son select 
 his father's wife, no older than himself, to be the gv;ardian 
 of his children ; and pretend that no one can possibly feel 
 so much atiection for them" as his step-mother and be so 
 suited to be their guide ? Then if she bears children it is 
 to one who ought to consider himself her son, and her 
 children would be brothers and sisters to his children- 
 This may be considered an exaggerated case, but it is per- 
 fectly possible, and if we are to follow advice given, either 
 in seriousness or in sport, all the hideous consequences 
 would follow. When we try principles we have a right to 
 consider extreme and possible cases. The fact is, that the 
 transgTCSsion of a Divine law always proceeds in a down- 
 ward course and never ascends to the source of all purity, 
 to Him who says, " be ye holy, for I am holy." I shall not 
 dwell much on the social discomfort of this law, gTcat as it 
 undoubtedly would be. But I would observe that by it the 
 happiness of the many would be sacrificed to the passions 
 of the few. And why is the comfort and peace of a 
 thousand homes to be thus sacrificed ? " Why are sisters- 
 in-law living with widowed brothers-in-law, as sisters, to 
 be ordered either to quit the house or many them ? Why 
 is distrust to be sown where perfect love, frank familiarity, 
 sweet and pure affection were before unrestrained ?" " As 
 a general rule among decent pei^sons of all ranks," said the 
 venerated author of the " Christian Year," " a law which 
 would place the wife's sister in the same relation to the
 
 husband as any other unmarried woman, not only might, 
 but must, in all cases, separate the wife's sister from the 
 family, not only after the wife's death, but in case of her 
 long illness or absence. She will require the same protec- 
 tion that" any other young woman would in the like 
 circumstances." So that the benefit of the law would be 
 the enjoyment of tlieir transgressions by the present law 
 breakers, and its evils would be innumerable ; among the 
 chief of which would be great distress to the keepers of the 
 Divine rule, great bitterness between families who keep and 
 families who break the rule, great confusion and trouble 
 among the clergy, and loosening of bonds of morality in 
 various directions among the conununity at large. You 
 may now ask of me, perhaps, what are we, the clergy, to 
 do ? I answer plainly, you are to decline to solemnize such 
 marriages. If the State relax its oliligations and pro- 
 nounces marriage a civil contract only, the Divine law and 
 the law of our Church is still binding upon you. You are 
 to be guardians and defenders, not betrayers of public 
 morals. Nor ought persons who live in incest to be 
 admitted to Holy Communion. But there is more to be 
 done. Between this time and the next session of the 
 Dominion Parliament the clergy should endeavour to circu- 
 late among the laity sound and wholesome truth on this- 
 subject. I may mention such tracts as Lord Hatherly's 
 " Vindication of the Law Prohibiting Marriage with a 
 Deceased Wife's Sister," Mr. Keble's tract against " Profane 
 Dealing with Holy Matrimony," the Lord Bishop of Nova 
 Scotia's " Reasons for Rejecting the Proposed Marriage 
 Law," and a very useful Catechism on Marriage, with an 
 appendix showing the Divine authority for the table of 
 prohibited degrees, by the Rev. J. J. Curling and Rev. J. F. 
 Phelps of the Diocese of Newfoimdland. 
 
 I think that petitions should be prepared in all our Parishes 
 against the proposed Bill. And as Scotland alwa3's pro- 
 nounced against such an alteration of the marriage law, I 
 entertain the hope that the Presbyterian bodies here may 
 stand with us in this matter, as well as others who wish to 
 prevent the evil which A\'ill arise from an alteration in the 
 law.
 
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