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A

DISCOURSE

Concerning the

Obligation to Marry

Within the True

COMMUNION,

Following from their Style of being called a

HOLY SEED.

Dear SIR,

T

Communion is

HE Duty of confining our Marriages S. I. within the true Peculium, is almoft Marriage withas little known as obferved: Yet in the True perhaps is of as great confequence, the most likely as any one, for preferving the Peculium as a means to restore religious Society independent on fecular Poli- Primitive Dif ticks, and the feveral Revolutions occafion- cipline. ed by thofe Politicks. But now most of all when the only hopes of restoring that Difcipline, which is fo univerfally admired in our holy Ancestors, depends on the principling B every

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every individual Member of our facred Body in the Duties owing to their Spiritual Governours. It was the Unanimity of the Primitive Chrifti ans, in the owning and performing thefe Duties that preferved and increafed them under the Primitive Perfecutions. Every particular Member then more feared the Bishops Excommunication than the Sword of the Civil Magiftrate, as being all agreed that the Benefits of their Spiritual Society were incomparably greater, and the lofs of being deprived of thofe Benefits proportionably greater alfo, than the lofs of thofe Benefits they enjoyed as Members of the Civil Societies. And it was their Agreement in these Opinions, that enabled the Apofiles themselves to keep up a Difcipline among their followers in oppofition to all the Violence of worldly Magiftrates. There is now no fuch likely means for reftoring thefe Opinions in all particular Members of the Church as Education. No fuch fecurity for having Children educated in them as the Agreement of all Orthodox Parents, that it is their duty so to educate them. No fuch fecurity that Parents fhall agree in believing that to be their duty, as when Parents are obliged to be themselves of the fame Orthodox Communion, and to ftipulate for their Childrens duty in order to the intitling them to the Promises ftipulated for on God's part, on condition of the performance of that Duty. Especially, that duty which is effential to the Body, as this is of fubjection to the fpi ritual Superiours of it. They muft in courfe be obliged to believe this to be their Childrens Duty, if they be both fuppofed to believe it is their own Duty. And by their being both of one Communion, the Child's Education in the Communion wherein he is baptized, will be beft provided

provided for, in cafe one of them should be deprived of the Power of the Child's Education. So really momentous this confideration is, how little foever it be now regarded. Our Latitudinarian Notions have fo weakned the fenfe of the obligation of the Parents and Sponfors to take care that the Child be educated in that parEticular Communion wherein the Child is baptized, which was certainly the true design of thofe who firft laid thofe Obligations on them.

S II.

Now there are two Reafons infifted on for this Duty of marrying within the Peculium: Such Marriages One drawn from the inconveniences of doing are obliging on otherwise to the Perfon engaged in fuch a Mar- account of the danger of the riage, particularly that greateft inconvenience Orthodox Conof all, the danger of the feduction of the Or-fort, and on acthodox Confort; the other from the ill confe- count of the holinefs of the quences redounding to the Children born of fuch Seed of the Marriages, which the Scripture looks on as true Peculium. derogatory to the holiness of the Seed. Both The latter Reaof thefe Reasons are true; both of them are in- fon only infifted fifted on in the Scriptures, as well of the New on in this Dif courfe. Teftament as of the Old. Both of them proceed as ftrongly under the Gospel as under the Law, and I have elsewhere fhewn that the GoSpel it felfallows Reafoning from the Old Te ftament to the New in that cafe, when the Reafon is alike applicable to both. It is certain, neither of them are inconfiftent with the New Revelations of the Goffel for fettling the New Peculium. And therefore neither of them can be taken for repealed, on account of the New Legiflation, by the Principles infifted on in the fame Difcourfe, concerning the lawfulness of Inftrumental Mufick. But the confequences of these two Reasonings are very different. If the inconveniences to the Perfon engaged in fuch B 2 a Mar.

§. III.

People in Co

venant with

a Marriage out of the Peculium be only infifted on, the cafe will appear unlawful no otherwise than as the danger of feduction, appears inevitable; or, as it is not overbalanced by other or greater conveniencies. This will allow of many fuch Marriages as lawful, where either of the contraries to the now mentioned Confiderations take place. But the Reafoning from the Holiness of the Seed proceeds more univerfal ly; and allows at leaft, of fewer, if of any Exceptions, and more nearly relates to the nature of our particular Body, as we lay claim to the Rights of the new Peculium, and has withal been leaft explained. This therefore is what I particularly defign at prefent, referring the Reader for the former, to your own more acurate confiderations.

This Title of Holy Seed, in the ftyle of the The true Pecu- Holy Scriptures, does properly denote the Pelium was a culium: I mean that particular Nation which the Supreme Being had chofen out of all the the Supreme Nations of the World to himself in a way pro Being, that He per to them alone, and which no Nation beShould be their fides could pretend to. The way then generalGod, and they ly believed in the National Religions, was, that

his People.

every Nation had a God peculiar to it felf, with

exprefs Covenants and mutual Stipulations on both fides, whereby the God covenanted to be their God, and the Nation to be his People. That the God fhould protect and promote the publick welfare of his Nation, and that the Nation fhould pay their publick acknowledg ment to him for his protection by National Anniverfaries and Sacrifices, which were impofed on the whole Nation as conditions of his Protection. These things are plainly fuppofed in the antientest Accounts of National Religi ons in the Scriptures, which are far antienter

than

"

than the eldest Hiftorical Monuments of the Heathens. The name Baal, common to all the Heathen Deities in the Scriptures, fignified o riginally the relation of a Husband to a Wife, 1. plainly refulting from the like mutual Stipu lations which were used in Matrimony. I know the Supreme Being admitting no competitor, does ufually disown the Name as ufually given to his Rivals. Yet withal he never de nies the Relation. The Language of the Old Teftament and the New do both fuppofe it, and the Reafonings are grounded on it. The whole Book of Canticles and the 45th Pfalm are com pofed in the fame ftyle. God is called the Husband of Ifrael, Ifa. liv. 5. Jer. xxxi. 32. And in the Anthropopathies of the Scripture, he is reprefented with the jealoufie of a Husband, and as giving a Bill of Divorce. So alfo in the New Teftament our Bleffed Lord is ftyled the Bridegroom, and his Church the Bride. So non-performance on the Peoples part is called Whoredom, and a breach of the everlasting Covenant, plainly the Matrimonial, alluded to in this Allegory of Marriage. So the Union of Chrift with the Church, is plainly made Matrimonial by St. Paul, Eph. v. who alfo elfewhere mentions the Matrimonial Arrba * of 2 Cor. i. 22; the Spirit as a donum Antenuptiale in the Lan- v. 5. =guage of the Roman Laws: And as the Head + Eph. i. 14. f 1 Cor. xi. 3 of the Woman is the Man, fo the Head of the Man, alfo is faid to be Chrift, and the Head of Chrift to be God. Plainly fuppofing all thefe Headships to have been of the fame kind, that is, exactly Matrimonial. The Hebrew words in and 17 which are used to fignifie the obligation between God and his People, are plainly Covenanting and Matrimonial Terms. The former especially is rendred frequently by the

B 3

Greek

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