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the matrimonial Vow is said to bind us to, and expose the scandalous Mistakes of those who make it a Cloke to all Licentiousness.
As soon as our Mother EVE was first form'd, had just found her self in Being, and though she had seen nothing about her, yet had a Soul as capacious of Knowledge as the Man she was made for. The Text says, GOD brought her to the Man, Gen. ii. 22. that is, in short, GOD married them. Adam himself expresses it, cap. iii. 12. The Woman whom thou gavest me, N.B. GOD gave the Bride.
Hence I observe by the way, tho' with all possible Brevity, that they are certainly wrong who challenge the Clergy for engrossing the Office of Marrying, as if it did not belong to them, but was a meer Civil Contract, and therefore was no Perquisite of the Church, but the Business of the Magistrate.
I say, 'tis a Mistake; for as it was instituted immediately from the divine Authority, so it was solemnized by him who having alone Instituted it, had a Right to perform the Ceremony; for this Reason it is called GOD's holy Ordinance; and though I do not think it ought to be called a Sacrament, yet without doubt GOD himself put a sacred Character upon it as he honoured it with a particular Law, the second Law given in Paradise, namely, that the Man should leave his Father and his Mother and cleave unto his Wife, Gen. ii. 24. after which, as GOD, who was the Father of Eve, gave her in Marriage, so the Paternal Authority preserved the Right of Marriage ever after, as they did the Priesthood, (for the Patriarch was the Priest) and had it by the same Authority; Hence the Parent giving the Bride is to this Day a remainder of that
